I am CAPTAIN OBLIVIOUS!

I am Captain Oblivious. I was last night reminded of this when I dreamed a little dream.

My dream-wife, nothing at all like my life-wife other than they looked the same and shared a name, said to me, I've been seeing other people.

Other people? said Dream-Eric. You mean like, more than one?

Yes, dream-wife said.

She then began naming Asian guys, because apparently dream-wife had a thing for Phongs and Wongs, and I stopped her after the fifth Tang and pointed and said, Get out.

She left, and Dream-Eric got plowed and fast-forwarded through a few dream-days, with dream-wife texting these coded messages that had to be read in the mirror upside-down, numbers only, things like 07734 (hello) and I love you and whatnot.

I woke next to life-wife and didn't wake her because she was tired and had gotten up earlier with the baby, who for some reason had been great all day and wanted to cry last night. I blame the Tex-Mex for that dream.

I was reminded of that big red O with a yellow middle against a royal-blue back painted squarely on my chest. I am Captain Oblivious.

She could cheat and I would never know. She wouldn't, of course. I believe that in my heart, and I'm not worried about it. Like I said, blame the Tex Mex because I ain't the jealous type. We're good and it was just a dream, but it was one of those vision-vivid dreams that really shake you, if you get me.

I've been cheated twice -- that I know of -- and both times I stared shocked as if suddenly realizing that cup I'd been guzzling was full of bugs, a minor detail that in my greed I had overlooked.

I even argued with a doctor once, my freshman year in college. Let me relate this story.

I'm not sure what it is, I said. They just showed up one day.

I dropped my drawers and showed her the damage. Looked like zits all along my crotch.

Doc said, You have mollusca.

What the hell is that? I said.

It's an STD. Very common and curable. Kids sometime get them on the playground because they're so contagious.

How the hell did I get an STD? I've been with my girlfriend since high school. I'm a college freshman, she's a college junior, that's like five years, and she's the only one I've had sex with. How can I get an STD?

Doc shrugged her shoulders.

I said, I haven't had sex with anyone else. Could it have been from the showers? I live in the dorm.

No, the doc said. You get it from having sex. This was transmitted sexually.

But I haven't had sex with anyone but my girlfriend, ever. How could I get an STD?

No idea, Doc said.

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure she was trying not to laugh at that big fucking O on my chest, as Captain Oblivious beat his arms and flew off the nearest rooftop into oncoming traffic covered in flaming rags while gagging on a piece of overcooked pork chop.

I am Captain Oblivious.

Have you ever been Captain O? Have you ever suffered Tex-Mex reflux-driven hallucinations late at night so disturbing that when you got up to urinate, you were forced to sit down because your hands were shaking?


- Eric

When are you a writer?

The answer: Always.

You are always a writer. I alluded to this concept a couple of posts ago, where I mentioned you should be yourself always in all things you do.

I brought up fighting, but the criss-cross paths going through my mind looped in other topics, namely writing, but also things like behavior in public, in relationships, and with your family and friends.

For instance, I used to post quite a bit on dating websites, back when I was dating. I always wrote to people that I behaved BADLY on the first date. It was a habit I formed to quickly weed out women I call ~fish~. A fish, see, is one who is slinky under the water and gorgeous and beautiful and calm, but soon as you break the water to grab her, she fins the shit out of you and scoots away.

I don't like fishy women, and so I weeded them out early by being myself on the first date. I say I behave badly, but what I mean is I would do stuff like tell a dirty joke, curse, drink if I wanted, and if God or politics had the obnoxisity to poke up their ugly heads on that first date, I played Whack-A-Mole and banged the shit out of the topic until she knew all my views left-right from heaven to hell.

It worked, too. Had I done that in my early years, I would probably have weeded out my first (ex) wife. She's not a bad woman, but she's more prudish than I am.

My (second and most-excellent) wife is far less prudish. She is, in fact, very like-minded to me, and on our second date we found ourselves in Austin getting tattoos together. I can't sum it up better than that. We're both crazy impulsive complete opposites, a high school dropout (her) married to the class valedictorian (me).

Whodathunk?

Anyway, back on topic, I asked, When are you a writer?

The answer is ALWAYS!

I try to rope it in at work, especially if I get too flamboyant, but sometimes I let it get the best of me and I send out an email that has some Eric-isms in it, or some pithy and cheeky way of stating some point.

My old boss used to try to edit my emails before I sent them out. He said I was too crass. I let him edit a few, but he killed them and so I cut him out and did my thing, and eventually switched to a new boss because, as Homey the Clown would say: Homey don't play that! Whack!

Where's my loaded tube sock when I need it?

My next boss also said I was crass, but he only asked that I tone it down.

My next boss hasn't said much, and in fact I think he likes it.

The common thing that ALL of my bosses have said, and many of my co-workers, is this: Eric, you should be a writer!

On the websites where I posted: Eric (Saul), you should be a writer!

And I say always: I am.

When they aren't complaining about the crass-icity of my emails, bosses and co-workers respond with messages reading: Well-written (without the dash).

I've even had people ask if I really wrote that, or copied it from somewhere.

Last week we had a discussion about proving a null hypothesis. A customer and a business group asked me to prove we do not require a test to ensure our product is a quality product.

I responded with a Bigfoot analogy. I said, paraphrased because I can't find the email:


You're asking me to prove Bigfoot does NOT exist. The only way to do this is to head into the woods and look for footprints and show a large area of land without evidence of Bigfoot. The question is: How big of a plat do I need to cover before you believe there is no Bigfoot?


It's a good analogy, and it stuck, and now it's being latched onto and repeated because it is a memorable way of understanding the problem with proving a null hypothesis true. I can only disprove Bigfoot does not exist, by finding him, but I cannot prove he does not exist. See?

The point is, I'm a writer always in all things I do, and that includes goofy emails at work and home and crazy posts online both here and facebook.

Are you a Writer always? Or should I say Artist. Do people look at your work and say: You should be a writer/poet/songwriter/singer/painter/photographer!

If they do, maybe you should listen.


- Eric

Find your own light

You'll never see what I see. You can look and I can describe, but you'll never see what I see.

You can hear what I hear. Sound is nothing more than a pulse of air slamming into the side of your head. Hear away.

You can smell what I smell and taste what I taste. No difference in those two senses, really. You smell shit, or you taste shit, it's because little particles of shit landed on your buds and stimulated them and yep, that's shit. Smell flowers, that's pollen. Taste her perfume, that's skunk piss, and so what because her neck was salt-sweaty anyway just like the rest of her, and you'll taste saltier parts later.

And touch? What about touch? Same reaction is what we all have. Prick a finger, pull away. Finger a prick, lean toward. We aren't unique. We all share the same touch, don't we, and wasn't that a brilliant twist of words!

Those other senses are trite. It's sight that matters. Sound doesn't travel through The Great Black Nothing. You can't taste another universe, or smell the Milky Way, or hear the moon. I suppose you can feel the sun, but let me stop you right there -- you feel the sun's light.

And it's the light you see. We can see it all, and I see it my way, and you see it yours, and you aren't allowed to look through my little window. Because every time you try, I'm gonna shut my eyes and say, Find your own damned window! This one's taken.


- Eric

Emotional Pacivism: Be yourself always in all things you do

All right, you knuckers, I'm going to wax and wane and pine philosophical for a moment. Bear with me. I haven't gotten around to posting on your blogs, either, so also, please bear with me. I'll get stop by soon and post something inappropriate that embarrasses you in front of your followers.

Anyway, on with the post.

I recently tried to be someone I am not, namely in a fight with my ex-wife. Why is this bloggerly? It's because I broke one of my own sacred laws, and that is to be an emotional pacifist.

I don't understand emotional fights. You know the ones I'm talking about, where you slug away and launch personal attacks that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

For instance, isn't it funny how you are suddenly a bad lover toward the end of the relationship. Or that you're somehow sexually inadequate. Or ugly. Or fat. Or stupid. Or a pussy and a bad father and terrible person all around.

I've been called everything except a good and decent man.

I'll fight physically, and in fact I've been in quite a few fights, even a knife fight once -- which isn't nearly as fun as it sounds -- and I'll debate math and data and business topics. I'm not a pacifist at all. I don't run from fights. I'm just an ~emotional~ pacifist.

I never have seen the sense in digging into someone personally when it is completely unrelated to the argument.

But I got into a tizzy with my ex-wife, and (snip because that was an inappropriate rant). We fight, and by fighting I mean she screams and I listen silently, and all I hear is blah blah blah Eric blah blah Eric blah blah blah.

That one's for you, Tracy!

I don't like to fight emotionally, but this time I dug into her, hard, hoping it might make her think twice next time, sort of the way you might bite a dog to teach it not to bite. I did it via email, and even though she's well-written and well-spoken, the written word is my turf and I made it hurt.

This was way out of my comfort zone, and it bothers me not what she said, which she said hurtful things but I'm immune to that, but what I said. That bothers me. I said things I had never said before and I've known this woman for over fifteen years.

But what can I do? I don't know how to fight those fights. How the hell do people release angst like that besides beer and a furious amount of masturbation?

Point is, be yourself. If you are an emotional pacifist, like me, let it be. Someone wants to scream at you, turn red in the face, dig at you, let it bounce and go do your thing later. So you're a pussy. Big fucking deal.

If you're on the other side, and you're an emotional vampire, suck away. My neck is yours because I'm bled dry, trust me.

My wife, my now-wife, early in our relationship, she tried some of that shit with me. I took it. She called me a pussy, which is always a strange and humorous insult coming from a woman. I put her shit in storage and kicked her out and she has fought well since (this was back in 2006 or 2007).

She brought that up to me last night, said, Remember what you did to me!

I said, Yeah. It worked, didn't it. Remember when you locked me outside in my underwear?

She said, Yeah.

Good times.

- Eric

E-Reader: A Cost of Ownership Analysis

Yet another e-book post, but in this case, I'll show some math.

I'm still debating the e-book purchase, and still unable to make it happen. See, I don't understand the math.

For example, let's say I want to read These Dark Things by Jan Merete Weiss. I picked that book only because it popped up when I looked up e-books on Amazon as a top seller.

Here's the cost:
e-book: $10.00
Amazon: $8-15, depending on which you go with. I buy a lot of used books, personally.

But now you have the added expense of the e-reader. You can spend anywhere from $120 to $300, so let's assume you get the cheapo and go with the $120.

These Dark Things ran you $120+tax+$10

Hardcover it ran you $8-15, depending on which you go with. I buy a lot of used books.

If I lose my e-reader, or get it wet at the pool, or drop it in the crapper because I am a potty-reader, read until my legs go to sleep and then stand up and recirculate and sit back down, then I lose all my books.

Any of that happens with a book, I lose only that one book, not my whole damned library and movies and music I downloaded!

I can't let my brother have my book when I'm done with it. We swap a lot.

I guess the advantage of an e-reader is it gives you access to $0.99 books, and your entire library is in your hip pocket.

Certainly, though, cost of ownership of the e-reader is far beyond what you get with a book.

If you want the actual break-even point for the number of books where you reach a break-even point, then here is the equation:

n = eR / (hb - eb)

where
n = number of books purchased in either venue
eR = cost of e-reader
hb = cost of hardback book (or paperback)
eb = cost of e-book

For instance, let's use the below numbers:

eR = $200 + tax = $218 (medium-quality e-book)
hb = $10 (median price for hardback or paperback)
eb = $8 (use a fudge-factor that suggests e-books are about $2 less than the same printed book, which is NOT accurate)

We get a break-even point of

n = 218 / (10-8) = 218 / 2 = 109 books

So you'll need to read over 100 books to break even with your e-reader, and that is making the BAD assumption that the same e-book costs less than the same printed book.

Plus, I am not factoring in the $0.99 books you'll buy as e-books that are not available in print.

My guess is you will never break even with an e-reader. E-readers will never be cheaper than printed books, not at today's price.

If you check Amazon, you'll see little if any separation in price for the same book, and in many cases, you can find a less-expensive hardback, gently used or from overstock.

Example from Amazon's Kindle Homepage defaults:

The Fiery Trail: $13-17 hardback, $15 Kindle
Washington, A Life: $15-23 hardback, $20 Kindle

I could go on, but I won't. Do your own research.

Furthermore, if we use MUSIC as a prior example, you'll note that music CD (printed) still costs the same as electronic music downloads. Music still runs you $0.99 to $1.50 per song.

I'm sticking with print, and downloading e-books to my PC-Kindle (free application), if I should need to read an unpublished $0.99 e-book.

Of course, I still buy CDs, and who the fuck still buys CDs.

How about you? I know many of you purchased e-readers. Do you actually see any cost-benefit, or are you happy with the convenience despite the higher cost-of-ownership?


- Eric

WiP me into Climax, you dirty MC!

Yeah, if you're a writer, these mean different things than if you're a non-writer.

At least as a writer I know not to climax too early! I drag it out all foreshadowy and stuff, get the whole character arc going before I ram it home.

I find pinching the inside of my thigh helps if I get too antsy.

Now I'm gonna sit in my closet, in my underpants, drinking beer as I stroke my Asus.

Wish me luck. I'm almost finished!

- Eric

Why be insecure?

My editor/publisher pointed this out, and I wonder if I'm the only one who suffers from it.

Eric, he said, your short stories feel like they're ~going~ somewhere. But your novels fall flat. You need to bring that same voice to your longer pieces.

And so I'm trying in my latest WIP to do just that -- bring out my short-story (and bloggerly) voice.

Still, there's a roadblock there. It's an insecurity. I have moments of clarity and scenes that pop out in the right voice, but other scenes are flat and balmy and tasteless as lipstick on a cow.

I recently read Gaiman's Anansi Boys. I read that book really, really, REALLY slow, and I read every word of every chapter and the forwards and afts.

I read it all because his voice is so playful, and for years I've tried to be a "serious" writer for my novels, but unleash the beast on the shorts.

Unleash the beast on the shorts. That's sorta funny.

For instance, I wrote a short piece entitled The Devil Gave Me Autumn in my flippiest voice, and one of my readers, and I've had a few say this, mentioned this story was the most Eric of the stories she read.

That's your voice, she said.

And it's this voice, my blogger voice, my hee haw yee haw voice.

But then I read McCarthy and think, I can write like that!

And I can, in small bursts, but it's hard to maintain that droll voice throughout.

I read King and think, I can write like that!

And I can, but his overly-detailed scenes and 200kw tomes elude me.

Elude has only one L, by the way. Inside joke.

I read Gaiman and think, I can write like that!

And I can, and I can sustain it, but after a while I feel too clownish and insecure and start checking my zipper, yep, still zipped up, and do I have a booger, and gads, I think I better delete all this crap before someone reads it, eh.

I don't know. I've been writing for YEARS, and still finding my voice.

I'm wondering: Am I the only one? Do you question yourself as you write, try to still that voice that says, LET ME WRITE!

Do you say, No, no, the world's not ready for you. Hush up little voice and write like they say write.

- Eric

Some Zombie Haikus

For the Daily SotA Zombie Haiku Contest, I present some of my entries.

What a fun contest!

Eric's Zombie Haikus

---

~~~

My left arm tore off
My guts fell out of their sack
Just another day

~~~

(multiple haiku poem)

My lips are yours, dear
My chest and all of my heart
But I keep the brains

My eyes are yours, dear
My lungs breathe only for you
But I keep the brains

My arms are yours, dear
You may take them when you leave
But I keep the brains

You have all of me
Least what's left after the fall
But I keep the brains

~~~

If you need a hand
I give you one willingly
I never liked it

~~~

It flies out of me
The life that once gave me breath
My eyes still seeing

~~~

I keep both my arms
Beneath my bed protecting
I cannot reach them

~~~

I ate my girlfriend
I do not mean the good way
I mean I ~ate~ her

~~~

You have to admit this is a great prompt! Come on, let's hear a Zombie Haiku! Have you submitted yet?

- Eric

Zombie Haiku Contest!

Your Daily Sign of the Apocalypse is hosting a ZOMBIE HAIKU contest!

See their entry stuff at the link above. Now this is a fun contest I can sink my teeth into, at least the brainy parts.

- Eric

Z is for Zachry Disease

And to end the A-Z torture fest, I'll close with a joke.

A woman goes to a doctor and says, Doc, something's wrong with me.

He's a Chinese doctor and he says, Rady, what wrong with you?

Men don't like me, she says.

Ah, ah, I see, says the doctor. Say Ah.

She says Ah.

Rook over here, he says.

She looks.

Now turn around, he says, and bend over.

She turns around and bends over and the doctor says, Ah, I see probrem, now. You have Zachry Disease.

Zachry Disease? the lady says. What's that?

The doctor says, It when your head rook zachry rike your ass.

- Eric

Y is for Yes! We have no bananas.

This was my favorite drum solo, this song. I can't find it online though, at least the marching band version with the rocking drumline. You'll have to use your imagination.

I leave you instead with Black Betty, which for some reason I've been hearing a lot lately. That has to mean something, but only God or the Devil knows what. Probably the latter.

Yes! We have no bananas, was my favorite because there wasn't a drum score, and since I was first chair drummer, I got to write the music and play the tri-toms (the three drums) and we really jammed out, at least that's what we and the tuba players thought.

YES! This post is lame.

One of the tuba players laughed at me once. I threw a drumstick down her tuba and it got stuck and we had to take her tuba apart right before we marched onto the field.

We wrote a Christmas concert drum solo that brought the audience to their feet. I'm not sure that had ever been done. Freakin rocked.

Once me and one of the other snares traded off for about 30 minutes in a continuous drum roll because we began the National Anthem and the flag wasn't ready. It's a buzz roll, not a two-stroke, and we buzzed until our forearms ached, nodded at the other, and he took over. Once you start the roll, even though the director flagged us to stop, you can't stop.

Because you do NOT stop the Anthem. Ever. I mean, you don't stop fighting, do you?

Another time the band director pissed us off, the drummers, by saying we were too loud. I told the snares to play a click-march onto the field rather than our normal cadence -- which I wrote, and which freaking JAMMED, even the black guys thought so, even the black guys from the OTHER BANDS asked us where we got our cadences, during contests after our drumline beat their ASS and they couldn't believe a white boy could play them tri-toms like that, because I embellished every single song I played while all these other jerkies followed the music sheet without modification (lame), and we didn't play those stupid hand-writ cadences the director gave us -- and the band director got really pissed but never again said we played too loud.

Because really, can drums ever be too loud? Like saying a woman is too sexy or you've had too much beer and sex and rock and roll. It ain't possible, because more is more is more.

I would've made a helluva a drummer, folks. One helluva a drummer. I tell my wife to forget that lead guitar wannabe lamo. The sexiest guy in the band is ALWAYS the drummer. I forget which band it was, but they said they went through three drummers. The first one kept stealing the women from the lead singer. The second tore up the tour bus.

And who is the most memorable Muppet? Why, it's ANIMAL, of course! Want WOMAN! The drummer boy in chains and spiked collar, because aren't we all!

The KORN drummer plays shirtless, always. That's how I always said I'd play and that's why I stopped drumming. It was too much drug for me, the crack cocaine of life to which I would be addicted and never, never, never ever stop drumming.

Naked women, sorry, you are not so beautiful as a spread-open trap set into which I penetrate and gyrate in endless orgasm. I will give up one for the other every time without temptation because drums are always willing and become angrier and louder with the taking.

Now you know.

End post.

You have any band stories? Come on, one time, at band camp...


- Eric

(That last part is for my poetic friends, Annie and Tracy. It's poetry, yes, deserving of props, yo?)

X is the Magical Letter!

X is the most magical letter. No other letter can do what X does.

You aren't O-Large, you're X-Large.

Combine that with the magical NUMBER -- 3 -- and you get XXX-Large, or XXX rated, or x-tra x-tra x-tra!

Don't like Christ in your holidays? Call it Xmas.

How about at work, where we call it x-section rather than cross-section, or txr instead of transistor.

Want to dump your lover? Go ahead. Now they are your ex!

Hold your arms in an X. Go ahead. It's a symbol of power and it feels powerful, doesn't it.

How about an X-Ray, or X-Ray vision?

Malcolm X?

What's the most common mathematical symbol? Yep, you guessed it: x

How does a pirate mark his treasure? Not with a W, because X marks the spot!

Want to cover a deadman's eyes? We don't use A or B, we draw death with an X.

Need help? Call the X-Men.

X-acto knife. X-Factor. Generation X. The X-Files.

X X X! It's the magical letter.

What other X-terms can you come up with?

- Eric

W is for Water Mocassin

I have two water moccasin stories. The first is short. My son saved my life when he was about four years old. We were hopping the creek behind my apartment here in Dallas, and I about near stepped right on one coiled up under a weed. I was in flip flops and wouldn't it have been ironic after all these years to get snake bit in the city!

The other story is my brother's, and I plagiarize without his permission since that's what brother's do.

I mentioned our creek in C is for Creek. It ran along the northwest side of our property and was filled with frogs and fish and snakes that ate those frogs and fish, the most common being the water moccasin, also known as a cotton-mouth.

We always carried sticks or a machete to whack the snakes with. I don't know how many we killed, but it wasn't enough because they still swarmed every time we went down there.

When Bro and I were about nine and ten, third and fourth grade or so, this little guy from Chicago moved into town. He was pretty unlucky to move into our haunt and he didn't last but a year or two before he moved away.

Never seen a snake, the boy said.

We told him we'd never seen a taxicab, and we all exchanged dumb what-the-fuck looks.

We'll show you a snake, Bro said. We grabbed the boy and our troop of six or so boys led the way with Bro in the front down through the pasture, by that big oak out by itself for no good reason other than everything else had been slain to clear the pasture, and down to the creek.

We walked the bank for a while tipping logs and poking sticks into holes until we finally saw one bobbing its black head in a creek pool. The creek was anywhere from a few inches to a foot where it was running, but in a few of the turns it pooled up to about mid-chest on a boy. This was one of those places.

Let's find another snake, Bro said. He was carrying the snake machete.

I want that one, Chicago said. He didn't realize how big that snake was under the water because of its little head, but we all knew. He had a big head. There was lots of body under that water.

Fine, Bro said. He waded into the pool and whacked that water moccasin in the head.

A snake in the water can't be cut, though. He sunk the snake, and a few seconds later that black head bobbed up behind Bro and got another whack. The snake couldn't get out because the creek was pretty well dammed up, and the far shore was a steep bank, and the near shore was full of boys screaming and waving their snake-beaters.

Bro finally got tired of hitting water and looped that water moccasin around the machete and hoisted him up on the bank.

Don't let him get away, Bro said. Pop had said that once when he found a copper head under the house (trailer) and flung it out. Boys, step on it, don't let it get away.

Yeah, fuck that. Bro and I didn't listen to Pop then, and nobody listened to Bro now. That water moccasin was plenty pissed off and it's a good thing they don't have a long strike radius. He was hissing and showing his mouth and striking and we were backing up and trying to hit him with our sticks that were suddenly way too short.

Bro walked up out of the water like he was going to stomp Tokyo. He had that adrenal rush we lacked, from being challenged by some know-nothing city boy, and being in the water with that snake. He walked up behind that thing and whack-whack-whack, sunk it into the mud, couldn't cut through it, and grabbed it with the machete and tossed it farther up onto dry land. The snake was stunned by then and Bro marched up there and finished the job.

Chicago might as well have seen flying monkeys from Mars eating frozen pickles on bicycles. We all thought that boy was going to breathe himself to death. This was a typical creek outing for us, what we called An Adventure, and this was just another water moccasin in a long line of dead snakes.

One of us pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed the head between the eyes. They can strike, you know, even when they have no neck. We pried open its mouth and showed Chicago the fangs and everybody slapped Bro on the back and said we would have done the same thing, which was a damned lie.

That's a big snake, Chicago said. He held that head up and looked at it and twirled it on that knife, one of America's deadliest and most aggressive pit vipers this side of a rattlesnake.

I've seen bigger, Bro said.

Do you have any snake stories? We all have one...

- Eric

PS, I should add this: A few years ago we found a ground rattler in our garage. My wife insisted we catch it and release it and that's what we did. I can't remember the last time I killed a snake, or for that matter, any sort of animal except this rat I found two summers ago in my office. I killed him with a golf club. My wife got mad, but I told her that rat was sick, or the dogs had already gotten a hold of him. He didn't run or scamper but just sat there. Normal rats don't to that.

V is for Vick's Vapor Rub

Vick's Vapor Rub is NOT a sexual lubricant.

I know what you're thinking. We're out of Vaseline, and Vick's looks like Vaseline, and the warming sensation might add to the experience.

It doesn't add to the experience. It burns for a really long time.


- Eric

PS, on the same note, if it's your job to cut the jalapenos for the cookout, be sure to wash your hands before you pee.

U is for Upside Down

I wrote this poem for my first son when he was a toddler. He loved being carried around upside down, and I read this poem and think about how I used to carry him by the feet and how much that would break my shoulders now.


I Am Right Side Up

---

I am right side up
Not up
And the world is upside down

I walk by on my hands
Not feet
And I walk all over town

Above my head
There's green green grass
And dirt with dirty worms

Below my feet
I see the sky
Blue with orange orange sun

The trees grow down
The weeds grow down
The birds fly under my toes

The cars fly high
The bikes fly high
The planes fly way way low

And the people walk on their feet
Not me
While I walk on my hands

They stop and point
And I point back
At least as best I can

Cuz my hands are by their feet
You see
I need my fingers to walk

I point back with my tiny toes
Who knows
Why the people just gawk

Maybe it's cuz my eyes are high
Not low
And I've such red red cheeks

Maybe it's cuz I look
So strange
When you're walking on your feet

But everyone looks so strange
To me
As I must look right now

Cuz I am right side up
You see
And the world is upside down

---

I know, it isn't perfect. It stammers in points, but I didn't want to edit it. Like so many things I write, I cherish the imperfections because they feel like me.


- Eric

T is for Tallywhacker

He waved them over to the monkey bars and pulled out his tallywhacker and showed it to the girls who were forming a tight circle to block the playground lady's view.

See, he said, and they all leaned closer. It looks like THAT!

I was in kindergarten. I ran laps and they called my mom and had a ~very~ serious talk with me in the far corner, beneath the fat lady's shade tree, the two of them breaking their lawn chairs and converting the sinner back to Jesus. I remember it pretty clear, and I bet so do the girls. I never confessed that we all pissed in the sandbox.

You probably thought people never actually did that, didn't you. Well, I did, and if you read my R post, you'll see that my wife once locked me out of the house in my underwear. It was because I had stepped into the back yard to whizz and she got miffed and locked the door.

Hard to keep such a curious critter bottled up, I guess, even under threat of expulsion.

What other names do you have for a man's or woman's pink parts, bodily functions, and so forth? You ever flash either intentionally or un?


- Eric

S is for Silence

Watch. I can drown you out with silence. Ready?


























Get it?

- Eric

R is for ROMANCE!

Lemme give you a little taste of what it's like to be on my side of the court, the ball, the game.

Let's start in fifth grade. I was "going with" a girl in my brother's grade, a year younger, and I never spoke with her. I bought her a sucker pop each Friday and Bro gave it to her. A bag of spiders over my head wouldn't have scared me more than that girl scared me.

In fact, I would have taken the bag of spiders.

My freshman year in high school a junior girl made me her Pet Freshman. We dated into college, about six years, and it's my fault we aren't married.

Lord how I fuck up relationships. Ever see Tommy Boy? Girls are my butter rolls, and I shred em to hell.

I got hooked on another girl for about a year and a half. I got obsessed. Never been like that, but there it is, and I was nuts. College and the pressure of working and going to school and trying to get into med school all contributed. One night I gave her a dozen roses. She sold them on 6th Street in Austin for a $1 buck apiece.

Lived with a New York Jewish girl. She was something else, still is. She used to throw tortillas in the restaurant.

I got out of college, met my first wife at a bar -- which is how I met all my women -- and I fell in love with her way more than she did me. She wouldn't give me her phone number, but her sister, older by 6 years, thought I was "adorable" and called out her phone number over her shoulder as my future-wife was dragging her ass out of the bar.

Little known to her I was the phone number guy. Girls never wrote down their numbers. I remembered them, even remembered em for my buddies. I know. Freak of nature Rain Man, but that's how I rolled. I couldn't drink enough beer to forget her number and I didn't want to.

Married. A kid. Few years later divorced because I'm OCD and she's normal in the head.

Let's not relive my early thirties. I'm not sure I can. I'd die if I tried because I almost died at the time.

Met my now-wife at a bar.

You wanna dance? I asked her. Two-stepping Dallas bar, me in my hat, her in some California wanna-be beach hat and looking mighty West Coast and nobody likes them Westies out in Dallas. She's a Vegas girl.

Anyway, I said, You wanna dance?

No, she said. Don't know how.

She waved me off and with that waving-off hand I grabbed her and dragged her to the dance floor saying, Come on, chicken, I'll teach you to dance.

The next night we were in Austin getting tattoos, been together almost six years, now, and have a kid (who's doing great, by the way!). God in Heaven I love that little girl. She's a nutcase sometimes, locked me outside in my underwear and gave me every bit of the hell I gave her, but I tell her often that guys should ALWAYS go for the crazy bitch.

I mean, any chick who is willing to kill for you is worth keeping.

I also believe women should be on medication from birth. It'd save a lot of trouble, I think.

- Eric

Q is for QUITTER!

Lord, what have I not quit. I am a quitter of all things large and small.

First thing I remember is I quit baseball. I was a helluva a catcher, but I didn't have that sling-arm you need to burn out the stealer heading for 2nd base. I could hit, I could run, I could score and I could for damned sure catch, but that weak-ass side-arm throw of mine got me.

Plus, my coach and my old man went to high school together, and I'm pretty sure Pop nailed the dude's old lady and showed him up because Pop's got a third forearm.

So coach flattened my ass against the pine until I quit. I was twelve. Man, I loved baseball, too, long as I could catch.

I quit Extemporaneous Speaking, which is Gulf Coast slang for Debate Club. Not sure why I quit or why this matters, but it stuck with me. I got bored, I suppose.

I quit drumming when I got to college. And let me pause here and explain something about the drumming...

I am a tapper. I am not the every-day tapper who tap-taps and fidgets. I drum. I make rhythm. I always have, still do, and I even type to a rhythm. I clack my teeth because in high school the teachers started throwing erasers at me trying to make me stop tapping.

That's true as a lady's leg hair. They threw chalk and erasers and one even cracked my pen.

In third grade, I BEGGED my mom to let me take drum lessons. I gave up my recess and started drumming. Damn, I was good. I don't mean good, I mean creepy good. I quit, though, because my friends were playing outside.

But God had other plans. He does that sometimes. We moved when I was in seventh grade. I hadn't drummed since third grade, though I had tapped, tapped tapped tapped tapped, always tapping, always drumming, just not formally to formal music.

I tried out for band again. I asked the other drummers what the notes meant because our band director was too busy molesting the high school girls.

Again, true as leg hair.

After a few weeks -- a FEW WEEKS -- we tested for chairs and I yoinked first chair!

I went to district every year after that, and once got to regional. I didn't make it past regional, though, because I played the bells all natural. I had no fucking clue what those # and sharp signs and those other goofy symbols over the notes meant, and kept wondering why there was this extra row of keys above the main rows (these are the black keys on a piano, flats and sharps).

One of the drummers at regional asked me: What the hell were you playing?

I said, The music sheet.

He shook his black face and white eyes at me and said, Nah ah. You played something else.

Still, I made region, and so did he, and when that black dude walked in with a pair of drumsticks and saw all those Vidor jackets on the back row -- and Vidor, Texas, at the time and maybe today had a sign that read, Nigger, don't let the sun go down on your head (leg hair) -- he saw me (not from Vidor) and stuck to me like I was his favorite uncle.

Anyway, to say I was infatuated with drumming is like saying guys on occasion think of vagina.

Pop, God love him, bought me a five-piece Pearl drum set not two months after he moved out. I still have it.

Anyway, I got to college and quit drumming. I knew -- I KNEW -- if I got into drumming there in Austin, music capital of the south, I would have flunked out of college.

So I quit. Cold turkey. Drum lessons in high school, the ones I paid for with my own money, gone. Quit quit quit. I still hear only a lead drummer and backup singers in every song, and I quit.

Of all things, I miss drumming the most. Still, in college, I carried around a drum key, and showed it to every woman I met and asked: What is this?

I swore I'd marry the first woman who knew what it was. Only one knew, and I think she cheated even though I also think she loved me, but like so many things I fucked it up and who knows where she is now. Happy without me, I suppose.

When I write, when I have sex, when I drum and when I hold my breath for a really long time and finally breathe in, that's when I am with God. There will be a trap set in heaven for me, mark those words, and I'll keep all you knuckers up all night long banging out licks and riffs and flams and paradiddles and sixlets and so forth.

You should have seen my forearms, and not from what you think a teenage boy might be doing to get ripped like that.

Anyway.

I won't go into the same detail, but I had the same passion for medical school. I graduated valedic of my high school class, and went to UT Austin, majoring in Chemical Engineering, for no other reason than everyone said it was the toughest course on campus, and I said, Bring it, and I quit drumming to be a doctor.

You grok that last part, I hope...

I made Bs, mostly. High Bs. God in Heaven how I hate the 89 B. If I am going to make a B, make a 79.5, not an 89.4. I didn't convert so many to As, but I was far more than a B student, owing almost entirely to homework.

See, I quit homework. It's bullshit. It always has been. I looked at the class curve and it said, Homework: 10% of your grade.

I said, No problem! I eeked out a 20 or 30 on the homework, and relied on high 90s on the tests and projects. That strategy worked about half the time, the other half was the 89.5 grades. How can you score 96 on the final and average high 90s on the tests and make a B in the class!

End point is I didn't get into med school on grades. I scored high in the MCAT -- Medical College Admissions Test -- but who the fuck needs another white-boy, English-speaking doctor?

I tried for five more years to get into med school, and finally took the DAT -- Dental Admissions Test -- out of desperation. I scored in the 99.4th percentile.

Damn, huh. Surprised me too! I figured I would be a shoe-in.

Guess not. I'm an engineer, not a dentist, and I only got one interview.

So I quit. I gave it up and pursued other avenues that were, and have been, more lucrative.

I quit my first marriage.

I quit karate, which I was good at, and it's the only sport I consistently brought home first-place trophies.

I quit all these things I'm good at, but still I continued to write. I continued to drink. I continued to work out, to try things I knew wouldn't work, and to invest in myself above all other things. I'm a successful engineer, a great drinker, I have an AWESOME Wife 2.0, and I'm a published author with a small local press.

I'm a quitter, I suppose. But sometimes you have to quit in order to move on. Some dreams need to be dumped so that others my live.

What have you quit? Did you quit this post? Did you skim to the end and miss the embedded porn scene? I would have, because I'm a quitter like that.

Here's to dead dreams and the quitted lives we aren't living.


- Eric

P is for Pink and Purple Polka-Dotted Panties of Passion

Yes, you read that right. Pink and Purple Polka-Dotted Panties of Passion.

The panties were a relic in my days of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons), and we quested for them periodically and never managed to find them.

Lord, if we had found them, if ~I~ had found them, I wouldn't have known what the hell to do with em. Sniff them would have been my first reaction. I'm a dog that way, wuff wuff.

My second reaction would have been to beg women to put them on, because ain't that the ruse. You can lead a girl to the Pink and Purple Polka-Dotted Panties of Passion, but you can't make her put them on!

Did you ever role play? Did you make fun of the Halfling thief's penis and use him as a club during a barroom brawl, or as a distraction send your buddy streaking naked through a gaggle of goblins, or sneak into brothels using a ring of invisibility?

And if you ever find those panties, send them my way. I might be able to slip them onto my wife while she's sleeping.


- Eric