The importance of being an older brother

Here in Rochester, as in any city, we have more than what we feel is our fair share of crime. Which is to say that on any given mornings drive in to work there is a 75% chance that I will hear of someone who has been shot, stabbed, killed, or forced to run around downtown in nothing but a pair of stockings. These occurrences need to be curtailed immediately. Not only are they highly detrimental to the health of the recipient of said activity but there are other consequences that are only now coming to light.

You see I am an older brother. The eldest of four in fact. Now as an older brother I, like all older brothers, have heard many times that my younger brothers would do the things that I did and this has been proven to be more or less true. Use foul language and my brothers would follow suit, lie to my parents about my report card and before long mom and dad weren't getting any good information, and even when I started losing my hair... Yep. What I did not realize is that the entire animal kingdom appears to work via the same principle.

Humanity is of course at the top of the food chain. We are in effect the older brothers and Sisters to the rest of the species in the animal kingdom and this means that we have a responsibility to demonstrate to the animal kingdom the correct way to act. Thus far it hasn't been going so well. We seam to be killing each other off left and right through more means than I care to think about and the animal kingdom has been watching. It started with the upper level carnivores. You know things like lions, tigers, sharks, and of course penguins. But lessons in bad behavior never seam to stop with the first jump. It invariably trickles down to the youngest and smallest member if the situation is not remedied. Which brings me to today’s events.

You see I was sitting at work looking out one of the larger windows and bore witness to a rather disturbing scene. Some of the service men who work in our building like to throw out bread crumbs for the birds and other critters who like to eat bread crumbs in order to fuel their mid afternoon car bombing raids. And since I have always suffered from a serious case of A.D.D. I was immediately distracted by a small cute furry object hopping around the bread crumbs picking out choice morsels. Ordinarily a single squirrel eating some bread would not have caught my interest but in a matter of seconds there were four or five squirrels all hoping around happily eating bread. Then it began.

The first crow arrived on the scene after I had been watching for two minutes. Then a second. Then a third. I could see the squirrels pulling together in the center of the crumbs their tiny clawed fists grasping as many crumbs as they could carry. The first crow took a couple quick hops toward the center of the bread pile nipped at a crumb then jumped back. The second crow followed suit. The first crow hopped in again and from a branch up above a squirrel dropped and fell directly on top of the crow with what I imagine was a rather loud thud and sqwak. In a flurry the crows were off and circling.

The squirrels were now grabbing fistfuls of bread and staring wearily at the sky. A tense minute past and the crows were back on the ground. Screaming at the squirrels. The squirrels pulled together in the middle and began to advance on the crows. I watched in amazement as rather heated words were exchanged and then out came the knives.

To relate what happened next I haven't got the heart but I will say that it did not end well for any involved and as is often the case there are now several families out there who are grief stricken tonight at the loss of their loved ones. And so I politely ask on behalf of the Mothers and Fathers out there in the squirrel and crow community that we as the older brothers and sisters of the animal kingdom pay attention to the example that we are setting and stop the violence.

Census take two

My wife has pointed out to me something that she felt was a vitally important flaw in my reasoning. And then as wives are wont to do she pointed it out three more times just in case I should have missed it the first time she said it (as husbands are wont to do). It would appear that the person living in the house must in fact be a relation of mine or hers. And so I must thank those of you who have sent applications or were planning on sending applications for your generosity and self sacrifice on behalf of another but I can not accept them at this time. A date for coffee might; however, prove quite nice.

That having been said I have been forced to come up with another plan which hinges on what I suspect is a loophole in our legal definitions. And so my thinking has gone something like this. You see it is amazing what they are doing with technology these days. In the old days if you wanted to create a family member, why mom and dad went out to the cabbage patch and picked a head of lettuce that they then paid a stork to deliver and wah-lah, baby in nine months time with a little luck. This child was a relative. Now a days if you would like to increase your family by one you can go on down to the local sperm bank and choose all the important parts like hair color, eye color, gender, what college they'll go too and whether or not they like their peanut butter with mayonnaise. Then you'll get a call from the lab about 9 months later and you can go and pick up your child who is now a relative.

My problem is that April 1st is a little closer than 9 months away. Never fear though I have two things going for me. First I am a highly educated English Major. It's true. I have a peace of paper tells me so. It's under that stack of magazines right over there. Second I'm German by heritage.

And so I did what all highly educated English Majors do when I'm not sure what to do. I whined, cried, wrote a blog post about it, and then tried to forget who I am and what was going on by reading a book. And of course as a highly educated English Major I happen to have the works of a very famous couple about my house. The most well known would be Byron Shelley who was a renowned poet. However, on this occasion I happened to pick up a work by his wife Mary Shelley who did an excellent little story about a German scientist.

Well it was as if the heavens parted and sun rained down just for me. I knew what I had to do even before I had finished the book and so I set off to write an add for Craigs list.

Wanted: Human body parts - all shapes and sizes welcome.
Will pay cash provided they are delivered prior to April 1st.
Body parts must be without legal owner.

And oh my how the responses came pouring in. At this rate I may even be able to pay the census man his interest should I be late in the completion of my endeavour. Now all I need is to quickly teach myself how to sew and to make a large enough hole in my roof to allow for the needed lightning strike.

Census

I'm afraid that I need your help.

You see a few weeks ago I had a relative of ours come and join us in our home as they had recently been laid off. A sad consequence of the current economic condition but a pleasant turn of events for me as I now had a captive audience for all of my inane babble. Well aside from my wife and children who often wander around my house looking as though they are on thorazine as I happily chatter away but I digress.

As we all know it is census time. I can tell it is census time because the birds are singing away happily in our bushes, the days are growing warmer and sunnier, and, oh yes, Uncle Sam has been reminding me by radio, television, mail, and telepathy that we had better turn in the darn form or they are sending the FBI to count the number of people in our house! And so not wanting to disappoint Uncle Sam, surprise surprise, we set about filling out the paper work.

By in large life was good but of course the government never makes anything simple so when it came time to fill out the number of people in our home we needed to enter in how many people would be living here as of April 1st. Apparently Uncle Sam feels that since he has gone through all the bother of learning telepathy in order to remind us to fill out the census it should be no problem for us to learn how to prophecy in order to make sure our paperwork is accurate.

Alas I have never been terribly gifted in the mystical arts and so I simply counted heads... wife, myself, two children, relative equals five people in house. Done. And so we sealed up the census and sent it on its merry way the very next day which was March 21st. Two days before my guest had an interview with a local company. Too his great fortune and my joy and disappointment they liked him so much that they offered him a job on the spot. And so, not being one to sit about when there is work to be done, he promptly went out and arranged living accommodations for himself. He will be moving out on March 25th.

And there in lies my dilemma. I need another family member to be a resident in my home prior to April 1st or I am certain that Uncle Sam will hear about it and come knocking on my door. Probably just my luck he'll figure it out a month late and if the IRS is any example of how the census works I will at that point be required to produce the original relative as a resident and two more relatives as residents in interest to make up for my offense. Now one relative I can handle but my house would get a bit cramped with three.

It is for this reason that I come to you. I have decided that it is time to swallow my pride and begin to take applications. Anyone wishing to join my family and take up residence at my home is welcome provided they can move in post haste and are willing to stay until at least April 2nd. The evacuation date will of course be subject to the approval of Misses Lumpy.

The problem with LSD

I for one have never understood the allure of LSD. Mind you I've never partaken of LSD but even so I've heard enough about it to realize that I don't "get" it. If people take drugs to forget about their problems or for entertainment I'm not sure what the major pull is to a drug that makes lots of pretty colors arranged in what appears to be a cheap repeating pattern of Charlie Browns T-shirt. It almost seams like the same effect could be achieved with a cheap bottle of alcohol and multi-colored scarf. Here drink this while I pull this blanket over your head. Wasn't that amazing? Incidentally my two year old loves this game sans the drink.
What they need to do is find a way to supply schizophrenia in a pill format. Now there would be a drug induced experience that I could understand people going after. Sitting at home in your chair on a Friday afternoon with nothing to do so you break out a couple Schizos and a glass of water. Twenty minutes later you realize that your office laptop is blinking. Must be something important. Power on and incomes a message from the NSA explaining that you're in grave danger and you had better leave the premises immediately. Why you? Turns out you're actually a science experiment that they cooked up in a lab as a test to see if they could manipulate human genetics to gain super human levels of agility, strength, and intelligence. And they had. You've always felt that it was so. Like everything in your life was just a test and just on the other side of the walls were people watching you.

So off you go out onto the fire escape and down into the back alley in your slacks and shirt from work. Your at a full run when you feel the alley shift. Was it an earth quake? No the walls around you are stable but it's no longer an alley. The alley is now a large brick box. Turn for the fire escape. It's gone. Turn around again and sitting before you is a door. Cautiously you step towards it and test the knob. The door opens silently and your inside a large hall. How did you get here? All around you can see the mutilated carcasses of some vaguely bovine looking creatures and your shoes make a damp squishy sound when you step. As you get closer to one of the carcasses it turns, looks you in the eyes and asks if you know where the rest room is. No? Then perhaps you should leave swiftly.

No need to tell you twice as you notice a set of stairs and climb until you find yourself on the roof gulping air and wondering why you left your apartment in the first place. The cool breeze reminding you of a summer cruise you took and before you know it you're back on the boat wandering around with a pina colada in your hand. Heading for the bow of the ship you put your hands on the metal railing and feel a slight blurring at the edge of your vision as the scene changes again and you're back at the fire escape outside your apartment.

Take another pill or time for bed?

An Apology

In college I majored in the arts and because of this I was subject to an abundance of stimulating conversation about all sorts of things that are supposed to shape our lives but often have little effect on a day to day basis. This; however, is not the case on one specific topic. It would appear that most of us who class ourselves as students of the arts have adopted a sort of fairy god mother. A small mythical creature who is responsible for all of our amazing, awe inspiring, nearly super human abilities to create music, words, and images.

Yes. We do not simply sit at a keyboard and type words, or pluck a few strings on an instrument, or arrange some colors on a piece of paper. We are in fact super naturally inspired to choose the correct word, note, or color by a mythical beast who graces us with its skills. I am of course speaking of the Muse.

How or when I became acquainted with the Muse is of course far less important than where it is at this very moment. It is standing behind me. I can feel it staring at the back of my head. I can feel its tiny claws on my shoulder for unlike the gentle fairy god mother I had heard so much about the Muse is actually an Imp. OW!!! Errr a well mannered friendly little sprite who often comes to help us in our creative endeavors.

I now believe, having become better acquainted with the Muse, that this misconception is an honest one as the Muse can often be helpful; allowing us to complete whole projects flawlessly and at the absolute peak of our abilities. The flaw lies in not recognizing the times when with a deadline looming we stare at the page praying for the Muse to bless us only to have it run into the bathroom and hide. I have often at such times heard the Muse giggling softly just within earshot as I searched frantically for it. Although at present I have a slightly different problem.

In searching through rather old and dusty books I keep about my house I came across an interesting piece of writing left by some obscure and no doubt long dead writer. According to my source the Muse finds jokes about its stature to be particularly loathsome. And so as I was preparing for this post, and found the Muse lacking in the spirit of cooperation, I lashed out in a fit of irritation with several jokes I remembered from my youth.

I think it is only proper for me to relate that this is not only an option in poor taste but that it can land one in rather hot water. The Muse having become quite irate at my poorly advised attempt at humor grabbed one of my family members hostage and is threatening bodily harm to my person unless I make a rather public apology. And so I would like to say to the Muse and to anyone else out there who finds themselves particularly challenged in the height department... I'm Sorry.

Beginnings

Beginnings are easy. Hand your character a gun and a mysterious envelope and you know your going to be in for a wild ride. Sit them with another character for tea and drop an interesting and mysterious comment and it's time for a lazy afternoon read. This is the way of writing for me. Much like life beginning is easy (well once you get past all that unpleasantness with the dark tunnel and the bright light and "Hey put me dow...OUCH!")

The problem has always been that somewhere in the middle where life happens everything takes over. In writing as in life event after event take place each one with consequences and things begin to spiral ever outwards until I no longer have any idea how it could ever end. It's true. I was recently speaking with an elderly gentleman and he had no intentions of having things end any time soon. Do you? Do I? And so my characters have begun to mock me. Seeing as my life has no conclusion my characters like wise have found that they also are in a state of limbo.

This has begun to cause serious problems for me as they have taken up what appears to be rather permanent residence somewhere in the back of my mind. The other day as I was sitting in a meeting I very distinctly heard the over weight adulterous salesman, from what we shall call story A, have a very passionate discussion with the murder mystery solving nun, from story B, about the appropriate length for bed curtains. The Nun of course felt that the only proper length for a bed curtain is the length that allows the hem of the curtain to lightly brush the floor boards while the salesman preferred curtains short enough to show off the rooms finer features. I was in fact expecting them to come to blows over the issue when their conversation was drowned out by one of my coworkers asking my opinion on our latest project.

By the time I was able to manipulate my way through the meeting discussion the salesman and the nun had agreed to part company and go back to their respective plot structures leaving me sitting with the narcissistic depressed teenager whom I hadn't noticed watching in all of the commotion. To say that things are becoming a bit unsettling would be a kin to calling the mental institution a nice place to meet interesting people.

And so it is with great pride and much hope that I provide this beginning for my new blog. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.

Lumpy