The Reason I Try Not to Jump

Sometimes, as I walk gingerly down the sidewalk or through parks, I'm overcome with a startling urge to sprint and leap off of something.
It always starts as a thrilling, heart pounding activity. The cliffs of mother nature direct challenges straight through my retinas and into the AWESOME CENTER of my brain, where they are met by an impulsive, irrational gruff voice that yells "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, MOTHER NATURE FUCKAAAAAAAAA!"

Mother nature stands idly by, like a cocky bully who happens to have 20lbs on me and has somehow managed to sprout a beard prior to exiting gradeschool.


But I always refuse to back down. If only mother nature would come directly out and issue this challenge, like FATHER nature would, I'd be able to accept or decline and go on with my day. But the indifference of her toward my frenzy fills my rage meter up to 11.


Then the crickets start in. The birds appear from behind the blinding sun, and that nearby brook starts babbling like a bunch of nuns in a brothel.


Mother nature's indifferences puts me into a blind trance. The shouts of my friends and the thought of consequences is removed from my mind. I'm going to leap like a kangaroo on PCP.


And then I'm soaring. The cliff I saw in my mind becomes a mere 4 foot drop. I feel the sun on my skin, notice the blades of grass, and feel euphoria spread across my face. The only thing I hear is my voice box screeching "I WON, MUTHA NATURE!"


My feet make contact with the ground nicely, but within a quarter of a second of landing my heels are racked in pain. It feels like a thousand rabid mongeese are gnawing at my tendons and bones, trying to pull them apart with their little, dextrous rodent hands.


At this point I usually get angry with mother nature for deceiving me into believing that falling 4 or less feet would not have any consequences. I take the time to flip mother nature the bird, and limp away slowly.

5 types of awkward gym people

The grunter wants you to know that the weight he's pushing is serious business. Sounds vomited from his voice box will resemble gorilla battle cries, wolf howls, and the screams of souls as they're tortured in hell. Spot these individuals upon entry into the gym so as to not shit your pants when the sounds of murder drift to your ears.



Exercise extreme caution when moving around thrusters. Eye contact with thrusters is known to cause dry-mouth, uncontrollable shivering, and nausea.



The perspirator leaves behind a trail of goo, making it incredibly difficult to use machines they've recently operated. Perspirators also tend to smell like oxen in heat, and, as a result, require large amounts of space. One perspirator can shut down entire areas of a gym.



The sleeper really likes napping on uncomfortable leather and metal constructions and on things that other people would like to commandeer. Sleepers take time to read novels, develop artistic passions, and do their day job in between sets. Do not request a machine from a sleeper, as they are likely to respond like a bear being woken from hibernation.



The narcissist can often be found near free-weights, adorned in revealing garb that appears to have been run through a woodchipper. Narcissists are unlikely to notice other gym-goers, unless the other gym-goers are not noticing them. If it is the case that a narcissist is not feeling a sufficient number of eyes on his physique, he may become a hybrid of the thruster and grunter types. Pay the narcissist his dues to avoid making him try more attention seeking behaviors.

UPDATE:
As per request, here is the sixth breed.

Respite

I've been getting ready for school and crossing things off of the Girlfriend and I's St. Louis bucket list, and so have had little patience for fighting with my new Adobe Illustrator program. Sure, it beats the hell out of Inkscape, but its learning curve is so staggeringly steep that the drawing I did for today took me twice as long as it would've in Inkscape.

While I get my skills back up to par, I beg you enjoy this ever-subtle creation of mine.

Pointed Exclamation

My last post on getting inspired got me pumped before I even finished writing it. I cranked this comic out as soon as I finished it. It came from the jumble of !'s that were near the screaming speaker in the Inspiration Mobile post.



I'm quickly developing a habit of anthropomorphizing everything I come into contact with.

The Inspiration Mobile

I didn't stop to smell the roses until I was about 17 years old. And by 'stop to smell the roses' I mean realize how fucking beautiful random things are. I remember the moment in its fullest detail, primarily because I wasn't looking at a rose bush, and I found the coincidence comical. I was looking at a shrub.

It was an ugly shrub, too. But the way the light was bending off of all of its leaves made me stop moving, and look. The trees in front, the sky, and even the sidewalk looked amazing. And then I realized that everything on the planet probably looked this awesome. Except maybe for that ugly couple who happened to be walking by.

From that day forth my sight changed. I now frequently get halted in my waltz through parking lots by a piece of trash or a sign that has not had any eyes pay it attention in some time. It seems, in desperation for attention, these neglected objects throw their light whorishly into my eyeballs.

One such object was a Target sign, in the parking lot, which indicated the place to put one's shopping cart.


I started laughing as soon as I paid it attention. I took a picture of it on my phone and immediately sent it to my girlfriend, and told her to turn the photo upside down.



I began seeing faces on everything. I started laughing at 80% of the machines I came into contact with because, despite their metallic hides, they were all emitting emotions.



Now, not only is everything gorgeous, but everything has a goddamn face. Even when I sat down to write this post with the above pictures already drawn, I realized that my speakers have faces.




Getting inspired is not difficult. Sometimes you just have to stop, smell the roses, and realize that every single one of those bastards is having the most awesome day ever.

The Rave Light

The girlfriend and I recently moved into an apartment near campus. It's spacious, shaped like a giant rectangle, and has air conditioning. It's basically everything we could ask for, minus the occasional bajillion legged insect.

We've made minor repairs to things here and there, acting like we own the place as opposed to rent it. We put up curtains, posters, moved shelves, and dressed it up to our heart's content. However, there was one problem.

The lights in the bedroom are on a track system in the middle of the ceiling. There are three of them. The outer two turned on without fail, but the middle one appeared to be burnt out. We noticed this early on, and I pondered how we'd go about solving this problem.


And then I forgot. My memory only responds to interrogative prodding, not attempted recall. I quickly became busy with the state of my desk and left the light to its dim fate.

A few weeks later, the girlfriend commented on the darkness of the bedroom. I heard her shouting from the other side of the rectangle, and came to find her checking out the light. I am convinced, now, that had either of us any sense we would've realized what was happening.

The light was left off for a reason. The previous owner had realized the satanic powers that rested inside that metallic canister of hedonism and had defused its intentions at the source. I left the room for a moment, and I'm now certain that while I was away the light implanted directives in the girlfriend's brain.





She grabbed a bulb and asked me to put the light in. Being foolish and naive, I obeyed. I perched on the edge of the bed; I could feel the canister writhing with anxious joy. I screwed in the light, and the girlfriend flipped the switch.

But then everything was fine. The terror I had felt washed away and the room was normal, bathed in a new vibrant light.

This peace lasted a few short minutes. The light quickly reached full strength and began to strobe like mad. Out of the deepest rings of hell came an UHNTZ that reverberated around our bedroom like the explosion of Krakatoa. Within seconds ravers poured in from the windows and we found ourselves awash in a dance party.



Though we've been raving upon entry into the bedroom for months, we have yet to extinguish the life in that satanic device. While its hypnotizing attempts at starting dance parties are tiresome, I've found it gives us a solid reason to save electricty. The environment is of little concern to me when a rave demon is UHNTZing his soul out in our bedroom.

Wherever he goes when we extinguish him, I hope he's happy.

Walking on Eggshells

We've all been there. The time comes to stride gracefully over a sea of broken traditions and unfamiliar cultural norms, and the most we can do is shake violently and weep internally.


My girlfriend is Puerto Rican. She speaks 3 languages fluently and Portuguese moderately. I classify Portuguese as something else because any language that sounds like an opera singer hopped up on three Epinephrine pens is not a language to me.



When it came time to meet her entire extended family I was semi-terrified. We had only been dating for 4 weeks when I flew down to the island to meet everyone. The only Spanish skills I possessed came from my high school, a remote fortress buried in the prairie's of Iowa. We didn't have much for cultural immersion.

I can elaborate to wit's end on the number of pets I have, or where my toes are, or how my father is doing at the moment. But ask me about how many pets I had, or plan to have, and I will respond by screaming about where my pants have gone.

When I have nothing to say, I feel naked. The only adequate response is to ask you, the harbinger of this silence, where the hell you put my pants.

The meeting of the family went well. I met both her mother and sister while I was in my underwear, which always bodes for a solid, communicative relationship. I made omelets with her mother, killed zombies with her brothers, and broke a family ornament. All in all, it was a productive trip.

Except for one small incident.

At the New Year's celebration I met her 'uncle.' He quickly threatened to murder me, and told me he could get away with it because he was the lawyer of the Puerto Rican mafia.

I didn't know Puerto Ricans shared so much culture with Italians. This revelation is what caused the surprised expression on my face. I wasn't so worried about being dismembered and fed to sharks. For those of you who have seen Snatch, you know that messing with pig farmers is the worst idea. My grand parents own a huge number of pigs. I feel secure behind their blanket of bacony goodness.

After a few minutes of comical threatening banter, the girlfriend told him that I could speak a little bit of Spanish. I wanted to make my woman proud and so, from the deepest bowels of my mind, I summoned up three words.




And with that I told a man who had just threatened to murder me that I liked myself. I realized it too late to pull the words back through the air, down my windpipe, and back into my lungs, where their abominable reign began.

I stood, pantless, yet unable to scream my safety phrase. DONDE ESTA MI PANTALONEEEEEEEEES!!!!111one!eleven!!!