#1 Thing I'll Miss About Home

So it's come down to this. The absolute number one thing that I will miss about home when I leave tomorrow. I could throw you a curveball and say something like "Frosted Flakes" or something equally meaningless that would leave you scratching your head for answers. But while I'm a pretty weird kid, I'm not that weird. If you don't already know what this blog post is going to be about, then you're clueless. You should have seen this coming a mile away:

Just kidding.

This.

#2 Thing I'll Miss About Home

Friends.

Don't think this post needs an explanation.

#3 Thing I'll Miss About Home

Pittsburgh sports.

BOOM.

BOOM.

Eh, not so much boom.

But there is no better city in the world when it comes to sports and sports fans, so moving away from Pittsburgh will definitely suck when it comes to that. Especially considering I'll now be walking amongst Washington Capitals fans for the foreseeable future. But I guess it will only serve to remind me how truly lucky I am to be from Pittsburgh. Can't even imagine what Redskins fans do on Sunday. Cut the grass? Sad.

#4 Thing I'll Miss About Home

The ladies.

This is the house I’ve lived in while experiencing various relationships with various girls. Maybe I’ve sat on the computer for an inordinate amount of time talking to you on AIM. Maybe I’ve sat on the basement floor talking to you on the phone at two in the morning because I think that I talk loud and that’s the furthest spot from everyone who’s sleeping. Maybe you even came over and challenged me to a game of basketball, then almost made me cry after you beat me one-on-one. Whoever you were and whatever we did, I guarantee it was fun. Now I feel that I owe a thank you to each and every girl I once thought was the Pinta to my Santa Maria. So, without mentioning names, thank you all for the memories!

#5 Thing I'll Miss About Home

Living right next to my high school.

This is another thing that seems to defy logic. Why would I miss living near my high school? Shouldn't I want to get as far away as possible from such a place? I guess not. There is something pretty cool about hearing a Friday night high school football game take place while you're sitting on your couch. I think I might actually miss that football field more than the actual school itself. Just for some background: we got a new, state-of-the-art high school building in 2002, my freshman year of high school. My class was the first to spend all four of their high school years in that building. It was pretty great. We also got this expensive new football stadium with synthetic turf, which is pretty damn nice.

I never really used the field while in high school, but coming home from college made it seem all the more useful. Over those summers, me and my friends would play evening games of frisbee up on the field. We'd usually start at 8, and as it got dark, the lights of the stadium came on and remained on until 10, when we would retire to the huge pole-vaulting mat to talk about life. Always good times. Looking back, it's actually hard to believe the amount of people we started to get interested in frisbee. I'm convinced that me and Dan were the ones who started by tossing with one another. It soon grew into a huge affair, with some of our games drawing as many as 20 people.

Maybe this sounds stupid, but sometimes those frisbee games were all that I looked forward to during the summer. Even the time that I got a concussion by diving headfirst into Nate Carr's knee, I think I still ended up playing frisbee the next night. Or a few nights later. Whenever it was, I was there. Because when you inevitably got that text from Dan or Doug that read "frisbee?" you couldn't text "Hellz yes, bia" fast enough. Was I the only one who got that excited about a friendly game of frisbee? Maybe so. Probably Dan too. But I would literally get my shoes on at 7:30 and stretch for a half hour before heading up to that field. For someone that takes life pretty lightly, I took pre-frisbee preparations pretty damn seriously. Quads, hamstrings, calves, groin. You gotta stretch, man.

Point being, those frisbee games are something I'll never forget. And part of the charm was playing them on that awesome football field - our own high school football field. With high school friends. Sometimes frisbee was basically the only time I got to see a lot of my high school friends. There were numerous things that made those games special. And I'll never forget them. Or the football field. Or the high school in general. Being able to see the high school from my bedroom window wasn't something I always enjoyed. But when it's gone, I know I'll miss it.

#6 Thing I'll Miss About Home

Knowing where the hell things are.

I've lived here for 23 years. I know where everything is. If I need a haircut, there's a place for that. When I'm craving raisinets, I know where I can score some. And when I want to spoil my girlfriend on her birthday, I've already got directions in my head to the nearest Outback Steakhouse. There is literally NOTHING that I can't find within 10 minutes of my own house. That's a pretty comforting thought, especially considering how many times I actually have had that aforementioned raisinets craving. Hint: it's well beyond a normal amount of times, whatever that norm may be.

The point is, I know that if I drive down road A, I'll eventually get to road B, which will, in turn, take me to place C. I have a possibly irrational and likely asinine belief that when I move, I'll have no idea where anything is. I'll get lost just looking for a grocery store. Road signs will be written in Chinese, trees will throw apples at me like in The Wizard of Oz, and every station on the radio will sound like the British woman's voice from a GPS system telling me to turn in "30 meters". Do you know what 6 feet underground is in metric? DO YOU?! It's dead. Just dead.

Here's the part where I pretend to be serious and offer easily refutable but semi-valid points. After I move, I'll need to learn all of the roads around me and where they lead. I'll need to learn where the nearest grocery store is, nearest place to get a haircut, and, of course, the closest Little Caesars. These are all things that I take for granted now. If I need something real quick, I know that I can hop in the car and be at Huckleberry's in two minutes. Where the hell am I going to find a tiny general store with a name like "Huckleberry's"?! What, is there going to be a "Tom Sawyer's" two minutes away from my house in Virginia? NO! So WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GO WHEN I NEED TWIZZLERS AND MOUNTAIN DEW?!

I'm sure these things will all sort themselves out. But it will be awfully difficult to adjust. I'm going to miss not knowing where everything is. Then again, Helen Keller didn't have any idea where the fuck anything was, let alone WHAT anything was. So what am I complaining about? At least I have a blog. Oh, what's that? She wrote books? Shit. Well...yeah ok that's pretty impressive. You go, Hel-Kell.

Wait, what was the #6 thing I'll miss about home again? Oh, that's right. Knowing where things are. Well I'm sure I'll figure it out after a little while. No worries. Sure, I'll miss these local roads and the pots of gold waiting on the other side of them, but it's only the #6 thing on the list. I've got five more things that will be much, much harder to replace. Stay with me, here.

#7 Thing I'll Miss About Home

The Pittsburgh accent.

This defies all logic, simply because I had no idea you could miss something that you absolutely despised. Make no mistake - I hate the Pittsburgh accent. It is virtually impossible to sound eloquent or even semi-intelligent when speaking Pittsburghese. Now, I've found that most people that have a strong Pittsburgh accent are neither eloquent nor semi-intelligent to begin with, but having the accent surely doesn't help. If the southern accent is hospitable, inviting, and altogether charming to the ears, then the Pittsburgh accent must be its ugly stepsister. And boy is she ever ugly. "Y'all" is so cute and nurturing. You can't help but smile when someone refers to you and your posse as "y'all". But come to Pittsburgh and you'll be referred to as "yinz". I used to think that adding a "z" to a word gave it pizazz. Just look at the word "pizazz" for example. It has THREE fucking Zs. That's pretty awesome. But "yinz" is so ugly and gag-inducing. I will never answer to "yinz". But my heart might melt to "y'all". Southern accent 1. Pittsburgh accent 0. Again, not sure how I'm going to miss something that I just insulted for an entire paragraph. Then again, you cannot hate what you do not love. And I'll hate the Pittsburgh accent all the way to Virginia. Until someone tells me I have a weird accent, in which case I'll all of a sudden grow a giant pair of hometown balls and starting defending myself.

"Yinz guys don' even know Picksburgh, you jag-offs! Don't git nebby wit me, I'll take ya dahntahn ya buncha clahns!"

^WTF DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.

*If you really want to know what I'm talking about in this blog post, study up.

#8 Thing I'll Miss About Home

The neighbors.

I find it insane that essentially the same people have lived on my street since I was a kid. While I was growing up, there were a few people that moved away, but even the new neighbors that moved in seemed like they'd been there forever. Which they have, if forever is only about 15 or so years. I live on a caul-de-sac, so it kind of makes everyone on my street part of a little cult, being that we're sort of "out of the way" of the rest of the neighborhood. This cultish feeling used to reign supreme on the 4th of July, where, for about 10 straight years, we had our own block party in which we would rope off the cul-de-sac so that no "intruders" could get in. To accomplish this, we literally tied a rope around my mailbox and the mailbox of the house that lived right across the street from us, blocking any cars from entrance. To be completely honest, I'm not even sure if we had legal permission for such an act. But it happened nonetheless. I'm going to miss all of the quirks that I've picked up on over the years. Over time, all of those little quirks that people have are what give you a sense of security, just because they're familiar. It makes you feel like your world is not rapidly changing, even when it most definitely is. Here are the neighbors and their neighborly quirks that have given me that secure feeling in my 23 years living on this street:

THE A's - The A's have lived right across the street from me ever since I was born. Just a few nights ago, I heard my mother refer to Mrs. A as "Martha Stewart". I asked her what that meant. She said something along the lines of "Oh, everyone calls her that!" I asked why. She said something similar to "Oh, because she has anything you need!" Nevermind the fact that I have no idea what the hell my mom was talking about, she's still somehow spot-on. Mrs. A does seem like Martha Stewart. But if you asked me to explain why, specifically, she seemed that way, I would have no words. I don't know why. It just feels right.

Mr. A, on the contrary, is a NASCAR-loving mountain man. And I use that term endearingly.  Mr. A is that kind, jovial, resembles-a-grizzly-bear guy that I think every neighborhood has at least one of. He used to own a giant styrofoam deer statue that he kept in his backyard and, when weather permitted, he would go outside with his bow and shoot arrows at the statue. It was pretty incredible to watch. From my bedroom window. Laughing. But that was just Mr. A. He could seem intimidating, but I'll bet he's just a big ol' softy at heart.

THE S's - The S's are an interesting story. They were cool when they had no kids. And then they had three. It was all downhill from there. The kids are child terrorists. I think everybody knows what a child terrorist is because they exist in every neighborhood. They're the kids that you look out the window and see standing on top of their mother's Chevy Tahoe holding their father's 9 iron. THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. They're the kids that you see setting up a ladder in the driveway, attempting to climb up and over the balcony to the front door, neglecting the staircase five feet away. THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. When you are harmlessly playing basketball in your driveway, these are the kids that will invite themselves over and inexplicably chase you around, smiling like Chuckie and trying to punch you in the "wiener" until you tell them you have to eat dinner and run inside for safety. And that actually happened FOUR OR FIVE TIMES. The father also inexplicably disappears for months at a time, though I guess that's none of my business. But if one of those kids ever shatters a testicle of mine, I'm going to make it my business.


THE M's - Even though they live directly to the right of my house and are always outside doing yardwork, I've literally spoken maybe five words to these people in my entire life. I remember about a week ago I was outside cutting the grass and I made eye contact with Mrs. M for the first time in about 12 years. She waved at me. I paused, then waved back. After I finished mowing the lawn, I ran inside to tell my brother that Mrs. M and I shared a moment. It's that rare.

Mr. M is also a stereotype that I believe every neighborhood has to have. He's the guy who cares WAY too much about his own lawn. There have been countless times where he's set out a sprinkler to water his lawn, only to coat half of our driveway instead. It has actually irked my father to the point of braving getting wet to simply move the sprinkler five feet in the other direction. There was actually a time when my brother Anthony and his friend Adam were playing basketball in the driveway (where things naturally seem to go wrong), and Mr. M's sprinkler was on. Anthony insists that the sprinkler fell over on its own and began shooting water at the side of the M's house. Apparently Mr. M then came outside, asked the boys if they had "done this", and then proceeded to accuse them of lying when they said no. Yes, Mr. M. Because we live to fuck with your lawn tools. Nothing gives me a greater adrenaline rush then just sprinting underneath that sprinkler and giving that thing a good what-for! I always hated that sprinkler, Mr. M. You always gave it more attention than me. AND NOW IT MUST DIEEEE!!!! Okay, enough about the M's.

THE H's - The H's are the the family that no one ever sees. They live on the very last house on the cul-de-sac, hidden behind some giant evergreens and a wooden fence. They don't interact with anyone. Not even so much as a wave when driving by. And boy, do they EVER drive by. On any given day, I will see the father drive up and down our street about fifteen times. I haven't the faintest clue what anybody's occupation is in that family, but if I had to guess, the father is probably an accountant. Just seems that way. I have literally never made eye contact with any of the members of the H family. None. Zero. Every time one of them drives by, I stop what I'm doing and look at their car, hoping for that to be the time that they FINALLY wave or even give me one of those weird head nods. But nothing. When I move in 8 days, I will miss the H's. And as they silently drive by, offering nary a glance in my direction, I will assume they'll miss me too. After all, that's one less person awkwardly staring at them every time they get in their car. I JUST WANTED A HEAD NOD! Okay.

BOB DOG - I don't know Bob Dog's last name. Nobody does. It could be "dog" for all I know, which would really ruin the novelty of the clever nickname. Bob lives in the house in between the H's and the A's. He has a little dog named "Sparky" that I've had far more (unfortunate) interaction with. The dog is so annoying. It exists in every neighborhood. The dog that barks at nothing. That barks too loud at nothing. That barks too loud at nothing in an impossibly high pitch. This dog's bark is the definition of a "yap". But this is the only companion that Bob has, and thusly, why we call him "Bob Dog".

My favorite Bob Dog memory comes from a game of kickball that took place on the cul-de-sac when I was about 9 or 10 years old. We were kicking the ball in the direction of Bob Dog's house, which seemed stupid to begin with, but hey, we were kids. I can safely say this is one of the few times in my formative years that I could have been referred to as a child terrorist. Our friend Matt, easily the biggest kid among us, kicked the ball so far that it actually struck Bob Dog's front door, sending screws and various other pieces flying in all directions. I don't know if you've ever seen someone literally knock a door off of its hinges with a kickball, but its pretty fucking awesome. Obviously not planning on sticking around to accept any responsibility, we all took off running and dove over the giant hill in my backyard, tumbling to the bottom in a fit of boyhood giggles. I honestly don't remember what happened next. I guess the door got fixed at some point, but I sure as hell didn't do it. Oh well. Sorry, Bob Dog. And sorry for calling you Bob Dog.

THE F's -  There isn't much to say about the F's. For some reason, our family isn't too fond of them. I'm pretty sure something happened in my youth that led to this, but my parents have never spoken of it. I guess they're just not very nice people. The most interesting thing about them is that Mr. F used to work for Pepsi, so every halloween you got a can of Pepsi to add an unwanted six ounces to your already sagging bag of candy. It took us a long time to realize we should just go to their house last. Another odd thing about the F's is that you could hear Mrs. F yell at her son from INSIDE your own house. I can't tell you how many times my television show was interrupted by the chastising words of one Mrs. F. I was 100% convinced most times that she was murdering her child. And I am now 100% surprised that he is still alive. Well, you still got 8 days til' I'm gone. Don't let me miss out on anything exciting! Earlier this summer, when I was waiting tables, I spotted Mr. and Mrs. F. They were in my section, but they weren't my table. I walked over to tell them that their server would be right with them. Before I could get the words out, Mrs. F said "Oh, hey! How are you?" Before I could respond, I noticed Mr. F glance at my nametag. He had no fucking clue who I was. I'm going to miss that kind of neighborly camraderie when I move. God love ya, F's. Never change.

Alright, so I'm not really close with any of the neighbors on my street. But isn't that the point of neighbors? You tolerate them. As long as they aren't pissing on your front door, they're okay by you. And as far as I know, none of my neighbors have done that. But its those little neighborhood quirks that make a house a home. I'm damn glad I had a grizzly man living next door to me. And demon spawn. And lawn care enthusiasts. Also, any time you can refer to someone as "Bob Dog", it's never a bad thing. You should try it sometime. Really rolls off the tongue. ANYWAY, I will miss all of these neighbors greatly. And I'm sure they'd all miss me too just as long as they knew who I was. I'm lookin' at you, Mr. F. Get your shit together.

#9 Thing I'll Miss About Home

My bathroom.

I've used the same bathroom since I was a kid. This is where I learned to poop. Where I peed on the seat. Where I threw up after a night of drinking. This is where I cried in the bathtub as my mother poured warm water over my head to wash the shampoo out of my eyes. Where I shaved for the first time. Where I cut myself shaving for the first time. Where I spent, admittedly, far too many wasted hours getting my hair to look just the right way (it never did). This is where I sat, leg propped up, as my mother tried her best to wash my foot after an accident that required 17 stitches (see past blog entry, At the Speed of Stupid). This is the bathroom where I once puked jumbalaya while taking a shower and had to use my own fingers to get it to go down the drain. In this bathroom I've popped zits, brushed my teeth, trimmed my beard, and even straightened my hair during a two or three month phase in high school that ended when a girl said "Did you straighten your hair?" I told her yes and she told me she liked it. But I knew what she meant. And with that, I stopped. But the bathroom memories continued. This is the bathroom where I invented the PSS and got others to buy into the concept of the PSS. If you don't know what a PSS is, you'll never know. Because I'm not telling you. If you do it, you'll know. And you'll chuckle.

I'm not going to lie, it's going to be hard getting used to a new bathroom. I've only known the likes of a few in my entire lifetime. They say you'll never know what you had until it's gone. Well I know all too well what I'll be losing when I leave. The toilet where I wrote some of my best music lyrics. The mirror that made me feel good, bad, and sometimes completely indifferent about my physical appearance. The shower where I cried a little bit after girl #7 broke up with me (girl #7 can be found in a near-future blog entry. Be patient.) This bathroom has always been there. No matter what was going on in my life, how I was feeling, or what Mexican chain restaurant I ate at the previous day, the bathroom was always there to listen to my problems. I know it probably sounds silly to refer to a bathroom as a best friend, but I'm way beyond losing my dignity via blog post. So I'll say it.

I love you, bathroom. You're my best friend. I'll miss you almost as much as the top eight things on this list. And a little more than the spot on the couch that I now occupy.

Top 10 Things I'll Miss About Home

For those unaware, in ten days I will be moving from my quaint suburban parents house in McDonald, PA to live with some friends in Manassas, VA. I myself am having a hard time believing this, so I haven't the heart to imagine what could be going through my mother's head. I have lived in this house since the day I was born, save for the four years I spent in Harrisonburg, VA when I attended James Madison University. But even then my summers were spent in this western Pennsylvania suburb that has consumed the first 23 years of my life. So I've never truly been gone. But in ten days I will be. So, as an ode to my hometown, I will compile a list of the top ten things that I anticipate missing after my departure. I will try to have one entry each over the next ten days, ultimately culminating in an epic Shakespearean farewell on October the 27th. Or maybe not. I tend to romanticize goodbyes too much (hence the entire premise of this top ten list). So, without much ado about nothing, I'll begin the list.


#10 THING I'LL MISS ABOUT HOME
The spot on the couch that I am now occupying. I don't know if anyone else has a specific favorite spot that you always prefer to sit, but I definitely do. In our family room, on the far right side of our couch, with the leg rest pulled up. This is where I've watched Sportscenter every morning. Where I've watched the Steelers every Sunday. Where I've endured numerous nerve-racking Penguins games. Where I've sat, not paying attention, as the Pirates game played along in the background. Ultimately, this is the spot where I've uttered a thoroughly un-Christian amount of curse words to no one in particular. And my butt will miss it dearly.

"Why does she keep DOING that?!"

When Jackie found the baby, seated quietly on the front porch of the beach house, he couldn't even tell that it was human. The only visible parts of the baby were the face and hands, as the rest of the body was enveloped in a giant winter coat with the hood tied tight around the head. It still looked cute, just...weird. What the hell? Jackie thought to himself as he approached the door, carrying a brand new store-bought case of Limonada, not the kind that leaves "that taste in your mouth". Jackie walked slowly up to the door, mystified, and put the key in the lock, all the while keeping his eyes on that weird baby creature. As he turned the key, the baby looked up at him and smiled.

"Ohhhkay. H-h-hey there, buddy." Jackie stuttered.

As Jackie pushed the door open, the baby jumped up, eager to follow.

"You comin' too? Okay, whatever. C'mon."

Jackie didn't mind sharing his beach house with a strange baby he had just met. In fact, he didn't really care about anything at this point. All he really cared to know was a) he wasn't at work, and b) his irritable bowl syndrome hadn't acted up in 48 straight hours, a new record. These two factors alone would make it a wonderful vacation, strange baby or no strange baby. As Jackie slowly wandered into the house, the baby took off running up the stairs and out of sight.

"Hey, where you goin!" Jackie shouted.

The baby didn't answer, as most babies are (annoyingly) wont to do. Jackie was intrigued though. If the baby would have just stayed within his eyeline, he would have had no problem completely neglecting it and sipping a tall glass of limonada until the cows came home. In fact, Jackie didn't give a fuck if the cows stayed out all night, he was going to sip his limonada to his heart's content. And, actually, he didn't give a fuck what his heart thought about it. He was going to sip that limonada like it was nobody's business. Truth be told, it probably should have been somebody's business. Like the police. Or the baby's parents. But Jackie cared not. Tall. Glass. Limonada. Bitch. Until the thing executed a perfect baby-stumble up the stairs and into God knows what kind of trouble. Jackie, for the first time in his life, felt a strange sense of adult obligation. He sensed immediate danger.

Jackie ran up the stairs after the baby, instinctively calling out "Baby!" like the child was going to answer him at a moment's notice. Again, no answer. Jackie paused in the center of the second floor of the beach house. There were at least fourteen doors, each in it's own seemingly random mini-hallway of the house. Jackie paused and waited to hear some sort of blood-curdling baby scream. Or a cat's "meow" followed by falling trash cans and shattering glass. But all was silent. Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine. Jackie thought. Thing seemed fine sitting alone on the fucking porch, after all. Abandoning his baby-search after a not-so-desperate 30 or so seconds, Jackie ascended the stairs to the 3rd floor. He dropped his limonada off at the fridge and headed toward the giant sliding glass door at the far side of the open room. As he stepped outside, the ocean breeze attacked his hair while the salty scent of the sea encircled him. He put his hands on the splintered wood and took in a deep breath. Relaxation.

At this moment, a scurrying parade of tiny footsteps sucked Jackie out of his moment of zen. He turned around quickly, hoping to meet the eyes of that strange little baby. But there was nothing there. The sound of the footsteps was gone too. Jackie turned back around, losing himself once more in the calming vibes emanating from the ever-crashing water of the waves. Taking in another deep breath, he was once again caught off guard by a feverish flurry of footsteps that he could have sworn were right behind him. He turned his whole body around this time, expecting to catch at least a glimpse of that weird little baby. But once again, nothing.

"If you think you're funny, well you're not, baby." Jackie shouted, consumed by the aphrodisiac that is the Atlantic.

Jackie turned back around, started humming, and raised his arms into the sky, remniscent of Andy Dufresne after his escape from Shawshank. He was seriously relaxed by whatever this ocean breeze was doing to him. It was getting a little weird, even by vacation standards. At this precise moment, the baby bolted at unbaby-like speed through the open sliding glass door onto the deck, and, like a pole-vaulter, leaped over the railing. Jackie thought he heard something. He barely opened one eye, still humming, arms still raised, and caught a glimpse of the baby falling toward what would be a certain death if this were not a fairy tale story. Jackie was hysterical.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

The baby's back bounced off of the ground like rubber, catapulting it all the way back up to deck-level where it hung in mid-air and stared at Jackie, rendering him silent. The baby smiled, spat in Jackie's left eye, then began falling to the ground again. Jackie was hysterical.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

The baby once again bounced off of the ground like a super ball, shooting back up to deck-level at unbaby-like speed, this time landing on the deck next to Jackie.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Jackie shouted, completely neglecting the apparent age of the toddler's ears.

The baby shrugged and waddled back into the house, acting like it didn't just jump off of a fucking deck. Jackie looked once more over the railing to the ground below, expecting to see some sort of conveniently placed trampoline or something. But there was nothing. Just a baby-shaped imprint in the sandy earth. He ran back into the house and called out to the baby.

"Hey, baby! Get the fuck in here, we're gonna talk about this!"

But the baby would not cooperate. Jackie searched desperately for the baby, this time opening all fourteen doors on the second floor and hearing nary the faintest of baby toots anywhere. He decided to retire to his limonada. Surely he had been seeing things. Surely there was not even a baby present in this house. Surely a sip of delicious limonada would set his mind straight. So Jackie poured. Then sat. And sipped. For the next half-hour, this was all that occured. No sounds, no footsteps, no hardcore base-jumping babies. Finally. He thought. THIS is a vacation.

Jackie sat up in the shitty plastic seat and sipped his limonada, allowing every gram of sugar to wet his thoroughly exhausted whistle. He ignored the jagged edges of the tearing plastic as they dug into his spine like the claws of a cat. This bed of nails was still better than work. In fact, it might as well have been heaven. Jackie thought a vacation to Floggit, the most popular German-themed nude beach in all of New Virginia, might do him and even the baby some good. He couldn't speak for the baby though. After all, he had only known her for a little more than five minutes, and to this point hadn't taken to calling her anything except "baby". But she had some serious issues with jumping off of that fucking deck, so maybe she could use a little relaxation time to clear her thoughts, whatever those thoughts may be. What a fucking weirdo. Jackie thought to himself. Maybe she's an alien.

Just as Jackie started to believe that the baby may have been a mirage, he heard the footsteps again. They didn't seem to be coming from any specific direction. He kind of heard them in surround-sound,  which was infinitely creepier than regular sound. The baby was all around him, and yet...nowhere. Before Jackie could raise his tall glass of limonada to his lips for another sip, he saw it. The blur of a baby leaped over the couch and straight through the sliding glass door, coming to a stop right before the railing. The baby stared down Jackie. Jackie slowly stood up and raised a single finger toward the little demon spawn.

"I swear, baby. If you EVEN fucking j-"

Before Jackie could even get the words out, the baby stuck out its tongue and leaped backwards over the railing, once more engaging in the single strangest baby activity Jackie had ever seen a baby do.

"Why does she keep DOING that?!" Jackie shouted, making his way over to the deck.

Just as he was about to step out onto the glass-covered deck, Jackie heard a voice from inside the house.

"Hey! Hey you!"

"Wh-Wh-Who said that?" Jackie stammered, slowly turning his body back toward the open room.

"The couch! Come to the couch!" said the voice.

Jackie hurried over to the cream-colored couch and knelt down on the floor.

"Get under here," the voice from the couch demanded.

"You can talk?!" whispered Jackie loudly.

"I'm under the couch, you wiener" said the voice.

Jackie looked under the couch. There was an older man, a black man, lying on his stomach and motioning for Jackie to join him.

"Hurry up, she's almost done!" said the man.

Jackie got on his stomach and slowly pushed his body into the tight space beneath the couch. The man held out his left hand.

"Frank," he said.

Jackie paused, then shook the mans left hand with his right hand.

"Jack."

"Well, Jack, welcome to hell!" said Frank with a smile.

"What is that thing?" asked Jack.

"A baby girl, as far as I can tell." Frank said, laughing with his eyes.

"Well what the fuck are we doing under the -"

Before Jackie could finish, Frank's hand covered his mouth, muffling the last few words. Frank shook his head and wagged his finger as if to say "No." Jackie heard a thud and then footsteps entering the room. The baby had just completed her latest death-defying act, and Jackie was now more confused then he had been five minutes earlier, when a fucking BABY jumped off of a fucking DECK. The footsteps walked right past the couch and down the stairs, slowly out of earshot. After a few silent seconds, Jackie heard the front door slam. Frank took his hand off of Jackie's mouth.

"What the fuck,  man?!" shouted Jackie.

"I know," said Frank, "The door slam is the worst part."

"What the hell does that mean?" asked Jackie.

"Means you're trapped, my friend. We both are." Frank said cryptically.

"Trapped?!" shouted Jackie. "You can stay, buddy, I'm fucking leaving."

Frank grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him in close. His eyes meant business and Jackie could tell. Shit was about to get real.

"You can't fucking leave, Jackie boy, do you hear me? You can't. You think I haven't tried? She won't let you, boy. Do you hear me? SHE. WON'T. LET. YOU."

"She won't let me?" asked Jackie, bewildered.

"Won't. Let. You." Frank repeated.

"So, she won't let me?" Jackie asked once more, smiling and emphasizing the word "she" to let Frank know that he was being held captive by a fucking baby girl.

"SHE WON'T LET YOU LEAVE! NOT NOW! NOT EVER! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" screamed Frank, wiping the smile clean off of Jackie's face.

Jackie paused and looked around. He moved his mouth, but no words came out.

"Just trust me." said Frank. "For the love of God and all things holy, just trust the lonely black man you just found under a couch. It could save your life."

Jackie felt an odd sense of comraderie with the man and an even stranger sense of trust. He decided to comply with orders.

"Okay. So what do we do?"

Frank stared into nothingness and shook his head.

"Frank! What do we do?" Jackie repeated.

Frank slowly tilted his head upward, casting his gaze from the floor to Jackie's eyes.

"We wait." Frank said stoically.

"For what?"

"For the next poor bastard that wanders into this God-forsaken house."

Jackie stared at Frank as he laid his head on the floor. For a few brief seconds, he wished his irritable bowel syndrome would act up so he could open that front door and take a giant dump on the baby's head. But his rectum felt nothing. Jackie laid his head on the floor next to Frank and closed his eyes. Worst vacation ever. He thought. Worst fucking vacation EVER.

"Give me the shark, bro."

As Tony was riding the shark he had stolen from Rinny's water-garage, the unbearable bucking of the bronco-like animal crushed his only remaining testicle over and again, the Gallagher to his watermelon. Tony cried out in anguish, in a way that only a man who's lone testicle is being flattened by the weight of an 18-foot pregnant clown shark can.

"Susie! Plug your ears, dear sister! Plug 'em! Do you have them plugged? Susie?"

"Yes, brother!"

"Good! MY BALL! MY LITTLE FUCKING BALL! OWWWWWWCHHHHH!"

"When would you like me to plug my ears, dear brother?"

"God damnit, Susan. Sometimes with you, I swear. Just sometimes with you. Really. Sometimes. Honestly."

"Sorry."

"It's okay, it's not your fault. Do you still have your gun on you?"

"Yes."

"Mind bustin' a cap in this clown shark's clown ass?"

"I guess so."

Little Susie whipped out her favorite handgun, a brand new Remington R1, and kissed the shiny metal frame. No one really understood the six year-old's fascination with weaponry, but for some really supremely fucked up reason, nobody cared. In fact, Tony, left to care for his little sister in the wake of the unresolved double homicide that took the lives of their parents, encouraged the bearing of arms.

"I'll give you a piece of advice, dear sister. Everyone wants to fucking kill you. Learn to shoot a gun. I don't give a fuck how old you are. Mom! The baby threw up again!"

Conversations like that happened all the time. It's a wonder that it took Susan six whole years to utter her first curse word, especially considering how quickly she picked up shooting as a hobby. And it's not like Susan was a bad shot, she was actually pretty fucking good. It's just that she never really developed any moral restraint when it came to choosing targets. This awful fact, although not boding well for the numerous rabbits, raccoons, and various neighborhood cats that wandered into the wrong backyard, was a blessing to Tony and his current ball-breaking predicament.


KA-FUCKING-BOOM!

Susan had struck the shark square in the clown nose, exploding it into a million pieces, once again calling forth memories of that old bastard, Gallagher. After the pieces had ceased falling like hellfish rain from an unforgiving black sky, Susie looked around, trying in vain to spot her older brother.

"Tone? Tone?! TONY!!!"

Just then, Susan heard the faint shouting of a man falling out of the sky like Chris Rock in Dogma.

"Niiiiiiice shotttttttttttttttttttt" said the voice, getting louder and louder with every drawn-out syllable.

Then Susie looked up, witnessing her caretaker of some five odd years, falling to what would surely be his death if this were not a made-up fairytale story. The body of Tony hit the water at such an angle that the noise could only be rivaled by the fatal shot from the Remington R1 that had just seriously fucked up a pregnant 18-foot clown shark. Susie assumed death. As the tears began to fall, she collapsed to her tiny knees, putting her face into her tiny hands.

"First Mom and Dad, now Tony! Why can't I not-murder anyone right?!"

"I'll take that as a confession, you little twat."

The voice was muffled by a throat full of water, so it actually sounded a lot more like:

Gargle. Slosh. Spit. Gargle. "Twat."

Susie gasped and whipped her head around. Lifting itself onto the shark-stained dock was a truly ugly and horrifying sight. Tony looked like shit. He was completely fine and totally uninjured, but his haircut made him look like "a bald eagle homo" according to Susie. She never liked the haircut, not since a half hour earlier when Tony had insisted he "make a change" in his life. Tony stood before Susan, arms crossed, glaring like a soccer mom watching her son continuously fuck up tying his cleats.

"Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?" Susie whined, gun in hand.

"What, that you killed them?"

"MOM AND DAD ARE DEAD?!"

"What the fuck, Susie? Just give it up. You lost. It's over."

It was right at this moment of ensuing sibling rivalry that a voice beckoned from above.

"Give me the shark, bro."

Tony would recognize this voice anywhere. It was Rinny, who appeared to be legitimately pissed that Tony had stolen the 18-foot pregnant clown shark from his water-garage. Ah, fuck. Tony thought. Now I'm really gonna get it. Rinny was an angry fella, and Tony didn't much care for him. The man had been insisting for years that he was the elder, smarter brother of Tony and Susie, but Tony never remembered having an older brother, especially one that had a strange obsession with collecting sharks in his water-garage. Just the other day, Rinny had gotten on Tony's last nerve. Rinny had phoned Tony and, in very serious tones, insisted that he and Susie meet him for coffee later that afternoon. When they met, Rinny pulled out a manila folder full of newspaper clippings, saved e-mails, and a birth certificate alleging Rinny as the blood-related older brother of Tony and Susie. The newspaper clippings detailed the murder of their parents at the hands of a 3 year-old Susie, and the saved e-mails contained vulgar photos of Rinny's ex-girlfriend, something he had accidentally placed in the wrong manila folder.

Tony had always prohibited Susan from partaking in any and all television programs, as well as most technology as a whole, so when her virgin eyes met the vulgar photos, Tony snapped.

"What the fuck, dude? You invite me out for coffee and then ruin my little sister's life? Look at her, man. She doesn't even know where she is right now."

In Susan's defense, she actually legitimately had no idea where she was at the time. Rinny insisted that it was a coffee shop, but judging by the topless women and misplaced fire-poles, it could have easily been some kind of strip club. This was vintage Rinny. He was just so silly. You never knew what you were going to get, though you could usually assume it would be something sexual in nature.

After the coffee shop/strip club debacle, Tony vowed to "do Rinny somethin' REAL dirty". Tony had no idea what that meant at the time, he kind of just liked the way it sounded. But the more he repeated the statement to himself in the mirror while cutting himself with broken bottles of Great Lakes Nosferatu as the Black Eyed Peas hit single "I've Got a Feeling" played along in the background, the more it made sense to him. He devised a plan to steal Rinny's most prized possession - the 18-foot pregnant clown shark that he was planning to sell to "put Susan through college". Tony knew bullshit when he heard it. And Rinny was like the Chris Berman of bullshit. So, with a blue Expo marker in hand, Tony immediately drew up the blueprints for "Shark Steal 2.0" on a paper towel he had previously been using to dab the numerous cuts on his arms.

To this point, the plan had gone as appropriately as the paper towel had detailed. Tony had stolen the shark, ridden it into the bay, and convinced his sharp-shooting sister that it was squishing his only ball. Susie, never one to be gun-shy, had instantly taken the bait and murdered the 18-foot pregnant clown shark with one incredibly accurate bullet to the face. Tony had never anticipated this last part of the plan, however. Rinny rarely showed his face during the day, insisting that he considered himself more of a "night owl, baby". Tony knew what this meant. Rinny was hungover during the day, and the slighest ray of sunlight could easily send him into a temporary blindness. But here was Rinny, braving the blindness, calling out to Tony and Susie from his balcony made of whalebones.

"The fuck do you want, buttfuckface?" asked Tony, clearly abusing his love for cuss words.

"GIVE ME THE SHARK, BRO!" shouted Rinny, seemingly unaware of the gun being wielded by the six year-old he had wanted to put through college some four days earlier.

"What makes you think I have your stupid shark?" asked Tony, covered from head to toe in the bloody remains of Rinny's 18-foot pregnant clown shark.

"Yeah, what makes you think we have your stupid shark?" asked Susie, shrugging with gun in hand, covered from head to toe in the bloody remains of Rinny's 18-foot pregnant clown shark.

"You guys are actin' funny." said Rinny. "And why does she have a gun?"

Before Rinny could continue his investigation, Susie shot him in the crotch. Rinny screamed in obvious pain, tumbling over his balcony into the water below. For his final few seconds, Rinny appeared as a fish out of water, flailing his arms and saying things like "I can't swim!" and "No seriously, I can't swim!" Tony and Susie didn't listen. They knew better than to believe Rinny's lies and manila folders full of what he liked to call "facts". He was SUCH a bullshitter.

Susie said something, but it was tough to decipher the words over the noise. Tony watched Rinny, the giant flopping fish, casting tiny tidal waves of murky black water over the warped wooden deck, ruining Susan's new pink and royal blue Nike Shox. She repeated herself, emphasizing the words so that Tony could understand.

"Ah, poop!"

"What's wrong, Susan?" asked Tony, ignoring the dangerous flailing animal before him.

Susan sighed heavily and, for the first time in her life, uttered a curse word.

"My fucking shoes, you fucking asshole. Fucking look at them, they're fucking ruined! For fuck's sake, I just fucking bought these fucking pieces of fucking shit. FUCK! ASS!"

Tony's face grew red. He knew that the only possible way his six year-old sister could have learned such language was from him, not five minutes earlier. Susie sighed heavily and cast her gun into the water behind her. It landed with a splash, echoing one more time the silly sentiments of that God damn Gallagher guy.

"I'm never shooting again." she started. "Every time I do, something bad happens."

"I'm proud of you, sister." Tony said, putting his arm around his young sibling.

"Thank you, brother." Susie said quietly, for once in her life sounding as the innocent child she appeared to be on the outside.

As Rinny finally quit his desperate attempt to remain above the surface of the water, the sun followed suit, setting on the bloody fiasco that was Tony and Susie's day. As they began to walk away from the scene, now best friends more than siblings, Susie stopped.

"Tony?"

"Yeah, Sus?"

"What's a buttfuckface?"

Tony laughed out loud and patted Susie on the head.

"Oh, Sus." he started. "I love you."

He paused.

"But seriously don't kill anyone else, okay?"

"Okay, Tony."

"That's a good girl. Now come on, there's a train to Mexico with your name on it."

Susie's face lit up. The only thing she enjoyed more than firearms was speaking fluent Spanish.

"Viva la Mexico!" she shouted.

Tony stopped, allowing the phrase to envelope his very being. A tear raced down his cheek as the realization came to him. Their lives would never be the same.

"Viva la Mexico indeed, dear sister. Viva la Mexico indeed."

In Somnis Veritas

I'm lazy and don't blog. Here's an essay I wrote in my personal narrative class during my senior year at James Madison. The instructions were to write an "experimental" essay. Basically, write whatever the hell you want, however the hell you want, about whatever the hell you want. And so I did. Just to answer the obvious question - "in somnis veritas" is a Latin phrase that translates roughly to "trying way too hard to title a piece". Really, though, it translates to "in dreams there is truth".

-

                                                 In Somnis Veritas

A woman follows a man to the end of town where he abandons his red pick-up in favor of beat-up white tennis shoes. From a neighboring flower garden, she watches as the silhouette against the moon undresses quickly and nervously, revealing itself to her eyes and the stars. His outfit of choice, usually the dark sweatshirt and torn jeans, fits over his rugged body tightly, fabric becoming his skin.  She sometimes wishes he wouldn’t cloak the outfit with a black sheet, but knows this will never happen. He must slip among the sleeping undetected. Unseen. Unfelt. But she sees him and she feels him. She wishes it was her window he was sneaking to. And she wishes it was her body he was planning to touch. Maybe one day she will show herself to him.  He will pause before crossing the street, look to his right, and as their eyes catch, a small and inviting smirk will call her over, an obvious welcome invitation. Then they will work as a team. Until then, she will watch him from afar and admire his passion for the craft.

The woman watches as the man emerges from the front door of a suburban home, face full of purpose, a goal accomplished. His black cloak appears to be unscathed, but she knows the love that graces its fine flowing fibers. She’s dreamt of being a part of that cloak. On that cloak. Wrapped inside that cloak. The man’s tennis shoes clap against the sidewalk as he disappears to the other side of the street, taking one last glance over his shoulder to appreciate a job well done. The woman smiles from afar, wishing his one last glance would have met her eyes. As she hears the red pick-up begin to speed away, her heart occupies the passenger seat. She misses him when he’s not around.

The boy in the backseat nestles his six year-old head against his father’s arm. As the gears begin to turn, the boy looks to his father for affirmation. Everything’s going to be fine. The boy turns to look at his mother, who waves encouragingly from the other side of the track. The father gives a thumbs-up. They begin to ascend toward the sky, climbing higher and higher toward a wonderful rush of adrenaline. As the interminable twelve seconds elapse, the world becomes larger, more oppressive. Clouds suspend like wisps of cotton on an endless strip of blue felt. The sound of the gears abruptly stops as the moving boxes begin to level out, rolling, almost floating along the giant steel structure. The father looks toward the boy and chuckles. The boy shakes. He grabs the father’s arm tighter as they hang in mid-air, weightless for an eternity of exchanged glances.

The wind rushes toward the boy at one thousand miles an hour, sucking the saline from his eyes and the oxygen from his lungs. But he is not crying. The trees, in a high-speed slideshow, race in green abstractions across the boy’s retinas as his brain fires synapse after synapse at an even faster rate. Excitement. The father shouts. The boy smiles. The boy shouts. The father smiles. Rays of afternoon sunshine kiss the hot metal and light up the faces of a father and son, melting a frozen moment in time. The boy raises his arms as the picture show of trees concludes, declaring his will to repeat the adventure immediately. The father laughs and high-fives the boy. They giggle together as the mother looks on from afar, smiling at her two boys.

A crowd of thousands has gathered this afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. Today, they are expecting the birth of a baby Bengal tiger. The event has garnered endless attention from local and national media outlets alike, and has further excited the owners of the zoo. They stand to make an immense profit from the day’s events. As the crowd gathers around the interlocking iron bars of the mother tiger’s cage, a young man with a mustache peers inside, leaning his head against the cylindrical black pipes. He nervously looks out over the crowd, hidden behind sunglasses and a dark blue windbreaker with its collar turned up. A bee lands on his neck. He swats at his collar, narrowly missing the yellow and black assailant.  Turning his attention back to the cage, he checks his watch. After breathing a heavy sigh, he crosses his arms and looks around the crowd once more. Rays of afternoon sunlight kiss the hot metal fence in front of him, reflecting off of his sunglasses and back into the air.

A fat man in a San Diego Chargers jersey takes up a sizeable plot of land in the middle of the crowd. He appears to be an islander of some sort – possibly Hawaiian or even Tongan – with tribal tattoos decorating his exposed lower legs. He repeatedly wipes his nose using his right thumb and middle finger, left hand remaining in the pocket of his tan cargo shorts at all times. His protruding chubby cheeks make it near impossible to see his face from a profile point of view, and his tangling locks of dark, Hawaiian hair make it near impossible to see those protruding chubby cheeks. A grasshopper jumps slowly among his giant white tennis shoes, directing his eyes away from the cage to his humongous feet. He pauses and shifts his weight to his left leg. His left hand slowly exits his cargo shorts pocket and rises into the air. He sneezes, loses his balance, and narrowly misses stepping on the little green creature, which has taken to the air in fright.

I look out over the crowd and as the fat man loses his balance, I catch a short glimpse of a beautiful dark-haired woman. I remove my sunglasses slowly as her starry green eyes meet mine from afar. She smiles. I smile. She laughs. I laugh. I motion for her to come up to the front of the crowd with me. She looks around, frowns, shrugs, then smiles. I smile. I motion her over again, this time bigger, more exaggerated, an obvious welcome invitation. After staring at me for a few seconds, she bites her lip then taps the fat man on the shoulder. She whispers something to him and points toward the cage. The towering, chubby islander chuckles and moves aside, allowing the woman to squeeze through. An interminable twelve seconds elapse until she finally emerges from the crowd, cloaked in a beautiful red sundress with a floral pattern.

“Hey.”

“You made it.”

“Yeah! Ooh, this view is much better.”

“Isn’t it great?”

“Shh, here she comes!”

The mother tiger slowly paces out on her pads, a stalker from the night. All eyes are on her as she emerges from the dark, face full of purpose, a goal accomplished. Behind the mother walks a tiny baby Bengal tiger, still dripping wet from the birth. He stumbles slowly over toward the mother, who is lying down and licking her fur. The orange, white, and black striped beauty has birthed three baby boys. Two identical baby Bengal tigers march out from the darkness, bumbling toward the mother and her first son. They all lie down next to one another and shake, but they are not crying. The crowd collectively smiles at this beautiful display. The man and woman lean up against the cage and stare at one another. He smiles. She smiles. The mother purrs gently as she rubs her giant furry head against her newborns.

The lighthouse keeper sleeps in the dark, a winding staircase between him and a giant golden bulb. The beacon shines across the sea, saving ships of strangers from swallowing water. He dreams of waking up to a shoreline full of wreckage – worn wooden planks graced by nary a ghost of the absent crew. The scent of salt and washed-up sea life pervades his every thought. Still, the bulb shines. He ascends the staircase every morning and speaks his peace. There will come a day when he’ll see the ships. He’ll smell the salt. The crew will not be absent and the ghosts will not appear. The people will be real, alive, longing for companionship after long years at sea. He will invite them in to meet the bulb, their saving grace. They’ll know that the calm grows calmer the further you go. But the ocean’s no lover. It tortures the coast.

Each scenario that enters my mind is absurd. I can’t make sense of them and I can’t sense of this. I just know that it exists. All we know is we exist. Our heads overflow, thoughts seeping out of the cracks in the walls to a world that we’re not in. The architect did not design the room with this intent. You ask me not to leave. I have to. I ask you not to leave. You’re going to. We ask one another to measure the adoration we feel by using the length of our limbs. My wingspan, albeit small, indulges your curiosity. We laugh. You ask if I will visit. I’ll be there. We will watch fireworks on the fourth of July and we will be just fine. As we lie on what was ten minutes ago a made bed, our minds are one machine. The world outside sleeps, a thief with no key. We will never exist in this world.  We won’t have to.