Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Are you Smarter than my Housemates?

Happy (almost) New Year! In the spirit of "out with the old and in with the new" here's a rant.

A palate-cleanser. Feel free to look at this when you're done.

I am not the best housemate. I have clutter. I sometimes leave dishes in the sink overnight. I'm sure there are a dozen other things that would drive another housemate insane - including my complaining about the shit that they do. But here's the thing: I am capable of change.

Let me introduce you to my housemates: CAN'T and WON'T. They're both stuck in some pre-pubescent developmental stage where one can not learn new things and one chooses not to learn new things. I'm not sure which is worse. I'm very tired of looking after them. So tired, in fact, I've stopped doing things in my house. We need a new faucet, but I know if I install one it'll be broken in a week. I've had broken lights in the kitchen, two bedrooms, and the basement for years because one of them doesn't know the difference between a pull-chain and a lawnmower pull-start. There's a gas clothes dryer in the basement waiting to be hooked up, but I know - I know- the second I hook it up one of the two is going to burn my house down.

What can I do? Well, rant about it for a bit. With apologies for pictures of my dirty house - I simply cannot clean up after three grown men (including myself).

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Become The Snail

Art by Griff

 “Wherever you go, there you are,” said the nomad. I half raised my ale in salute, appreciating the words if not absorbing them.

“To being there.” I added after a moment of performed reflection.

The nomad nodded, but I felt he wanted more. We sat for a second.

“Who are you?” He asked.

Shoreline

Art by Jen

 Shoreline.

A fractal meeting place.

Infinite collisions on the coast.

Water meeting rocks making sand.

Algae floating and sinking and, maybe, in a million, transforming.

I watched a beached boat rock back and forth as the water massaged it. I felt like an interloper - someone in the sitting room of a hospice facility. This boat had been born, lived its life, and now Sat here rotting. I had never experienced it in its halcyon days. I had never even seen it float. I knew it only as the boat on the beach. The rotting boat on the beach. It would eventually rot completely or be taken away to whatever dump they put boats in.

There Wolf?

Art by Jered

 "Yes, I'm aware of the problem," I said into the phone. "And no, Mister Mayor, I don't have a solution."

I was met with a curse and a dead line - he'd hung up on me.

"So much for that," I muttered to myself. I don't know why I'm supposed to have the answers to the recent killing spree, but I kept getting the calls. It seemed to me this was more of a job for the sheriff or someone more senior in government. Why involve a lowly lumberjack like myself was beyond me, but I wasn't a lumberjack because of my brains.

The killings had shaken the village. They were gristly affairs - either the result of a wild animal or a wild man masquerading as such. The first death - the killing of a town drunk - had been excused as a man who'd stumbled into trouble. The second was an unfortunate coincidence - a farmer who'd probably been protecting his animals from an unknown assailant. It was the third killing, however, that had roused the community to action. Little Suzie had just turned ten the week before. Her body - or what was left of it - had been found by her seven year old brother.