Tag Archives: writing

Apr 24 2012
27 Comments
Fiction, Stories, Two minute read

Me and God Kicking it at Six Flags

Yeah, we did this one too.

Instead of participating in class today, I daydreamed about going to an amusement park with God.

I was wearing my adventure sandals and he was in his Old Testament kicks and rocking those sweet B.C. robes. He got us both in for free because he knew someone at the front gate and right away we decided our goal was to go on every single roller coaster at least once. We had gotten there early and spent the entire day dominating the place—zooming through the rides and egging on park employees in a good way, as if bantering with me and Holy Joe was the fulfillment of their entire careers as amusement park workers.

God had every right to be unimpressed with the amusement park, what with its sausagy people, the endemic smell of old nacho cheese, and the inevitable onset of line-depression. He had every right to be like, “My Child, this blows. Do you want to go to Waffle House?” or “My Child, this is lame. I shall call upon the bird with the greatest wingspan and we shall ride upon it until the furthest reaches of the earth” or “My Child, this is a place of depravity and it will be destroyed in 3….2….1…..”

Instead, he had a great time running around and armpitting people on the rides and making funny faces for the coaster cam. One time his beard got in the mouths of people behind us and they were pissed but at the end of the ride he turned around and sincerely said that he was sorry and that they were also forgiven. God was just a chill dude who liked to chow down on funnel cake after going on the Tilt-a-Swirl and before entering the Cistern of Death.

At one point, we were on the Ferris wheel and he decided to have a little fun—-just when we had reached the crest, he stopped time. The earth’s rotation, the sun’s burning, every physic of motion was halted and he just sustained all of it through his awesome power. Then we sat at the top of the world and looked out over a sunset that lasted forever. He was wearing his baseball cap sideways and he turned to me saying, “Pretty nice, huh.” I just rolled my eyes. “Get over yourself.”

He snapped his fingers and the world started up again, the wheel gently lowering us to ground level like a friendly giant. We ended up going on all the roller coasters except for one because we ran out of time before the park closed.

I was dead tired that night and slept the whole way home.

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Apr 23 2012
45 Comments
Food, Humorous, Two minute read

The Oatmeal that Changed My Life

Why is everything better hot and mushy?

This wasn’t your mother’s oatmeal, your grandpa’s oatmeal, your cashier’s or your insurance adjuster’s oatmeal. This was life changing oatmeal.

Maybe you’ve grown up with oatmeal–it’s a familiar breakfast food, perhaps a little bit bland. The mushy consistency is unremarkable, and you consider it a symbol of the mundane, of mediocrity, of something that could always be improved upon.

I used to think the same way, and then Sunday morning happened. I went to prepare myself a bowl and found a paltry amount of oats left—less than a quarter cup.

Disaster. Outrage. Despair.

But despite the feelings of heartbreak and irretrievable loss, I persevered and decided to prepare them the usual way, with white sugar and vanilla and cinnamon and walnuts, cookie-fying it as much as possible.

After I poured hot water over the concoction and stirred, I tasted disappointment yet again. I had added too much water and my oats seemed a pathetic, thin gruel. I took it back to my lair in order to eat it unceremoniously in the company of my computer, my preferred breakfast partner.

As I sat munching and reading The Rumpus, something miraculous happened: I slowly realized that I was eating the best bowl of oatmeal of my entire life. Each mouthful was bursting with intense, oaty flavor enhanced by the contrasting texture of the walnut’s gentle crunch and the soft oat mush. It was exhilarating. Life doesn’t stay the same after eating the best bowl of oatmeal you’ve ever made.

With that shimmering moment of revelation, every bite was a joy because I knew, “This is the best oatmeal I’ve ever tasted. This is the highlight of my life, the crowning of my career. I’m eating my accomplishments. The day is blessed and I can do no wrong.” What could have been nothing more than an oat bummer became the turning point of my entire life.

I went out that day and delivered 16 babies, saved countless lives, and drew a convincing picture of a sparrow. While sleeping later that night I dreamed I was walking in the Garden of Eden with the Good Lord Himself and we were going on all of the rides together. “Emily,” the Lord said as the roller coaster inched inevitably upwards, “Did you enjoy your oatmeal today?”

“That was YOU?”

He chuckled, “It sure was. Remember this always. Go and do likewise for others.” And the moment snapped and we faced the earth itself and zoomed downwards, screaming and laughing together.

When I woke up, I made myself another bowl of oatmeal. It wasn’t as good as the last one, because the last one was the best bowl of oatmeal in my entire life, but it was still pretty good.

Have you thought about oats for breakfast tomorrow?

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Apr 19 2012
28 Comments
Fiction, One minute read

The Moles Want Your Chocolate Chips

No mole snout will touch these.

They are here, you know. They burrow beneath us, their webbed paws ever clawing and their whiskers ever twitching their way in the earth’s darkness. They are the mole people, digging beneath the surface, squinting their eyes against the never ending dust, wearing tiny spectacles and yellow vests as commanded by their prophet-king.

Speaking with British accents to one another, they live only to dig tunnels and sacrifice chocolate chips to their strange mole gods. They grow tired of the incessant noise they hear from above.

The prophet-king tells them the gods have grown angry for forgetting the proper grammar of mole-speak and misplacing the chocolate chips meant for sacrifice, for offering the holy beings only mole skim milk instead of full cream.

The noise from above increases, the pounding, hammering, shrieking, and rumbling. The burrowers believe they feel the very pain of the earth. “We must do something,” declares their leader. “Do we sit in silence as our own folly threatens to destroy us? No. We will be smarter. We will go above and cleanse the earth of its ailments. We will find better and richer chocolate chips with which to appease our gods and we will then burrow beneath the surface once again, forever. But now we rise. To the top!”

The moles are coming. Hide your chocolate chips.

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Apr 17 2012
31 Comments
Three minute read, Travelling

The Highlights of Istanbul, Now With Clever Wordplay

So pretty it’s disgusting. At Gulhane Park. 

You can do fun things to the word Istanbul, like turn it into Istanbrew, Gristanbul, Istangourd, Grumpstanbul, etc. This is the part of the story where I modify the word Istanbul and describe different aspects of my trip.

Istanbloom: I think I finally realized it was spring when I saw all those dang flowers peeping everywhere. I attempted to deal with the tulip madness by taking pictures. In fact, I took many boring flower pictures, all of which my family will be forced to view.

Sweetstanbul: Oh sweet tooth, how we tickled and fed and indulged you in this fair city. We sunk our fangs into the chewy but oh so delicious Turkish delight with wild flavors such as kiwi and pomegranate, accented with the most pistachio-y pistachios I had ever tasted. Do I even need to describe the baklava, whose layers were drenched in sin and delicious in every incarnation? Even the angels would have wanted and been denied a bite of my baklava.

Nutstanbul: The Turks like their nuts. Daily I thanked Jesus and the lucky stars that I am nut allergy free and was able to stuff my gob with every nutty creation imaginable.  If they could, I think the Turks would pave the streets with hazelnuts and pistachios and build their homes with walnuts.

Istanhill: Because it was hilly. Duh.

Istanbus: I was very impressed with Istanbul’s public transportation, which included busses, ferries, metros, and funiculars, all of which could be paid for easily with the Istanbulkart. Because waxing poetic about public transportation can get boring if not weird, I will quickly move on to my next topic. Just know that the busses had screens in them telling the passengers both the current and the upcoming stops. Okay, moving on.

Bluestanbul: The Bosporus and the Golden Horn were so blue! Blue blue blue! While sailing to the Black sea on a Bosporus cruise, I couldn’t stop thinking how jewel-like the water seemed as the light refracted through the waves and pierced into the deep. We could see jellyfish. They are my friends.

Istanpuff: The Ottoman sultans loved their puffy clothing. Based on the sheer size of the clothing on display at Topkapi palace, it was clear that the sultans’ bodies, when cocooned in their palace garb, bore only a passing resemblance to a human figure. Everything from their ridiculously huge turbans to their pointed shoes was an exercise in puffiness.

The Fortress of Rumeli is more like a big park. Great for kids and conquering Istanbul.

Histanbul: The place was disgustingly full of history. I couldn’t spit without desecrating a famous landmark that was named something ridiculous and looked like it came from a fantasy novel. Around every corner there was a mosque, church, church-mosque, or doner stand that seemed beautiful and worth visiting.

Blisstanbul: Because Istanbul restored my faith in cities. It had been so long since I’d enjoyed spending time outside in a metropolis and felt comfortable in my foreign woman skin. When I think of Istanbul I think of colors and peace and happy and days spent watching the waters and the people flow by. And the trees were good too.

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Apr 05 2012
35 Comments
Humorous, Two minute read

The Greatest War on Earth

the loathsome slivers in all their glory

The war between us and our nails began long ago, even before our ancestors dragged their scaly bodies onto the face of the earth. They are our greatest foe, even when compared with Iran and McDonald’s, trespassing on the only thing we can really claim for our own, our bodies. We beat them back endlessly with crude weapons and still they thrust forth with new strength, feeding off our very meals.

Despicable, loathsome, and repulsive, they are a repository of filth of every kind and deep within them breeds the very scum of the earth. The sight of them can make grown men shriek and children weep. In the right circumstances, they induce nausea, fatigue, and premature labor.

And yet we tolerate them, watching as they creepily grow longer and longer until we can take it no more and destroy them, cutting them from our flesh after we have softened them with a warm shower. But they always return.

The pain of fingernails’ existence drives some to madness, weakening their mind until they bite and nip at their fingers until their very bodies bleed and they taste sweet iron on their tongues. Others try to disguise the nails with lacquered paints and frilly designs, even covering up the painful reality with plastic imitations–anything to hide their true nature.

Industries have grown up around them: their suppression and removal. They are a liability to their keeper, easily becoming a source of indescribable pain. The sounds they make– the clicking and the clacking, the gnawing and munching of their incapacitated victims– fill the air with the crazed din of an insane asylum.

For a time they are windows into the body itself, but grow disgusting all too soon—tainted with the everyday wear of life, collecting beneath them the salt of the earth and the stew of the lunch and the peel of the orange. Our fingernails and toenails are our most dedicated and successful foes. My entire life I’ve been fighting them, cutting them back, even down to the quick, feeling the sharp sting of pain until I cry out and I feel I’ve defeated them at long last. This time they will not grow back.

But they do, and I find myself in the same shameful position only two weeks later, if that. I have even slammed my finger in a car door, unconscious attempting to rid myself of the foul parasites once and for all. After weeks of hiding my mangled finger in a brace, I took it off only to see the nail growing back, ever persistent, its shape leering at me in a grotesque grin. I got on my knees and prayed to all that is holy to take this burden away from me. I only heard faint laughter from the other room, my sister watching Arrested Development.

Will I never be free?

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