Ride the Wavy Train

The terrible pants salesman leaves the village.

What is it about novelty transportation that inspires waving to perfect strangers? Tour boats, amusement park rides, and tiny tot trains all make for hands high occasions. Even classic cars or school buses tickle the waving bone for no good reason. Whether you're on or off them, waving to each other across opposite sides of these unusual transports is widely accepted as normal behavior. If I were to view the world during only these moments of enthusiastic greeting exchange, I would assume everyone knew everyone.

So why are these times the only appropriate times to be so joyful about saying hello to strangers? If I waved at strangers I passed on the sidewalk, I would be a wacko. If I said salutations to everyone in my row at the movies, parents would whisper to their children, "stay away from that man, and share those nachos with your sister."

In close quarters, friendly attempts at making an acquaintance is considered suspicious. People want to be friendly though. If someone you don't know says "Hi," a short mental struggle happens within. You don't want to interact with them in case they are crazy or just selling something, but you were taught not saying "Hi" back is rude. So, you say "Hi" back and listen to their sales pitch.

The best test of this knee jerk fear of incivility is to drive past someone waving and smiling, you in the car and they on the sidewalk. People don't have time to figure out who you are before they start waving too. Immediately afterward they wonder if they knew you at all, but it no longer matters. Inadvertently, two strangers were just friendly to each other for no good reason, and they didn't even need an ice cream truck to prompt them.

This blog brought to you by the Wave at a Stranger campaign.

Just a Little Something - Smelliness

This shirt is camouflage for our kind, more affective if upwind.

I'm not sure if this is possible but I think I ate so much asparagus last night that I am now secreting it through my pores. Maybe Vanessa just shoved a couple of stalks up my nose while I was sleeping to keep me from snoring. It's all I can smell right now. Changing the odor of my urine I accept, but this is too much. It's like it has reconfigured my DNA, blasting asparagus scented pheromones out of me like wind swept bait to other foul smelling creatures.  Will I be an outcast from society, forced to live with other smelly people like odiferous lepers? Perhaps I can take a lover who reeks of olive oil or cheese so our children will at least be flavorful to the jungle cats surrounding our isolated camp. Maybe we can all establish a new community overlooking The Bog of Eternal Stench where our offensive fragrances can go unnoticed.

Bearing Fruit

Vanessa has been updating me for weeks on the assumed size of our unborn baby and, to provide easy visual references, she compares our daughter to various fruits. When we discovered her presence, she was already an avocado but had previously been a peach, a lime, a raspberry and a sweet pea. She is currently the size of an eggplant. While I made myself a fruit cocktail I asked, "when will it be the size of a baby?"

On the surface we seem quite prepared for the birth of little Isabel. We have a crib, a changing table, a high chair, and soon the stroller and car seat. Also, due to friendly donations and gifting, we have already acquired more clothing for the baby than I have owned in my whole life. This is all clothing, of course, that will be obsolete in only a few months time as she grows into a much larger fruit. (I picture one of those giant squashes at country fairs.)

Are we actually prepared? I guess so, but I don't know what more we can do. We have a prenatal class in a few weeks where we should receive more instruction but, despite all the available literature and courses, I don't believe there is any amount of preparation that can give anyone complete readiness for the upcoming events. I'm not scared though, but what if I'm one of those people who just goes into a partial coma during a crisis so I don't have to deal with the situation at hand? If, when Vanessa says "my water broke," I curl into a ball or hide in the bathtub then we may be in trouble.

I take comfort in knowing that millions of other people do this parenting thing every day and most of their kids survive to become productive members of society. If we screw up tough, and she ends up in a bell tower somewhere with a rifle I'll just blame music television and whatever band is popular at the time. That seems to work just fine too.

Image via Wikipedia

That's why having more than one kid is important; you play the percentages. The more kids you have the better your chances are of getting one right. Match up all those fruits just right and you could end up prospering yourself. They might all end up being rich and generous to their wonderful parents who raised them so well, or they might just sell bags of oranges out of a shopping cart.

Elky Haul

On Friday the gang gathered for some carnivorous delights. Rather than visiting our local grocer or butcher, our meat selections came from the nearby Elk Farm. Several of us had never tasted the animal and were sort of unsure what it actually looked like with all its useless inedible fur and antlers still attached.

The before and after pictures above give you some deep elk insight. It's a real dark red meat and very tender. The taste is not unpleasant and I actually found the smell of the blood to be fragrant. In the end it's another animal I can cross off my "to eat" checklist, including snake, frog, and squirrel. I'm really looking forward to trying owl, those smug looking jerks, but my end goal is really to find animals whose flavors and sizes complement each other for my ultimate "meat mash up".

Stuffed babushka doll style inside each other, honoring the humble beginnings of the Turducken, I plan to add as many tasty creatures as possible to the eventual meat masterpiece. My assumption at this point is that buffalo will create the final outside layer, that is prior to being wrapped in bacon. Which other of God's many delectable works make it into the fleshy array have yet to be finalized, but auditions will likely remain open for some time.

(elk image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/18729659@N00/2417706828)

Mall Thoughts

Image via Wikipedia

Escalators don't really break. They just become stairs.

Well, I'm probably giving this gem of an idea away by writing it out for the public, but I'm starting to realize that all my dreams may not come true. Like puppies and adolescent boys, when I see something new I think about eating it or destroying it. There is an inherent joy in all of us when things blow up or catch fire, and a youthful giddiness sparks at the sound of breaking glass.

It is in this vain that I present "Destroy a Bear." Like it's weak and ridiculously benign brother Build a Bear, it will also be a shop in the mall. Right next door in fact. For every bear built we will destroy two, because we allow you to bring in bears from home, and we accept gently used donated bears as well.

The brilliance is in needing no inventory. We just have to make sure the miniature canisters of napawlm are full and the pawltov cocktail mix is readily available. Get the theme? I think demented kids and their jealous demented parents will enjoy the experience together. Take the family shopping, select a bear carcass next door, stuff it full of fuzzy vitality, pick out an outfit, then bring it on over next door for some quality assurance testing. If Bob, or Billy, or Buzzy bear survives "The Tiny Rack" or "The Acid Rain Chamber" then he gets to go home as a new member of the family, but I wouldn't go assigning him a moniker too soon. As a more expensive version of an imaginary friend I would appreciate the opportunity to test the might of my child's future companion of the next few years. I mean, when it all goes down, that bear may be the only shield that kid has from the dangers of the world, and if I know Paddington has survived "The Voodoo Parlor" and "The Hall of Stabbings," I'll feel much better about my kid's chances.

Who am I to question me?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

As I returned to work this morning with my Starbucks coffee in hand, I began to wonder about who I had become and how far from my twenties' self I had strayed. There was a time when the day began at noon and a beer for breakfast was not a rarity. I was a failure at school, had no goals or dreams for a stable future, and lived only for the moment. The word venti was nowhere in my vocabulary.

Though I was aware of the disapproval others had for my lifestyle, I was fine with being emotionally driven, motivated only by prospects of pleasure, in search of the next good time. I was a hedonist, and felt no guilt for sluffing responsibility for the immediate return of self-gratification.

Time passed and I didn't die a young rebel going out in a blaze of glory. To my surprise I got older and life progressed, if not at least continued. I dropped out of college, was fired from several jobs, and regarded my friends and family as faded apparitions.

Years Later.
Now I'm working in a respected profession, making a decent salary, and live in a trendy Midtown Atlanta apartment. Reflecting on that past era in my life I suppose I should see how stupid I was or consider those years a waste, but I don't. I was young, directionless, and a bit of a thick-headed jerk, but I was pursuing happiness which is what we're all still doing.

The old me never wanted to be a button-down, stuck up, Starbucks drinking professional, and never thought he would be. The old me would have knocked the overpriced chain retailer coffee right out of my hands. I hope however, with some explanation, he would still be okay with who I am.

Okay. I'm a bit typical. I do what most guys my age do, still clinging to their youth. I drink beer when I can and wear throwback T-shirts to show people how cool I still am. (I'm okay with my Atari shirt and my Bob Ross Happy Trees tee.)

Part of me needs the respect and understanding of my old self, hoping I'm not what I would have considered a "total sell-out." The newer part of me though wants to punch the old me right in the nose and tell him to "get it together."

I know however that I am both men, a blend of the good and bad parts of each. So I've started to look to the future and make some plans, but I can still be impulsive. I'm a working professional but I still say inappropriate things around coworkers. I make more money than I used to but I'm still cheap, er thrifty. (I saved my coffee cup from the day before to get the refill discount the following day.)

I'll never be truly comfortable as a button-down type, though that's mostly due to my problem with losing buttons off my shirts. I'm not too worried about becoming a faceless conformist because I'm still a snob when it comes to music and movies. I've used valet parking and been to a non-movie theater show, but I'm not a materialistic upper class citizen. (My class is well revealed just by how I spell theater.)

I may drink Starbucks but I still have a few steps to go before I'm a completely pretentious douche bag prick. When I buy a BMW and start yelling at hotel staff I'll become worried. Until then I think both old and new me have balanced out just fine.

The window treatments to the soul

Image via Wikipedia

My attraction for women is not always founded on baseline physical attributes, meaning a well dressed woman or one that takes the extra time with her hair can be equally as attractive as one with well formed curves. There are many variables in play as to what might peak my interest in any given woman. Some of these variables I acknowledge and understand as obvious reasoning or perhaps having cross-related areas of pleasure.

One such example is my affinity for waitresses. There is no struggle for logic here. It is a woman who brings me food and drink upon request. She is beautiful in my eyes. The added flirtation that has worked its way into the food service industry is just a bonus element, holding parallels to well established "dance" clubs and houses of ill repute. It consists of women feigning intrigue for a man with the end goal of slimming down his wallet, a lifelong exchange of money for coquetterie. This is a condition for which both men and women are at fault and both are worse off with its perpetuation. Women monetarily win out in the short run but ultimately lose, having continuously failed relationships and finding it hard to discern why men don't take love seriously.

My less transparent attraction enhancement, in both rationale and reality, is when a woman wears sunglasses. Every woman, regardless of age or physical makeup, is slightly more of a woman behind those tinted shields. Within a world of fading mystery, there is little left untouched or beyond comprehension or examination. It is silly, but in plastic eyeware I can find a bit of wonder again.

What color are her eyes? Green? Brown? Red with tears?

Is she looking off into the distance or staring at me?

The eyes reveal so much about a person and stripping this essential insight into one's humanity causes my imagination to churn. As a character in my mind, her depth is endless, but the fantasy proves time and again to be better than the tangible truth. All good stories have a sad ending depending on when you stop reading, and eventually the glasses come off. The majority of the time, like with the bras of today, what was covered looked better before, and the thrill subsides. Every once in awhile though the mystery woman is as she was supposed to be, a reflection of projected perfection. It's then that the world seems right and my day is better for it.