Mike Check 1 2 1 2

Humans are made entirely out of food. Nothing else. Really - give me an example of how this is false and I will give you...a dollar. No, two dollars! I forget who it was that said "you are what you eat," but from that it can be inferred that we are all just food. Nothing more, not the special creations of G-d, not the apparent rulers of nature and the planet, just food. Cannibals aren't even human, because even though they eat humans, what they're really eating is food in human form.
Is there anything that we consider food that isn't living, or part of a living thing? I'm hard pressed to find an example. Every time we bite into something, roll it around on our tongue, push it out from inbetween our teeth, we are effectively ending a life.
I am the Lorax. I'm speaking for things with no tongues. I don't even know why, though. The only thing wrong with eating food is that it makes more humans, not that it's bad for the food necessarily, or its posterity. There is no correct path that one can take. Eat or don't. Either way something ends up dying. Does dying replenish life moreso? One dead caterpillar will play host to hundreds of fly larvae, is the death therefore justified? Is it not, in fact, beneficial? Is more life better, regardless of what is living?
The above is me plus four cups of Passover wine (sweet as soda, tasty as ass). Pretty fun holiday, if you ask me. Now I just need to find something to eat for the next week that doesn't have any corn syrup in it...lucky me.

A Pack

Running is a primal action. Only animals who need to get away from something run. These animals are not in control of the environment that surrounds them. They live on the land, but they cannot call the land their home, because it is not theirs.
People are becoming less and less in control of their lives. More people are running. Running to catch a taxi, to get to work on time, to deliver a pizza, to be the first ones in line for a new game. These ideas and possessions are making them run. They are being threatened by their reprocussions.
At a track practice several days ago I saw this mentality take over. We were doing "pack running", in which every member is meant to keep up with the group overall, no stragglers left behind, no rabbits ahead. We came to a hill. Half-ascended, lactic acid flowing through our calves, people began breathing heavily. When one falls behind, the others call to them, saying to keep up, that they can do it, but as soon as they start to catch up, the pace subtly quickens. No one says a word, but everyone feels it.
In races there are intangible barriers called "walls" that feel quite real. When you "hit your wall", you feel a very dense weight drop into your stomach. Your legs go numb, your knees buckle, and each breath is one of fire. People seem to pass you in slow motion as your vision washes in waves of focused and blurred images. Walls are awful things.
I'm pretty sure the other runners can see your walls. They can see you hit their cemented bricks, cracking their mortar, carrying on, but weakened from the loss of momentum. Everyone around you speeds up when you hit a wall. It's not because you go that much slower, it's because they can smell the blood in the water. You are a bleeding seal and they are the shark. It is only a matter of time before you are eaten up.
Well, I gotta run, my television show is about to start.
-apo

Clean (wait...this isn't clean at all!)

Sunday afternoon. Gorgeous. The air is hot without being humid. Everything is coated with a thin dusting of yellow pollen. I've absolutely nothing to do.

A ring of the phone snaps me out of my stupor. "We're going to Jordan Lake. Get a towel and wait outside."

Water bottle and towel in hand, I wait in the breezy air.

A green car arrives. I open the door and step in. The drive lasts for around half and hour. My friend has "remembered" an unmarked path leading to the lake that he used to visit with his family. Into the woods we go, ready to take a tepid dip without screaming babies around.

The path leads us past what appears to be a bog, and then channels into a large clearing. In this clearing, there are several men in their mid-to-late forties, none of them wearing shirts. Upon our entrace, they suddenly ceased all motion, deer caught in the headlights of our presence.

Alright we think, These guys just wanted to come here, get drunk, and take a nap in the sun. We decide that the beach is nice enough, and we are ready to set up when one of them panders over to us, and tells us that there's a "much nicer" beach further down the trail. "Do you mind if I show it to you?" he tells, more than asks. We follow obligingly, while keeping note of the man's odd positioning of his hand halfway inside his pocket, as if grasping something. He's got a knife. Niiiiice one, guys.

"What's nice about this beach," he turns his head slightly to the side as he speaks, "Is that you can't see or hear the road from here." Excellent...that doesn't sound suspicious. As we walk, we start to pass by strips of thin grass, which I can't help but compare to potential burial sites on the lakeshore. The spongy earth is dotted with yellow daffodils, which remind me of the ones planted alongside my home. Will I see them again? I think to myself, chuckling at how ridiculous I am sounding.

"Well, here we are." We arrive at our "better beach", which consists of some damp, rooty soil and a 2 foot clay dropoff into the water. Pollen from the air has collected on its surface, concentrating to form a yellow soup skin right over our entrance point. An overturned tree, its roots extending into the murky lake, completes our collective thought that this beach is terrible, and the guy is going to gut us like some fish.

Out of his pocket he draws a waterbottle. We breathe deeply. He looks over our area, confirming his previous statement, and leaves us without a word. One of us keeps his shoes on, in case the man comes back.

My friend produces a pack of cards. We start to play, not actually looking at our hands but at the path leading back to the other beach. The other beach which can be seen from the road. My friend spies another man walking towards us, down the path. We say nothing. Neither does he, and he passes without incident. More men come and pass us, all wearing dark glasses, all without their shirts on. My friend has meanwhile pointed out that there is a man atop the hill bordering our "beach" watching us. His face is that of a groundhog who has poked up out of his hole, gazing intently at us, and nothing else.

More cards. More men. Complete silence. We are strangely relieved when our original "tour guide" (his name was Barry, or Berry, by the way) strolls on back to our beach and starts to make small talk. He pulls out the line "I'm a vegetable, I mean...I grow vegetables around two miles from here." twice in about as many minutes. Quite uncomfortable. It really is.

We decide that since he probably isn't going to stab us, we should ask what was going on. "Do you want to hear the truth?" he says, one eyebrow raised in mirth at our ignorance. "Alot of gay guys come down here, do alot of nude sunbathing, hang out, have some pretty wild parties." Another round of Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice choice, guys runs through our minds. "The sunsets are really beautiful right here, what with the reflection off of the water'n all. Are you guys staying long?" Feeling intrusive, my friend quickly checks his imaginary watch and says "Woah...5:15...it's kinda late, we'd better go now."

And with that, we set the world record for packing up four people's worth of camping gear. "If you guys don't tell any of your friends about this place, I would really appreciate it. But since you guys know the place, you're welcome to come back and, like, campout here in the future, if you want." Barry lightly suggests.

"Sure." I say a bit too enthusiastically, looking at my friends biting their lips to keep from laughing. We stride back on out through the way we were led in, past the man/gopher on the hill, past the large field of shirtless men, and, as a coup de gras, an enormous man in tight cutoff jean shorts strolling back the other way.

We reach the car, get in, and no one says a word.

Then everyone laughs until tears come.

"I wonder if the guys who walked past us were checking to see if we were "down"." my friend comments. I wonder, too. I wonder what the chances of selecting THE ONE beach around the entire lake where we weren't welcome (or a bit too welcome).

Good Sunday.

Bad Barry.

That night I have a nightmare of the man in the jean shorts chasing me through the woods, screaming "I'M GONNA FUCK YOU!". I don't think he caught me, though.

Clean

When many people dance together, they become one creature. Each part seems to pulse and stretch of its own accord, but all sections can be matched against the music playing the in the background. Occasionally a ring forms inside, and a few individuals become their own unique creature for the moment of their private dance, separated from the mass in tangible and imperceptible forms. They always come back to the creature, though. They have to, or it will simply engulf them. The only honor is in stopping one's own dance.

Is this correct? No.

Without the individual dancers, there would be no music to dance to. They created the rhythm for everyone else to dance to. Why stop their dance? Promote it! Play no music in the background at the next one, and check for those who dance regardless. They make the music. And new music is what dancing is all about.

O.o Objectivism...scary stuff...

So

'Every animal' he said at last
'After intercourse is sad'
But the back-row lovers
looked oblivious
and glad. -L. Ferlinghetti
Too true.

Two children were building a birdhouse. It was very nice to look at, with its fresh coats of paint and square, smooth wooden frame. It even had a perch on which the birds could stand outside and feed on the seed they had provided. The only thing the birdhouse needed was a roof. "No problem," said the boy, "We'll build it tomorrow, and then it will look perfect."
However, that night two birds came and built a nest inside the children's birdhouse. The sticks and twigs they warped in order to build it stratched the smooth wooden sufaces and shiny coats of paint that the children had only just applied. When the children came out the next day, they saw the marks the nest had created, and the loose stands of grass that blew in the wind and streamed out the hole in the front of the birdhouse clashed with the it's uniformity and clean-cut build.
"But the birdhouse isn't ready!" exclaimed the girl. "This won't do."
"Well, we can just take the birds out, build a roof, and when we made it all nice again then the birds will come back." the boy suggested. "They can wait. After all, we're giving them a home, aren't we?"
So the girl reached in, snatched up the nest and the two eggs laid therein, and placed it neatly on the ground beside the birdhouse stand. When the two birds came back, they were shocked to find their nest in such a dangerous location, but they couldn't move the eggs, so they would have to raise them on the ground.
The next night, a fox came. Careful to hush the crush of leaves underfoot, he cept up upon the sleeping family-to-be. He devoured the mother and her two eggs, the father barely escaping with his life. He found a new mate, but never returned to the birdhouse the children had built with such caution and care.
A week went by. "Where are the birds? Are they coming back?" asked the girl haughtily.
"Birds are stupid. If they would rather live in the outdoors than in our birdhouse, well...they don't deserve to live in it at all!"
And with that, the birdhouse was crushed.

This ^ is why abortion should never be allowed.

And

I was in England for the past week.
There was a man on my flight, certainly above 7 feet tall. He carried a single backpack, and wore a blazer over his t-shirt. I wondered if people had stared at him alot. I wished that they didn't.
The security officer in customs asked him how long he would be staying. One month or so he said. Then he wandered off, and I thought that I would never see him again. When, a week later, I was seated on my return flight home, I noticed that he was just across the aisle from me. I wondered why he came back so early. I wondered what made him leave. I wanted to speak to him, but realized that it would be an awkward (and probably superficial) conversation. I noted that he was reading a book called "A Grain of Wheat". I made a mental note of the title, and promised myself that I would read it when I got home. When we came back through customs he was in the line in front of me. I kept hoping that no one would comment (however privately) about his height. It seemed as if it would ruin the experience for me, as if his staggering stature was a secret all to myself, only to be revealed to others upon the uttering of a mere remark.
I am now back home.
I have a book sitting in front of me. It is called "A Grain of Wheat". I am almost worried to open the book, worried that it will let me down, that it will just be another couple of hollow pages, that the tall man with the blazer was simply that, and nothing more. But what if the book changes my life? What if I see this man again, and I can thank him for recommending the best book I've ever read, and how funny it was that etc etc...
I'll read it. There are many other tall people on the Earth in case this one turns out average.