People and Sports

There was a reason why I was once a psychology major. People are weird. Peoples' reactions are odd. And it's interesting, no matter how ridiculous they might be.

As everyone knows, UofA is done with basketball. We lost to Michigan. For me, I was glad, because this meant the stressful times at work were over and nobody was "on call" anymore. For everyone else, it was a time of "depression" and "anger". People grew hostile. Because of my one comment about how I was happy we lost on Facebook so I didn't have to work, one of my friends (and co-workers) got very hostile. He quickly apologized, however. Then you hear about a riot on University. Of course there are two sides to every story. I've heard that the cops egged it on. I heard that if the cops weren't there, who knows what would have happened because before when we've lost a sports game, people started a fire or something. Not to mention, everyone is drunk and nutty win or lose, so win or lose a "riot" was going to happen.

But it's odd to me. Why does everyone care so much? Why is everyone so invested in it, as if they themselves played the game and lost? They didn't play, they sat around watching, drinks in their hands. Why are they hostile? Is it school spirit or the alcohol? Or both? Neither should warrant the language and behavior people adopted when we lost, but it still happened. And it will still happen.

We're putting people on a pedestal that do not deserve that. And then freaking out like we played and lost. They are not Gods and you did not play. Losses happen.

Story Ideas

I knew I would always compare myself to the blonde girls who stood taller than I. It was distracting to see how gorgeous they were with their freshly heated curls; I didn’t even own a curling iron. It was the smack of the large history book on the desk next to me that brought me out of my thoughts. A boy with dark hair had decided to occupy the seat next to mine. His hair was oily. He turned to introduce himself, “Sorry ‘bout that, the names Ray.” He spoke through his teeth that revealed years of orthodontics. He then leaned back in his chair balancing on just two legs. I replied quickly that it was fine. I sat there debating to share my name but as I opened my mouth to continue the teacher began his lesson.

            The rest of our time was spent in silence. I had a notebook in front on myself quickly scribbling notes with arrows that pointed to different sections. However, Ray’s desk held nothing but the book he had thrown down at the beginning of class.  Looking at how relaxed he seemed stressed me out while still peaking my interest. And I couldn’t help but notice how familiar he looked. When the bell finally rang, Ray was out of his seat before I could even put my own notebook away.

Siren's Song

"Do it again." The imperious voice belonged to the Grand Maestro of the Royal Conservatory. Befitting such a tremendous sound, the Grand Maestro was a veritable giant at six and half feet tall and seemingly half that distance across. His long black hair was neatly ordered into a arrangement of braids that barely touched his shoulders. The Grand Maestro's steely eyes stared at Amarila, the bloodshot veins giving them a diabolical look. "You can hear me, can't you?"

"Of course, my lord," the student answered. Amarila had heard that the Grand Maestro had lost his name when he had been given control over the Conservatory fifteen years ago. Apparently it was a tradition among those for whom music was meant to transcend identity and life itself. Although the faculty were allowed to call their leader by his title, the students were to always call him my lord. "I am just feeling a bit tired. I have already tried five times."

"Feeling a bit tired is no excuse to shirk from one's duties," the Maestro snapped back. His right hand reached for the cane at the man's side, the impeccable white gloved hand nestling the exquisite rosewood. "Must I teach that lesson again?"

"No my lord," Amarila said quickly. Being a foot shorter and one hundred pounds lighter than her teacher, she had no desire to experience another one of the Maestro's teachings. She looked over the sheet music again, the unfamiliar symbols and notes still mocking her. I've already tried to memorize this a dozen times, Amarila thought. Why can't my stupid brain remember any of this sheet music?  Looking back at the Maestro's iron gaze, she realized that she needed to perform soon.

Lightly clearing her throat and compulsively moving her black ringlets away of her eyes, Amarila tried the piece once again. This time she finally felt the music connect, her brain flooded by the song like a ship crushed beneath the waves. In a state of ecstasy, Amarila closed her eyes and continued her virtuosic performance. She sang uninterrupted by the outside world or the gaze of the Maestro until she heard the crashing of broken glass. Opening her eyes, the student saw that the window of the room had shattered. Confused, Amarila quickly stopped singing and looked back at the Maestro. Rather than appearing furious or grabbing his cane, the teacher had a small smirk.

"Perhaps there is hope for you yet," the Maestro said as he inspected his cracked monocle. "Do it again."

Mother May I

Mother, may I go down the street to play with Hailey?
Mother stands in the doorway, wiping a glass with a dishcloth
Yes, yes you may
Okay!
You zoom out the door, barely hearing her call Be back in two hours!
You don't know what time is
You are a small child
At Hailey's, you play Mother May I
Big steps forward, giggling

You are sixteen
You don't play Mother May I
You don't ask your mother anything
Instead, you sneak out late when you know she is sleeping
She says, I don't like that tone of voice young lady
You say, I don't give a fuck what you think
She says, Language

You are twenty two
You no longer live with your mother anymore
You love hearing her voice on the phone
When you get sick, she comes over and takes care of you
Thank you Ma, you say
I love you Ma, you say
I love you too, she says

You are thirty five
You are married, have two small children
Your mother watches them for you while you and your spouse work
Sometimes, she makes them macaroni and cheese
This was your mother's favorite, she tells them

You are forty eight
You get a call in the middle of the night
You rush to the hospital, the kids are sleeping
Your mother is lying weak on the hospital bed
You hold her and sing to her
I love you Ma, you say
I love you too baby, she says
She is gone

Daisy Chains

Lay back in the soft green grass
Boys shouting and the thwack of a baseball bat coming from the diamond.
She doesn't care about that
She is pulling up daisies
She is twisting the stem of one around the base of another, a noose
She is weaving them into her hair
A daisy chain
The air smells like springtime
Sky is blue-black, so clear
She is weaving them into her hair
A daisy chain
Sleeping titans all around
Waiting to deliver their payload
Men shout and rage and make deals
Not knowing that, in a fit of anger,
They could release the giants from their homes deep below the earth
To kill a young girl with flowers in her hair

Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel may have been one of the best movies I have ever seen, not because it was absolutely hilarious, or because it had a fantastic cast, or made cool historical references that were also semi-made up or because it took the absurd and made it into something coherent and beautiful. Lots of movies do that. No, I think my favorite part of the whole movie was the ending, the culmination of events and silliness and laughter that lead to something really tragic and beautiful. I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it, but as someone who saw it in a theatre that was completely packed full of an  intensely reactive audience of indie film lovers, I don't think I've ever heard a room so silent as when... well... those of you who've seen it know. We all saw it coming, but we didn't at the same time. And wow you need to go see this movie, if you haven't already. Like, it's an absolute priority.

Exploring a Character

Name:  Chuck Alexy
Age:  31
Occupation:  Chuck is a businessman.  He used to work on Wall Street but had gotten fired a couple years ago for losing a lot of money.  Now he has started up his own firm and is highly successful.
Personality:  Chuck is not a nice person.  Anyone will tell you that.  He has a poorly operating moral compass and will do anything to get ahead in the game.  The average person will call him sleazy at best; his friends on the other hand simply say that he knows how to get what he wants.  He is very selfish for the most part and does not think of much else but himself and how to get what he wants.
Relationships:  Due to the nature of his personality, Chuck has not been in many relationships and doesn't particularly care to be in one.  He doesn't care for anyone besides himself for the most part and doesn't want to put in the effort required to maintain a steady relationship.  He gets easily bored with most people, and annoyed with the rest.  He is mostly happy alone.
Childhood:  Chuck spent most of his time as a kid with a distant mother and father.  They were never home and, if they were, they would be on the phone or doing errands or keeping up with their correspondence.  Chuck used to love to write.  He was passionate about it.  He would spend hours in his room crafting random short stories, one after the other.  His parents had always drilled into his head, though, that writing wasn't a real job, so Chuck had never considering doing it past the age of about 12.

Woman with the Tattooed Hands

 I recently discovered the song Woman with the Tattooed Hands by Atmosphere.  I feel that this song could be interpreted in multiple ways. Although the listener might at first see the song as strictly sexual or even graphic, I feel that it has a much more in-depth meaning behind it. I believe that this song is talking about religion and good and evil. "On the right hand she had a tattoo of a nude girl. She claimed it is what God resembled. But on the left she had a mirrored image of the same female and this one she explained looked like the devil", this line in the song mentions how this woman had two tattoos that are opposite from one another which I believe represents how good and evil are simply part of humanity and mirror one another.
 "A glimpse of religion a piece of coming closer to understanding more about what intrigues me most. I didn't get turned on I just got turned. I wasn't as aroused as I was concerned", while analyzing this verse, I feel as though he is describing how he was not aroused mentally or spiritually by this woman and her religious beliefs, but concerned that she was blinded by her religion in a sense. He uses sexual metaphors to describe good and evil within an individual and how religions can be interpreted. Instead of using crude language to describe the sexuality within the song, he describes it poetically and almost beautifully.
   "There's good and evil in each individual fire. Identifies needs and feeds our desire. As long as we keep our spirit inspired. She can bite her bottom lip all she wants", this is straightforward when speaking of the good and evil within all of us. When he mentions keeping ones' spirit inspired, I believe that he means as long as each of us stay inspired and aware of the world around us, then it is okay to believe in whatever drives you. When mentioning the lip-biting, I feel that he is saying as long as this woman's beliefs drives her to something positive and as long as she does not force it upon others, should continue her religious path.
  This is my person view of the song and it could easily be interpreted in several ways. The moment I heard the first minute of the song I knew that it had much deeper meaning than a woman with tattoos being sexual. I highly recommend everyone listening to this song. I would also find it interesting to see what it means to you and what you got out of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-9nbwHQPKA

Character Exploration #6

They slipped into the room without warning, drawing a gust of cool air into the chamber- into his four walls, one ceiling, and one floor of baking and sticky and sluggish emptiness. A breeze of fresh baked bread- he remembered eating, once- but also briefly smoke and ash. Matt froze from lying with one ear pressed against the gritty floor.

Clacking footsteps leading down the hall to his confinement echoed up until their halt before a door opened from elsewhere, the beyond. With a swish of fabric- he once wore more than a single itchy gown, before- a heavy form tumbled onto the concrete with a hard smack, and then silence. The air within the room cooled. Outside, he heard a low distant hum.

Something said, “Check to see it it’s still breathing,” and slammed the door.

Matt lay still for a moment, frozen, palms curled against the ground. No sound. No movement. He rose to his knees and crawled toward the source of the noise. His heart thudded against his ribcage. Blood pounded in his ears. This was new. With one clawed hand, he reached out slowly and fanned out across the space- one, two, three paces. And eventually, he found them.

And them was really nem. And ne breathed softly against his hand, once he found nir face. Alive. Barely moving. Breathing, though. Through soft squishy flesh and long curls of… skin? Matt drew his hand away sharply.

Still, he shifted closer and closer until the scent of smoke and ash returned, filled his lungs, coated his throat in a tight squeeze. He gasped and choked and clutched the soft fabric ne wore, squeezing the flesh beneath with both clawed hands.

Matt could not stop shuddering as fire engulfed his senses, chilled his hands, crushed his chest. He coughed and squeezed until copper scented the air. He choked out blood. He released with wet fingers. Sand spilled out between their touch onto the floor, and for the first time, for just a moment, he thought he saw it. Honest and true. Red.

It was her house

It was her house.  She knew it was her house because she had the exact three steps that creaked on the stairway after stealing a midnight snack memorized.  She was convinced that her toilet was the loudest in the house, the loudest of all her friends’ houses, and that the water from her sink never really got hot.  Her backyard was trademarked with the play house that her father had built for her and her sister when they were still small enough to pass through the door frame without crouching.  She knew that there were two goldfish and a gerbil buried in the corner of the back lawn, tight up against the fence.  She knew how not all of the sprinklers worked in the front yard and that a small strawberry patch had cropped up one year on the side like a bonafide miracle.  The giant telescope and framed newspaper articles with her father in uniform had been in the garage since before she could remember.  Though all her friends found it invasive, she was comforted by the commanding chimes of the grandfather clock that echoed throughout the house.  She hated the piano that gleamed in the front window, beautiful ebony that it was; she had sat restless through one too many lesson.  She knew that it was her house because she had her favorite spot picked out, the final cushion on the green couch that sat under the window in the living room.  She settled there after school to read.  She had painted the mural herself in her bedroom, and had helped to scrape the jungle wallpaper off her sister’s walls after it had been deemed too silly.

She knew that this was her house, and yet they told her she had to leave for another.  Another house which did not have the same smell or the same sounds and which she had not chosen and which was, most definitely, not her house. 

Cradling the Passersby

We go to school with hundreds of other men and women, and it's virtually impossible to not run into those who are enduring the worst of life's curve-balls. When they pass me by, salty drops caressing each cheek, all I want to do is wrap my arms around their frame, silently cradling their thoughts and soothing whatever has their emotions wriggling with anguish. The world takes no pity on even the most undeserving of individuals, and sometimes I just want to sit and listen to those I see, who seem to be in desperate need of a set of ears. I cannot stand seeing such anguish in the eyes of those who pass me by, wondering if anyone truly wants to listen to their story, taking in each word as though it were a newborn breath. When you meet the eyes of those you pass by, cradle their gaze gently with your own. Soothe whatever thoughts have troubled their being. All with a simple glance, a cradle of an eye for those passersby.

TED Talks

Shake Up Your Story is a great video on TED talks. Books open peoples' minds, giving them a new perspective and outlook. The TED talk by Raghava KK is about changing perspective to inspire creativity and empathy. Raghava uses a children's book on an iPad to challenge people to change their perspective, separate facts from bias and put themselves in someone else's shoes. 

TED is a nonprofit organization that stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED is devoted to spreading ideas and information through short talks. According to the website, "TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world."

If you haven't heard of TED talks or been to their website, it is a must. They have topics ranging from Art to Computes and Literature. 

Serene Orange Tree Path

If you walk down second street at the University of Arizona, you come upon a small opening in a half wall to your right, which leads you to a small path of carefully placed orange trees which form a mostly shaded walkway on your way to your destination. The sun leaks through the gaps in the leaves, speckling the pavement in which the trees line. If a breeze happens to pass, the leaves rustle around you as the wind plays a quiet orchestra.  If you walk down this path during the spring, the tang of citrus fills the air, bathing you in the rich scent of the blooming oranges. The small path may send you to another world that you may only see in photographs, as the trees that fence the sidewalk are not native to the desert climate, sense of romance by the exotic tree-framework.

Many orange trees that dot this small pathway have scars. Scars of names and initials carved into them, each carrying a small piece of a story for a person or couple.  Each person that took the time to mark a piece of their story along this walkway, placing a little piece of them on a tree, helping construct the way they view the area and showing what lens was used when walking down the path. While the markings are similar in that they share a similar idea, odds are no two stories left on the trees are identical. Probably not even similar. Each one is unique, constructing a unique view for a certain set of people.

It’s amazing how something simple can be magnificent at the same time. The simplicity that bends itself into majesty, creating something beautiful. Things like this can be of nature or constructed, built, into the form you see. In this case, this orange tree lined pathway was built, framing a stretch of sidewalk in between two dormitory buildings, most likely to give a small sense of beauty to add to the otherwise desert flora that decorate the university campus. 

Endless Sacrifice

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” - Gaylord Nelson

In most fiction, the act of human sacrifice is practically guaranteed to label the perpetrator or religious organization behind it as a villain. A form of ritualized murder akin to the modus operandi of the most unstable serial killers, human sacrifice is a brutal and sickening act. So why would someone, sane or otherwise, perform what is perceived as an intrinsically evil ritual?  In many fictional stories (such as "The Wicker Man" and the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard), human sacrifice is used for selfish ends such as power and control. But what if it were actually necessary?
In the Aztec culture, which sacrificed thousands of people per year, human sacrifice was deemed necessary because it sustained their deities and allowed them to sacrifice their own divine essence to preserve the world. While this is obviously not true in the real world, in fiction the Aztecs could have been right and even after the fall of their empire the sacrifices needed to save the world are still taking place.
This idea has been ruminating in my head for a couple of weeks now because I feel like this scenario would lead to a very interesting, if morally ambiguous, story. Having a character, perhaps a detective investigating recent disappearances, discover the secret Aztec priesthood would lead to a difficult conflict: allow the horrific murders to continue or potentially doom humanity to save a few individuals. To be honest, I'm not even sure which I would choose, and this uncertainty makes me all the more interested in exploring it further.

Preparations

It’s cold. Droplets of water drip and slide down the sides of my face as I stare up into the floating leaves. The trunk’s remains floated around the ground, a broken stone axe lying by the broken bits. Sitting up, I gather the wood bits up, placing them into my bag. I take one long look at the leaves, still remaining in place despite the missing trunk I had recently chopped up. A chuckle escaped from my throat. “Sorry I took your trunk.” I mumble before heading away.

The terraced hills ranged for miles and miles. At some points, an edge of desert or winter land could be seen far off from the grassy hills I am traveling over. After traveling until the dark clouds in the sky cleared and revealed a warm, bright sun in the sky, I could see the dark blue ocean in front of me. I grab my bag again, pulling a block of a small wooden boat. Placing it onto the water, it grows in size, giving me a good sized means of transport for above water travel. I step into the boat, checking the wind before setting out.

Ocean stretched on and on as far as the eye could see. The land I had recently left was now gone off in the horizon. The ocean surrounded the small boat, a feeling in my gut about a possible attack by the far off swimming squids continually surfaced.

Land is quickly approaching. I stare up at bulks of stone towering over me as the boat jerked onto sandy land. Stepping off the boat, I whacked at it until it returned to its smaller form and placed it back into my bag. At the base of the stone structure laid a cobblestone foundation and wooden planks, crafting tables, and furnaces lying along the sides of the foundation. Pulling out the wood from my bag, I get to work crafting them into wooden planks. Having a good amount of wooden planks, I begin to set the planks along the foundation. A wooden house soon structured and I finished the outside of the house by crafting a door for the found with some of my wooden planks. I move my crafting tables and furnaces inside, using the remaining of my wood to build a few pick axes and shovels. Placing the new tools into my bag, I leave the wooden house, looking back up at the stone structure.

I finally had a house. I had my tools ready. It was time to search through the mines that burrow beneath the stone structure before me. I had to find it. I needed to find it. The ultimate of stones. Only then can I take on…that creature…

(Recently bought Minecraft: PS3 Edition and cannot get the game out of my head. Thought of a story based off one of my days of playing the game).

 

Religion

It used to scare me to death when I thought about the religious pulls on our relationship, my friends that belonged to your church used to terrify me with stories of families verbally abusing the girls that “led” boys off the path of righteousness. You always hesitated to talk about your dad, or the fact that your grandparents still refuse to accept his partner. It’s horrible to see a family collapsing upon itself.  I spoke to countless people on the process of converting to save our relationship, your mother never understood us, and how we could be so serious and believe different things. But honestly you have always been pulling away from it this was not my fault. And now that you have left me your family is in uproar. You are rebelling in ways your parents probably never thought possible, I think your mom realizes now I was your rock and I kept you from going to hell.

Trust - an abstraction

Trust

She loved him like summer.  Heavy days and carefree nights.  They took each other so seriously that it scared her with every bump while simultaneously granting her a wall of frosted glass behind which he allowed her to hold at bay fear, jealousy, inadequacy, and realism.  In naivety, she turned her back at her love’s foes, believing acknowledgment to qualify existence while still they paced back and forth with yellow eyes and cocky shoulders.  He stoked her timid courage with brazen declarations and words that rhymed and eyes that said please, and for a while this vulnerability was exhilarating. 

Once, the wall shattered.  It ripped all the air out of her and drove her to her knees.  Bleeding promises she desperately built lies and brave eyes and muffled barriers of anguish around her so that no one could see in, not even him.  He fought his way through to offer his hand and she accepted but she could not raise her eyes to him.  He led her through the mess that they had made but what he didn’t know, what her mouth would have him never know, is that with every aching step Words and Silence dipped their claws in her ankles and left gashes that burrowed deep into a corner of her heart and are still healing slowly, oh so slowly. 

The first wall was stronger, and its fall wholly wrenching.  Even now she holds memoirs of that frosted glass.  She clutches the remnants and her hands drip crimson with the betrayal.  She wants to rebuild it, and she supplements this new wall with old pieces, but they often fall off, leaving an incomplete patchwork of restarts and memories.

His eyes and hands tell her Never and to forget.  Believe him.  He is sincere.  She thinks she does and she knows he is but – last time she thought she did and she knew he was.

He doesn’t understand her fear and his voice is cold at her confusion.  Her apology is a rock of chaos and longing that sits on her chest.  She has turned her back on the wall again, but with any noise or tremor her wild eyes, flattened heart, and impolite desperation dash to brace its meager foundation.  He is in pain at these displays, and since she has vowed to never be such a catalyst, she instead reaches to hold his hand.  But she has seen the yellow eyes and cocky shoulders, and while she refuses to look, and keeps hold of his hand, she struggles to forget their presence.

Mitch Hedberg and Wordplay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6xaj2fC1jI

If you're familiar with the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, you know his joke style is founded on a kind of surrealist humor that involves wordplay, non-sequiturs and anticlimax. I was reminded of Hedberg when we were reading the Lorrie Moore story about the librarian and her fondness for making up Tom Swifties. Not knowing what those were, I Wikipedia'ed them and clicked through all the related hyperlinks on the page, one of them being "paraprosdokians" or anticlimactic statements, such as:

"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."-Hedberg

Anyway, wordplay is fun and Hedberg was a genius.

Bohemian Rhapsody: Interpretation of Lyrics

One of my favorite songs is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. I especially love to sing it so I was looking it up on Youtube and saw this. I liked it and thought it was pretty cool and I know I can't be the only one who likes Queen so check it out!

The Dancing Cow

Her foot tapped wildly against the wooden floor, and her eyes frantically glanced outside the kitchen window that was just above the sink, each pupil searching for the cherry Ford Escape that would soon be pulling in the driveway. When her attention flashed elsewhere within the kitchen, she ensured that her ears served as a replacement, listening for the low hum of the garage door that would signal his arrival. Her pupils never seemed to fixate on one particular thing for more than a few seconds. From the granite counter-top-following its pattern and tracing each differentiating color: charcoal blacks and ashy grays- to where the toaster and coffeepot sat, resting against the side of the refrigerator. Her vision finally rested upon the picture of her kissing him on the cheek, his eyes clamped shut from the laughter that rocked his motionless face. The picture rested in between two pieces of clear plastic, mounted on a magnetic strip that clung to the freezer door. She quickly averted her eyes from the two of them. Her ribcage throbbed from how tightly she was crossing her arms, but there was not a mental confirmation to be made that would suggest loosening the grip she had against her own body. The fabric on either side of her flannel had become wrinkled from her fingers’ constriction. Her gaze settled upon the coffee creamer she had placed in the middle of the counter top. She deliberately had cleared the area so that nothing else was competing for attention.

The bottle was immaculately placed so that it was facing the entrance to the kitchen. The label was aligned with where his incoming eyes would fall. He would be able to physically see the mistake he had made. The cow that stood, frozen in dance on the front of the bottle, stepped off of the plastic, her bell jingling from her swift trots of grace. The cow skipped to the edge of the counter that was closest to the portion of wall she had been leaning against. The animal began giggling, and her fatty gut shook from the added pressure it was now forced to sustain. The giggles quickly grew into cackles, resulting in the violent releasing of gongs from the bell strapped around her neck.  She released the fabric that was balled in her fists with a robotic motion, and, gently, she lowered her arms from their crossed position, letting them extend downward against her outer thighs. Her fingers were neither curled nor straight. They seemed incapable of remaining in either position. Instead, they resembled talons that quivered with the urge to lash upon unsuspecting prey. The veins that that flowed into each knuckle became a blistered white as the muscles beneath them tensed. She slid her right foot against the freshly polished, wooden floor, inching closer to the counter-top. The cow continued her chortled hysterics, and paid no attention what was coming towards her.

She didn't bother standing up straight as she slid against the floor towards the counter. Her back and shoulders curved inward, revealing the bony spinal cord and its lack of fatty protection. Each vertebra that poked against her flannel looked like spines coating the back of a crocodile.  Her jaws were clinched shut, but her lips were parted, revealing the teeth through which air whistled in and out of. She raised her talons and took a sudden lunge at the dancing cow, a low grunt escaping from between her teeth. Her elbows rammed against the top of the granite, and electric shocks reverberated throughout both arms, her ulnar nerves having been collided against. The echo of the bell ricocheted off each wall as the cow bounded away from her. She slid backwards, off the counter-top, crouching at shoulder-level with the granite.

The air blew furiously in and out of her parted teeth, and she let out a resonating growl from deep within her throat before taking another lunge towards the cow, who merely chuckled and danced her way back to the creamer bottle, where she made a final leap back into her jovial position as a dairy icon.

“Karen!”

She heard his booming voice resonate her name, and she paused, unmoving for several seconds, before slowly turning her head in the direction of the door that was just outside the kitchen entryway. How long had he been standing there, watching? She quickly snapped her attention back to the creamer bottle, but the dancing cow remained still. Karen did not return her gaze to him; he remained standing, motionless just outside of the kitchen. Everything that had been curdling within her for the past nine hours came boiling to her mouth.

“When were you going tell me, Jonathon?” The words slithered out of her mouth.

His mouth was hanging agape, still in shock from however much he had witnessed of her engagement with the cow. He shook his head with a jolt, bringing him back to the question Karen had just spat at him.

“Tell…tell you what exactly, Karen?” He squinted his eyes at her, taking a few cautious steps forward, entering the room. His eyes took a quick swirl around the kitchen, before allowing his attention to remain on Karen.

“You know precisely what I am referring to, Keith. I am talking about this!” She reached over and snagged the coffee creamer bottle with the dancing cow and hurled it in his direction. He ducked his head just as it smacked against the wall. It fell with a thud, the liquid inside sloshing against the container. The dancing cow raised her hoof, attempting to stifle a laugh, and Karen leapt to the floor, but the cow made no attempt to escape. Karen seized the bottle from the wooden, freshly polished floor, and righted herself so that she was facing her husband.

“This! This is what you didn’t tell me! How long have you been buying my favorite coffee creamer?!” She didn’t wait for a response. “And, now, of all times, you decide to get something else! Something that I probably won’t even like! And…and that cow! The cow knows that you didn’t buy the right creamer! She probably was laughing the entire time that you were shopping, all the way to the checkout and well into the parking lot, making a fool out of you! Who the hell do you think you are?! Huh?” She started pushing him back against the wall, wishing to shred each piece of skin holding his insides together.

Keith held his hands up and grabbed both of her talons. He gently straightened each claw and interlaced his fingers with them. He took a deep breath, holding her hands firmly against his when she attempted to rip them away. And began to sing. She shook her head aggressively from side to side- quick, jutting movements that the muscles in her neck could not even register. It doesn’t matter what I sing for her. It works every time. It has to. Over and over, Keith began reassuring himself that it would work. The tension in Karen’s claws began to weaken, and her fingertips closed around her husband’s, gripping them tightly.

Keith withdrew another breath, before releasing it in a stressed voice of confidence, “Rachel, honey! Did you see that I got you your favorite coffee creamer yesterday? I know that they don’t sell it anymore at Safeway, so I ordered it online, and it was finally delivered yesterday evening!” 

He waited for a few seconds, before she smiled at him and said, “Oh, darling. You are such a sweet man. Thank you so much.” 

Is America the greatest country in the world?

http://youtu.be/1zqOYBabXmA

So I posted a link to a clip that shows a monologue from the t.v. show The Newsroom. I was shown this clip last week in one of my journalism classes and it was so powerful that I just couldn't stop thinking about it. The question is, why is America the greatest country in the world? There are a lot of reasons, but listen to Jeff Daniels' answer. It may be shocking, it definitely was for me but it really hits home about the country that we live in and how much it has changed over the course of time. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful I live in America and the many opportunities we have, but this really opened my eyes to what is really going in our country and it also made me really want to start watching this show. 

Start out around 3 minutes though and there is some language, but we're all college students.