Doug: From My Father Learned

From my father I learned. My surname is Wood, and my father fits it. From my earliest memory he has been strong as Ironwood. They say that fathers will always be giants in the eyes of their children. I believe this is so. Indomitable, unwavering, and patient, my father is the heart tree. The dynast of all other trees in the forest.

From my father I take Strength, Patience, Honor. I learned to be still, and strong, and silent and in that silence find the wisdom to listen.

From my brother I learned. His surname is Hanssen, Son of Hans. His ancestors tamed the seas and built trade routes. Burned villages and saw foreign shores. From my earliest memory he has been restless. Yet his restlessness means more than an inability to sit still. His is an ability to dream of something and realize it. He sees what he wants and takes it, crossing oceans and continents to do so. But his goals are mere air and sand. They interest him not. It is his journey that matters, not where you go in life but the story you weave while going there. My brother is like the water, a well of a thousand stories and adventures.

From my brother I take Restlessness, Adventure and Accomplishment. I learned to dream and tell stories, and in those dreams and stories find my own goals and reach them.

From my mother I learned. My mother’s surname is Persons, and it means little to me. Her given name describes her better. Eve. Eve took the apple because she wanted to know good from evil. From my earliest memory my mother has taught me right from wrong. My mother is the hearth fire, without her the home is not. My mother taught me to love others, to believe the best in man even when they prove you wrong. My mother taught me empathy, to make my loved ones pain my own, and in doing so lessen theirs. My mother taught me to be human.

From my mother I take Empathy, Kindness, and Family. I learned that no man is below me, and to make those that deserve it my family, blood or no.

From my friends I learned. I learned things innumerable. Their names are Legion, their traits as vast as the stars. I will name some closest. From the Queen’s daughter I learned the power of God, and the meaning it had for others as well as me. The power of belief is a force of nature, and even when brought low one can find some meaning. From the father of nations I learned acceptance of things that you can change, and things that you can’t. I learned that there are some people that will stick by you until the end. Not because it’s the right thing to do or even the smart thing to do, but it is what you choose to do. From the Pearl I learned consideration. There are a thousand paths in every moment, but what you choose has meanings beyond yourself. The Pearl has shown me this in ways she can’t imagine, and I thank her for it.

From the Princess I take Faith, in all its power and danger. From the Father I take Loyalty, in all of its weakness and strength. From the Pearl I take Consequence; in all of its unknown and known forms.

From peace I learned. I learned that one day I’m going to have to beat this sword into a plow and let someone younger do the fighting. Before I knew peace I didn’t know that I could ever want to do that. Peace taught me that life was worth living and worth protecting. Peace can be left behind, but never forgotten. These are the things that peace taught me.

From peace I take Love, and don’t regret it for a second.

These among others have made me. Love, Loyalty, Consequence, Faith, Kindness, Family, Empathy, Restlessness, Adventure, Accomplishment, Patience, Strength, Honor. Shards of a mirror, facets of how I came into being. They exist in me because others have taught them to me, and for this I am eternally grateful.

I will take your lessons, your knowledge.

I will use them for good.

To this I swear my Sacred Honor, from my Father learned.

-Doug

Meghan: The real cause of the common cold

I cracked open my eyes to the bright light of day, hoping to go directly to my desk and study for my upcoming finals until I passed out. But what I saw perched on the bedspread stopped me cold; there was a tiny chicken in my bed.
“Shit, shit…” I cursed softly as the little creatures hopped down my chest. I reached with one hand to the side table for the book I had fallen asleep reading and shook Jasmine awake with the other.
“Uhh?” She groaned blearily and turned my way. The tiny chicken sensed her breath and darted for her open mouth, but I was too quick. With one hand I sealed Jasmine’s mouth safely shut and with the book in the other hand I smashed the tiny chicken flat.
“Damn things, I thought the cats got all of them.” I muttered. Jasmine was wide awake now and happily scraped the tiny chicken off the bedspread, murmuring something about specimen jars.
“It didn’t get you did it?” She asked, concerned.
“I don’t think so…” I carefully felt my nose, ears, and mouth searching for some evidence that a tiny chicken had been there.
But then I felt it. That telltale popping that can mean only one thing; a tiny chicken has laid its eggs in your head.
“Uuuuggghhhh…” I groaned, leaning forward onto the bed. Jasmine patted me sympathetically on the back, setting a box of Kleenex down beside me as the eggs popping in my head dripped their mucus down through my nasal passages and out through my nose.
Several days later I was curled in a blanket on the couch with a bowl of mint ice cream for my throat. The egg-mucus had worked its magic and I felt miserable from the neck-up.
“You know, milk and sugar only make the tiny chickens stronger.” Jasmine told me as she plopped down next to me. I glared at her and licked another glorious spoonful down. I didn’t care if my tiny chickens came out green and minty fresh, the ice cream felt wonderful on my ravaged throat. Jasmine had started carrying around various smashing tools and sleeping with a sealed helmet. All was in preparation for the eventual emersion of my fully grown tiny chickens. Personally, I was hoping that they were all eaten by our cats, I didn’t quite trust her smashing skills; but Jasmine wanted to be prepared. I felt a sneeze building from a long way off and grabbed a tissue. When I finally sneezed it was such a huge relief I almost didn’t feel the thing that flew out of my left nostril. My own home-grown tiny chicken landed with a little splat on the coffee table and fluffed out its wings. Jasmine and I just stared at it in shock, but the cats were not so frozen. When the tiny feathered thing hopped off the table it was a mad dash to see which cat could devour the thing first.
“Okay.” Jasmine handed me a pickle jar, “sneeze out another one.”
“I don’t need to sneeze.”
“Then just hang onto that until you do. They’re supposed to come out at about the same time, right?”
“Yes, but—“ And then I sneezed, my eyes crossing with the force of it. With all the concentration and precision of a person catching her girlfriend’s tiny chickens in a pickle jar (which is quite a lot), she caught what launched from my face and slammed the lid down.
“Oooohhh…” I groaned, sliding down on the couch.
“Ohh! Twins!” Jasmine held the jar up to the light, “Congratulations mama.”
“Shut…up…”
She laughed at me and went to make me tea.
I dragged myself up and looked into the jar. The little chickens were pecking and scratching around aimlessly, trying to get up the sloping glass sides, “What do you want them for anyway?”
“Oh…things.” Jasmine set a steaming mug down in front of me
“Things?” I asked archly.
“Just some people I want to…you know…I doubt I’ll ever use them.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Shhh.” She clicked on the TV and the theme from Buffy the vampire Slayer echoed in the house. “You’re sick; we’ll talk about it when you’re better.”
“Actually I’m feeling a lot better now that the tiny chickens are gone—“
“Shhh…”She smoothed my hair back from my face, “Poor, sick Meghan.”
I resisted the urge to punch her in the kidneys and settled in to watch many vampires turn to dust. The episode was briefly interrupted when I sneezed and another tiny chicken burst from my nose to be chased by cats and Jasmine waving a jar. I almost felt sorry for the poor thing.
Just another normal day.





-M

Doug: This Blog

This blog is fucking awesome.

This blog is everything Jasmine wants it to be.

This blog is everything I want it to be.

This blog is witty, cynical, insightful, whimsical, senseless, wise, mediocre, irreverent, bitter, cheerful, inspiring, and everything else it should be.

This blog is the moon landing. This blog is a genocide in some foreign country no one who reads this has ever heard of or will give a shit about for more than the next fifteen seconds.

This blog is important.

This blog is irrelevant.

This blog makes a statement and says nothing.

This blog means I miss you, all of you, even the ones who won't/don't speak to me. It also means I want to fucking strangle the lot of you.

This blog is going nowhere. Fast. Like a bullet train from the deserts of Nevada to the jungles in Congo. Nothing worth anything at either end.

This blog is angry, and sad. This blog is hungry, not for food or drink but words and feelings and sensations like sunlight dripping over your skin like a shower of light.

This blog wants to resonate inside you and make you so angry at your loss that you want to do everything, anything to get back those bonds you lost.

This blog wants nothing more than your complete, absolute, and full attention. Because whatever you are doing right now is not as important as this blog. Nothing, not homework, not real work, not boyfriends not girlfriends, not food, not taking a shit, not camping trips, not parents visiting, not the mundane, boring life that we've pounded ourselves into, none of it, is as important as this blog is right now.

This blog has your full attention.

This blog will now state its demands.

This blog wants more.

This blog wants you to pick up the phone and call it.

This blog wants to go on a camping trip together.

This blog wants to be what it once was. Whole, complete, better than itself.

This blog once heard a story about apple pie. All the ingredients of apple pie are good on their own. The apples, the pastry, the butter, the cinnamon, the sugar; they're all good. But with a little bit of effort, all those pieces come together to become more than the sum of their parts. The apples, the pastry, the butter, the cinnamon, the sugar all combine to make something that is greater than the sum of it's parts. Something more than just it's component pieces.

This blog wants to be an apple pie.

This blog is sick of your bullshit. And yours. Yours too. And especially YOURS.

This blog is sick of it's own bullshit, and is feeling pretentious.

This blog doesn't give a fuck.

This blog wants to talk about Bin Laden, or Libya, or North Korea, or camping trips, or fantasy worlds, or star ships, or biochemistry, or vampires, or werewolves, or nonsensical dreams or angry rants. This blog wants to BE. To EXIST.

This blog wants to fight for its life on the stormy seas of Cyberspace.

This blog wants to be at rest in a field of digital flowers.

This blog wants to scheme to take over the internet.

This blog wants to dream of electric sheep and other things unimaginable to lesser blogs.

This blog just wants to love, and be loved in return. Because that is what that blog holds dear.

This blog is the sum of many blogs, and yet greater than it's own self.

This blog is.

-Doug