Happy Old Year!

Here's to old beginnings and fresh ends. Here's to resolutions of New Years past and to their successes. Here's to their failures. Here's to old stories, past joys, ancient loves, and freshly buried mistakes.

Here's to the old year, the days that were once our present, once our future, and just as bright as the year we face now. Here's to those days we tackled head on, bold despite our fears. Here's to those weeks we dragged ourselves through just to see the other side of Thursday.

Here's to the New Year, which will one day be the old year.

Make it one worth looking back on.

Lucidity

Among the many blessings sleep bestows,
undoubtedly, the wondrous dream is king,
for sometimes, just as I begin to doze,
I gain control and can do anything.
As I drift off into the depths of dreams,
where lifetimes pulse like heartbeats through my mind,
my thinking sharpens, and to me it seems
that all myself has left the flesh behind.
I crawl through purple water made of air.
I run across red deserts made of snow.
I shed the limitations bodies bear
and know the thoughts my waking self can't know.
Yet, from this state of grace, I always fall
and dreams reduce to songs I can't recall.

Renovations

I want to destroy something. I'm not angry, but I might be mad.

Metal almost screams when you tear into it, whines as you bite into it with a hack saw. Then, I find that glorious breaking point. Strain as it might, aluminum yields to flesh when you apply the proper leverage. I revel in the moment when the fight has ended, and the metal submits to my shaping.

However, if metals are the wrestling match, glass is the ballet. Sparkling shards of pirouetting shrapnel dance on the floor to the music of clinking and cracking. I, the conductor, set off the performance with nothing but my baton, or to be more precise, my drywall hammer.

However, nothing matches the total abandon and absolute savagery of a sledgehammer to a house. Obliterating foam insulation, disintegrating drywall, and knocking out 2x4 with a single swing. Wild, joyous, vicious and euphoric. I am strong. I am powerful. I am destruction.

Stand in my way, and YOU WILL FALL...

and I will laugh.

Coincidence

Sharon gasped for breath as she hurtled through the park, stumbling over logs and debris, but never stopping or slowing. Even as a stone gashed into her left foot, the pain only registered in some quiet place where the brain stores unimportant information. At the moment, nothing mattered but that she run faster. The rabid dog that pursued her was closing the gap.

Meanwhile, at a restaurant across from a park ...

"Harold, I don't know if I can move in with you. It's just such a big step, and I can't help feeling we're going too fast," Nina said, shaken by this sudden proposition. However, the patio of a posh restaurant was not the place for her to go into one of her breakdowns.

"quickly," Harold replied, unblinking.

"What?"

"Quickly is an adverb, whereas fast is an adjective. Going is a verb, not a noun, and thus requires an adverb."

Nina did blink, and for the first time in her life, shut up entirely.

Meanwhile, in a tree on the edge of a park...

Mr. Fuddles waited, flamethrower, blow gun, and gummy-bears in hand. The aliens wouldn't know what hit them.

Meanwhile, high above the city in a helicopter...

Detective Max Avery held his patrol of the skies. He had heard a report of some illegal activity in the park at night. He had been assigned to watch over the area, scanning it with infrared cameras to help ground forces if a suspect should run. However, Avery had never much cottoned to the idea of sitting back idly while others did the fun work. His trigger finger was starting to itch.

What could have happened several minutes later...

Sharon ran straight into the restaurant patio, knocking over the table Harold and Nina shared. As they started to react, a dog, frothing at the mouth, barreled into Nina, attempting to chew through her terrified face. Mr. Fuddles, knew what he had to do. He blew his blow gun, loaded with potassium chlorate, and put his flame thrower to work. Screams flew up into the night and patrons, burned and otherwise, ran from the scene. Then, came the gummy-bears, enveloping the patio in sparks and smoke. Detective Avery, seeing this, did not bother to think. He open fired, killing Sharon, Nina, Harold, and Mr. Fuddles. The rabid dog was fine.

What really happened several minutes later...

Sharon made it out of the park and hailed a cab. She would need new flip-flops and a visit to the doctor to stitch up her split foot. Otherwise, she simply needed to catch her breath and relax from the whole experience.

Nina realized that Harold's pedantic side did not agree with Nina's sensitivity. She suggested that they separate for a time and see where the break would take them. Nina had to wait for a taxi, because some crazy woman from the park took the one she attempted to hail.

Mr. Fuddles did not see the aliens he had so hoped for. He did manage to hit a pigeon with the blow gun, but it flapped away before he could add fire and gummy bears to the mix. Frustrated, he did not even notice the looks that the dejected young man leaving a patio restaurant gave him.

Detective Avery and the ground officers chased down and arrested a pair of drug dealers. As Avery flew the helicopter back to its pad, They also spotted a rabid dog, knocked it out with a tazer, and called animal control. Avery always missed all the action.

Moral of the Story

Never forget your Kevlar at home.

Home (Translation)

It is always dark in my home. I never leave, for I could not live away from it. Fortunately, my home can travel. Wherever I go, it follows. The door never opens, and no one visits my chambers. However, I am not lonely. My friends speak to me, although they have never come to my home, or I gone to their's. Besides, my home is always full. Since home is where the heart is, I have quite a lot of blood and organs in mine.

TARDIS

Times is a tricky thing. I always think I've learned to manage it, but then it slips away from me.

And I know that I could post regularly, that I could finish my work earlier, that  I could work out consistently.

Relatively speaking, they're easy things to do compared to rocket science and brain surgery. Yet, I never seem to do what I promise myself by the time I've promised to do it.

Dimensions of my personality conflict; some say work; some say play; the rest say I won't be happy no matter what I decide on.

In fact, I can hear them now; why are you writing instead of sleeping? Why are you considering sleep?

Space for all I want to do just never seems to fit into my schedule, even though I know it should and can.

Which is why, Santa Claws, I want a TARDIS for Christmas next year.

Eyes

Have you ever noticed how important eyes are to the metaphysical us?

Try to locate where "you" are, the you that you retreat to when your body goes on autopilot. I'll bet you didn't find yourself in your big toe. You found yourself nestled just behind the eyes.

Then, consider poetry and romance. The eyes are the window to the soul, though not everyone chooses to open the blinds. Lovers can lose themselves in each other's eyes. The magnetic attraction of those strange things sitting in a fleshy skull. Has anyone ever lost themselves so completely in an elbow?

No, the real fascination rests with those orbs of light, swirled together into two shining samples of humanity.