One Hour Short Story Challenge

My friend Ken gave me a single sentence to incorporate into a short story that I wrote in an hour. "French toast used to be my favorite food, until I deleted my Orkut account." The story follows. 

My father was not what you would call tech savvy. More often than not, he troubleshot computer problems by yelling at the monitor and slamming his meaty palms on the keys. It’s funny from an outside perspective but I didn’t have the luxury of an outside perspective. When it came to tech support, I was first person narrating all the way.

Similar to a lot of dads out there, he was embarrassing to be with him in public, but things only got worse when he started carrying that damn laptop with him. Helping him defrag his computer at Dennys while the waitress lifted the coffeepot to her face to hide a smirk was not my ideal meal.

For some reason or other, one of Dad’s old Army buddies hooked him into the social networking craze. Luckily for me, rather than using Facebook like everyone else on this planet, Dad used Orkut. Unluckily for me, the invitations started showing up in my inbox shortly after he joined.

I humored him of course. Despite all the idiosyncrasies and signs of what I could only assume were early dementia, I loved my old man, at least loved him enough to play along. I joined, uploaded a picture and friended my father. He was my only friend on the site and it was easy for me to forget that I even had an account. My own virtual life stay contained to Facebook and Twitter, lands my father dared not tread.

           You’re never prepared for the death of a parent. One minute, they’re healthy, yelling at both you and the computer to, “Defrag! Defrag!” The next minute, a routine and the man who followed it are gone from your life for good. Immediate grief I could deal with, but the hollowness ate away at me. As much as I complained about helping my father with the computer, it was a solid and predictable part of my life that I no longer had.
            It was a few weeks after the funeral when Mom asked if I could blank out dad’s old machine. She wanted to use it, but didn’t want constant reminders of him every time she opened it up. It wouldn’t take long, so I took his laptop to breakfast with me and figured I could have the machine back to factory settings by that afternoon.
            The restaurant had WiFi and as I booted up the machine out of a long sleep, Dad’s last webpage was still up and running. Not surprisingly, it was Orkut and he had hundreds of posts. Some were from his friends, but most of them were his own personal observations. I scrolled through a few of his messages and posts, chuckling as I did when I saw a link to my own profile as a friend of my fathers. I had nearly forgotten about my account. I clicked on my profile and was expecting to see the blank page I had left, but was presented with a flowing wall of posts and messages from my father.
            I swallowed hard and could barely log out of my father’s account in order to log into my own. I read every single message my father had written me . At one point, the waitress had brought my breakfast, but I hadn’t really noticed.

When I was done reading, my food was cold and there was a knot in my stomach I knew wasn’t from hunger. And then, because I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else finding my profile filled with a year of messages and love, I locked away my personal shame and cowardice for good.

Truth be told. French toast used to be my favorite food, until I deleted my Orkut account.

I am so EXCITE [sic]

School is starting again and I'm starting to feel a might bit more purposeful. In a word, I feel excited about life. So many people seem to zombie walk their way through most of their experiences and I can't help but wonder how they aren't more excited about the possibility.

I'm excited about the fact that I have a new roster of students. I'm excited about trying out standards based grading. I'm excited to see my friends and colleagues at work.

I suppose it comes down to passion and curiosity. I may not always look the part, but I'm a passionate person. For me, it's a self-feed mechanism where once it starts, it's hard to stop. Depression absolutely kills the excitement part, but I maintain the manic and obsessive speed. So when I'm depressed, I'm doing something that I hate, but I can't stop myself from doing it. Maybe that's a bit neurotic, but I can't help it. I've long since given up the notion that I'll ever achieve a semblance of normal. Competence yes, normal no. Regardless of my mental state, I push forward.

Ghost Deer

I've gotten in the habit of taking some long walks this summer. It makes me feel like even more of an old man, but unlike those AARP-carrying senior citizens who power walk through the mall at 10:00 in the morning, I walk mostly at night, really late at night in fact. I feel comfortable stepping out at midnight or one in the morning knowing there's not much chance I'll be assaulted. The air is much, much cooler and nobodies really out and about. The world is frozen in time, covered in black ink.

For the past week or so my mission has been to photograph a small group of deer that graze near a church. I see them every night, but they're never under a light source long enough for my camera to snap any decent photos. I fumble with the camera, screw with the shutter speed and inevitability get some underexposed photos or some lovely motion blurs. Maybe I'll submit them to ghost hunting forums. Wildlife photography this is not.

Living in 'MERICA

I happen to live in 'MERICA. Perhaps you do too, but if you don't, let me tell you a little bit about my fine country. For one, you can't say the name of 'MERICA without shouting it. There needs to be a full expulsion of air which may or may not result in spittle dousing some unsuspecting listeners. If you're wearing overalls or suspenders, now would be the time to hook your thumbs in the straps and rock on your heels. If you're wearing a hat, take it off. You can't say the name 'MERICA and keep your head covered.

'MERICA is a great place. It's the land of outdoor BBQs, state fairs and road trips to national monuments. Apple pie is served every night for dessert, but don't you dare say you want it "a la mode" because there's only one language spoken in 'MERICA and that's 'MERICAN. You'll notice we don't use an accent mark over the "a" in "a la mode." That's because accent marks don't exist in 'MERICA.

In 'MERICA, we love our guns and explosions.  If it were up to us, every day would be the fourth of July, every day except Christmas of course, which in 'MERICA, is a state holiday. We love the Constitution and claim we love all parts of it equally, but really, the second amendment will always be the shining star in our eye.

Everybody owns a house in 'MERICA with a white picket fence and a perfectly manicured lawn. Old Glory proudly ripples in the breeze, even on days where there is no wind, and every night, children and old veterans retire the flag in a solemn ceremony. At night, every family eats together and then retires to watch football or baseball in the living room. The TVs are gigantic. They cost more than two month salary, and every family has a larger TV set than his neighbor. 

Nobody is a vegetarian. We eat copious amounts of beef, chicken and pork, but mostly beef. Nothing is more 'MERICAN than a 32 ounce steak. When we're not eating beef, we're eating corn, harvested by hard working 'MERICANs or potatoes, also harvested by hard working 'MERICANS.

'MERICA has never lost a war, will never lose a war, and by the off chance that we do happen to lose one, we shall call it a draw or at the very least not label it a "war." It'll be a military engagement that just happens to result in the loss of many 'MERICAN lives. We love the troops in 'MERICA. To not love the troops is akin to treason punishable by community shaming. We have a hard time understanding how we can not support a war but at the same time support the troops, so usually we just support both, because this is 'MERICA and that's what 'MERICANs do. Besides, 'MERICA would never go to war unless democracy was threatened in some part of the world.

'MERICANs grow up playing sports, doing well in school and going to college. We go to a State University, meet our future spouses and promptly get married after graduation. A litter of children soon follows who we patiently teach our 'MERICAN values to. We work honest jobs, blue collar, white collar, it makes no difference. The unemployment rate is 0% in 'MERICA and you retire at 65 with your house payed off and your grandchildren living down the street. In the twilight of your life, you crisscross this great nation in a camper, seeing all the great 'MERICAN sites and telling anyone who will listen what a great country you live in.

There's no better country on this here Earth than 'MERICA and if you ever question that, you're probably not living in 'MERICA.

Yet Another Modest Adventure

I'm out of shape. Or at least I feel out of shape. Both mentally and physically, I'm feeling a bit doughy.  While it's all fine and good to revert to a liquid form for brief periods of time, I think life is much better lived when one's body and mind are toned. As such, I'm resurrecting this blog to at least give my mind something to do. I doubt my body will be mistaken for Adonis any time soon, but that's another story altogether, a slovenly descent from dedicated runner to lethargic waddler.

A few days ago, some kickball friends and I were shooting the breeze at a post-game BBQ. The weather was absolutely perfect, the type of June weather people ideally associate with June, but don't often see because Missouri weather is akin to an armpit in both dampness and temperature. Somehow, the topic of personality came up and I was asked to described mine. After thinking about it for a few moments, I gave a flippant but unexpectedly honest answer, "sporadic obsessive." A few friends nodded in agreement. I suppose I could explain what I meant, but if you already know me, then I'm sure it needs no explanation, and if you don't know me and are reading this for some reason, it'll probably come together after reading a few of my posts.

So in the spirit of starting a new project with initial vigor, I'm giving blogging another shot. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's once again summer and summer always brings out a certain amount of reflection. I can't promise that this will be interesting or that I'll even be honest. If you want honesty, go watch a hawk swoop down into a field and shuffle a rodent off its mortal coil. What I can promise is that I have no idea what direction this blog will actually take. I don't know if this will be more biographical, observational, or hobby focused. In the end, I think you'll be just as surprised by what gets written here as I am, and that suits my personality just fine. Here's to another modest adventure.