An Old Flame

     So I went to my old Marine Corps Recruiting Station today to drop off a few of those red warrant/award jackets that are of no further use (a lesson I learned from GySgt James Eric Puckett), and while I drove home I had nice period of reflection that I think some of you can relate to; that the Marine Corps is like how some people see their ex-girlfriends.

     Sure it was fun and exciting at first. You tried new things together. Took a couple trips. Experimented in ways you weren't always completely comfortable with. But you were young and in love with the idea of who they were, and maybe you needed someone to help out with the rent and groceries anyway.

     As you got more comfortable with each other though, you started needing to do more and more to impress them. You had to dress better. Get in better shape. Make better decisions in the company of friends. It was challenging. And while in some ways you look back on that time as the most personally developing period of your relationship, it was also the beginning of the end...

     ..Because now you're getting to a level that's difficult to maintain. And every little mistake they are on your ass.

     "Why can't you do the dishes!"

     "Where's the god damn morning report!"

     But you give it your best shot anyway, because dammit, this is a commitment and maybe they are the best that your going to do (because let's face it, everyone thinks they're hot) and I'm going to keep at it because maybe this is just a rough patch.

     And then they cheat on you.

     You keep it together for a while, but in the end its inevitable. This isn't going to be a lifelong commitment anymore. You're heart just isn't in it anymore. And you split up.

     But after a while, after you've moved on with your life, you're going through your musty shit and realize that you have a few of her red warrant/awards jackets(...?) that maybe they might want back.

     It's awkward at first, but pretty soon you're making jokes because you guys have your own little language from your time together in a world that only the two of you understand. But while you're happy to have stopped by and said hello, you know in your heart you made the right decision.

Pearl Necklaces

I have three pearl necklaces. I have four women in mind.

The first necklace is the type of pearl necklace Marge Simpson or Lucy Ricardo would wear. Perfect spheres of identical size, uniformly strung. This is for my mother. The second is similar. A string of pearls, though oblong. An imperfect piece of natural beauty. Like the teeth my step-mom kept from her daughter's teeth-losing years to make sentimental jewelry. Teeth that she would keep hidden away in a drawer until her kids were old enough to appreciate how big they had grown. Teeth she kept until her daughter's sons were old enough to lose teeth.

I bought the necklaces in The Philippines. My eye got caught by a pretty Filipina fidgeting bored behind a glass display counter of pearl jewelry. Maybe she was just wiping the sweat from the back of her neck, but she acted restless. I didn't go to her right away. I wasn't there to buy jewelry.

The Souvenir Shop on Camp Navarro, The Philippines is a quietly competitive commercial zone all within one large room. The store is set up as two different clothing and accessory sellers, two plaque and memorabilia sellers, and a fifth counter selling moderately priced jewelry and paintings of celebrity's pictures (with the picture in the lower left- or right-hand corner of the painting). The fifth seller also sold T-shirts.

I walked into the Souvenir Shop out of curiosity, in search of trinkets from a far-away land that I could give to my Brothers. I found a pool stick inlaid with a snakeskin pattern on the handle, and an inlaid stone tiger-figure prowling up the center of the stick toward the cue. The heavy price made me take a minute to consider our friendship. I walked over to look at something else. I'm never immune to the power of shininess.

"Can I help you?" she asked in perfect, accented English.

"NothankyouI'mjustlooking," my holstered answer, at-the-ready for salesmen.

I'm caught gazing at a piece for more than a millisecond. "You want see this one?"

Hesitated "uhhhh" and "yyyyyeaaaahs" to be excluded to understate my inability to interface with women confidently these days.

"Yes please."

She has a springy purple bracelet attached to her wrist with keys to the back of the display counter. As she slides the mirrored backdrop away from the pearl necklaces and earrings and bracelets, they somehow appear less brilliant than before. The illusion of the jewelry's beauty is encapsulated by the display case, and is somehow marred by pulling back the wizard's curtain. For a brief moment I feel the disappointment between the exhilaration of want, and the responsibility of have, instigated by the removal of a shininess multiplier.

She sets the necklace in front of me on the counter in a red, velvety box. The box shows the necklace as you would imagine it on cleavage. This necklace is not like the others. It is not uniform. It could only be called a pearl necklace because pearl is the only stone on the pendant, beside zirconium. It falls like the leaves of a vine, curling into six points. Three points are zirconium leaves. The others are perfect ovoid pearls, extending from the branch's tip like dew drops.

"How much is this one."

--

"Okay I'll take it."

Limericks: A Shout to My Fellow Papists

"A limerick is a five-line poem with a strict form, originally popularized in English by Edward Lear. Limericks are frequently witty or humorous, and sometimes obscene with humorous intent."

According to wikipedia these two are anonymous, but I think worth reiteration:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical

Into space that is quite economical,

But the good ones I've seen

So seldom are clean,

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

There once was a lady from Bude

Who went swimming one day in the lake.

A man in a punt

Stuck his pole in the water

And said "You can't swim here -- it's private.

Ha! Well, anyway, here are two of my own that you might enjoy unless you happen to have given birth to me:

There once was an Ellensburg man
Whose buttcheeks were glued to the can.
It stunk to high heaven
By six or day seven.
"Could someone just turn on the fan?!"

And:

I once met a pimp with three toes
Who took tricks for a trio of ho's.
They couldn't find Johns
to pay for tampons
Now his digits hold back heavy flows.

Gross. Bob Sagat would be proud. Proust less so mayhap. But what can you expect for a Friday six beers deep.

Sorry Mom

February 5, 08

The sun was peaking out for the first time all day. Looming from the right, a gargantuan cloud appeared enormously, compared to the tiny sun. The cloud crept towards. A familiar occurence? one lacking literary long-sight might queerly question. But not this instance of sky-star interaction, oh no, not today would atmo and astro idly pass like trench-coated strangers on a dark bit of street. Today the masterful molecules of vapor split for the warmth of the sun, allowing the frozen feet of anyone found fortunate, to loosen in the ground. Yes, even the earth seemed to moan and quiver as though awoken from her afternoon nap. A solid beam piercing through ethereal Venetian blinds. As the earth rolled over, the cloud stilled. While the child's eye may see many things, staring into the sky upon kelly green fields of grass and clover, to us it looked like a great hand, gently pinching this yellow orb, holding it, and us, in place, as all spade and pitches and men gaped collectively in awe. Just for a moment. Then it dispersed, and the ground retightened its grip on our worn, leather feet, and the cloud behaved like it had revealed an intimate secret to an unworthy listener; with regret. The radiance of the sun began to fall beyond the hills. The tools lost interest, returning to their weary, uncaring lives. Not us. At that moment no wage or woman was wanted. We stood and stared in awe. The scene changed, but the image burned. We blue-collar boys wanted for nothing.
"That was beautiful," someone said.