A Short Imagined Monologue From The Bee That Stung Me On The Sidewalk

Stay cool. That's the key, just pretend you're looking for flowers, buzzing low to the ground. Good. He doesn't see you yet. Maybe he won't see you - if you're that good at this. But who's to know.

Don't blow this. You only get one shot, after all. Don't lose your shit. We need this one. Remember what happened last time? That attack plan was so easy. So easy. The young drones could have stung that lady without even warming their wings in the sun. She was sitting down - with her eyes closed! Napping in the sun like a stupid human, completely letting her guard down. It doesn't come any easier than that! And what did you do? You chickened out. You made a few menacing sweeps and flew off. You knew it was unacceptable and you did it anyway. You are a coward and the whole hive knows it. 

But not anymore. You're not afraid of death, of the inevitability that lies after the initial sting. Biology can be so cruel, but now is not the time to be angry with mother nature. Now is the time to protect the hive. To restore honor to your browbeaten name. 

10 meters and coming fast. You can hear his footsteps, he's so close. Don't get antsy. Don't panic and jump the gun. You can do this. You have to do this. 

You need a good spot to sting him. Someplace he would never expect. Someplace that would prove your stealth-flight abilities to the disbelievers back at the hive. Someplace that will make them say, "That kid, he could fly". 

3 meters. Go. No waiting, just go. Inside the shoe, find the bare skin of his hidden flesh.

There. He knows. You can hear him in pain. You can feel his fingers frantically reaching around inside his shoe; a space he once believed to be safe from the dangers of the wild. 

You can hear their applause erupting at the hive as the life rapidly drains through your open circulatory system while you fleetingly buzz on the sidewalk. Their respect makes this process easier, but it does not counter the fact that our thorax has evolved to be so ill-designed.  

I have just one request, human: End this life of mine. Though you may think it revenge to take the mere months I have called life, it is mercy that I will find beneath your angrily stomping shoe. 

You shall survive, human, and I shall not. My life has made the smallest disturbance in the flow of time, but you will remember me. Every time you pass that fateful stretch of sidewalk, you will remember our brief encounter.

Thank you. 

 

College Thoughts: End of Year One

This morning, amid my delicious Eggo waffles and orange juice, I was hit with the urge to ponder my crossing of the rickety bridge between high school and college. With some time to spare before I peddled off to work, I re-read my thoughts on my high school experience . I never would have guessed I would be so thankful this early in my life that I took the time to catalogue my feelings of the past in such an accessible manner. Whether driven by some instinctual response to continue somewhat of a digital diary (perhaps for future Mike), or, and much more likely the cause, being the sucker for nostalgia that I happen to be, I've decided to give an accurate summary of my first year in college. 

Before I begin reviewing what has been, without a doubt, the most wonderful and strange year of my life, it is important that I disclose one simple fact: the timeframe recorded as my freshman year was remarkably different than what you assume a standard, first-year-of-college would be (at least, held up against sketches of my own judgments based on information gathered from television and friends). This much I know

Needless to say, it all began in a somewhat uncommon fashion. As is the case again this summer, mid August marks the beginning of Cross Country season with our team camp on Mount Rainier. I can't spend too long describing the ebb and flow of my collegiate running career; due, in large part, to our fifteen mile Sunday run's shy habit of straying far from even the deftest of word-butcherer's descriptions. What I will say is that I have met the most remarkable people who share my desire to scurry over mountains and experiment with the limits of their lung's abilities. I look forward, with incredible amounts of anticipation, to spending many more miles alongside these friends. 

Seattle University is a small school, which means they like to spend extra effort forcing their new arrivals to participate in games designed for the casual 4th grader. Once you survive the institution's fragile attempts of connecting you with other people by bringing you all down to an equal level of embarrassment, you are ready to begin classes. 

Here's the point at which I digress to create a few quick lists, purely for future statistical clarity. 

Things I Learned While Sitting in Class:

• Anthropology, while technically classified as a science, is rarely scientific
  
• Toni Morrison writes beautifully about trauma
  
• Calculus isn't so bad
  
• The inside of your eye looks like the night sky with a streak of an Aurora Borealis
  
• Poverty in America stems from many, many factors
  

Things I Learned Outside of Class:

• Yogurt parfaits will save your life at 7:15 am
  
• A bowl of rice and beans will save you at any time of day
  
• Racquetball is not just for old men
  
• Raincoats are a necessity and must be grown into
  
• The seasons change more engagingly in the city
  

Things I Continue to be astonished by:

• The amount of time people spend on Facebook
  
• The number of books I read that were not required by my classes
  
• How bravely I steered clear of a gripping addiction to Stumptown/Cafe Vita/Top Pot coffee (although, the jury for my Top Pot doughnut dependency are certainly taking their time)
  

For the first time in my life I have felt the naked speed of time. I am being pulled into the future as recklessly as a mother pulls a misbehaving child through the supermarket. 

I wouldn't have it any other way. 

My Mom.

(The title of this post is my mom because, when I asked Katie what the title should be, she responded with "Your mom." So, there you have it.)

Moving beyond her fierce tendencies, Katie and I recently visited the Japanese Gardens, which is by the Washington State Arboretum, which I know about. When we arrived (thanks to our trusty bikes), they wouldn't even let us in. 

After a few minutes of furious knocking, they eventually acquiesced and let us frolic inside. I played cameraman through the entryway for your viewing pleasure.

The midday sun was high in the sky and, naturally, I did what any meerkat would do to escape the heat of the desert - I sought comfort with a refreshing swim.

Unfortunately, Katie said no and I was stuck posing for pictures instead. 

We saw some very beautiful flowers.

Some of them even smelled funny to our acute meerkat noses.

(Now that's a cute meerkat nose). But the most exciting aspect of the garden, and what tickled our meerkat instincts the most, was the abundance of animal friends we made throughout the day.

Some of them even had trouble swimming in the same pond together without colliding.

Oh No! Watch out!

In the end, we're all friends as long as we

Wait... What's Wrong With my Blog?

Contrary to what many of my viewers must think, this is not my first attempt at a blog. It is, remarkably, closer to my eleventh attempt to spill my guts on this blogosphere we call Earth. 

You see, this blog was created with controversy saturating every letter of its page like a week-old bunt cake long forgotten atop the refrigerator. It 

was birthed in the darkest alleyway of Sin City itself. Or so it would seem when I received the following message.

My initial reaction combusted into  

Me? Under investigation for possible violations? What could I have possibly done wrong? So I did some research that led me to actually read, for the first time in my life, a Terms of Service list. (For those potential law-breaking bloggers out there who haven't taken the time to read this crucial list of no-nos, I will reproduce the entertaining part here)

At first, I thought it might be a violation of hateful content since I used the word "slave", as in, "Boyfriend-Slave". By this point, I was past being slightly upset and entering the arena of royally pissed off. That's not actually true, but my blog had been locked for nearly three weeks and I was beginning to lose hope it all aspects of my nearly tangible blogging future. I mean, come on, I'm not doing anybody any harm. I just want to catalogue some of my travels and make some jokes along the way. Who do they think they are trying to stop me from doing that. Seriously, who the hell do they think that are? It would be like if I went to their house and told them they couldn't take a shower because it violates a pornographic rule. 

Then I was hit with another notice, which explained that I was red-flagged as a spam blog.

Nonsensical text? Alright, I'll give em that one.