Throwback Thursday

Hello dear readers!

In honor of throwback Thursday, which is apparently a thing, I'm posting a piece I had written in college.  Back in those days circa Fall 2011-Spring 2012 I joined the staff of the college newspaper.  I didn't and still don't see myself as a news reporter or journalist at all, but rather an English major who simply wanted to write something.  Eventually after several articles that had nothing to do with on or off campus current events I gained the title Evergreen Queen.  Typically my writings erred on the side of general and random topics as a means to have a witty-ish title.

With that, I present to you:

How to Take a Dump

Throughout the course of one’s love life, a little heartbreak is inevitable. Some may never have to weather the storm of post-relationship depression, anger and tempestuous revenge-hunger, but for those of you that will have to and have had to…here’s some advice about how to take a dump:

Take a dump with friends: Being dumped is a tough, and often isolating, experience. Return to your social roots, your friends before Sam, Amanda or Charlie. They are the ones that knew you with all your quirks, habits, and impromptu celebrity impersonations. They will tolerate your wet works and then backhand slap you back to reality and self-worth. Friends are unafraid to tell you how simultaneously insane, awesome and obnoxious you are.

Take a dump with distractions: Losing what you thought was your other half is a disorienting thing. You begin to wonder if the things you loved were really the things you loved because the, one you loved, loved them. Thus you find yourself without the person that wrote up your itinerary for fun. Pick up new hobbies that will stimulate your mind and draw attention away from the gaping chasm in your chest, where your heart once was. These distractions may be fleeting hobby fads or something that leads you to your new lease on life. The point is to find things you like to do. Stalking your ex  and making hate collages with old photos are not viable options.

Take a dump with confidence: So you’ve just been dumped and this could easily send you into a downward spiral of Häagen Daz ice cream and self-loathing. Don’t give in. Embrace yourself in your epicness. For x amount of time you’ve identified yourself with that other person to the point that he/she is another facet of you. Sure there’s a vacancy in your bed and/or social life, but there shouldn’t be an all-consuming loss of what makes you, you. Celebrate the fact that you are now a free spirit and that you are free to eat an entire pint of caramel cone Häagen Daz motivated by cravings and not by break up blues.



Here’s some advice about how not to take a dump:

Do not take a dump vocally: It’s fine and dandy to weep and rage to your inner circle of friends. However, tweeting, blogging, and ranting through a social media outlet will garner bad attention. You may win some sympathetic, empathetic comments and likes. But don’t dwell on the negative. If you must status-update, tweet or whatever, do so by focusing on the positive. Here’s an example status update, “Wow, I didn’t know how much room my tiny extra long twin bed had until last week. WIN!” or “So this is what it’s like not dipping into my roll-over points come Tuesday. Weird!”

Do not draw out a dumping with denial: You know when you’re being dumped. You may get dumped via email, text, tweet, Facebook message or even old fashioned face-to-face dumping. Do not pretend that you weren’t dumped and hold your breathe for the next four months waiting for the dumper to realize his/her wrong. This is a very painful way to take a dump. Take your dump as cleanly and maturely as possible. Don’t deny the dump because it’s real and the relationship is dead all the same, even if you pretend it isn’t. Accept what’s happening and move on.

Remember that taking a dump is a messy, painful, and, at times, stressful process.   However, in the end you will come out whole, happy, and free.


- See more at: Original Source

Because Eargasms Are a Thing

Because Eargasms Are a Thing

The only concerts that I have been to are choir and band high school concerts I have performed in and Toto in sixth grade.  I went with my dad and his chums to see Toto rock out.  Luckily, this past weekend through the generosity of the band Our Last Night I was able to really experience live music.  I attended their tour concert with Chiodoos and other bands at SOMA down in San Diego. 

Our Last Night according to Wikipedia is a post-hardcore band with five members.  Trevor Wentworth (vocals), Matt Wentworth (guitar, vocals), Alex "Woody" Woodrow (bass), and Tim Molloy (drums).  They were briefly signed with Epitaph records, but are currently independent.  Although the band has been around since 2007, I discovered them via a Spiked Nation upload of their Adele "Skyfall" cover.  Compelled by their rock transformation of the epic James Bond theme, their covers found a comfortable place on my workout playlist.  This past fall they released their album Oak Island, which is definitely worth a good listen with your car windows rolled up because listening to it will prompt you to drum violently on your steering wheel.  I can say this from experience. 

Although I haven't attended many live concerts outside of orchestral music, I have heard many recorded live performances.  Many of these can unfortunately sound so far from the studio recording, that it's rather off putting.  This couldn't be further from the case with Our Last Night. 

They were spot on. 

All the members of the band proved that, not only do they convey that they are bloody passionate about what they do, they are really really true to form live.  Throughout the concert, I would find myself closing my eyes just letting the music roll over me and really recognize that they don't bullshit around.  The sound live as they are recorded.

How the shit can a person sing so well while traipsing around stage like an acrobat tethered to a mike?  I know not.  The members of the band were animated despite the at times so-so San Diego crowd.  I love seeing the non-vocals oriented members of the band singing with their bandmates even if there isn't a mike pressed to their mouth.  The comfort and pleasure that the members had in performing with one another was evident in their interactions on and off stage. 

Fortunately, the band had more time than anticipated in their set, which allowed them to play more off of Oak Island, their previous records, and a cover.  Their Katy Perry cover of "Dark Horse" certainly livened up be crowd.  Truly amazing how they took a very pop song and translated it to suit their unique music and performance style.  

I don't particularly know the tech terms for music and stage mumbo jumbo, but the balance of their vocals, guitars, and percussion were extremely well executed.  You could hear all aspects of the band clearly and appreciate everything the each individual brought to the stage. 

The sheer physical force of the actual performance was a tactile experience in itself.  Speakers that broadcast the plucking of strings, vibration of vocal chords, and striking of drums penetrated each person in the crowd.  Live music, when done right, is a whore that flits through the bodies of a mass and leaves everyone satiated. 

That awe and glow a person experiences after a good O is certainly comparable to what you'll experience once their set wrapped.  You're not quite sure what happened, but it was bloody good and you want more.  Hell, even your ears ring in both scenarios. 

Thanks, Our Last Night, for convincing me that live music is definitely a good good thing.  I can only hope that you, dear reader, will get an opportunity to listen to these fine folks live.  If you do attend one of their concerts, stick around and say hullo because they are extremely receptive and appreciative of their fans.

Definitely check out Our Last Night's YouTube channel, but for now enjoy their cover of Katy Perry's "Dark Horse."

One #RelationshipCreeper: Dessert things or dinner things

A Note to the Readers:  I know that Brenda and Howard need some loving, but I'm currently stumped.  Tonight I went out to eat as I'm want to do.  A friend, who was my dinnermate tonight, suggested The Cheesecake Factory.  The restaurant has the alternate name of The Place Where Relationships Go to Hell.

I live tweeted some of the events to what I suspect will become a Twitter series and The Euphemistic Minister blog things.  Take into consideration I had a lovely friend who shouldn't have been neglected in favor of eavesdropping.  There are lapses in the story because I don't know the whole story.  This is because the story is wrought from creeping.

In the future I hope this grows into something I could recruit comic drawers, flash artists, and other folk from my community to collaborate on.  However, I don't want to go into details because once I put it to word I feel like an asshole for not following through.  I'm the sort that tries to keep her word.

Enjoy the first rough draft of installation One #RelationshipCreeper!
Mia

"Dessert things or dinner things?"

I was intrigued by this couple because they appeared well matched.  Both young, Asian, and with enough vitality to sport cat eye makeup and that socal college dude haircut respectively.  After just catching random bits of their conversation early on, the dissonance was apparent. 

It didn't start smoothly.  Onset conversation revealed that he had invited her to the Cheesecake Factory because he believed it was a special restaurant.  It's later confirmed that tonight was their first date.  Her words, "First and last date."  The choice in restaurant and her displeasure was quite the show of force for a first date meal thing. 

Unfortunately he misstepped by admonishing that he had eaten already at work before their rendezvous.  Her claws are unsheathed at this point.  She interrogates him on his thought process of picking such a restaurant for them.  Pissed that she might be the only one eating, she grills with the pattern of "Why did you...We could have..."

Let's pretend their server found an opening to get their drink order.  Thereafter their bubble of greasy silence grows.  The Cheesecake Factory is fucking noisy.  There are absolutely no TVs in this joint to dissuade the patrons from passive-actively ignoring each other in favor of HD stimuli.  You actually hear people's voices in this restaurant and not the echoed droning of whatever sport.

And yet.  Their bubble grew and stretched until it was lanced by her angst.  She remarks that they could have just gotten fast food.

"This place [Fashion Valley] doesn't even have KFC...or Taco Bell.  We could have just had KFC."

She certainly wasn't expecting a dessert thing or dinner thing sort of date.  And further, she isn't at all amused that he ate dinner at work because, "why come here if you ate already?"

I lost track of things here because a cell phone was launched to the floor at the foot of my dinnermate.  We returned the phone to its owner. 

And this is where we break because something was happening at the phone launcher's table. 

(Intermission)

This couple started their The Cheesecake Factory experience by having their server  check the balance on their The Cheesecake Factory gift card.  The man in white returned confessing that the card wasn't reading in their machine, but he could get a manager on it to check the card in the system in the back against the official The Cheesecake Factory intelligence grid.

It sounded very promising.  Over the Hill Ken, the man half of the couple beside us, was clearly pissed.

He and his wife with the feathered blond bob fell into a heated and semi-whispered conversation turn debate turn whisper shout off. 

I'd like to pretend that it was over soap opera-esque domestic tensions.  Maybe they're in a crisis over an empty nest.  Perhaps they were facing the music of being the only two meat sacks in a once burgeoning household.

It was really over calming Ken down after the gift card conundrum.  He was that pissed.

They weren't in focus for much of my relationship creeping, so their shouted whispers and heated argument wasn't too decipherable.  I know it escalated to the point that feathered bob refused to make eye contact with old Ken.  Her eyes were glued to her phone where she was fervently texting.  Their chatter was very aggressive white noise compared to the clarity of the Asian couple on the other side.

Old Ken's angry tone was hot gravel under your feet after soaking ocean too long.  It seethed and left impressions that made it hard to carry on.  She reacted with a violent gesticulation that launched her Samsung Note Mini to the floor. 

I didn't consciously confirm that they were fighting until after the phone was returned. 

I think she started crying at a point because when I looked over a ways into my complimentary bread, he pulled her close and her face was wrenched from the heartstrings. 

Her mouth and face creases were pulled in a way that make your mirror neurons ache around your heart.  At this point I looked away.  I didn't want my empathy to color my meal sad even though it made my gravy taste a little blander.  I felt badly for the woman.  She had ordered the shrimp scampi. I didn't feel bad because of her order.  It's just that I remember is how horrible it is to eat while you're crying. 

Sadness bleaches the vibrancy of flavor.  

To be continued...

Guest Post: War is Hell, and Sinning is Delightful Part 2

Note to the Reader:  Sorry that it took so long to get this guest post out.  And yes, I'm copping out of my Wednesday post by posting a late guest post.  Yeah, I know.  My parents' expectations of my life are probably the standard to which you should hold your expectations of my posting schedule.  That bar is limbo low.  In regard to this Nony piece, I really wish I just sat down and edited it with the first part.  The two are much stronger together than apart.  I'm personally looking forward to the next installation because this one was a ripe cunt to edit.  I may be too close to it to appreciate it singularly, and frankly, I'm/we're still waiting for the story to move along.

Have you ever heard of Hedonic Adaptation?       

War is Hell, and the sinning is delightful. (part 2)

               Put simply, it is the reason why the amount of Nutella you put on your drumstick gets larger with each passing day, until you get tired of it. We all experience this little bitch in one facet of our life or another. The reason we exist and push onward as ethical, sexual, political, intellectual etc... creatures is because of a need for new and exciting additions to our personal experiences.

               The experiences of war (especially of those who have indulged in the savaged privileges granted to them by unnatural positions of authority in foreign lands) have irreversible effects on a man's appetites in ways you would be fascinated to hear an NPR report about.  As with the previously mentioned lack of recruitment standards, a whole lot of Bill & Ted's with preexisting fascinating appetites were given clean slates after a retreat to an environment in which they were pretty much allowed to get away with rape and murder.

               You may not be aware of it. You may deny it. Doesn't change the fact that the world is a hard and tragic place that does produce people with certain quirks and kinks in their minds. For an assortment of "logical and ethical" reasons they are perfectly normal at least in their own eyes. Then they are just sent home and out of respect granted the don't ask, don't tell policy in regard to their experiences.  Their extracurricular proclivities simply never entered public view.

               Sighting down my scope, I realized that I don't know what to do about any of these issues.  I can't do anything about the numerous teachers, preachers, politicians, and god knows who or what else that get away with such despicable deeds.  Many just slip through the cracks of bureaucracy only to commit savage acts yet again.

               I honestly believe you can never know the mind of another man. Thus I can't pronounce with absolutely certainty that I was correct, but the look Bill and Ted had through my scope left me without a shred of doubt that they aimed to misbehave that day.   

               In their minds eye they are perfectly normal for a conglomeration of logical and ethical self redeeming delusions.  But when I look into the mirror eyes of  men like Bill and Ted, I see a creature who knows how much more intense and satisfying it is to take without permission. To gnaw at a thighbone with claws and teeth covered in mud and blood.            

               As I watch Bill and Ted start to descend towards the sun bathing girl, I remembered something some talking head Wall Street prick said in an interview.  He was going on about his belief in the "Falling Tree Methodology." What's that, you ask? If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to notice, then it's legal. That was his legal, ethical moral guiding tool. The CNN bloke or whoever was interviewing him just nodded and agreed, as if this is the new norm. 

               When you are deployed, everyone knows everyone if not directly, then by association via rumors and stories. Based on what everyone knew about Bill and Ted, I knew they subscribed to that man's sort of methodology. When we returned home, I couldn't let it go.  After a while I began shadowing Bill and Ted from time to time. Eventually, I found myself watching them through the scope of a barrowed rifle as they stalked to rape a girl in the middle of the woods.  Perhaps, come to think of it, they might have just been trying to kidnap her. But then, definitely rape her, I would bet.

               Do details like that matter to you?  

Regret

Note to the readers:  Because I'm attempting to keep the pledge I made to my blog readers, I'm going to not watch Vampire Diaries Suits right now.  I had a physically miserable day yesterday because of some bad decisions disguised as a good idea.  I went through something I really never had before.  If you're unlucky, it's a something you may experience time and time again.

Regret

Regret.  It's a hard thing that grows and swells in your gut like a miscarriage waiting to happen.  The rolling of its shoulders and the kicking of its feet punch the breath out of your body.  Perhaps you'll find yourself lying awake at night mulling over all of your decisions leading to this inexorable pain.  Pain that chokes your throat and clenches your bowels. 

That's how she found herself at 2 in the morning.  She awoke beside her ex in sheets that were soaked in sweat and other shameful things.  The last few hours had been spent in revelry, the press of warm bodies, and mind altering substances--all to the tune of food and drink.  A desire for gluttony and hedonism was the excuse they gave to spend time together. 

Everything in excess when the world was ending, so they told themselves. 

She had been battling the pain in her mind and body beside his restless silhouette.  The emotion she had been denying was growing too large for her to ignore, let alone coherently contemplate.  It was as if the first shared bite of that evening's dinner sealed her fate to internal damnation. 

It wasn't that she was not accustomed to pain.  Nicks, cuts, broken bones were merit badges she collected as she walked through life.  But pain that sizzles, pops, and explodes to fill your body like a bag of mating snakes was something new.  Something that snuck up on her after too many bad decisions albeit among good company.  Regret poisoned her and infiltrated her every nook with each bite of food shared with the sleeping man beside her. 

Regret gestated within her as they lost themselves in a tangle of bodies to the tune of a TV turned down.  It lied in wait until sleep sucked her under and made her vulnerable.  When her eyes snapped open hours later she realized what she had done, and she fled to her only escape.  The bathroom.

Quiet with a door that locks, the bathroom was her sanctuary.  She gave herself over to the pain and vomited until even her soul was scraped out from the bottom of her gut.

Staring into the newly flushed toilet water as the porcelain sighed, she condemned herself to a sleepless night. 

After all, food poisoning is a demanding bitch.

Will Post Wednesday...But for now the Significance of Funny Stories

I could never do stand up comedy, but I would just love to have a venue to tell funny stories.  Perhaps one of my favorite tropes in literature is the bard.  The bard is the keeper of stories and histories.  This tradition is preserved and maintained by telling stories and the like in a way to maintain interest and continue the diffusion of stories through generations.  Rather than having the responsibility of preserving history, I like to plant stories that will be retold because they're funny.  Comedy is something I try to weave into my story telling and my blog posts.  Making someone laugh or even smile is such an easy and small thing to do, so why not do it? 

I'll leave you with this--an example of wordplay and humor from the movie Clue.  It's shit like this I hope to include in future projects.

Yes, it's based on a board game.  And yes, it's still bloody hilarious to this day.

Love,
Hermia

P.S.  Normal blog post on Wednesday.  Love your faces.

Why Language is so Fucking Sexy

Today, I'm not posting a short creative writing piece for your folks, but rather explaining a particular fetish of mine.  Socially, sexually, and intellectually, I absolutely crave gentlemen and ladies who wield language like Zorro's sword.  Being able to splice together smooth sounding sentences to articulate a succinct yet sublime thought makes the panties drop. 

Weavers of worlds from words, also known as, great story-tellers are on my list of mind/body boner inducing "tropes".  These gents know how to bring sequence of events together in a captivating and intriguing way.  Plot points are hit like the hi-hat in an upbeat jazz jam.  Gesticulations marry with articulations and enunciations of setting, dialoague, and enrapturous narrative.  These gents are unafraid to play with their voice and visage during a tale.  They may be usually very quiet, unassuming, and outwardly not the type.  But perhaps these modern day bards might surprise the right crowd. 

This may be a gross assumption, but I don't believe the vast majority of the adult population writes recreationally or professionally.  The majority of jobs held don't exactly require great writing or language skills.  Certainly, national language reading comprehension may be necessary for the day to day.  Yet, I highly doubt that a great majority of adults take the time to sit and write the complexities of their personal thoughts day to day.  Surely, they may speak to a friend, partner, or spouse about how their day went and comment about current news.  But how frequently do they think of the world at large, humanity, morality, and other tenuous ideas that float in the minutia of daydreams and write or speak about it?  How frequently do you?

The majority of the population probably doesn't explicitly recognize the usage of alliteration, simile, metaphor, and other facets of the language.  I believe that most all folks recognize the beautiful and horrible usages of language and are able to differentiate.  Being able to identify those modes of rhetoric and figurative language may definitely enhance someone's usage and application of language.  Ergo making them deliciously and intelligently attractive.

As comedically golden as a perfectly executed pick-up line may be, it doesn't quite equate to what I call an eavesdropping erection.  This is purely an intellectual arousal because I get turned on by the speech and not the looks.  This has happened to me in restaurants, bars, airports, and wherever people generally have conversations.  When I hear someone say something like-minded and in a way that is very sexily articulated, my interest is indeed piqued.  It makes me want to listen to that person more.  Note that the name eavesdropping erection really reveals how little human interaction I have in real life.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Hope you enjoyed the spiel.  I promise to write tomorrow evening after the shoot.

Love,
Hermia

Meatsack

What Inspired This Piece:  Oddly enough, I have Twitter to thank for this piece.  Someone was curious about my strange euphemism for the body.  I usually refer to the human body as a meatsack.  Meatsack--for the visceral imagery, and acknowledgement of human fragility.

Meatsack

Meatsack.  That is the appropriate and adequate term I prefer when talking about the human body.  Forget things like maintaining 34-26-36 measurements and consuming delicious slices of cake.  This thing that I'm in, that you're in, and that all human beings have is quite simply a meatsack.

It may be hard to think of it that way especially nowadays, and particularly in the first world.  Outside of surgery, we never really see our insides on the outside in the day-to-day.  However, imagine living in a place in which bombs rain from the sky more frequently than precipitation... The day to day just may then have many more insides on the outside. 

That sort of environment doesn't let its population forget the fragility of the human body.  Also, by extension the fragility of the human condition.

In this day and age we are sunk into a world obsessed with the outward appearance of the body.  Beautification, plastic surgery, make up, chic high-fashion--all facets of the same obsession with the aesthetic.  We are paying more attention to the aesthetics, meanwhile we forget the viscera, the fragility, and the strength of the human body.  We wrap ourselves up in kempt clothes, and perfectly coiffed hair to distance ourselves from the nudity of being an animal.  We are civilized.  We are dressed.  We are forgetting the capabilities our bodies have.

The vast majority of the population probably doesn't regularly exercise and maintain a proportionate height to body fat percent ratio.  The standards of aesthetics are high.  Few genetically lucky and hard working individuals ever achieve this, and so whoever remains may slip into obesity.  When pushed and trained and well maintained, the human body is capable of animal feats.  Surprising, when we belong to Kingdom Animalia.  

As awesome as the power the human body may have to harness, there still is the fact that human life is just too easily snuffed out.  A hairline fracture could eventually lead to a brain aneurysm.  A trip to the dentist could be the catalyst to a deathly infection.  A papercut may evolve into a CDC nightmare.  Our bodies and the mechanisms within them are susceptible to an endless list of diseases.  Single celled organisms can easily snuff out swathes of humanity. 

Although there is often great uproar from the concerned and squeamish about violence portrayed in media, there is an upside.  It reminds humanity of how delicate and easily stabable, shootable, burnable, assaultable the human body is.  We've seen it in grisley YouTube videos, documentaries on genocides, and perhaps unluckily in the real world.  We are but pieces of so much meat to carry us through are awesome lives.

Don't suddenly turn agoraphobic and shutter yourself into your 1 BD/1 BTH, but rather accept and acknowledge it.  Protect your body by honing it into a sinewy machine.  Nourish it--And by God, carry it with dignity and some awareness. 

Thank You, Norton Anthologies

I have been rather rude. 

I've stumbled into this preoccupation or hobby called blogging.  Because of the Internet I'm literally connection to the entire world. 

Now we, whomever ends up reading this and whomever I end up reading, following, friending, etc..., are part of a community.  And this is where I get to the point of this blog.

I'm obsessed with sharing stories. The Bard trope is my favorite.  Through stories we can empathize, laugh, cry, curse, and learn together.  Another reason why I love stories is because I'm an English nut with a raging creative erection.  How else would I weave my love of story telling and the manipulation of the English language together?

A blog was the perfect answer.

So this is my space for you folks out there who feel as any human feels. 

I'm going to ramble and say things like "Sorry, this story is about dead babies," and "Yes, I love furry things like the retard from Of Mice and Men," but it's for you guys.

Find entertainment, boredom, love, hate, stalker tendencies, and strange fictional righteousness boners in my stories.  My only goal is to create some emotional experience in the fellow meatbags of the world. 

However, please bear with me those who don't like the following and ever growing list of potentially annoying English major mannerisms:

·       Stream of consciousness writing

·       Tangents

·       Experimentation with language

·       Inconsistency with Grammar because I'm human

·       Poetry

·       Usage of literary elements, rhetoric, satire, and your mother

The list could go on for a while.  My love for the English language is not a love so much as an obsession. 

The human experience is amazing from an observer's and artist's perspective.  And from that an infinite amount of realities are borne from raw sensory data of the world around you.  

Realities that exist in Family Guyesque tangents.  Slivers of comedy, drama, horror coloring your day in day-dreamed thoughts. 

Take these seeds of potential and nuture them into this--a blog.

I hope you guys enjoy this joy ride as much as I may.  Analyze that fellow English nerds!

Love,

Mia Hermia