More of Shadsie's Animal Adventures

Cross-posted between Deviant Art and Blogger.

Some days I feel like “Shadsie Irwin.”

Yesterday evening, I went into work – for anyone who doesn’t already read me regularly, I work on a farm cleaning up after horses.  I got a surprise.  

There’s a big barn and a little barn and on a yearly basis (I’ve been working there for a couple of years now), springtime brings birds that like to nest in the big barn.  I think they’re swifts, not entirely sure – they look reasonably like that family as illustrated in the Peterson’s Guide.  There’s a pair that’s been taking a particular nest-building site inside the big barn that my guy, Bob, and I like to call “The Bickersons,” because they loudly argue.  Drives the barncats nuts… Brave little things – they’ll swoop right by your head if you’re too close to their nest, dive-bomb the cats…

Apparently, the Bickersons’ brood from last year came back with them and a pair of young birds has been staking a claim in the little barn for the first time – right inside the doorway.  There are lots of fly-paper and fly-sticks hung up there because the little barn is close to the Great Lord Smellypyle (manure heap) and gets things especially bad and especially early with the flies.  So, I go into the little barn to take care of the couple of the stalls I’m in charge of cleaning there and I notice something odd about the orange, tubular fly-stick hanging from the ceiling… I thought it had a rather large bit of debris caught onto it from wind.  I took a second look and it was a bird.

A bird was just stuck on there by the wings and tail.  I looked up, thinking “poor dead thing, to die like that,” then to my resolute horror I saw its head move.  It was still alive, the poor thing! I called Bob at his work, asked what could be done… tried to rouse my immediate supervisors who live on the farm, but they were out partying – it’s Saturday… wound up getting one of the neighbors who lived on the property to help me out.  We took the fly stick down and gently pried the bird off.  I set it down to see if it could fly and it couldn’t get off the ground.  I scooped it up, just as Mr. Big, the multi-toed giant shorthaired barn cat came thundering up.  Told the neighbor to get on his computer and Google wildlife rehabilitators. Called Bob again, holding the scared little swift. 

It was close to quitting-time for Bobbert, so I waited, holding the little bird gently while he picked up some organic/non-toxic goo-gone and the kind of scentless, neutral dish soap people use on animals caught in oil spills.  The bird was nice and calm for me – probably in shock.  Its left claw had a death-grip on my thumb.  The barncats were especially interested in me…  And, so I started in on my work quite late because of birdy-rescue.  Bob and I managed to get some of the goo out, but ultimately we wound up finding a box, putting some soft hay in it, and Bob took it to the local wildlife rehab while I did my job. Bob said the people there were going to keep her until her tail feathers grow back in – because the fly goo had just wrecked it.  Her wings weren’t really all that bad.  I’m hoping she hasn’t laid eggs yet because that means they’re pretty much doomed.

Then, for dinner, I had Dairy Queen chicken strips.

Ideas for a story, possibly novel

I have a stray idea that I sketched in a notebook.

Yep, that's a human heart embedded with clock-gears.  I don't have enough "story" in my head yet to start writing a story, all I have at present is a sketch.  Perhaps if some nice people were interested in publishing my other work (how many months ago did I send out queries for novels  "A World of Rusted Dreams" and "Malarkey and Belinda?" ), I'd have the little bit of umph I need to get my head on an original story idea like this and out of the stupid videogame fan fiction I've been into of late.  (Though fans of my fan fiction probably want me to stick around in that world).

Anyway, I have a title and a basic concept... on a torn out notebook page... with a creepy drawing of a heart.

Title: "Secondhand"

Setting: The setting is a world where the "seat of the self" isn't viewed as the brain, but the heart - kind of like the way of thought in the ancient world (Ancient Egypt, if I'm not mistaken), except in this world, it's actually true. More appropriately, the "soul" of a person is in their blood in this world.  There is an energy or "essence" that is known to flow in the blood of humans and animals and it is a measurable, scientifically-known, detectable material thing rather than a vague concept.  This energy, however, is mysterious and things about it are not completely understood by the science of this world.  It is thought to be the root of emotions.

This "essence" vanishes from the body after death.  It is not known whether it lives on or just decays into the earth like the rest of the body. It sort of just disappears - poof, no residue left behind at the moment of dying. I am thinking that most people in this world are of the latter ("decays") opinion, but there's no hard proof either way, which pretty much makes questions of the soul in this world much like questions of the soul in our world. 

Basic Plot: One nation's scientists/thinkers/engineers have discovered a way that the "essence" can be regulated.  If it's "flow" through the body is adjusted, it can be tightly controlled and thus emotion can give way to reason, calm and the controlling of a populace. The "essence flow" can be controlled through controlling the actions of the heart.  Being that this particular, powerful nation's culture generally frowns upon "overages of emotion" so a governmental motion is carried to give people after a certain age (when they are out of childhood and have stopped physically growing in any significant way) artificial clockwork hearts.  The artificial hearts allow blood to flow normally, but regulate the "essence."   

(Remember, kids, this is a fantasy world, I'm not even trying to be medically accurate).

Having an adult population with clockwork hearts (called "secondhand hearts" and the surgery to get one is called "secondhanding") keeps society on an even keel.  The people are kept "controlled."  However, as it turns out, these "secondhand hearts" don't work for everyone. Even people who survive the surgery intact sometimes, without explanation, continue to emote strongly, secretly question their government and innovate in unexpected ways...

I'm thinking that much of the story is in a protagonist seeking asylum from his country of origin in a country that has developed a "world gate" enabling contact with our world and the guy ends up explaining his world and his country to an interviewer from our (brain-based) world.  I also think the day he found out that his "secondhanding" didn't take and he was an "Irrational" (a person that would be branded with the epithet) when he *had a dream.*  It was actually a pleasant dream, but is scared the poo outta him because adults with secondhand hearts don't have dreams.  (REM sleep is essential for our brains, but not essential to survival in blood-soul-world) - and dreams are looked down upon, something "to be stamped out" in the secondhanding culture because they are irrational, something the society wants to eliminate. 

~~~~~

I think I may be channeling a bit of "Brave New World" here. I know I'm channeling a bit of the anime, "Kino's Journey" - there was an episode of that detailing a small country where people were lobotomized into adulthood and strict, unquestioning obedience of their government.  I think this idea is also a metaphor for psychiatry in a way:  I have a disorder for which I take medication and make attempts to "normalize" myself in order to function in the world.  How much should someone give up of themselves in order to be a part of the world? How much should someone give up of themselves to feel like they're in control and to feel like themselves?  Where do we draw the line at order and disorder?

I read an article yesterday on a news site where some guy was trying to "debunk the myth of the mad genius" well, I tell you, bunk on him because there are ideas I know I'd never come up with or be able to do with any kind of realistic efficacy if I were *normal.*  I see this as one of those ideas.

I can turn my fanfiction into gold?

No, I can't. I just read another confirmation that I won't be an easy success because... I don't write erotica!

I found an article today that amused me at my favorite amusing-articles waste of time site: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-tips-turning-awful-fan-fiction-into-best-seller/ 

Mr. McGinley needs to think seriously about cobbling together all of those fake and purposeful "bad book passages" samples he provides and making them into a book, because people would read it for the So-Bad-It's-Good quality. Now, if those passages are from actual manuscripts he's come across... dude, those books will be totally successful - not as romance but as comedy. 

Despite my penning of original work every once in a while, (stuff I post here) I've been steeped in the fun and free and wild world of fan fiction for a long time. (I post my fanfiction on fanfiction and specific-fandom sites and do not "glut" my blog with it, as I write a lot of it). I have read and skimmed many a fanfiction that was meant in all seriousness that reads just like the "fake-bad" passages in the article!   And not just because I used to go to "snarker" sites. I don't bother with the general meanness of those anymore, but still come across some real comedy cold when looking for fan-things about favorite worlds and characters to read.

My own work is... different... than the stereotypes comedians like to point out.  Is about 80- 90 percent of fanfiction pairings/love/humping-if-the-site-allows-adult-stuff-or-you-can-lie-and-get-past-the-filters? Oh, yeah.  There are also lots of fics of the other variety (the rare species "gen," as rare as the legendary unicorn some would say) all about friendships and adventures and "what if something went wonky in the world?" and the latter broad-category is the variety I'm known for.  And then there's the stuff I pen that people might not know what to do with, like a surreal-imagery-split-dimensions thing I wrote that I feel an urge to make into a wordless fancomic and one story I wrote that's essentially a romance between robots where the whole thing being *completely sexless* makes sense.  It's also kind of one-sided, as it involves one of the partners being in an eternal sleep inside a sword... if you know the fandom, you know instantly what I'm talking about and if you don't, what I said makes no sense.

Er, long story short, my fanfiction, much like my original work... isn't titillating, it's just WEIRD. A friend once compared my writing style to that of Madeline L'Engle, which I took as a great compliment, but I honestly don't know if her style of work would be published/publishable today and that means I'm screwed as far as getting rich off of anything creative that I do, hmm? 

As an asexual / sexually uninterested person, I don't think I can write realistic screwing from the perspective and for the general titillation of normal people.  I could hack at it, certainly, after all, I've never killed anyone and I write scenes of war and murder into my stories... but if I wind up writing "he waggled his sex for her pleasure and they made the sex," I'm going to be *laughing* too damn hard to pound out anything!

Though the article did give me an idea... the love with a monster thing.  I think it would be fun to write a romance between a naive girl and a zombie... whom she UNDERSTANDS! despite his undeath.  It would contain literal boning! Maybe I can even go one step further and have girl meets skeleton!  I could title it Afterlife Affair: Love in the Midnight Cemetery. 

If it is to be a fanfiction-turned-book-proper, hmmm.. It'd start out as a Legend of Zelda something involving a Stalfos, a canon skeleton-enemy and then it would morph... and....

My brain hurts.   

An Internet Pet Peeve

A quick glance at something reminded me of a pet peeve of mine on the Internet.  I don’t know if it’s a writer’s peeve or just an argument-style peeve. 

I hate it when people seem to think quoting someone and leaving means they’ve won the argument. 

Quotes from famous, admired people are just fine and dandy – when used at the head of an essay or as a *part* of an argument, but when you simply *quote famous dead guy here* and don’t add any of your *own* thoughts to it or explain why this agrees with you or supports what you want to say and use it to say everything, isn’t that what we’d call an Appeal to Authority?

Or at least uncreative. 

The same applies to the quoting of scripture for me – unless you’re answering a question about history or the work itself, if you’re using it to apply to some modern, real world argument, in my opinion, you should back up what you want to say by actually saying something yourself. 

To use a hypothetical example for something that’s not too real-world controversial, say I get into a fandom argument over the Legend of Zelda series.  Maybe it’s a Timeline argument and I’ve decided “I think the current official Timeline is bunk.**”  I could look up one of the many quotes by Nintendo officials about how they consider gameplay more important than story, but if I simply listed a favorable quote, then walked away and didn’t back it up with my own opinions, I’d feel like I’d not made a good argument.  If I use a quote not-from-me as a “You’re stupid!” or “everyone should agree with me right the hell now!” weapon, it’s even worse if I appeal to authority without saying anything of my own.  

Maybe the originator of the quote would see what I was doing and come along and say “You’re out of line, I didn’t mean it that way!” or “Yeah, I did mean it like that, but you’re using it like a club is soooo dull,”   - which, perhaps, is why so many people in serious arguments favor the words of the dead…  

So, if you’re going to whine and moan online about the existence of things, people or ideas you just wish were dead, gone or changed, or you want to call someone stupid, don’t quote some dead guy or some block of literature and think you’ve “won” because you’re so creatively dull or empty-headed that you have nothing of your own to say.

If anyone ever gets into a habit of quoting me after I’m long dead (like that would ever happen), remember, you will be doing a disservice to my memory if you depend solely on me. Use your own words to back yourself up! 

(** Zelda Timeline for those interested in my opinions on it… I kind of do think the above and don’t at the same time.  I’m willing to go with the current canon, and it has inspired some fanwork from me, but I kind of think it was an ass-pull, just because Nintendo never set out to have 16+ games when they made the first few).

The Adventures of Princess Poo-Poo

A bit of humor writing  - a story born from inside jokes between me and my significant other. 

I work part time at a horse farm and that's led to a weird narrative between us that has me as an anime-style magical girl fighting "In the name of the Poo!" and so forth. These little narratives include real life individual animals we know, with their personalities. (There's a clowder of barncats on the farm as well as the horses).  We keep talking about making our stupidity into a series of Flash animations (we'd need to teach ourselves Flash first) or a comic... since I kind of suck at comic-style art and since our little stupid-stories are rather incoherent to begin with, I decided to experiment with a flash-fiction short story.  I may or may not write more of these. It depends upon how destructive this stuff prooves to be toward reader's brains.

The following is very short and very stupid. You've been warned.

The Adventures of Princess Poo-Poo

Tale 1: A Girl and Her Rake

Evil can be found in the most surprising of places.  At an unassuming little farm somewhere in Pennsylvania lives a being of unfathomable power.  The farm raises and keeps horses – the most magnificent of beasts and celebrated poopers.  All of that poop has to go somewhere.  In the case of this little farm, it goes to a big pile on the property. 

What the owner and keepers of the farm do not know is that the pile, having sat a sufficient amount of time, has gained sentience.

A malevolent sentience. 

Its motives are not exactly clear.  It probably wants to take over the world or something cliché like that.  It broods upon the farm, sending out its fumes of pure evil and plotting…plotting…

One keeper of the farm knows of the danger in this smelly pile.  Most people see a mere stablehand who works part-time.  Truly, however, she is a protector – a lady-knight with a rake – and the only thing standing between the world and the forces of reeking darkness.  She is…

MAGICAL STABLEHAND PRINCESS POO-POO!

“You stupid, disobedient human!” 

A small black cat padded down the main aisle of the barn, her footfalls silent on the neoprene surface of the floor.    

“Not now, Grapple-Kitty!” the Stablehand said, shouldering her plastic-headed pitching-rake.  “I still have work to do.  I’m almost done.” 

“But I want your lap!  Now!” Grapple-Kitty complained loudly.  The Stablehand and her partner-in-life-and-sometimes-crime-fighting, Retail Man, had dubbed the feline “Grapple-Kitty” because of her strong, sharp claws.  She loved nothing more than the soft, warm lap of a seated human, but she could shred a lap in minutes if said human was not wearing many protective layers of clothing.  To cuddle her without military-grade body-armor was to invite tiny pinprick holes in one’s body – and that was the least of injuries she could inflict. 

The Stablehand, when she was Princess Poo-Poo, had taken to using the cat as a part of her toolkit.  She was, naturally, a grappling-hook.  Princess Poo-Poo could swing by the animal’s tail.  Another cat entered the barn, a tortoiseshell female nicknamed Poo-Kitten for her amazing ability to telepathically communicate with poo from any species.  Poo-Kitten kept tabs on all the goings-on around the farm. 

“It looks like a quiet night,” the pudgy, multicolored cat said.  “The horses are happy out in the fields and I’ve seen no sign of Lord Smellypyle’s machinations.”

“Alright,” the Stablehand replied.  “I guess it’s just one more stall to do, then I can sweep and meet Retail Man for dinner.  I wonder if he’s had a hard day protecting people from misplaced merchandise…”

Then, just as the Stablehand put her rake to a spat of somewhat-fresh horse manure, it began to shake and move. 

“What the fork?!” the young woman exclaimed.

“Danger!” Poo-Kitten declared, “That poo has been corrupted!” 

“Corrupted?” the Stablehand asked. 

“You should transform into Princess Poo-Poo right now!” 

Nuggets of manure began to crawl out of the main pile, brown and slow.  Little legs were visible upon them. 

“This must be part of Lord Smellypyle’s latest takeover plan!” Poo-Kitten yelped.

“What is this?” the Stablehand said, shivering, “It’s…It’s…. Spider-Poo!” 

Little road-apples with spider-legs began swarming all over the stable-stall.  They spilled out into the aisle.  The pile they came from was not exhausted. 

The Stablehand concentrated and began a chant:

No stench of turds or dark of night

Can hold back my will to fight

In the name of poo I will punish you!

I am Princess Poo-Poo!

Ribbons swirled around the Stablehand’s form, imbuing her with power and surrounding her with sparkles.  She was left in her normal clothes – jeans, muck-boots, a t-shirt and a flannel over-shirt, but now she had a broad pink bow on her chest.  It was made of the gel-like stuff used in air fresheners.  

She swung her mighty pitch-rake, now glowing with a white aura of power.  Poo-spiders crumbled before her, but they just kept coming.  Grapple-Kitty sunk her claws into Princess Poo-Poo’s left thigh and Poo-Kitten took refuge atop her head. 

As the mighty warrior swung her weapon at a poo-spider that jumped up to attack her face, she heard one of the barn doors open. 

“Retail Man, stay back!” Princess Poo-Poo shouted authoritatively. 

Too late. He’d come through the door in his business-suit and the spider-poo rushed him.  Oh, the carnage! Little poo-balls bounced all over him, shoving themselves into any open space and orifice they could reach, stabbing him with their little spindly spider-legs. 

Princess Poo-Poo roared and rushed to free her dearest partner.  Her rake when snick-a-snack! Poo broke like snow all over the barn.  Everything was lost in a diarrheic haze. 

Retail Man did not move.  “Speak to me!” Princess Poo-Poo pleaded.  The cats dislodged themselves from her person.  Princess Poo-Poo paused, bowed, and then stood, clutching her rake with a white-knuckled fist. 

“I will avenge you, Retail Man.”

“I’m not dead.” 

Princess Poo-Poo gasped.  Retail Man stood right beside her, adjusting his now brown-and-green-smeared tie.   “What happened?” he asked. 

“Sp-Spider-poo.”  Princess Poo-Poo choked out. 

“I guess I’ll get the cobweb brush.” 

“The spider-poo has been neutralized, your grace!” exclaimed Poo-Kitten.  “I sense no more malevolent entities.  I think I’ll go bother Mr. Big now.”  With that, she scampered off to meet one of the farm’s other cats, a huge tabby with thumbs named Mr. Big. 

Princess Poo-Poo looked at the colossal mess she now had to clean up. She gripped her rake and roared to the heavens. 

“SMELLYPYLE! I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS!” 

**********************

Join us next time for fun and adventure with a whole cast of characters:

Princess Poo-Poo - Defender of the Barn!

Retail Man – Superhero of the Business World!

Poo-Kitten – The cat who talks to poo!

Grapple-Kitty – With her claws of doom!

Mr. Big – Possibly a double-agent?

Dr. Bigaboom – The mysterious mad scientist!

Phoenix – The drunken horse!

The Great Bladder – Upset that he’s an evil bladder in a jar instead of a brain in a jar!

Lord Smellypyle – The evil dung heap!

And many, many more…. Maybe.    

Don't Love Me in Death...

Don’t Love Me In Death if You Hated Me In Life.

Sooo, I’ve been following the story of the shooting at a small Korean-Christian college in California.  I’ve just been following the online news. Unfortunately, when I do that, I tend to follow the online commentary. 

After which I feel like maybe *I* need to be preemptively, humanely killed before I “inevitably” do something horrible to the world’s quality people because, apparently, I’m a stupid violent animal just waiting to go off because….: 1. I’m a Christian, 2. I have a mental disorder / condition (a known and treated one, but still), 3. I’m an introvert. 4. I enjoy playing video games.

*Rolling eyes.* 

At least I don’t need to die or be deported or detained for my race.  I’m a white person, this means I enjoy a certain amount of privilege, including not being personally targeted when people say “Oh, those Koreans!” or make an oh-so-funny joke about the shooter “being ashamed of the size of his eggroll.”  (Yes, that was a real comment I saw on an online board, it’s probably been lost in the shuffle or found and nixed by a moderator by now, but not before it was seen). 

I feel no need to suddenly fear Korean people now.  I still plan to shop at my local H-Mart, which I love so much I made a happy-rant about it on this blog back in November.   http://sparrowmilk.blogspot.com/2011/11/nothing-says-happy-holidays-like.html

I saw some other commentator whine about how their large community college has all kinds of people who speak all kinds of languages and “no one makes fun of that, it must be a religious thing.” 

I refrained from answering that person, because I learned long ago that such people aren’t worth talking to. The prejudiced don’t want any answer but echoes of their own opinion.  I wanted to say “No, it’s not a religious thing, it’s a jerk-thing” because of my own positive experiences with ethnic diversity in Christian churches.  When I was a teenager, I was really into a small family-like Baptist church. Now, they did hold to some dogma I no longer agree with, including a fairly strict-literalist reading of the Bible, but that didn’t make them killers nor did it even make them bullies.  It’s not like they didn’t have their problems, but diversity in ethnicity and language were *not* among them.  No one made fun of anyone who struggled with English, and for my part, members of our “sister-church” didn’t make fun of me for my odious Spanish.   

Most of the commentary anywhere on articles I read on this news was fighting over gun-control.  Loads of people were calling for tighter gun-control laws and they fought with the people who said “if all the victims were armed/there was one sane person with a gun, this could have been stopped.”  My own opinion on that issue is kind of mixed. I don’t think I should ever own a gun. I am familiar with my ups and downs/instability and worry about a suicide-result, so I’ll voluntarily abstain from my “second amendment right.”  However… when at Otakon (an anime festival) one year, in the seller’s hall, I visited a booth selling swords and other replica medieval weapons.  A sign across the booth read: “If they outlaw guns, can we use swords?”  - It was cheeky and geeky, but… really, the truth, no?  It is harder to kill people with a sword – I mean, you gotta look your victim in the face before lopping his head off and a sword is not a ranged-weapon, then again, as a certain Protagonist* of a favorite book of mine once said “Swords don’t run out of ammo!”

Back to some of the stupid, petty commentary… I guess people on the Internet just let fly because they’re both anonymous and there is the perception that what one says on the Internet is ephemeral. Sure, things that are typed get archived, but after a couple pages down on a message-board or news commentary, nobody reads anymore.  If someone calls you on being a jerk, something in most people’s minds apparently says “It’s just text.” I don’t know if the Internet encourages jerkiness or if it is merely bringing out all of the nastiness that has been brewing beneath the surface the entire time.  I think one of the reasons why I hope there’s a God and/or some kind of spiritual dimension to life is because I don’t have a lot of faith in Humanity. To me, Humanity is like a zit – even in the most civil society, there’s a greasy nastiness beneath the surface just waiting for an opportunity to pop and ooze out.

This story made me recall something that happened in my childhood – not directly to me, just some News of the Century that happened near where I lived when I was right around 10 years old.  Wat Pamakuriam (not sure if I’m spelling that right).  If you’re interested, Google “Arizona Buddhist Temple Massacre” or “Avondale, Arizona Buddhist Temple Massacre.”   In the desert on the outskirts of Phoenix lies a Buddhist temple complex where monks meditate and where nine people were shot dead in 1991.  It was a big media fiasco… some of the criminal investigation was a bit dubious, and people across the state were generally appalled that someone could shoot people in the head as they prayed.  Worst massacre in the state since Old West “Indian Wars” times.  Arizona mourned.  I didn’t know anyone involved, my family wasn’t Buddhist, it really didn’t affect me directly at all, but this story has stayed with me all of my life because… monks praying peacefully were friggin’ shot in the head while being harmless!  

I’m sure we all have violent news stories from our childhoods that have stuck with us.  

This was back in the days when the Internet was unknown as a household thing (it existed then, but was a University and nerd thing, I think, but it wasn’t something everyone had in their home). We relied on television news and newspapers for our stories.  My memory of the whole deal is fuzzy because it happened so long ago, but I don’t recall any newscast or paper proclaiming Buddhists to be inherently violent or any other absolute shit like that.  I don’t recall anyone writing into editorial sections to say “those monks’ prayers didn’t save them, haha!”  Somehow, I think if that story happened today, with the Internet, I’d be seeing that, just as I’m seeing the victim-blaming and making-fun-of-the-victims in online comments.  Then again, it might be different just because of the religions involved. Buddhists in America / the Western world are stereotyped as “peaceful” while Christians who are committed enough to actually *call* themselves “Christian” are “crazy and stupid” and, well, if this had been a mosque or an Islamic college?  Um…. Yeah, I think we’d all be buried under screams of “terrorism!” It doesn’t matter if the victims were the shooter’s “own.” 

This brings me to my ultimate annoyance.  Lots and lots of “Christians are crazy and stupid; this guy was acting like a typical Christian! Of course this happened, the Bible is violent!  -- Oh, but what senseless loss of life and condolences to the families.”  Whut?  This brings me to the title of this rant.  Don’t love me in death if you hated me in life.  If you hate me, either as a person or just because of a category I’m in (“loosely Christian / believes in a God”, “struggles with a mental disorder,” “doesn’t like parties,” “plays video games”) then, by all means, if I am killed in a violent act by “one of my own,” DON’T FAKE MOURN ME OR USE ME AS A DAMN MARTYR.  If what you *really* deep down, politically-incorrectly think is “a rat took out a rat’s nest” or “those people deserved it” DON’T pretend like their loss is a loss to you, because it’s not. 

Go ahead and dance on graves. It’s the Internet, which means no one will punch you in the face.  Stereotyping and prejudice pisses me off, but I think passive-aggressive stuff pisses me off even more. (If you’re only “mourning the dead” because you think they missed out on their chance to live long enough drop their beliefs and become full human beings like you and you think  it’s sad that they died as who they were, you’re a doin’ it wrong)!   

Either MAKE THE LOSS A LOSS to you by realizing that everyone is human, or spit on the graves. If you cannot let a tragic story make you a better person, at least be honest.

………………………..

*Capitalization intentional.  Hiro Protagonist of Neil Stephenson’s “Snow Crash.”  I think his exercise tool, the “redneck katana” could have done some damage, too, if he’d actually used it as a weapon.

The Easter Bunny Mafia

The Easter Bunny Mafia...

Bob and I were on our way home from a dinner-buffet when we had one of those stupid car-conversation sessions we wished we had a recording device for. 

We may just have a really demented children’s book in the works (initial idea-stage). Seeing a sign on the side of the road for some church’s Easter Egg Hunt prompted conversation about Easter and egg-hunting.  I recalled how my extended family would get together for Easter at my parents’ place and how I liked hiding the eggs more than searching for them… one of my favorite hiding spots was the exhaust-pipes of the cars. That led to me proclaiming my youthful knowledge of biology/zoology:  My family raised rabbits for a time when I was a kid. I knew they didn’t lay eggs. They laid… other stuff.   

Then Bob said “Of course the bunnies in the commercials don’t lay eggs, they get them from the chickens.  They force the chickens to give them their young!” 

And somehow, that lead to the idea about bunnies being the mafia, extorting labor and tribute out of chickens.  The Big Cluck will stand up to them, forming their own group. Meanwhile, some young bunny who “goes against the family” gets a pair of comically egg-shaped cement shoes and the Big Cluck hires out cats as assassins to get the bunnies.  (Inspired by one of the cats that lives on the horse-farm I work at… there’s a cat whose expertise is in hunting baby wild rabbits). 

Cat-assassins get paid in fish and sushi.  Chickens get force-fed chocolate by the mafia-bunnies to make them pre-fill their eggs… the rabbits have a racket with chocolate and the human stores that sell it…

I haven’t actually seen “Hop,” but from the reviews/summaries, this would be a far, far darker version of that. Haha.  I said, in illustrating this, I wouldn’t make it “kiddie-friendly,” I’d SHOW stuff like the bunny getting cement shoes, just because something like this *needs* to be totally demented.

So, what do you think?  “Heartwarming” children’s picture book material? 

In all this, I told Bob of the existence of the book “Go the **** to Sleep” and how one can find it on YouTube narrated by Samuel L. Jackson. If that exist, why not The Easter Bunny Mafia?