I'd rather be directionless

Note: This is day four of "guest column week" at Daily Ramblings. The guest columns have been so popular that Paul is threatening never to write a column again. Other claims he made this week are that he's going to "drink this whole bottle of vodka", "punch that dumb girl on the Pepsi/iTunes commercial", and "marry the intern from the David Letterman Show". Today brings two guest columns. The first is from Dennis Kempton, who writes for the Reader Weekly newspaper in Duluth, MN. The second is Tom Heuer, who does "janitorial work" in the pornographic film industry. Heuer wrote a guest column last year as well.

I talk about my best friend Angela a lot in my writing. Well, she's the most commonsensical person I know. We were having dinner a while back and she said, "You know, we're turning 30 in a couple of months. We've abused our bodies for 30 years and now its time to preserve for the next 30." I couldn't help but laugh as she told me it was time for wrinkle creams and calcium tabs and fewer alcoholic beverages. HEY...I draw the line there.

So, as I prepare to turn 30 in April, I have just decided to surrender to how incredibly weird my life is. I'm Jewish and bisexual. That means I am incredibly critical of the men and women I date. However, I didn't get the "gay" gene. Even Angela will look at my blank expression in a store when she holds up a purse for my approval and yell, "Can you please be gay for me for five minutes?!" I can't decorate and I need help picking out my clothes.

I get involved with pretty people who treat me poorly: girls, boys, mannequins, the spotted owl. OK, I'm joking about the spotted owl, sickos.

My mom thinks I'm directionless. Why? Because I don't make 50 grand and I don't have kids. She wants grandbabies and I'm tired of visiting home and watching her sob while showing her friends a scrapbook of magazine cut out pictures. "These are similar to the grandkids I would have if my son weren't, well, you know."

I want to adopt a child. But the adoption agency told me that I am only eligible to adopt special needs kids. They sent me a catalog and I realized with an encroaching sense of doom that I neither have the time nor the resources NOR enough guns or knives to raise one of these kids! What to do?

I guess maybe I'm not as screwed up as many people think. I'm happy with seeing the world from angles so many people are afraid of seeing. I'd rather be termed directionless than live the life most people lead. Closed-minded bigots who never get laid will never define what I can do in bed. Social workers who tell me that because of my "lifestyle" I can only adopt a kid who might or might not murder my dog can take their degrees and wipe my ass. My mom might make more money than God but that doesn't give her the right to say my happiness is meaningless. I don't need a credit card whose magnetic strip is worn out (true story!) to give me what I need. AND I will not surrender my free spirit to any man or woman who cannot be free, too.

We make choices in our livesÉor our lives give us a certain level of choice, however you want to look at it. As I get older, I realize that it's OK to beat your own path .and, in the end, be appreciated for thinking AND living outside the box. Everything real and true and innovative and beautiful in this world was achieved by taking a chance and living somewhat on the edge of what is safe. Don't be afraid to be different. If I had taken the "safe" path my class mates in high school took, I wouldn't be who I am now. I'd be some cardboard cut out of what my parents think is respectable. And I'd be incredibly bored and boring.

Sounds like I got it all figured out, huh? Pretty impressed, aren't you? You don't even KNOW me and you wanna BE me, don'tcha?! Fine, maybe that was pushing it. I turn 30 in April grateful for the life experiences that make me more equipped to understand the world than many others. And if that makes me directionless, I'm sure I join many on that chaotic freeway of life where we all stick our heads out of the windows, let the rain and wind hit our faces and know that we'd rather scream and laugh into the wind than watch the world pass us by.

Heuer Science presents 'Amazing Mammals of the Sea'

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!! NEW SPECIES OF MAMMAL DISCOVERED OFF THE COAST OF PERU IN SOUTH AMERICA!!!

It was 3:29 pm on February 10, 2004 when two American Marine Biologists discovered a new species of mammal. Dr. Robert. M. Huskiedonger and Mr. Montigue T. Snorklre (note to readers: Montigue T. Snorklre was French, that's why he spells his name funny) of the University of Butte, Montana were SCUBA diving in the delta of the Rio Pachitea.

Huskiedonger and Snorklre were studying the effects of landslide disturbance on seasonal cycles of allochthonous inputs to Peruvian Amazonian headwater streams. While taking a break from their study project, they decided to go SCUBA diving in the brackish water found near the delta of the Rio Pachitea. When Huskiedonger was near the end of his dive, he started his ascent to the surface when all of the sudden his facemask was struck and fell to the bottom of the Rio, which is Spanish for "river". Huskiedonger continued to the surface, while Snorklre caught the first glimpse of this elusive mammal.

As Snorklre frantically swam to the surface of the "Rio" to tell Huskiedonger what he had seen, he failed to remember essential training he had received in his Open Water SCUBA certification class. When a SCUBA diver ascends to the surface, they must ascend no quicker then one foot per second or else nitrogen bubbles form in the brain, commonly called nitrogen narcosis or "the bends". Just before Snorklre passed out, he told Huskiedonger about the mammal he had seen swim away after bumping his facemask. Showing no regard for the health of his Doctorate-degreeless SCUBA buddy, Dr. Huskiedonger inflated Snorklre's Buoyancy Compensator, and left him to die, floating helplessly down the Rio Pachitea. Running on pure adrenaline, ether and a little bit of fear, Huskiedonger, donning Snorklre's facemask, dove into the semi-murky water in pursuit of the mammal. After several failed attempts at finding the mammal, he came to the surface to catch his breath, and dove down one more time. When he reached to bottom of the "Rio", the mammal bumped into his foot, and Huskiedonger grabbed it. Huskiedonger described the encounter:

"After the creature bumped my foot, we wrestled for what seemed like hours. In all actuality, it was only seconds, but it seemed like hours. It's kind of like when you hold your sexual partner underwater while they orgasm. To them, the orgasm seems to last for hours, when it really only lasted seconds."

Huskiedonger was successful in pounding the mammal into submission, and brought it ashore, where it was poked with sticks by native Peruvian children. As it turns out, Mr. Montigue T. Snorklre was pulled by the current into the ocean, where he probably died from sharks eating the lower half of his body, and mean-spirited sea gulls pecking away at his upper half. His body was never found, although the sharks and seagulls probably had stomach aches from all the human flesh they ate. In honor of his dead SCUBA diving buddy, Dr. Robert. M. Huskiedonger named the mammal Butte snorklre, commonly referred to as the Butt Snorkeler. Below is an artistic rendering of the Butt Snorkeler in its native habitat:

The Butt Snorkeler is a mammal, and so it breathes air. The snorkel functions in the same manner as the blow hole of a whale, but it is unique because it allows the Butt Snorkeler to approach its prey nearly undetected. Most of the Butt Snorkeler's habits are unknown at this time, but hopefully, in the future, scientists from the University of Butte, Montana will learn more about this magnificent creature.

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Reader Comments

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mindwalker      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   yay! I\'m an attractive not-so-wrinkly Jew! I can\'t wait to tell my mom! haha ImmortalBeloved      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   Finally an attractive not so wrinkly Jew has been spotted! Oh and someone with an ass fetish. Thanks for sharing... TractorInc      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   Ahh... the ever elusive Butt Snorkeler. Somehow a simple picture just can\'t hope to capture the true beauty of that magnificent beast.

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