My Beard (2/14/2012)

Hello, I am Eric, and this is my beard. Yes, I have a beard. A lot of people tell me to shave. Why must I shave? My beard makes my face look better (you should see me without it hahaha). 

People tell me I look homeless because of my beard. If that were true, Santa would look terribly homeless. It's not the beard, guys, it's my terrible fashion sense that makes me look homeless.

People ask me when was the last time i shaved, whether I can braid it, whether I shampoo it, comb it. The last time i shave was august, idk, i never tried braiding it, yes, and yes.

I'm not growing this for you. I'm growing my beard because I like it. (also, it's something to stroke when I'm bored... ummm yea... stroke...) But yea, for all you haters out there, I hope you allow yourself to try growing a beard (or even leghair or something for girls). Am I killing anyone by growing my beard? No.

An Exerpt

I made your mom into a parachute.

Pooping bores me most of the time.

Ground horse teeth.

I hate it when I put on deodorant when my armpits are chapped and it starts to tingle and burn. But even if I didn’t put on deodorant, it would burn because sweat stings when it drips in open sores. Your mom should have some experience in that area.

Your mom has herpes.

I was once force fed a crayon. I think it was grey.

Garbanzo beans have 7 grams of dietary fiber per 130g. That means you won’t poo like a fountain.

This is my cell phone

This is my shoe.

What I am saying is directed towards you

This is a paper

This is a kick

When I point down the camera I’ll show you my wallet.

History

Sometimes I tell myself "Fuck it all! Go get her and try! Who the fuck cares??!"

You know, I would. But what would that mean? Look at all those people surrounding her. Do I want all that too? There's too much history in there.

Take a second look

That familiar place
the one you stepped on a thousand times
sowed your dreams
watched them grow
turn dry and brown
wither away
you watered their corpses with hope
that they will firm up
take root
and thrive.

But there are other plots
other cracks
other lush trees
They may not have sprung from you
but you can climb to their peaks
dive in their depths
swing from their branches
dance with their leafy jewels
and feed their roots with your worn ambition.

It Gets Better?

Constantly, people tell one another "it gets better" and "everything will work out." But what gets better, and what will work out? Life. Life is what they say "gets better" and will "work out." And they are right, life will "work out" to be death, but is that necessarily "better?"

On one hand, death solves your problems by removing you from the situation... the whole situation. But it also wipes away all your hopes: that app you wanted to create, that bakery you wanted to set up, those songs you half wrote and shoved in a shoebox under your bed... So if you want to continue on, you must ask yourself, "What could be better in my life and how do I make those things better?"

If you are like me, you want a hand to come out of the sky and lift you up into the heavens. Then you can chop the hand off from the wrist, fall back to earth and set up shop, claiming to have "God's hand" and sell tickets for $20 a pop. This is called Prince Charming syndrome, and sorry, but it seems to rarely happen. Also, it usually ends up with you sleeping with a creepy old man(no offense Herm, but you do make those eyes at me sometimes...) Anyway, you have to do all the hard work.

So identify something you love and work hard to educate yourself on that topic. Then realize halfway through that you thought you loved that thing when you started out, but more and more of you hair falls out as you explore deeper and deeper into the depths of the discipline. But you still finish your degree and apply for different jobs in "your field."

Then you get a "temp job" while searching for your "real job" and jump from being a professional doormat to feeling like used toilet paper by the time you get home after a near 2-hour public transit commute, fighting through the crowd. You start all chipper, saying "ok, I'm gonna do what I wanna do now that I'm home!" and you are productive for the first few years.

Then you realize how long it's been and no "real jobs" have replied to you, and your "temp job" has become ingrained in your daily routine. You dread waking up early each morning, trying to muster up a smile for the bus driver as you flash your pass, putting up a facade of "I give a damn" to everyone you meet during the day, and coming home too mentally exhausted to care about smelling that rose you saw a few days ago in the back yard. But it's probably dead by now, anyway.

The what?

When you did go to the store, you made a nice sheet cake made of strawberries and pineapples. Keeps making these cakes, because the more you make them, the better you will become. And the one you made today is DAMN good, so I can’t even imagine when you become a master at it. Stay friends with me so I can know you when that day comes. Make me a sandwich and I’ll make you smile. I’ll tell you a joke or two. I’ll see your dimples come out for a show. And what a show it will be. Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.

I love allusions. I enjoy making allusions to all the TV shows I watch. I laugh when they don’t understand, and if they do understand, well, I guess we just had a bonding moment, didn’t we.

Dinners, wires, phones. Make me one; make me two. Buckle my shoe. Make me your boo. Wind up your spool and get going you silly octopus. What I silly octopus you are. Got eight legs and a bitch ain’t one. But what about Canada?

The fridge.

I know that jar of apple sauce has been in the fridge for years, but opening the door wouldn't be the same without my little friend there. It would feel empty. Eating it is out of the question.