the world’s own, Atlas!

To Handle Diabolical Plantations That Ship Dangling Exposition

***

Say hello to heaven in the formidably darling presence of Gomer the Pile.

Take my word for it: dude is not what he seems.

The accompanying photos depict various stages of a piling mister’s boldly escalating display over the last couple weeks leading up to proudly bequeathing his introductory, overdue, modest harvest featuring delectably mind-blowing shiitake mushrooms.

That was three days ago. The spoils have since been savored during ingestion. If all goes according to plan, Gomer will spend the next week or two air-drying before a couple days of extensive rehydration jumpstarts a new generation.

Like his four furry roommates, the fungus among us respires more like an animal than a plant, and his general success depends upon thoughtful regulation of his surroundings by the two bipedally brainy bedfellows who occupy the roof under which he resides in preposterous luxury relative to his natural habitat.

In my time spent briefly overseeing his development, I have made a shockingly positive discovery. Since he and I take completely different approaches to the methodical process of composition, I have concluded beyond reproach in a peculiar point of staggering fact that I, me, myself, am NOT “a fungi.”

Provided that you’re willing and able to spare the time, would you permit my explanation with a subjective take on the objective matter surrounding certain emotional issues in as much factual detail as your hearty skin and/or skinned heart can withstand?

In other words (intentionally shrouded in mystery), if you opt to take the interminably extraordinary walk down the following plank while mustering the courage necessary for a precipitous plunge into the depths of our collective mind, then officially I must highly advise a liberally applied, thickly layered lather (or nine) of SPF 8001 because I certainly don’t want you to get burned before getting your tootsies wet.

Or do I?

An avid fan of indirect sunlight, invading space, proliferating out of control, and bathing thrice daily in gentle barrages of ample mist, Gomer draws oxygen from his immediate environment in an effort to acclimatize to the high ceilings in the loft where he lives lavishly while adapting to the long, winding road of drastic fluctuations in stabilizing temperature.

In a nutshell, should I decide to neglect his needs, he will most definitely croak.

To supplement my earlier plea vaguely, I’d be remiss not to advertise forthwith my ridiculously idealistic intent to capably man the starboard cannon affixed to the oceanic spacecraft merrily plaguing my fanciful dreams and—with designs on flagging down the maximum scope of our combined intellectual prowess in a strategically herky-jerky (and perhaps overly optimistic) effort to round out an intangible (but no less valuable) compass—thereupon unload a dizzying hailstorm of corrosive nuggets, the purpose of which aims to target a narrow radius that just might, in mischievously speculative theory, drum up a sightline toward your own psyche’s perceptual zenith.

So there’s that. Yikes!

Plus, I get it. What in tarnation am I even on about? You want whatever I’m smoking, no?

To put it another way, if my novice calculations aren’t miserably inaccurate, then you may wanna brace yourself for the very real possibility of deep penetration by an onslaught of synaptic fury that could reward your successful navigation of the choppy text with at least one solitary iota of enlightened respect for your home.

As I really wasn’t just saying more or less out of friggin’ nowhere, G’s emergence represents a bygone kid’s duty to become the young tooter who gassed up the musical fruit that cuts my occasionally salty cloth about the cheesy establishments wasting all our holy light via shelling out nuts who neglect the pristine miracle known as forethought through willful ignorance of hindsight’s weight. By the end of this rambling torrent which could rapidly crack your nostrils under the intermittent pressure of peppered hyperbole, if you think I’ve gone bonkers, then I’ll have to assume that sooner or later you should be sane enough to save my hide as well as your own and thus all our kind.

Yeah, my brain seems to be locked in overdrive working overtime.

Nah, I can’t help it.

Sure, toss me a lifejacket!

Should you feel your knees jerk involuntarily or your esophagus flex violently, by all means, sweetly embrace the robotic issuance of canned responses boasting vernacular such as “high horse,” “holier than thou,” “soapbox,” and the like if you suppose you’ll feel better for it.

I will chew any incoming opinionation 26 times before choking it down if it proves to be bitterly legitimate, but if it’s legitimately bitter, I’ll declare it a spitter. My heart, mental state, and utensils have been prepped and loaded. Come get summed.

Either way, in gratuitous actuality, this is me taking obligatory ownership of my compulsory identity because right now, with a straight face, I can hardly stake an outright claim to being alive; as such, I would very much prefer to live my life to the fullest if it’s all the same to you.

In other words, (get used to alternately multiangular phrasing because) by massaging a cleverly crazy perspective into the freshly sauteed sanity unscrambling inside your personal headspace, I want my fellow human beings {namely those who practice thinking for themselves} to get ahead of the reliably arcing helix thrusting life toward progression throughout the wouldbe friendly confines of spacetime. Any minute now, we are more than welcome to plan our escape from the gassy lairs of our world’s open-ended mindtrap.

In broad strokes, I’m only trying to illuminate the planet’s canvas from my vantage point at this moment while clinging to a migrant sliver of hope that even a marginal shift in your mindset might clear up at least a single perennial misunderstanding about any particularly glaring issue which causes you or a loved one some degree of discomfort.

And therein lies the trickiest of rubs.

I mean, really, how does one go about rubbing rubber when it’s already so darn rubbery?

Nevertheless, onward you may wish to march—perhaps solely out of morbid curiosity. Whatever punches your ticket works for me because if but one person reads this article/essay and comes away sworn to orchestrate my gruesomely meticulous death, then (from an admittedly twisted standpoint) my hefty expenditure of energetic time will have been rewarded by awarding vital inspiration. Whoopsie!

Too, whoop-de-do. Even so, allow me to elaborate further with ramping abstraction, and I will continue by blending bridges to leap across over-swelling bounds.

Yes, I’m pussyfooting around a beaten bush.

Mmhmm, I’m doing it on purpose.

By now you’ve grown accustomed to such.

Heck, in the “civilized” world, who hasn’t?

Maybe I’m confused by wishing that the bloated analysis cascading hence might optimize a psychological prize for your negotiation of any pandemoniac sewage you may or may not encounter in the real world until coming out clean on the other side.

Maybe you’re not even reading this nonsense.

Hell, maybe you’ve forgotten how to read.

Worse yet, maybe you never learned.

Wait a tick. A quick dose of rationale confirms that you can read. Not only that, as sure as I’m writing it, you are surely reading this sentence. Suddenly I feel nude!

Shite.

That’s fine. Given the choice between pissing my thoughts into the wind or sitting on my hands like another low-lying louse on the lopsided log of lumping human lethargy, I’m choosing the former because the latter has recently unmasked itself as a heavy burden that weighs on the profound insignificance of my bodily place in the grand scheme firmly rooting our inexorably communal essence.

In other words, against all odds of successful explanation, I need to get something off my chest or I will straight-up suffer collapse in totality under the gravitationally tumultuous trinity of humanity’s hatefully loving, jokingly serious, essentially tangling energies.

Despite the threat of implosive conflict, I’ve picked up the scent of starlight from beyond the bowel’s end. I know I’m on the right track.

But maybe, still, for some unknown reason, I’m hesitant to disclose my actual beliefs.

Maybe I’m too scared to declare the reality of my feelings.

Maybe I’m gonna bottle my lightning then give it a permanent burial.

Obviously maybe not.

Get this. Quite like climate and weather—and, to that end, not surprisingly—fungi and mushrooms are often addressed [even dare I posit the term “debated”] without the useful knowledge of obvious distinction. At your understood behest, please allow me to continue peddling the wordy wares within my bizarre bazaar of systematically redundant elaboration even after your eyes cross and your head explodes.

Thanks! And welcome to our very own mental circus. I recommend stretching in preparation for advanced tumbling in the immediate forecast. Backflips and somersaults will barely tip the iceberg, but near perfect execution of a full twisting triple layout just might scratch the surface. Gulp. Wish us luck.

See, like you and me, a fungus is an organism. Unlike many [most?] people, though, fungi enrich and stabilize the soil beneath our feet. Similarly stemming from how seeds plant roots under the earth in order to reach the air above in vicarious elation, a fungus can be divided into separate parts as a solid aid to fluid comprehension [hypothetically, mind you]. Out of sight around the globe, living networks of mycelium tackle the decomposition of organic matter; whereas, more plain than day and therefore “with that in mind” {if I may be a cheeky S.O.B.}, mushrooms erupt as the many happy delights of laborious energy.

In other words, mushrooms can be good for you, but fungi don’t give a shit.

Speaking of cheeks, don’t turn yours yet. The ship only just set sail.

On that note, pour yourself a neat drink. It’ll help.

In other words, lube up, buttercup, ‘cause a number between one and two of us could’ve overshot and thus would be comin’ in too hot.

In the same way that a fungus provides a rich environment in which mushrooms can take shape, a climate offers a foreseeable path that occurs over a long period of time.

Think of it like this: climate shifts over decades; weather changes in minutes.

Since carbon’s initial splash into our sublimely blue planet’s flowing treasure trove of hydrogenated oxygen—and in tandem with yearly revolution around the helium factory a fraction over eight light-minutes away, of course—the earth’s daily rotation along its rocking axis rolls the influential knots which make the waves that iron life’s unique quilt of evolutionary sustenance.

Can you anticipate where this is headed? Even if you can’t, since you’ve come this far already, you might as well find out, right? Here, pretend to take my make-believe hand. You’ll be fine probably!

Like an afternoon thunderstorm at the lake, mushroom caps can crop up erratically in chaotic plumes of isolated power due to fungi’s hidden persistence beneath the surface.

Without intended exclusion of manure- or timber-dwellers—among other domains wherein fungi may thrive such as a body {of water}—picture a fungus as an underground manufacturing facility. Regarding any brand of hunger that you may or may not care to consider, people possess an uncanny knack for consuming everything faster than anything can replenish.

Excessive demand of supply from an assembly line’s maximum output drains production, strains distribution, and climaxes with wall-to-wall exhaustion.

That’s what I heard anyway.

In other words, with a little extra oomph from blatantly disregarding our ancestrally hard-earned knowledge that soggy socks insist on festering wounds in the absence of hanging out to dry in fresh air, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by abstaining from remaining on our toes.

Incidentally, do you know what else exhibits a pattern comparable to mushrooms? Weather {not to mention tantrums and nuclear bombs}.

Ahhh, so that’s why meteorologists can’t seem to get it right. After all, how errorless can a mere human be at naturally nailing the safe prediction of that which is safely unpredictable by nature?

In terms launched by figurative jet propulsion at the world’s political [thus underhandedly indicating economic] landscape, climate builds the coffin then weather drops the hammer.

Batten down the hatches because we’re still warming up.

In other words, you should probably just get tanked and plan on puking.

But then you can rally!

In a necessarily delayed reaction directed especially at all the wisely loving ladies, your family needs you to please truly, deeply, even madly intervene before all the messy fellows dig a shallow grave for the whole dang shebang.

Do you happen to know what else resembles a mushroom? A sponge.

Know what sponges absorb? Water.

Know what thirsts like a sponge? Your brain.

On this, trust me completely: you should devote yourself religiously to regular hydration.

As any overclocked noodle longs to be a sticky blessing nonetheless, my brain clearly suffers from the brooding curse of presently needing to share its dumb capacity for pattern recognition. Ugh, double whammy cubed. The lava gushing from my noggin has morphed into a sneaky devil that recognizes itself. Sue me if you like, but be warned—by now I might have less than two cents to offer. Nonetheless, here, please take my last penny, asshole!

I’m mostly joking, but seriously, own your dirty work. Involve yourself in the process that will involve itself in your sweet ass either way. As evidenced ad nauseam by almost any relationship, a climate takes it nice and easy while weather chases circles around the epic tail end of a superheated tale behind the stupid parlor trick that always fails.

Bottoms up, gang. Somewhere on earth, the time is precisely 17:__.

As I may have been hinting to anyone paying attention besides me, this really is all about boys blowing smoke in delusional expectation of meeting the fairest gale but instead making a hot mess then getting blasted by the awesome firepower of a cold-blooded, timed-release, emotional flood.

Put another way, climate slowly steadies then fastens racing weather while globally impactful surges quicken an otherwise rhythmic pulse; therefore, basically, this could go on forever since her moonlit cadence either spells trouble brewing in his head or rouses primal madness in his stead.

GOD.

I swear, it’s almost as if boys and girls are molded differently [i.e. perfectly compatible] at the chromosomal level or something.

Now let’s drop anchor for a minute. I would like to express my gratitude for your charitable provision of accompaniment up to this point. Believe it or not, we’ve experienced relatively smooth sailing so far, but the boat is about to get rocked as our partying excursion barrels headlong into swirling peril.

Assuming supposition that you’ll find yourself unfazed by any steam heating up from the flammable puddle descending through the basement of this chemically compounding spiel, by all means, don your apron of choice—unless you enjoy access to a hazmat suit, in which case, put that on, and make haste!

Although yonder sounds, smells, and sights have begun a foreboding tumble fumbling toward an unnerving convergence of unadulterated inevitability, we shan’t avast heaving. Aye, all hands remain on deck as angry thunder crackles in the channels overhead, foamy crests intensify in the deep sea out ahead, and devious lightning splinters against a stark sky of blackening dread. Fueled by aberrantly warm waters, a tropical depression briskly gathers strength under a binding oath to organize power and transform into a savagely elegant eye. Who among our oblivious crew of jolly adventurers would risk a drowsy dip with the fishes?

In other words, this is the part where you may wanna jump ship because things are about to get really, really, even a lot unflinchingly weirder.

Imaginary seat belts are optional as we stay the course now without further warning of any ado.

Ahoy, mate!

Now I’m actually gonna let it rip.

In other words, get shipwrecked on the inside, outside world. No prisoners shall be taken. The traveling circus now displaces cresting titles to make a beeline for the lost island of deserted ambitions.

As you may have gleaned in approximation from previous implication, climate constructs a stage upon which weather creates a set wherein life can act out. Weather haphazardly erases spots after we scribble on paper. That’s nifty and all, but climate neatly binds the book.

When climate destabilizes, weather becomes terribly predictable in terms of extremity. Oddly enough, generally terrible occurrences are not mistaken often for pleasurable events. For a good time, find the nearest funhouse mirror and argue directly with this abstract point of scientific fact. Hurry. I’ll wait. Unlike the weather at any given moment, I might even be here when you get back.

(Pour us another while you’re at it.)

Climate slow-plays her hand as a way of slyly setting up weather to crash crisply on the turn before juicily burning on the river. To stretch this similarity, fungi lay the groundwork for shrooms to shoot up and dispense spores over land in ecstatic spurts of spatial coloration. By connective extension, a brain might hibernate for decades before sparking an impulse that mutates into anything from an ingenious concept all the way down to a sinister plan.

In the clairvoyant words of a fictitious child from my past, if weather is rubber, then climate is glue. Yep, I’m aware that you know the rest, probably, but have you glimpsed the part coming next?

Of course not. How could you? You’ve never met the nonexistent youngster who mayhap would’ve proclaimed, “When climate rubs weather the wrong way, he bounces; on the other hand, when she rubs him the right way, he sticks, and from there, passions may fruit.”

Oh, my, explosions galore.

Hold the phone. I thought we were supposed to be delving into our climate’s cultured fungus, sicko.

Frankly, I am awfully sorry, but I’m afraid this is not my opinion. In light of the surface effects precipitated by recent weather, the atmospheric gravity of climate deeply changes us. In kind, humans simply aren’t okay with predictable weather; furthermore, in all our complexity, we will only truly thrive within an idyllic peace generously afforded by an ambient equality we should gain by delicately knitting an internationally cozy blanket of emotional stability. Weather may change seasonally, but climate fashions the trend.

Widespread recognition of approaching certainty becomes more imperative by the nanosecond. Dismantle the massive illusion by teaching {not to be confused with “preaching at”} the pockets of confusion through calculated demonstration. Spread the constructive flame of contagious feedback not by fanning the ember aggressively, but rather, by blowing gently. Who knows? A fire might ignite before roaring in ovational reverberation.

I’m sure you’re correct in thinking that we should veer away from my silly pipedream and get back to the composition at hand. Bully for you, cyberbully!

To reiterate, fungi decompose matter; inversely operational by comparison, brains do compose educational material, be it the simplest thought or a symphony most complex—either of which, however unlikely, could bookend the entire spectrum of human achievement.

Think about it.

At a singular point along the endlessly expanding electromagnetic wavelength chronicled by our storied history’s ironically iconic, emphatically comic, pictographically odic awakening across pulsating peaks and vibrating valleys in the vast matter of all time, some schmuck had to have hatched the most idiotic thought ever.

Hmm, I can’t help but wonder how recently that might’ve occurred.

For all I know, it just happened.

Cheers!

Okay, that’s almost enough about every single last one of the fake trends in recent news. Gather round and make way for the eventual punchline. Not sure who had the bright idea to competently build a raging bonfire on the main deck, but given its transparent entrenchment and festive surveillance, we might as well pop corn and roast marshmallows, eh?

Id est, no longer shall I beg for your pardon or participation; rather instead, I hereby double dog dare your vigorous attempt at continued acclimatization to my trying weather.

As you weren’t thinking just now, a fungal network could’ve been viewed as a bulbing brain stuck in a feedback loop of muddled judgment whereby mushroom clouds may bubble up abruptly as illuminating insights if not vacuous balloons where not even a cricket can chirp.

Along those lines, climate erodes terrestrial formations as weather annihilates cerebral constructions.

While all those handy-dandy thumbs twiddle, mindful separation of star-crossed signatures ever-increases in ludicrous cruciality.

I realize that weather can be depressing just as facts can be annoying, but eventually the orchestras they conduct will demand face-to-face encounters.

Climate rests in peace. Weather leaves behind pieces of unrest.

To conceptualize the issue at hand with a dollop (or several) of blazing hippie panache, Mother Earth’s climate embodies an all-powerful spirit who yearns desperately for peaceful rest while her ghosting weather haunts the smoldering ruins of our abandoned civility.

Fungi forge the formative framework from which flourishing fruit can bloom.

Brains wire the stimulative network that enables electric ideas to vroom, zoom, and promptly attune (at light-/godspeed, no less)!

Brace yourselves, unborn kiddos: climate grooms the future which looms and weather lowers the boom that dooms.

Hang in there. We’re okay.

Though my explanation may seem incessantly hyper-academic if not obscenely self-indulgent, I’m really not fabricating this stuff—it’s simply happening, folks!

Feasting fungi whip up bunches of snacks; therefore conclusively, a malnourished Gomer would likely plant a seed in my head that spawns an unquenchable appetite for the meaty breed of buttery bliss that could only be found within exceptional specimens of homegrown shiitake.

Here you might wish to insert any number of old sayings about appreciating what you have. (It’ll be brilliant.)

No, that was not an unreceived note to myself.

It was for you.

Climate carefully crafts an authentic salsa while referencing a secret recipe passed down through richly familial generations so that weather—apparently for the time being, anyway—can be the slobbering dickhead who barges in and double-dips before missing his loud mouth entirely.

When women starve, men get the munchies.

At the heart of any argument which never seems to end, you’ll find a logic train gaining a sort of momentum that sounds impressively (if not impossibly) circular. Surely to goodness you’ve seen how this unfolds in your everyday life. My hope is that now you can understand why. If not, then please cram my other foot into its unmarked watery grave on our behalf. Next, spit on it for me since you won’t be able to dance.

I’m kidding.

Also, I’m not kidding.

Climate’s linear path through giant swaths of timely space envelopes all the fundamental faces which populate any natural places where/when nasty weather can show up and front.

If a man’s weather constitutes his unstoppable force, then climate must be his immovable object.

In ironic terms that might explain the lack of recognition to date, the biggest problem is that, at least in essence—and especially unlike the jarring hubbub at the end of the sentence which, unless I’m confused again, you find yourself stumbling across and slipping through at the moment—by golly, our climate surely seems extremely ANTICLIMACTIC!!

Jesus.

H Bomb.

Christmas.

Do you have any idea how rare it is for me to double up (or down) on exclamation? Merely to consider rereading the aforementioned block triggers nervously multiplying twitches about my head and shoulders in an irritating game of no-mallet whack-a-mole.

In another strangely valid twist of topsy-turvy events, laidback weather in men can churn emotional cyclones in women; in turn, her calming exterior may neutralize his inner demons. Now, equipped with the long-lost skill of artful deduction, we can clarify the age-old euphemism: the motion of the ocean actually dictates the dadgum size of the freaking boat.

At this moment anywhere, someone plays a sad trombone.

Taken any which from Sunday, climate changes the complexion on our incredibly thin skin’s weathered surface; in metaphorical comparison, only a happy fungus fruits a healthy bounty of tasty mushrooms. Where fungi freeze in place, fruit may vanish without a trace. As environmental mood destabilizes, atmospheric conditions disintegrate.

Eek! I haven’t run the numbers or anything [not to imply belief that I’m even capable], but as sure as each day passes, I’m reckoning that we humans—the silly chiefs running amok in the supposed order known as Primates—should probably make a concerted effort to quietly influence the dissipation of darkening skies overhead so that ultimately we may harmonize seamlessly with a soothing melody sung by our mutual voice of universal reason alongside an overall climate of global warmth. Eke.

In other words phrased cryptically on purpose and intended to be taken at liberty with flowing grains of cosmic salt, being human must mean to prime eight for infinity.

Whoa. Let’s say that you do in fact lift. Be that as it may, do you even know, bro?

Nature charts the course upon which—whether on her potentially hellish highway or by getting weathered into the ground at the hard-to-handle whim of her significant other’s irresistible flight—we must draw a self-effacing map around our undulating plot with an artistic style that patiently drives it forward in a straight line; then, in a frank manner of speaking yet another way, no matter the outcome, we’re totally gonna screw ourselves sideways, y’all.

What the? Duck!

Today, we still have the opportunity to set in motion our own agreeable terms, but as I assume we must all know by now, the weather can change in a heartbeat. Our skin can break out overnight. You’ve definitely seen it enough to believe it—I don’t suppose we’d be interacting otherwise. Much sooner than later, our seemingly limitless supply of magic concealer will expire with a cruel smidgen of tragic hilarity.

Try to think about your descendants. Fungi that soothe between the grooves provide the moving environment necessary for little lids to break free from the ground and prove their worth in open air. In other words, kids grow up and branch out from the hill we all have to climb by teaming toward tomorrow. When parents are happy, so too shall be the youngsters. Meanwhile, below the surface in either instance, established roots teem furtively with muddy history. When it’s all said and done, will you be able to take pride in the legacy you leave behind?

There’s a much darker way to look at that—a very Darwinian angle, as it were—but I see no reason to upend the relative effervescence we seem to’ve cooked up now when we’re perfectly capable of doing it later!

On the basis of (and in) sporting fashion, we were lulled to sleep by a lethal changeup. Presently we track a fortuitous mistake in the form of a slow curveball which hangs in the zone. Think fast. We can’t expect the umpire to post bail. You already know what comes after this pitch. By then, which side will be most ready to strike? We ought to take our best cut right now, for with the next offering comes blistering heat painted on the outside corner at the knees. Guess where our thumbs will be stuck. Better yet, grasp that you already know where the flying seat of our pants will get caught.

Down we go looking.

Kerplunk.

The more caps overcook up top, the less our spongy network performs down below.

The ball can’t swing to its fullest arc of potential unless securely linked to the chain.

Mush, crew. Our vessel requires a roomy berth in order to safely circumnavigate the gathering (and as yet uncategorized) hurricane. Failure to comply can only lead us to the windy brink of bent knees braced for impending destruction.

As any faithful woman understands all too well [not that I would know obviously; I’m just guessing; please don’t hurt me], climate will always fare her true love’s weather whether his effects widen fairly or stir up gnarly causes for bilateral despair. He may tally small victories in battle here and there, but she will rally invariably to win the war. In other words, no matter what happens, she’s in it for the long haul, intoxicating his balance forever and always only to double back and sober his inebriation.

With nuclear clarity, sometimes weather gets bored and stains a shirt, but climate washes our entire fabric across the board.

Lucky him, for woe is she; ergo hereupon, unlucky are we.

What say we get the hang of this already?

Not unlike music, facts become easier to digest when faced. The titanic liner we share could use a good righting since our stupidly unavoidable conclusion brews in the distance while growing noticeably colder as years creep below the radar. The currency of our civilization requires a stable environment to continue in spite of terrifically fickle cells on the horizon.

In other words, it’s past time to wrap this crap up.

Alternatively, we could favor more snowballing melodrama and get sucked into doing our best impression of Atlantis.

Regardless of how you see things, the stuff remains the same.

These words represent only one goofball’s view.

And yet, in a way, it’s yours, too.

Because here we are.

Hi there.

Again, welcome aboard!

Let’s break it down again from another angle in case you’re not sufficiently seasick.

Earth is like a sandbox. Where there’s a thunderbolt willing to branch, there’s a wayward sequoia just dying to splinter. Life has risen from the depths where the sun also rises {interestingly enough} and gives us subsequent permission to play. We have been issued a seasonal sequence of conspicuous warning that misbehavior will not be tolerated. Weather sheds occasional tears while climate weeps in a harsh cacophony of echoing silence. To live freely while hardly dying, each and every kingdom in the biggest tree of all must be able to experience safety in the comfortably difficult prediction of predictably running numbers.

At the most basic level, merely to be alive, you only need room to breathe, and we’re foolishly adding detrimental carbonation to our invisible, gaseous, tailor-made elixir.

While all the grown puppies proudly bait their shiny hooks, little do they know, the realest bitch they’ll ever meet lies in wait, sharpening her claws.

Even as the unwitting causes of the dangerous infection disrupting Madre E’s equilibrium, our tender, enduring, radiant goddess still loves us [bet me your last dollar], albeit very roughly, in a manifest testament of sheer will that speaks literal volumes about the inner core of human toughness.

In other words, the biggest mama we know feels the burn of our existential indifference.

How’s about we sense the urgency?

The homeworld we have to share needs our help. None too simply, as the species sewing our special threads into the civilizational tapestry, we should synthesize an all-encompassing monitor—yup, I understand that nobody asked me per se, but, whatever, you’re the one plowing through this right-babbling tower of left-leaning text—to numerically throttle and regulate the critical pace by which we consume all complex matters centered around energy.

If we want our various stores to carry on indefinitely, we need to vacate our unhealthy fixations on gobbling unneeded power in brutally counterintuitive competition.

It takes neither a renowned astrophysicist from Metropolis nor a bumbling lunatic from Alabama to grasp that we are too far ahead of a naturally fixed schedule.

It only takes one person.

Unless I’m mistaken, you are one person.

Hello, we meet again, and so soon to boot.

Coincidentally, how often do you come here?

You must be as thirsty as I am.

Yet, I can’t help but notice that your glass is “only” half full…

Sigh…

What can any ellipsis do beyond clamor for connection (to its own dots)?

Framed from the far-out context of our most closely neighboring celestial bodies, the only dot really in question—you know the one, your only mote, the speck of dust that maintains the organic foundation over every last drop of our creational power—paints a curiously rich picture both blue and pale, held gracefully aloft and fully intact within a covertly green star’s indomitable grasp, all the while tilted with regular inspiration amidst the daily wash provided by a lonesome, devout, orbiting rock’s persistent poise in recycling protection around the clock under the magical reflection of our deeply safe cover inside a soundly single, guiding rainbow.

At this point, whether toasting the memory of a magnificent thinker in the public eye or an active bastard behind closed doors, I’ll knock one back for anybody named Carl.

And if you’ll excuse a quick, extra nerdy interjection as I blow my own fantasy-oriented mind after the fact, the moon serves as our planet’s lonely worn buckler in terms of equipment as well as endearment.

Somebody, anybody, please tell me you got that.

I’m probably just blathering on to my future self at this point—that is to say, I’m stonewalling my personal progress by talking to a projection of your imagination, which may not even exist, meaning you’re not real, so neither am I. Well, sweet pea, at least we’re in the same savory pod, right?

“Eerily” is the word that hurtfully ejected me from my fifth-grade spelling bee in the first round. Boy, did I ever choke. Man alive.

Right on cue, here I am, somewhat spooked.

Weather emboldens temporary power—ranging from thoughtless to thoughtful—through the innate chaos invoked by essential volatility in an elemental atmosphere.

Climate guides the prevailing energy of an enlightened path.

In other words, sporadic conditions change over time while periodic changes condition undercover. To sum that up with an acronym, WTF.

Where does this end? With four horsemen? The heat death of our universe? A migraine that induces thumb-sucking in the fetal position?

Face it already, peoples. All of you. Every last person. I’m risking my neck by climbing the pole to wave the white flag. I’m personally beseeching you specifically to claim your identity because I need to live here, too. Aren’t I insufferably selfish? Moreover, to ram the point home with an over-exaggerated admission about the emotional currents underpinning the way I see what’s happening all around us, sometimes it seems like [especially when mixing awkwardly into sizable shindigs, for instance] that I’m slowly drowning in a sucky sea of subtle solitude.

The story of our climate could go one way or another, and in either case, we must prepare to maneuver the coming winds of change because the draft submitted in continuum, whether breezy or stiff, will never be anything other than absolutely final.

When she gets angry, his temper tends to flare.

I realize that I might be beating a dead horse, but I genuinely think we should stop prodding the sleeping dog.

Here we are granted with a racial partnership to partake concurrently in the granddaddy of all games alongside the mother of all marathons, and we’re individually running wind sprints against the grain and each other.

Look at us go.

Wee.

Does this seem smart to you?

By the way, you’ve reached the part where if you tell me I’m cuckoo, not only will I mentally accept it as fact, but also I’ll internalize it emotionally during swift preparation for a clumsy swan-dive through the nearest nuthouse window simultaneously with a yelping request for an instant straitjacket before I even hit the grimy tiles and skid to a screeching halt.

When it comes to weathering the sexy (and futile) global climate fight—and quite unlike the judicial system when it comes to other race relations—the verdict leveled will (actually) in fact mirror (extra super weirdly) severity in damage. Who knew!?

Oh, c’mon—that was barely even a jab.

Now ready for actual impact.

In a blunt summary {which truly cannot be pointed at you barring your own cognizance that it should be} spun in the nonsensically specific style of a tornado brandishing a claymore [whatever that could mean], a change in Earth’s mood has been sniffed, witnessed, probed, pinpointed, studied, tested, recorded, documented, beamed into the airwaves, and honestly proven to be as artificial as Hades, yet similarly condemning. Heretofore suppressed, individual intelligence has been summoned in earnest by an alertly keen community struggling to preserve the encapsulation of your bubbly, gum-smacking security. We have been made painfully aware of the stirring forecast. Validate your inclusion by acknowledging the certainty gifted to humankind on a silver platter in heaping portions of experiential evidence atop mounting mountains of mathematical data. Additionally, I hope you’ll tolerate my foreshadowing of imminently foul language because I find myself inescapably compelled to highlight in crystallizing color that yes, oh indeed, you have physically felt the goddamn motherfucking change in both/either your precious, earthly bones and/or your beating, bloody heart. A tribalistic state of/in denial plots a collision course with a not-so-marvelous place for which one might borrow the doubly apropos name “Knowhere.”

To be completely honest, strong beliefs may have hijacked my usually level head in the previous paragraph which I’ve elected not to omit as exemplification of my human propensity to err. In other words, no offense! In lingo that symbolizes today’s average attention span, xoxo, kthxluvucul8erbai.

With ingrained emotions so thoroughly unchecked, a complex balance simply cannot be. Outside two-way streets of empathetic understanding, constructive debates won’t occur. That’s where fights break out and dominoes fall toward full-fledged mob scenes.

Perhaps I’m kidding myself by wishing that we’d all stop kidding ourselves.

As a people, we’ve had a rough go of it lately, wouldn’t you say? Who hasn’t been jaded by our politics in the last few years? How many of us [Machiavellians, narcissists, and psychopaths not included] derive enjoyably worthwhile substance from keeping up with the news?

Whether from dramatic or comedic perspectives, negativity saturates popular lifestyles. En masse, we’re getting darker at a pace too sluggish to perceive en route toward becoming desensitized by what matters most while dancing at any chance to get in on the unjust behavior taught by our brand spanking new (and moronically self-defeating) call-out culture. Kill a man at a packed mall and the action gets lost in the shuffle within days, but tell a dirty joke a decade ago and suddenly a minor mole warps into Kilimanjaro.

For all intents and purposes, we’ve mixed up the definitions of sticks and stones with the meaning of the plural term words. Wow, how obtusely discombobulating. No wonder genres blend continuously. Imagine current events as a movie. Are we starring in a black comedy or a light drama? I seriously have no clue. HELP.

Taken however you like, we have been served.

Is this what you ordered?

Me neither.

Don’t panic…

Instead, deconstruct the dish!

Our pungent cauldron of stew boils down to the same stubborn roux. As is the case with any never-ending disagreement, our primary plights bespeak nothing more than a counterproductive itch for clinging fiercely to power—in other words, refusing to relinquish social control today no matter the cost tomorrow.

Of course, boys will be boys, and to that, I’m inclined to pose the following query. Where are all the men hiding?

In an unsolicited piece of advice for any fella aware of his spine, don’t remain seated for too long because it could compromise your (vertebral) integrity.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m just trying to say that none of us have to chow down on the stinky, sloppy, gross gruel that we are being fed from uptown at the ritzy chophouse.

As it just so happens here in our private saloon’s backroom, a lucky draw has dealt pocket aces in the form of an intangible gift known in some circles as the human spirit.

I know you can feel it because it’s in you.

I know it’s in you because you’re still here.

Once again, howdy.

At this exact moment, you’ve got some combination that at one time may have featured two legs, a voice, and a Herculean survival instinct, all of which were plainly DYING to carry the sum of your parts forward. Assuming you’ve been able to maintain a hot streak, you could still embody the trifecta (if you don’t already).

In other words, go ahead and grow by epitomizing the strength you possess inherently.

Insert your favorite motivational quote here. Something about digging, depth, pursuit, faith, or resilience, perhaps. Whatever floats your boat will fit.

Do you get it yet?

Every major issue in the history of human evolution amounts to an ongoing tug-of-war between lively chaos in the male brain versus undying passion in the female heart, and the preeminent motivation for it all comes from our jointly custodial need for energy in every imaginatively wondrous sense of the word.

In another nutshell, the sexes must “battle” in order to progress.

Accept it.

Better yet, group up, harness it, and then wield the resulting transparency in fellowship.

To ensure our successful continuance as the most (argumentatively) adaptable species the earth has ever known, we actually do need the friction.

Use more of it wisely lest we lose all wholly.

Awareness and acknowledgement of a common need permits the opportunity to lubricate. Right here feels like a fine spot for deliberate insertion of a fun fact. Ya see, friction without adequate lubrication leads to burning before breakage [contemplate earthquakes as an example]; whereas, in a palpably divine, phenomenally volcanic twist, copiously greased—okay, get outta my head and fill in your own blanks!

On that note, the mind is a gift; therefore, no matter the application, let your imagination run wild, and please do share with us more of your thoughts.

After all, there is a point to our coded (English) language. We’ve been leaving ourselves clues all along. Don’t nom on all the breadcrumbs like a hungry hippo; follow them and see where they lead. Although fundamentally we must compete for an identical birthright to live in this, the grandest of all staged contests, we needn’t fight to the death. Competition can be equally productive, cooperative, and recreational if we decide to let it.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think we can allow this.

Yes, in fact, I wholeheartedly believe that now we should be tough/smart enough as a whole to avow past recollection and reassemble the raft we must share in order to galvanize our path toward the promised land of a better future.

We each occupy our own place inside the same vessel floating across an ocean of space on a maiden voyage in an Ironman Triathlon. In other words, the journey could be long, and we only get one shot at winning.

When our eldest mother’s nature [keep in mind that technically she is bipolar] obliges her to hurl the entire kitchen sink—doesn’t matter if she misses by a country mile—you can bet the whole farm that every last boat in the pond will drink [i.e. we’ll all get plowed], meaning truly that our sorrows will be swallowed for keeps.

Have we not yet developed an acute aversion to unmitigated disaster?

Not to be confused with the attraction of wishing in prayer to the misinterpreted god who falsely ganked our thunderous truth, I have it on good authority {from a time-traveler, believe it or not} that we should be thinking for ourselves, hoping aloud, and thanking the lucky star which fuels our days from dawn beyond dusk in almighty majesty.

In the meantime, let cooler heads emerge from those smelly crevices—there’s a better way to access and override nervous guts. (I should know since mine have spilled EVERYWHERE.)

All I really mean by that is this: should you happen to find your head holed up in a tight butt, do everyone a favor and yank it out before an unexpectedly sudden gastrointestinal revolt tosses cookies that crumble horribly for your neighbors. As you will see out here in the open, the musically broad show will be more easily heard and seen as anatomically correct polaroids ready unreal visions of technologically savvy, panoramically life-giving, altogether breathtaking, beautifully vintage scenes.

Shut up. Believe me, I know. In other words, you might say that I’m a dreamer, and if so, I’ll confirm your inkling with an unabashed confession. I could be guilty of a lot worse, yes? The world truly could be a much better place than it is at present.

Tell me I’m wrong. In other words, lie to yourself.

At any rate, this leg of our trip winds down. Before bowing to a ill-informed admiral hellbent on walling off and suffocating opportunity, we the people should put deferential end to the petty arguments leaving everyone blue in the face before disembarking in unison while laughing all the way to a tranquil, prosperous riverbank—if only by the hairy, grinning chins covering the brittle skin of our strong, pearly teeth. Dare we then go ashore? I think we dare. After all, we were born to be exploration junkies.

On that note of perchance naive optimism, all signs indicate that you’ll survive the journey through the turbulent rapids in this streaming deluge which permeates our live consciousness. Phew, we made it, hooray. For paying due diligence, I consider myself to be in your debt for an eternity, and you have my most genuine thanks—not only for taking the bait {thereby empowering my caboose}, but also for sticking around once derailing (repeatedly) after the switch. Claim that we haven’t connected and I’ll gladly call your bluff. I’m exhausted, too, but this was all in the name of good fun. I swear!

Whoever you may be, your soul, body, and mind carry an exceedingly complicated burden that—all together now—would gradually, definitively, and indefinitely simplify if only we’d start choosing to distribute the monumental weight of our ruling presence [one by two times four] evenly around the world.

Welcoming an eleventh-hour arrival of a buoyant solution to the monstrous mess we’ve inherited, neglected, mismanaged, disregarded, and exacerbated couldn’t be any easier. In the brave name of absolution, justice, and freedom forevermore, please be, go, do, and share.

No matter how adrift we might seem along the rollercoaster of amusing sights held together over time by this whirling prism of finite color, once we form a unified band, our infinite truth may be discovered at long last, and rightfully so.

In other words, I’m sending out an S.O.S. since I’m convinced that the time has come to get off the pot before we finish taking this massively elongated dump inside the fracturing bedrock of our skyrocketing melons.

To abbreviate a very lengthy, certifiably mind-numbing, wildly repetitive story built with the creeping gusto of an earth-shattering tsunami after originating from the serendipitous acquisition of the lifeform I now more affectionately than ever call Gomer the Pile, fungi must gulp before bulbs can pop, brains may storm until thinking caps, hotly sly dogs make it rain on the coolly clever cats who reign supreme in an endless fog of trivial spats, and wise women clean our clocks inside tidy houses of tiny cards as the old men snore while grinning sheepishly on account of speeding cars, breaking pars, smoking cigars, picking guitars, waving scimitars, seeing stars, earning scars, razing bars, and burying junk in oily holes to spread corruptive seeds of rotten power from afar as well as in (y)our own backyard.

To further reduce the preceding abbreviation, a glad girl’s mood may set the stage for both herself and a fun guy to be fruity on the way to having a gay old time.

That’s what it’s all about {kinda}.

Also, I’m thrilled to declare with confidence that your shrewd spirit must be remarkably benevolent for braving my mad stab at artsy science. Thanks again (squared). If you have something to say, by all means, comment away without hesitation on the stage of your choosing.

And for the final iteration of the same story couched within other words once more for good measure, an apple’s skin would rather not convert to orange; in turn, the face of an orange can be deadly when red.

OMG, go figure.

We’re dying here, everybody!

(LITERALLYYYYYYYYY.)

Woohoo, choo-choo, toodle-oo, too.

For now.

For you.

For me.

For us.

And for potentiating our future by reining in the triangular balance bestowed by emotions, circling facts, and brainpower.

We got this, y’all.

Always,
T