Red Velvet Dreams

Another short story, even dumber than the first one.  Enjoy.

Red Velvet Dreams - plaintext version for people that donut like the cursive font/color of the original

The Arbitrary Horse

I have been reading a good bit of Italo Calvino lately and have decided my own writing is not yet very good.  Naturally then, I have decided to write a short story and and give it a quick ebook treatment.

Please note that if you like this story, you are most likely a terrible person that reads terrible stuff that is terrible.  

Melissa Mooney and the confidence of a thousand idiots

A random old story brought on by an old basketball buddy from college recounting his own missteps.

Embarrassing, but I can beat that. And I'll name names. Melissa Mooney, my freshman year. She was a junior - psych major, tall, stunning, and remarkably, incredibly elegant. I remember my buddy Mysen was able to pick her out from a crowd just from my description of her - specifically that she moved as if a halo of light made her impervious to all the nerd, dork, pansy, and Bing that abounded on that Carnegie campus.

She was in my tiny Calc 2 class, but I actually met her outside it, as I was lazily walking to a TA session already 5 minutes late and there she was walking out of it, just 5 minutes in. Clearly then, we were fated to be together, as she smiled a lovely smile and I conveniently ignored the significance of her leaving someplace just as I was arriving. Inexplicably, over the next week, I actually managed to get her number. Miraculously, I asked her to have lunch with me and she agreed. Ladies, that you might just enjoy eating and walking is an absolutely ludicrous idea to us when we have a crush on you, you see. Obviously, she loved me, obviously.

Now to give you an idea of where my head was at this point, I had an intramural basketball team named after me, (YBF was originally, stupidly, called Fahd) and Liz, the hot dramat, whom you may have seen as Constance Brenneman on TV, she had singled me out to say hello to, and now I was having lunch with the hottest girl on campus - a junior.  I tell you I walked around that CMU campus with the confidence of a thousand idiots.

On to the denouement, then. The lunch was cringe-worthy. At one point I asked her what her last name was, and then I told her mine, you know, just in case she wanted to know. It quickly dawned on her that she wasn't just killing time before class with some odd, lazy, child, but a particularly oblivious and smitten idiot. And particularly oblivious, smitten, and an idiot I was. I called her up, exactly two days later of course, to ask her out to dinner. She stalled awkwardly and then dropped the most beautiful lie I'll ever hear. She had a boyfriend. Problem solved. Except there I sat then in my dorm room, with my roommate, Pete, and my friend, Kelly, both looking awkwardly on as I had just been obviously rejected. It was ok, though, because I proceeded to throw a hissy fit, leaned back in my chair in the middle of the room, and in karmic slow motion tried to grab the flimsy card table upon which I had resting both the phone and one of those thick and juicy burritos from the UC that broke apart almost instantly when you took a bite.

I shot for the moon; I wound up on my ass - deafened by laughter, blinded by embarrassment, covered in burrito.

And if that's not embarrassing enough, I used to hang out with Bing Xu, trying to pick up chicks.

This has been your Pretty Boy Jacket History moment of the day. If you'll excuse me, I have a cold personal pizza and mountain dew to attend to. Nuts. to. everybody.

Fishy Fishing Experts

Back in the states, I used to go fishing with my kid sister whose name is Mervat, but whom I call woodchuck.  We fished in a small pond in her apartment community with relatively crappy fishing poles that I think I bought for us at walmart.  Woodchuck was a fishing expert in that, despite the crappy equipment, she would still manage to catch fish. Well, if you can call them fish.  I have no idea what kind of fish they were, but there were a lot of them, and they were none of them especially large.  She caught a catfish once though, if that helps bolster her credibility.

Woodchuck:  Expert Fisherman

I was also an expert, but only at catching sticks and leaves.  Well, only because nobody ever claimed to be better at catching sticks and leaves.  Nothing like snatching mediocrity from the jaws of defeat, I used to teach the astronauts.  Or at least I would have, if they would have ever asked me.

Fahd:  Teaching astronauts through instructional photography

Other than the occasional alleged fish murder, mostly we just wound up feeding the fish tons and tons of stale bread.  I say alleged only in case some fish out there has internet and uses my blog as evidence.  But I think we all know who really murdered those fish.

Allegedly!

But we really did feed them a ton of bread.  Loaves of stale sliced white bread.  We tried other things like fishing lures haphazardly and with little success.  Possibly because some of the lures might have been bigger than the fishes themselves, but hey, dream big.  At least that's what I would tell the tiny microchip makers; if only they'd ask me.  But the bread, there would be multiple feeding frenzies every time we threw in a couple of slices at once.

And it led us to wonder, how in the world do fish know that bread is food?

Are there underwater bakeries down there that churn out baked delicacies, but in extremely small amounts, thereby always leaving the fish wanting?  Are the fish still following an outdated food group pyramid and have  realized they haven't been getting anywhere near their recommended daily allowance of whole grains?  Seriously, when is bread any part of a fish's world other than when a pair of jerks decide to drop by the pond with a loaf?

As a quick aside, we were certainly expert jerks, at least.  Sometimes, there would be turtles, but they were far too slow to get the bread.  Naturally, then, we'd throw bits of bread at their shells; mostly to make them paranoid that there was something fishy going on behind their backs.  

Anyway, my theory is that the fish are using an advanced system that involves the higgs field, the fourth dimension, and cations to figure out bread is food.  To test this theory, I will take some stale bread with me and throw it in the caribbean to see if pretty sea fish have the same method of determining that bread is food as ugly pond fish.

Because if they do, I'm probably going to have come up with an alibi for the great fish massacre of 2008.

The kids are dead because of sadness about the fish massacre

A bit more Dominica Nonsense

Today, Dominica has answered the question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
Because there was a huge truck coming.

However, Dominica has no answers for the question, "Why did the 2nd chicken a little bit further down cross the street?"

Roosters are idiots.  The sun does not rise at 1AM, or 3PM, or 2:45AM.  Worst alarm clocks ever.

Crabs remain adorable.  I was bored out of my mind a recent Saturday afternoon, so I decided to hang out at the edge of a long wooden pier where I stared off into the distance with my chest proud and my long locks of hair billowing in the wind as the silver golden water anointed me its King.  Actually, I was sitting down and watching the fish.  The Caribbean is super clear and there are some fancy looking little fish down there.  While I'm sitting, I feel an odd grappling sensation on my left thumb.  I turn around and there is a tiny crab no bigger than a golf ball that just realized that my thumb might not be food it can take back to its house.  Either that, or the crab was a fan of bootleg romance novel covers as well.

My prop is my imaginary bike of shame

Found out something very interesting that day.  My hair's pretty long right now and I actually let it dry in the sun as it was, as opposed to combing it straight, like I normally would.  It turns out air drying my hair out here does not turn me into a Caribbean Carrottop as it did in Ecuador.
Rather, it turns me into a Dominican Shirley Temple.  I'm talking big,  fancy, bouncy, curly locks.  I swear, iIf I didn't have a beard going right now, I'd be scary looking.

As opposed to a beardless 6 foot tall Dominican Shirley Temple, which would just be adorable, of course.
(note to self:  Insert terrible, terrible photoshop of giant shirley temple with a beard here)

Now, I'm assuming that Shirley Temple hair is at the top of most women's requirements for men, so I'm not sure how to interpret the way random women in Dominica react to me sometimes.  They'll be passing by and give me the elevator look.  For those that don't know, that's where your eyes scan a person from top to bottom and then back up.  Talking to these women, however, just leaves me confused.  They don't flirt back in any way, but just answer my pointless questions as matter of fact-ly as possible.  That's leading me to believe now that I'm actually mistaking the elevator look for a "Shirley, you can't be serious" look.

One more thing.  Today, I ran into a woman that apparently recognized me from somewhere.  It is a very small island town, after all.  I wish I could say I recognized her as well, but I'll be very honest, I have no idea what her face looked like.  She was dressed up for something and would have probably looked quite elegant if she wasn't wearing a very low cut top, displaying proudly what I can only assume were double R boobs.  That fills the boob quota for the post.  

Dominica Snippets

I wish you could see this sun set over the Caribbean through the rain that I can see.

Beauty dies in but one pair of eyes.

Dominica, for a bit

The last two weeks have been pretty stressful, so I haven't written much.  But I should have a brief respite for a bit so I can continue to flood the minds of the bored with foolishness.

It occurred to me yesterday that I hadn't written all that much about Dominica, even though that's what everybody's curious about right now.

Well, Dominica is indeed boring, and quite miserably hot and humid far too often.  But man is it gorgeous.  Absolutely stunning.  Just achingly, mesmerizingly beautiful.

Yesterday morning, long before the sun's punishment began, I walked down Dominica's encircling coastal road with a thousand different names.  This road, with its curious personality taking a million inland detours as if enchanted by a feathered painting one second, then drawn back seaward to the glimmer of the Caribbean the next; this road, winding about Dominica like a telephone cord (yes, young'uns, telephones had wires once, twisty ones); this road, yesterday morning, offered me the simplest route to the boring little town of Portsmouth.  But then, on this road, there, in the morning light, Dominica, fresh out of the shower; myyyy goodness.

I will confess that only a very select few women have ever made me think in poetry, but now, here was Dominica inspiring metaphors and bewitching me entirely.

Bright Caribbean blue eyes washing softly on her dark almond skin, above her vivid jungle green dress, covering some truly grand Tetons.

Well, so I guess it wasn't particularly good poetry.

See!

Some curious and interesting tidbits about Dominica:

Most places have annoying pests and problems that scurry away when they sense somebody nearby.  Dominica has crabs.  And they're fantastic.  They're not everywhere mind you, but close to the shore, where most everybody lives.  They'll scurry away under any rocks or shelter anytime they hear your footsteps.    And then the hermit crabs, they have goofy looking shells sometimes, makes it look very much like they're hiding out of sheer embarrassment.  Frankly, it's all adorable.  I'm sure they've pinched somebody or maybe they're a nuisance to fisherman perhaps, but to me they're charming.

And Dominicans themselves are charming.  Exceptionally friendly people, they'll greet you like you just helped them move that heavy dresser last week.  And it makes sense I suppose.  They all grew up around each other.  Probably never developed a fear of strangers because there just weren't any.  Admittedly, it's quite refreshing to see compared to the "lock the doors, hide your wallet - there's a person of a different race/religion/sexuality/ideology/age group/socioeconomic status/musical taste/brand preference across the street" mentality that seems to be becoming so prevalent in the US and Ecuador.  (If I missed a group or offended anybody, I didn't, your eyes are just dirty and you misread what I wrote.  Clean your eyes, you bum)

But they will argue though, these Dominicans.  Every day there's a new argument amongst the fishermen outside my place.  But the thing is, even when laced with profanity, there's such an innocence to it all.  Once you listen to them for a while you really get the feeling that nothing in the arguments is threatening, but almost a communication that, hey, mr. person, you have hurt my feelings and that is not cool.  For example I heard one man yelling down the street that somebody's soul would burn in the hottest fire and that there would not be one drop of water anywhere to put him out.  Try yelling that next time you're about to get into a fight.  Also adorable.

Speaking of fishermen, I'm discovering that I find one aspect of their otherwise Hemmingwayishly romanticized profession very unappealing.  Everyday, right outside my window, the fishermen display their trophies on a table and carve them up for the eager seafood lovers that gather around.  You can practically see the gathered licking their lips, delighted at the prospect of getting fish so fresh, they're making unwanted advances even as they're being eaten.  But so the fishermen make a living, the seafooders are happy and all of this is well and good.  No, the thing I find unappealing is the very necessary task of cutting up the fish.  And I assure you, I am a carnivore with an almost shameful appreciation of a good bloody cut of meat.  No, what I find unreasonable about the fish being cut is far more ridiculous.  You see, these aren't your slow, tubby catfish bloating about glacially at the bottom of some unconcerned lake or apathetic river.  These are sleek, powerful creatures that dominate the Caribbean while giving torpedoes inferiority complexes.  Cutting them up is like seeing someone chainsaw a Ferrari, or put jorts on a supermodel, or make a soy based alternative to nutella - it's just wrong.

Yesterday, I saw a couple of fishermen drag an 8 foot long swordfish out of their boat.  I'm just going to pretend that they're going to be grooming it to be a racing fish.  I can see it now - Pointy is going to be a champ!

But seriously, Dominica is gorgeous.  I'm watching the sun set over the Caribbean literally as I type this.  The sky is all sorts of colors that would make the most flamboyant salmon, flamingos, and tomatoes jealous.    Yesterday from the back of the apartment, I saw a rainbow jumping over the moon with a jungle backdrop that looks like it should be filmed for future generations for when their trees are replaced by robots.

But I digress.  Dominica is gorgeous.  And she has hilarious crabs.

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Will get back to the basketball framed stuff shortly.  I know all my readers are diehard hoops fans.

- Fahd