1 part mopey 1 part fart jokes

I told Jen today that my inner metaphor/profound thoughtfulness voice has been waiting for a sad day for her to shine. I could probable write a whole mess of storypeople stories. (She said especially if I drank some coffee. Which I did.) Here are a few I've already come up with.

I feel like a fish who accidentally flopped out of her water. But I can see the tide coming in.

Even though it was rainy and cold I had to take a walk to the rose garden. I needed to connect to something green and earthy even if the roses weren't in bloom. I needed something to spark my hope for a season of beauty (beauty, truth, freedom but above all else, love!). I felt like Thoreau in sneakers and a lot less conviction.

Somedays my mind feels full but when I write it all out, it doesn't even make the page scroll down.

I just made the last one up because really I only had the first two. And there seems to be an endless straight line of a road before the next curve of inspiration. So we'll move on.

I told Shaughn I was having a mopey day, the second in a row, and he told me to take a bath, have a good cry and then get out there in the world and out of our cave of an apartment. I asked why I had to get out there when he likes to have his sad days at home. He said the cave is his natural habitat but the outside world was mine. I needed people to make me happy.

Pft I told him. But after my walk through the rose garden, I grabbed a few things from the local grocery store. The cashier was so nice and thoughtful, meaning she put my card in a small paper bag so it wouldn't bend, I wanted to give her a hug. And ask her to be my best friend, who would never left me and thought I looked slim. So maybe I have been alone in my head a little too long.

Oh to be 20 again when spotting another lonely soul and instantly making an oversharing, co-dependent relationship was the norm. What? That's wasn't everyone's norm?

_________________

Ok, Funny Story time. I never really appreciated fart jokes as a young girl. They sort of embarrassed me and made me feel a little left out. But they're making a comeback. I recently taught my 6 year old nanny kid this joke.

Why are there 239 beans in Irish stew?

Because one more would make it too farty. (240)

My first year of college was at a Christian college in western New York in a little town called, Houghton. One of my roommates was this tiny beautiful sprite. She was lovely in every sense of the word. The kind of girl who makes tripping over a shoe look graceful, like a willow tree in a gust of wind. Our freshman class was fairly small and my roommate and I basically knew most of the kids. One kid was this sweet short kid who wore this dorky backpack. My roommate told me one day she heard him fart while he was walking away from her. She was scandalized in a way. I think because it reminded her of her own fart story.

When she was in high school a bunch of students had to take some important test in the gymnasium. It was dead quiet and people were hard at work. Very intent on her own work, she realized she needed to relieve some gas. But expecting it to be a quiet release she maybe pushed a little. And out came a fart to end all farts. She said you could hear it echo on the gym walls. Kids around her snickered as she pretended to look around at who the noisy culprit was. Her cool older brother (is there any other kind?) was in the gym as well and gave her such a disapproving look.

Oh man, I don't know why this story still kills me, but it does. Oh flatulence, I owe you my earliest memories of learning to move on after dying of embarrassment.

Ok, that's all. Mostly because I don't know where you go after fart stories.