The tale of the swim trunks.

I might draw pictures, but right now I'm too busy. And my drawing style's changing, but I have to figure out how to draw everything again.

So.

The tale of the swim trunks.
*Dum Dum Dum*

One day I woke up and looked outside on a cool morning near the end of summer to find a pair of wet navy blue swim trunks tossed casually by my window.

I don't know whose they are. Or where they came from.

Frankly, I don't want to know, because all the stories in my head about it sound much better than the real story could ever be. Most of them involve a streaker. In the dead of night.

But they were by my window, and by my window they remained. For about a week they were the subject of quite a few facebook posts, but then I got distracted by something shiny and forgot about them.

Summer changed into Fall and then snow covered up the snow trunks abandoned outside my window.

And I forgot about them entirely for several freezing months of pain and despair and wind and flat (except for that lovely week when I went to visit my sister in New Orleans...) and...okay, I ran out of adjectives.

Anyway, I forgot about them until there was a sudden thaw. I looked out my window, and lo and behold! The trunks were partially uncovered...still lying outside my window.

And they became my main griping subject for the next week or so, until one lovely (rather stressful) false spring day. I walked into my room to see two young gentlemen outside my window.

They picked up the swim trunks, laughed a bit, and then PUT THEM BACK outside my window. Like I needed them for some bizarre type of EXTERIOR DECORATING.

"Oh yes, move the trunks just a little to the left...now to the right...yes that's perfect. Now your room's positive energy will stay in, and the negative energy will flow out, thanks to these navy blue swim trunks crumpled delicately outside your main energy portal..."

So my mind may or may not have broken. Just a little. So I made a sign (misspelling "swim" once and "please" twice)

PLEAS PLESE PLEASE TAKE THE
SMIW SWIM TRUNKS
I DON’T WANT THEM

And then I waited. Two days.

And then they disappeared.

I did a little dance, and removed the sign from my window, confident that the drama of the swim trunks was over.

A day later:

My neighbor walks into my room.

"You're a bitch."

I jolt upright. While insults and commentary like this are actually fairly common in our friendship, I'm reasonably sure I haven't done anything to warrant this. I say (quite cleverly,) "What?"

"The fucking swim trunks are outside my window now!"

"WHAT?"

Totally wasn't my fault. :D

I have no idea how - or if - she got rid of the swim trunks.

Personally, I think that they just gained a type of sentience over the winter, and seeing that they weren't wanted, simply started lurching on.

If you see them on the road, be nice to them.

Pick Up the Pieces

Osama Bin Ladin is dead.

So yay and everything. A man who probably wouldn't have been able to become so powerful without our original military/weapon help is now dead.

The war's not over. None of the wars are over. Iraq, Libya back-up, revolutions in Middle East, the War on Terrorism (Thanks, Bush, for declaring war on a concept.) Soldiers are still everywhere, still fighting so we can live in our suburban houses with our two door garage and our 2.7 children and don't have to get touched by anything that isn't "clean," isn't "right" for our kids. I bet their families are celebrating. They can come home, right? Nope.

We still have a national debt that our *children* won't be able to pay off - and it's rising.

And did you know New Orleans is *still* rebuilding? Yeah, six years later. Thanks, FEMA.

Plus, you know, the 857 tornadoes last month kind of screwed our "great nation" over in a big way. Whole towns have been destroyed. Wiped off the map. People were killed, are dead. Yeah, I bet their families are celebrating. While they're trying to salvage what they can from the wreckage of their lives. Because, hey, rains are coming...which will destroy whatever they have left out.

That's just the US. Just a small part of what's wrong.

And the thing that's right is that we're celebrating a man's death?

Because he became what we probably made him to be?

National Holiday? What will we call it? Yay It's Over Day? Yes He's Dead Day? How about War Win? Except the war isn't over, is it? And we haven't won it yet, I don't care what the press releases say.

So yay. He's dead. See me waving my tiny little American flag in the parade as they march with a funeral procession.

See me cheering.

Can we pick up the pieces *now*?