rogue rhetoric

• I finally started an Instagram account: michaeldurkota. Stand by for pictures of beer and coffee.
• Started reading Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. Good stuff.
• Looking forward to the Ronda Rousey fight.
• Office Christmas Party was not as bad as it could have been.
• Didn’t read or write nearly as much as I had hoped.
• Still excited about the article in the Tribune Review!
  
• Only two weeks until the new season of Homeland!
• The Breaking Bad marathon is killing my productivity.
• Love the new Highly Suspect album. In a word, it’s ‘groovy.’
• My review of The Bull by Erica Crockett is coming soon.
• Best Christmas present – a precision spinning top from my brother. I didn’t know these existed. It has changed my life, and possibly created yet another addiction.
  
• Only one month until Black Sails returns!
• I watch too much TV.

• Highlight of the weekend was watching crows eat peanuts on my mother’s porch. They come every day.
• I didn’t know how to feel about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel prize for literature. Now I do. What a waste.
• Certainly the beginning of the end for The Walking Dumb.  They really should have clubbed the writers instead. It reminded me of the time someone thought it was a good idea to give Dexter a wife and kids. On the bright side, it is so nice to have an extra hour of free time on Sunday evenings.
• Watched Mr. Right last night. Sure to be a cult classic. Reminded me of Grosse Pointe Blank in many ways.
• I am about 20% through The Bull by Erica Crockett (@EricaCrockett). She is an amazing writer.
• Consider me a fan of Colbie Caillat, High Dive Heart, and Justin Young. Great show last week.

I am afraid of horses, bees, and mean dogs. All of these fears are based on either a real or perceived threat to my life.

The reason I fear bees is simple. I have been stung a few times in my life, luckily without much impact. But as I have grown older, and my allergies have mounted, I have become more susceptible to reactions. I was stung at a picnic a few years ago and wound up in the emergency room. The doctor warned that my reactions would get worse. I don’t carry an EpiPen. Therefore, I never really  know if the next sting will kill me.

I am afraid of mean dogs because they can be vicious without cause or provocation (much like bees in that regard). I’ve only had a few run-ins with mean dogs and I’ve always managed to escape without major injury, aside from the mental anguish.

Horses on the other hand have never harmed me or attempted to harm me. They seem gentle and friendly. I have fed them carrots and sugar cubes without incident. I have ridden them on a couple occasions and have suffered nothing more than sore legs and a few bites from horse flies. I did however observe a horse being broken. I was twelve. The experience scarred me for life. The farm hands that corralled her were the roughest and toughest men I had ever met. I watched in horror as this horse destroyed them. Tossed them in the air, charged them, bit them. There was blood. There were broken bones. There were hideous shrieks of horror coming from both the horse and the men who tempted to ride her. I would never feed a horse a sugar cube again. They can’t be trusted.

I came across the statistic that horses are the deadliest animal on the planet. Sharks kill one person a year on average. Horses kill around 100 people in the US every year. Why? Because they are too big and potentially dangerous to be pets. They kill people without even meaning to. They get spooked and flip people airborne, breaking spines and fracturing skulls. They step on people. They crush people against solid object like barn doors and corrals, and yes, occasionally they attack.

One of the most terrifying experiences I have ever had occurred on a family vacation when I was out-voted and it was determined that we would visit Assateague Island, an Island in Maryland that is populated with wild horses. It was like Jurassic Park for me. One literally approached the car I was driving and fogged the driver’s side window with its breath. Never again.

Random Musings from the week:

• The Kindle promotion for Once in a Blue Year ends 8/25.
• I’m thoroughly enjoying Roadies on Showtime.
• Why is handball a thing? Did we really need to combine hockey and basketball?
• How do they get the equestrian horses to the Olympics?
• I did not know stylometry was a thing. Neither does Microsoft Word because it keeps underlining it with a squiggly red warning. Stylometry is a method of studying literary style and development by means of statistical analysis. Sounds fascinating. And boring.

It has been a week since the Penguins clinched the Stanley Cup. I certainly enjoyed the excitement of the game, and I have enjoyed the highlights and the interviews ever since. But now I feel as though I am going through withdrawal. There is a void.  For the past several months, my schedule has revolved around Penguin games. Games I attended. Games I watched. Games I taped and watched later. Rarely did three days pass without having a fix. I am now on day seven and I feel like I need to check myself into rehab. With the Pirates in a slump, baseball hasn’t helped much. I even tried watching golf yesterday. Golf! I am more than a little worried I will be forced to watch the basketball finals tonight. I hate basketball. I am from Pittsburgh, so I am programmed from birth to dislike anything from Cleveland. I don’t think I can endure seeing Cleveland celebrate a victory.

Random musings from this weekend:

• Only two episodes of Game of Thrones remain. The wait is so long, and the series goes so fast.
• It is the season for car wash fundraisers. A note to parents: please do not let your children meander through traffic on a four lane highway to collect donations and wave signs. I know the light is red, but it turns green before you know it and trucks speed by at 50 MPH.
• I have been mildly productive at writing this weekend. Almost two thousand words. Some of them are even good.