Quirk! (Or Steven v. the Lorax v. Monstro cage match)

My name is Steven, and I don't like trees.
Yes, you read correctly. I am against the large, green, oxygen-producing, greenhouse gas-reducing, homes of cute furry forest animals that provide shade and pleasant rustling sounds to ayone who chooses to rest under their protective branches.
If, somehow, you read that I do not enjoy my Earl Gray, you did not read correctly. Go back to the beginning, sound it out... there you go!

So now that we are on the same page, you may be thinking that I am a horrible person, and I might as well get a b-b gun and shoot squirrels and doves in my backyard while lighting matches and discarding in the dry underbrush. But let me explain.

I don't dislike all trees. Actually, I think trees in OK are rather pleasant. And nice, manicured park trees are nice too, with benches and shade and all. Trees on hills are nice. And I am right in there when everyone starts getting naturey in the fall, saying, "Don't you love the turning leaves!? It is so special!"

I do dislike Tenessee trees.

Here, where I sit on the third floor of my apartment, the upper branches STILL block out my life-giving sunshine. As I drive from Memphis to Nashville, the trees stand three and four stories tall on either side of the highway, and as the sun sets, the forest casts a block of shade over the road and covers the growing sunset. The trees are just damn opressive, and they make me feel claustrophobic. The only horizon I ever see in Nashville is at the end of the highway as I drive to and from work. I miss my Oklahoma plains. Why couldn't Vandy be in the Desert?

Next topic: Why I am afraid of whales

If you have seen pinnocchio or Moby Dick, you wouldn't stare at me like I am stupid when I tell you this. Oceans are frightening. They are big. Bigger than most people can imagine. And you can't see the bottom, or even whatever is 5 feet below you ready to gobble you up. And once you are in the ocean, you are at a disadvantage since everything else in there can breathe under water and has fins (and teeth or worse: baileen).

So we understand that the ocean is frightening. Now imagine yourself on a boat in the middle of the ocean. And imagine the whale, that, unknowing, comes up from under your boat, nocking it over and spilling you into the cean which we all know is frightening. and then, as it swims away, it thwacks you with its tail which knocks you out and cuts your pinky which attracts killer sharks. And that's the good scenario. The bad is that the whale is intelligent and evil. It swims around your boat to build suspense and then it breaches across your one salvation and swallows you to be slowly suffocated and digested over the next several weeks.

Yeah. Scary stuff.

be safe.
Steven M. E.