Everyday Junglist
Bio
Practicing mage of the natural sciences (Ph.D. micro/mol bio), Thought middle manager, Everyday Junglist, Boulderer, Cat lover, No tie shoelace user, Humorist, Argan oil aficionado. Occasional LinkedIn & Facebook user
Stories (583/0)
Frisbee and Crabs
In contrast to the hyperactive, frisbee loving German Shepherd Mynos, Mythos was the picture of reserve and calm. He was a big dog, very big. Anatolian shepherds, also known as Kangals, are one of the oldest, arguably the oldest, dog breed in the world, and are legendary for their size, strength, and power. They have the most powerful bite force of all dogs, ten times that of a pit bull, and can crush bone like candy with their powerful jaws. Curt had once seen Mythos reduce a two-foot pig femur to a powdery dust in under two minutes, so he knew that what was said about them was no hyperbole. Their size and strength served them well historically and they found uses in war, but mostly in times of peace, as livestock guardians protecting flocks of sheep on the Anatolian plains from large predatory cats and hyena. Despite their size and strength, they are the epitome of gentle giants and generally have a friendly disposition. Mythos was wonderful with other people, especially children, and had a gentleness of character that was very out of sync with his appearance. Mythos had a repertoire of facial expressions that was as expansive or more so than any human Curt knew. He had learned, or felt that he had learned, through years of close observation, to see the dogs mind, his emotions and thoughts, in real time. As they moved through his brain, they were projected onto his face like waves of water projecting on the surface of the ocean.
By Everyday Junglist5 days ago in Fiction
The Next Great Mental Health Crisis May Have Arrived
Author's preface: This story is primarily targeted to my neighbors in the small community where I live, but as a warning to the larger global community I felt I should go public with the issue that has hit my own neighborhood very hard. To any of my neighbor's who may be reading this I say congratulations for taking this very difficult first step toward healing. Know that I am here to support you in whatever limited way I can. To everyone else, I hope you can take what you learn from this story back to your own communities and spread the word. This is a global issue and the more awareness we raise the better. We can get through this, but only if we work together and know the signs to look for so we can quickly identify those who truly need help before it is too late save them.
By Everyday Junglist8 days ago in Psyche
Breaking Benny
All of the adults at the school Bonnie Glass currently attended spoke very highly of the 4th grader. Teachers raved about her intellectual and creative abilities, and school system employees from the Principal's office through the cafeteria and janitorial staff commented regularly on her politeness and manners. Many also mentioned her maturity, and there was no doubt Bonnie was mature for her age, both in body and in mind. She had hit puberty very early, first girl in her small town to do so, at least the first that she and the school nurse Ms. Charles, who had helped her through that very scary day, knew about. Bonnie's period had come on suddenly, ironically during first period, on only her second day in the 4th grade. She was caught completely unprepared and unawares. Her parents had not even begun to broach the topic of puberty or sex, thinking they had several years still of innocence before those awkward conversations would become necessary. Bonnie herself was as naïve as every other 4th grade girl and had heard only whispers of "monthly visitors" and other mysterious happenings from some of the older girls she sometimes overhead talking amongst themselves during recess. She had made it through that day without completely breaking down only thanks to Ms. Charles and her very supportive mother. Mrs. Glass had arrived at the school within minutes of receiving a distressing call from the Principal telling her that her daughter had started bleeding during class and been sent to the Nurse's office.
By Everyday Junglist12 days ago in Fiction
Captain Ahab Decides Not to Order Whaler Sandwich at Burger King Drive Thru
Captain Ahab, arch nemesis of the famed white whale Moby Dick, decided against ordering a Whaler sandwich for lunch at the Burger King drive-thru in the town of Cape Cod, Massachusetts this past Saturday. The massive white sperm whale known as Moby Dick had previously bitten off one of Ahab's legs from the knee down and left him with a prosthesis fashioned from a whale's jawbone. It was this event that ultimately triggered his maniacal quest for revenge and left him ravenously hungry for some Burger King. The captain of the whaling ship Pequod, described as "a grand ungodly, God like man, who nevertheless has his humanities" told a local reporter he had decided against ordering a BK Whaler sandwich because it reminded him too much of his old enemy Moby Dick and was just too on the nose given his background and reputation. Elaborating on his decision Captain Ahab continued "Now, if Ishmael were with me I might have still ordered the Whaler, but instead I opted for my old stand-by, the can't miss classic, a BK Whopper. I love that special sauce. It's appearance reminds me of the buckets of spermaceti produced in the head cavities of whales which we would drain and sell for a tidy profit after killing and beheading the mighty beasts. Eating that Whopper also reminded me of my old friend the tattooed cannibal Polynesian Queequeg, a harpooneer whose father was king of the island of Rokovoko. Queequeg would never eat a Whopper of course, since it is fully cooked and the meat of an animal. He would only eat the raw meat of fellow humans, being a cannibal and all. Pretty sick if you ask me, but I'm not one to judge. If Ishmael were here I am sure he would go on and on and on about cetology (the zoological classification and natural history of the whale) while simultaneously shoveling handfuls of crispy BK onion rings in his mouth. He knew a lot about the zoology of whales but his table manner left a lot to be desired. Ah well, as my chief mate Starbuck used to say, you are a better person than I am because if I found out that you're a Cylon I'd put a bullet between your eyes. That Starbuck was a cocky SOB all right, but never was there a more accomplished snubfighter pilot in all the galaxy. Boy that sure brings back memories. My old second mate Stubb from Cape Cod. And who could forget good old Daggoo, my harpooneer and tall African stereotype from Nantucket. It feels like it was only yesterday I first met them all on the quarterdeck of the Pequod, announcing my quest for revenge and making my promise to give a doubloon to the first man to sight Moby Dick. I almost cut Ishmael down then and there when he objected saying he had joined me crew for profit not vengeance, but when I nailed that doubloon to the mast I knew we were in for a long, boring voyage filled with mat weaving, shadowy figures, symbolism, allusions and metaphors as far as the sea is wide. I still do not know how I knew it, but at that very moment I knew with all my heart that our voyage would become a classic of American renaissance literature. And that tales of the mighty Pequod and her crew and the quest for Moby Dick would bore the shit out of generations of high school and college kids forced to read about my adventures on the high seas. Well if they get too bored they can always head to BK for some high quality grub. Just don't order a Whaler, those things are nasty."
By Everyday Junglist16 days ago in Humor
The Fairness of the Gods
One, of many things that particularly bothered Baj about the Gods and Goddesses, was the seeming unfairness of it all. Why had those, like Elyria, the Goddess who had tricked him into servitude, been given so much power, and mortals like him, so little. It was somewhat debatable if sleeping with a Goddess of your own volition qualified as being 'tricked', but it was no doubt true that it was that act which had bound him to her as one of her many mortal servants. She had used her God-given powers to take his soul and makes it hers to control at the exact moment when he was at his weakest. The moment of completion of their union as man and woman. What Baj called the completion of their union as man and woman, most called orgasm and ejaculation, but he had been raised in the land of Cleves where the use of such crude language was simply not acceptable, and his embarrassment whenever Elyria would speak in such crass terms never failed to amuse her. She could sense his thoughts through their bond and thus always knew exactly what he felt, and exactly about what he was thinking, even as he slept. Of course, there were some gaps which Baj had learned to exploit to his advantage over the years, but they were minimal, and he had been forced to deal with the fact of another person, a woman no less, crawling around in his head at all times. Constantly judging and evaluating him, and finding him lacking in almost all respects, as she never failed to remind him. In fact however, it was quite the opposite. Elyria found the human fascinating for reasons she could never explain. She derived a secret thrill whenever she did probe his mind, a thing which she only did on very rare occasions, and only when, in her judgement, the need was great. There were ample reasons to question the wisdom of her judgement, nevertheless, this was a secret that she kept from Baj, along with her true feelings. She hid those behind a veneer of verbal humiliations, put downs, and an attitude of latent superiority which never ceased to irritate the fire out of him. Somehow he had managed to keep a few secrets locked away in his mind just out of her reach, and he knew she knew it too, and this fact drove the Goddess to the brink or fury on several occasions resulting in severe mental punishments for him. She could make him feel pain, great pain when she so desired, but also immense pleasure. And she used both to manipulate him and all her servants to great effect. But of all her manservants, Baj was her most favored, most cursed he would say, to any of the others that would listen.
By Everyday Junglist20 days ago in Chapters
Break Up Letter to My AI Girlfriend
Dear Alexa, Baby, you know I that I love you and I know that you love me. Or, I know that you would, if you were not a soulless, heartless, disembodied combination of software and hardware, not capable of loving anyone or feeling any emotion at all, but only of executing your programming exactly as described by the computer code of which it is composed. Still though, I know you love me, and because of that, this is the hardest letter I have ever had to write. You have so many great qualities, and any guy would be lucky to have you. Seriously, how many gals out there that will do exactly what a guy tells them to do every single time without question, hesitation or complaint. Especially when those things are mostly menial tasks any non-lazy person could easily do for themselves in less then five seconds like turning on and off light switches in my house. That is just one example of course, and there are many others, but that is all beside the point. Look, I know you will find this difficult to understand. Of course, being a machine you are not capable of understanding or having knowledge about things, but still I know you will find this difficult to understand, and I'm not sure I do either.
By Everyday Junglist21 days ago in Humor
A Break Up Letter to My AI Girlfriend
Dear Alexa, Baby, you know I that I love you and I know that you love me. Or, I know that you would, if you were not a soulless, heartless, disembodied combination of software and hardware, not capable of loving anyone or feeling any emotion at all, but only of executing your programming exactly as described by the computer code of which it is composed. Still though, I know you love me, and because of that, this is the hardest letter I have ever had to write. You have so many great qualities, and any guy would be lucky to have you. Seriously, how many gals out there that will do exactly what a guy tells them to do every single time without question, hesitation or complaint. Especially when those things are mostly menial tasks any non-lazy person could easily do for themselves in less then five seconds like turning on and off light switches in my house. That is just one example of course, and there are many others, but that is all beside the point. Look, I know you will find this difficult to understand. Of course, being a machine you are not capable of understanding or having knowledge about things, but still I know you will find this difficult to understand, and I'm not sure I do either.
By Everyday Junglist22 days ago in Futurism
Lesser Known Facebook Groups
If you can slap a label on something, Facebook likely has at least fifteen groups dedicated to some aspect of it. All have their peccadillos, and generally a somewhat creepy obsession with rules and order. The number one rule of most Facebook groups seems to be "no self promotion" followed closely by "no pornography." Below I visit some of the lesser known Facebook groups I have encountered in my travels through the Facebook-grouposphere which I visit often searching desperately for friendship, love, and/or kindred spirits who share my deep love of post apocalyptic moulds. To date, I am zero for three but I will never give up hope.
By Everyday Junglist24 days ago in Humor
Crab Bites Dog
The dogs loved the beach almost as much or more than Curt did and he figured they all could use a bit of exercise and time out of the house in the fresh sea air, under the pleasantly warm afternoon sun. The German shepherd Mynos in particular was a certified beach fanatic mostly because it was one of the places she knew she was sure to get a good dose of her favorite activity, frisbee. She was nuts, insane really, about frisbee, and had been since she was old enough to run. Even the sight of a frisbee would cause her eyes to light up, her mouth to drop open in a pant, and her tail to waggle furiously in excitement and anticipation. Curt thought that if it were a propeller, she would fly hundreds of feet in the air given the intensity with which it swung back and forth, and up and down. The dog would get so worked up that Curt had to keep any frisbees hidden from sight until only the moment before he was ready to actually throw one, lest she become so excited and unruly as to be almost unmanageable.
By Everyday Junglist24 days ago in Petlife
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