Bomb Cylcone

Today we had the strongest windstorm since 2006. This bomb cyclone was one of the deepest in recorded history for our region, measuring 945 millibars. The center stayed well away from Washington, spiraling about 200 miles from the coast. It would have been much more severe had the center drifted over the I5 corridor like our biggest storms have done in the past.

This one is special for being the most ferocious of east-generating winds coming out of the Cascades. Winds were much higher in the foothills, while barely making a fuss on the shores of Puget Sound, conveniently shielded by the Olympics.

I went to deliver on my Uber eats app for the dinner hours, which grew more chaotic as the evening went on. Around 6:30, the wind started picking up. Then around 7:00, transformers started blowing every few minutes, lighting up the sky like bubbled auroras. My last couple of customers had to receive their dinner in the dark. I would have kept going, but my family wanted me home.

Plenty of branches fell on the streets, and there was no sign of downed trees. Luckily our power stayed on, which has never happened during a major windstorm, at least when I lived in other parts of town. I'll remember this storm being a big transformer breaker but relatively weak on downed trees and sheer wind. Being in the dark also made it seem less of a storm than it really was.

Beauty World

  When he goes to church, he feels something different. It's like the sun comes down from the sky and makes everything warmer. He feels a glowing around his body that he doesn't feel anywhere else. The walls have old paintings of people who were important at the beginning. There are candles all around the altar that make the glowing stronger. The choir takes him to a place in the sky where these paintings are set. Like he is part of the story even though he is only even.

 He has the same feeling when he looks at his family's Bible. His mom doesn't believe in religion, but his dad does. Their Holy Bible was passed down for many generations. His daddy had it and his daddy before him. He wonders if their Bible goes all the way back to the time these stories are set. God himself could have written it, words that mark the beginning of time.

 It's the aura that grabs on. The pages of that book emanate pure creation, which he feels in himself. He feels it when he goes to church, the book and the church holding hands through him, a bridge between this world and the next. He is the innocence; he is the child that heals. He is not of this world, he came from far away, a nostalgic place where only children remember being created. And this is why creating something comes so easily to them. They are as flexible as dreams spanning the cosmic highways. Their memories are short while their dreams are infinite.

Blokus Wars

  The little square said to the big square, you are four times my size. The little L said that the big L, you are one block longer than me. The five-square shapes were larger than the 4-square shapes, but they did not boast about it. The 3-square shapes knew they'd be selected last, or possibly abandoned, yet they served.

 All the 5-square shapes joined ranks, conspiring to reach the center faster than the other side. They zigzagged in a razzmatazz, lances drawn with pizzazz. Forward they cried, the smaller pieces picking up the rear. In a disembodied, shapeless pattern they lay down their lives on the board, filling squares on the checkered battleground.

 Breaching the center, they cried with triumph, as the longest piece blocked the enemy from flanking. In parallel ribbons, their offense became defense, filling the voids left from within. Second colors joined in the ranks, forging a quadruple rainbow of frenzy. To the four corners they expanded, taking up space where they could, grasping for extra life, clawing at inevitable spaces for survival.

 The colors were rivers of compromise, redirected by external choice. They danced with their opponent like yin and yang, in a finite braid. They took what the environment gave them, as people often will. The few that were left did not succumb to failure, only the sadness of being unneeded.

 When the war was over, the squares that were still open sighed at not being covered, yearning for one of the unfit shapes to transform into something that would. Structurally the matrix decoded a blueprint unique to the observer, who followed their circuits into pathways of oblivion. Only the blocks were ignorant of their significance, the mysterious chain of decisions that had determined their fate.

Deism, The Teleological Argument

  Imagine you are stranded on island. You find a complex contraption like a watch that couldn't have been designed by nature. You assume it must have been designed by intelligent beings. When we look at nature, we see a far greater and more complex design. The Teleological Argument suggests that our assumption of an intelligent designer of the watch parallels a designer of the universe on a far grander scale. Deists believe that God is the intelligence behind the orderly structure of the cosmos, having revealed the laws of his design through reason. The inference is that science is more capable of exploring God than faith. There are no divine miracles or revelations that prove the existence of God, only the miracle of an infinitely complex universe with systematic processes.

 A refutation of the Teleological Argument is that it is assumed the watch finder can tell the difference between a design and a non-design. Since the watch is found to be designed, it would seemingly imply that other things around them are not designed. Yes, there cannot be anything in nature with random appearances, so it follows that the watch finder perceives a design in anything they are seeing. My responses why shouldn't they? A random universe without patterns would be one without reason; there wouldn't be any evidence of a design. So long as reason is the fabric of design, it doesn't matter if a human created it or some other sentient being. A human invention involves no less reason than an alien invention or the physics of the cosmos. A deist doesn't worry about such distincties.

Rain Nymph

 I woke to the sound of falling rain
 Soaking my sleep clean of the dream,
 Where you looked to the sky as it beat
 Off your face trickling down
 The jungle leaves surrounding you,
 Pattering your closed eyelids,
 Purifying air that refreshed your grace,
 Soiling you to the ground that planted
 Ornaments of youth in my head.
 So fresh, so clean,
 The rain that feeds my heart
 Trickling down, soaking my pain,
 Draining my brain of the gothic muse
 To nurture pearls of flowers
 That bloomed at your feet,
 Screened you from the warmer months
 When the sun melted your skin,
 Cracked your bones, parched your hair,
 Discarded the heavy leaves
 Above you that heaven purged
 Beyond awareness.
 Every year, starting November,
 It rains for days, for months,
 For three quarters of the year,
 Floods my consciousness
 With Gregorian chant
 Channeling some Byzantine goddess
 That engraved your beauty through mist,
 Saturating me
 With the tears you left.