2002-03-31 - 8:15 p.m.

I have had a long and interesting relationship with the squid.

It all began in the fifth grade, I think, when I decided that a giant squid would be the most terrifying monster I could be. And then I thought it would be much more terrifying if I added a laser-shooting headband. And a giant buzzsaw-gun. And so forth. So then I decided that a heavily-armed giant squid that shoots lasers from its head would be the most terrifying monster I could be.

At first, I think this had less to do with squids, per se, than it had to with the fact that a giant squid was one of the few big, scary things I could think of in the natural world in the fifth grade. Had I chosen the most terrifying monster I could imagine more recently, I would undoubtedly have decided that I would be a burning, crumbling building with long arms made of cruise missiles and dead soldiers and the head of a lion and a single staring eye emitting a beam of violet light that purged the world of all hope, love, or charity.

But that would be kind of silly.

Not like a giant squid. Afer a bit of reading and research and insight, however, I have found a very real affinity for cephalopods. Squids are pretty, dynamic, graceful creatures with a capacity for adaptation matched only in certain smooth-skinned primates. There are vampire squids in the deep, and squids with rings of photophores around their eyes which they use as spotlights to pierce the gloom, and squids which have lemon-sized light-emitting organs at the ends of their hunting tentacles which they use like SWAT teams use phosphorous grenades. They swoop down on a deep-swimming grouper or sheepshead and *FLASH* nail the suckers RIGHT in the eyes, sending them spiralling and blindly flailing through the chill waters, easy prey for the squid's gnashing beak.

I really enjoyed "The Beast", by Peter Benchley, even though it was a load of carpfish and the part at the end with the sperm whale was kind of demeaning. Everyone knows a squid can take a sperm whale on its best day.

On its worst days, it usually gets eaten.

I like the imagery of tentacles, and not in any weird anime or Lovecraftian sense, thank you, but the image of a mass of grasping, reaching arms seizing all around them strikes me as terribly appealing. Something like the Zen "monkey-mind" but with a more upbeat liquid feel. And I like the sleek, hunting image of the squid. Low and streamlined, piercing the darkness, eyes ceaselessly searching the dimness for stimulation. I always liked "Sky Runner" from the "SilverHawks" cartoon. The shape of the squid, yes, is very appealing.

Don't go getting all phallocentric on me. There's lots of columnar things in the world that can be appreciated without bringing the Schlong of the Id into it. Doric architecture. Pixie sticks. Dynamite. Squids.

That'd be a hell of a combination, those four things. A real TV movie in the making.

"Jazzed up on Pixie sticks, the four young men crept towards the Parthenon, bearing with them a half a ton of bait squid strapped to over 100 pounds of dynamite. What would follow would be the most horrific ..."

I think the image of a squid wearing sunglasses is unbearably hip.

That probably says something about my sense of taste.

I own 42 Hawaiian shirts, I buy multicolored Converse hi-tops from a rare shoe dealer specifically so I can mismatch them, I grow a scraggly beard that makes me look like a failed charismatic leader,

I enjoy Ovaltine, Yoo-Hoo, and Tootsie Rolls. Dots are the perfect food, right next to Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese with grilled tuna and Rico's spinach and meatball pizza.

I relentlessly watch British comedies and my favorite movies are either by Terry Gilliam or feature at least one beheading, ideally both.

My taste is beyond question.

My taste is beyond comprehension.

@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@

I've written the 70th page of my thesis, and I've come to curse every programmer who even had a breath of air in the same room Microsoft Word was being developed in for their utter failure in making it possible to keep footnotes properly formatted.

I've been typing practically non-stop since Thursday afternoon, and I'm feeling more and more certain that large chunks of my neurons have packed up and moved to Des Moines to seek a new life as a professional bowling team.

Today I wore red goggles while I typed and slathered myself in Selsun Blue because I couldn't find any woad.

I have subsisted on pineapple rings and cinammon cake for far longer than I have any right to and still survive.

I discovered that nothing is funnier than a gorilla singing "My Way" with John Cleese's voice.

Wheel: the squeaky one gets the most grease, but the one that goes insane gets to dance with the fishes.

-Wheel

"Stop him, you fools! He's getting away!"

*****

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