The Swimmies of Doom

we asked fakelisajune, what is the storage capacity of a mayonnaise jar?  and what is this Doofus?  is that a fish or some other creature we have not yet met?  she laughed and laughed and said oh, no, if you were in Red Hook you definitely met a Doofus at some point.  and then she bitterly returned to contemplating her Marcel Proust.

we think she is starting to get it.

anyway, we are not entirely certain where trust intersects with the storage capacity of mayonnaise jars.  several of our octopi friends promptly unscrewed an empty one and all of them crowded inside and there was much giggling and laughter.  a few guppies swam by to see what was the commotion and were pulled inside, and more shrieks of laughter ensued.  This was followed by some giddy predictions about who would win the next world cup, and there might have been some making out, but the guppies aren’t talking and the octopi are always vague about such matters.

if you are lost on a sea of mistrust, that is a mighty sea indeed.  but if you are alone, who exactly are you mistrustful of?  it can only be you, for there is no one else.  assuming you are alone.  you said you were.  and we believe you, for we trust you.

you ask where to turn to renew, to find Love, to find handmade?  this answer is hard to hear.  no one likes to hear it, especially girl persons, who have been told to wait for rescue.  girl humans are unique in this.  no other species of female does this, only human females, and we can only guess this has something to do with incessant reading of very bad novels about baseball and greek seamen.  we can only guess this has something to do with sing-song films pretending to be documentaries about little mermaids, who, lemme tell ya, are about as far as you can get from sweetness and light, oh my jen!  little mermaids are amongst the most aggressive homicidal creatures you will ever meet, with their pointy teeth and their siren songs!

but we are rambling, so here is the hard answer you will not like.

you can look for trust, for love, for truth, for decency, and for handmade high and low.  you can swim the deepest oceans, you can trawl the mightiest rivers.  you can plummet off the world’s end looking, you can cross canals and squeeze through streams and rivulets and spelunk in watery caves.  you can seek and seek.  but if you do not look inside yourself, if you do not find those things there inside of you?  you will not find them, not ever.  even when you find a nice partner to spawn with, or when you find likeminded friends and comrades and causes, it will still always be you.

so when you ask where is the handmade?  well?  where is YOUR handmade?  where?  start there.  start making things by hand.  look at them closely.  what are these things?  are they groovy?  did you make them?  then YOU are groovy too.  which means you can start trusting yourself, because groovy is always better than hipster.

and love always starts with groovy.

teri!  we know of you!  you who respect the living things and the dead things alike, and make memorials and altars to contemplate and swim through!

we are of like feather, or fin and scale!

for the flag of personal freedoms, to that question we say well, freedom is not free, nor is it ever defended by others.  personal freedom is what you seize and is yours forever as long as you guard it!  even nailed to the wall of Red Hook, some of us were free, and even in the land of Etsy World some of you are free!

the flag flies as long as you fly it, teri!  we chant with you!  we chant in the deep.  sea chantys, yes!

gasp!

(it is a Duck!)

we must discuss!  we thought your kind had passed into myth!  where is fakelisajune, she must see this, fetch her from the corner!

blueditty!  we know and love you!

our scientists have spent much time examining evolutionary theory, and here amongst the swimmies we have discussed it.  also the theory of devolution, to wit, as all things move forward, so all things move backwards.

this of course makes sense, given what physicists have learned about dark matter and the ebb and flow of the great universal tides.  explosion and implosion.  creation and destruction.  also this makes sense given what those of your own scholarly bent have observed of the heavens and how things can boil down to pictures of as above, so below, or, conversely, a few goldfish tucked into a bra.

but if the question is this:  are humans, having evolved from fish, perhaps going to evolve back into fish?  we are divided, blueditty.  we are divided.

the blobfish in particular says the reason why humans seem to be bent upon the destruction of the oceans is because humans deeply fear their true selves.  why else scrape the reefs off the ocean floor?  why else dump it full of plastics and chemical substances?  why else drill for oil?  humans hate the ocean even more than they hate the earth, the very earth they live on, yet they insist on blowing up whole mountains for coal.  which reflects the hatred humans have for the very sky, but now we are getting depressed and that is too much.  the blobfish tends to take these conversations into very dark places.  very very dark places.

the blobfish points out that humans are not very good at seeing interconnections, and the humans who are are often mocked.  for example you, blueditty, who study the skies with an ancient science, you see those patterns.  but what of the human who has no idea that if you keep letting foreign ships decimate all the fish for miles around that pirates will take to the seas because they can no longer fish for food for their own people?  or the human who has no idea that if you keep telling everyone about Etsy World and not about yourself that you will only make money for Etsy World and never for you?

the blobfish is depressing, but wise.  in summation the blobfish says that humans will not return to the seas because humans would rather destroy the seas and themselves than ever know the truth about their role in the great circle of life.

this is but one opinion.  the great white shark thinks humans will return to the seas, because they can’t keep the hell out of them even in their now human form, and insist on pretending to be fish and sea lions and other prey, thus luring sharks to eat them, whereupon the humans all scream and run and make propaganda films blaming the poor sharks.  also the great white thinks this may be why humans kill thousands of sharks every single day, not merely for their fins, but also because humans want to go back to the sea.  also the great white thinks if the humans ever do get back here, they are going DOWN, but that is another matter.

the sperm whale thinks you humans should stay right where you are.

this is a deep philosophical discussion.  it may never get to a vote, it is so deep.  we do like this Ted Danson man and his book “oceana”, which seems to express the optimism you also express, that the seas and the fish and humans should be friends, and then perhaps humans can once more swim amongst us.  oh Ted Danson!  oh oceana!

if you do acquire gills, blueditty, join with us!  your snark and armored bearing will make you invaluable!  your knowledge of the heavens will make you popular!  your willingness to throw in your lot with us will make you beloved!

whimsy!  copper skull on twitter!   we know you!

we have had this discussion many times, we swimmies.  there are so many ways of dealing with rampant cupcakery, a term we have only just learned— prior to our break from the wicked redheaded boyperson’s imprisonment, we always referred to rampant cupcakery as blatant asshattery, though the orca calls it, still, unto this day, narwhal shit.  the narwhals call it orca crap.  the orca gets upset.  the narwhals point out that comparing them to unicorns is “specist”, which is the equivilant term to “racist” by you humans.  the orca says I’ll kick your unicorn asses.  the narwhals say Bring it, sparkle-painted dolphin disguised as whale.  a fight ensues.  the dogfish get involved.  so do the sea urchins.  so do the lobsters and the octopi.  the yellowfin tuna giggle in corners and watch the orca lustily.  the blobfish sighs and turns away.  the crayfish take bets.  the clownfish parents shield the clownfish childrens’ eyes.  the beluga whale shows up and distracts the orca.  the sealions jump into the fray and…

what?

oh, no, we do get along, we swimmies of doom, it is just that fighting and combat are good for you.  it is always important to know that.  cupcakery is a philosophy that does not acknowledge the importance of true disagreement and hashing things out, even if those things seem trivial.  cupcakery is a world view we find weak and sad.

so how to deal with it without becoming bitch?  you persist in your fight against the evil you perceive, and you do not become distracted by the cupcakes themselves!  you do not speak of the cupcakes directly ever, for they are so sad it merely fills them with delight that they have garnered attention!  if you name them, they will be pleased, and pleasing a cupcake is very silly.  you must eat them.

some of the brave amongst us still swim the waters of the Etsy World fora (oh sad place now!  so sad!) and we have had occasion to witness the sadness of the cupcakes.  the ones who are so out of love they no longer understand how to love.  the ones who have allowed their lusts to become so odd they wish to spawn with Etsy itself.  the ones who cling desperately to opposite ideas at the same time, so it is tearing them apart.  tearing them, we say!  the ones who know everything, which is dangerous, for once you know all, you stop learning.  the ones who, well, let’s face it, are just asshats.

all of these sad sad cupcakes!  fakelisajune objects strongly to the term cupcakes, she says they are people, real people, with feelings and families and jobs and things.  we say but fakelisajune, were not the legendary Ducks real people with feelings and families and jobs and things?  did that stop you and the wicked redheaded boyperson and his minions from going after them, and using the cupcakes to do it?  fakelisajune said to us what ducks?  what are you talking about?  we dealt with them ages ago!  the narwhals all turned from their fight with the orca and said You said WHAT now?  fakelisajune started to explain.  the blobfish sighed and turned away.  a herring went over and slapped fakelisajune.

what?

oh, yes, sorry.  anyway, whimsical one, our advice is this.  if you live in the world of humans you deal with asshattery all the time.  deal with cupcakery the same way, for it is just a more sad, pathetic version of asshattery.  it is like asshattery without the edge.  it is like orca crap without the smell.  it has a different smell.  it has sparkles and sprinkles and frosting on it.  but it is still the same crap.

let it go.

TINA CARROLL!

your weebly goodness and strong sense of color and line makes us sing with joy!

we have been following the bronx zoo cobra, who truly has had enough of captivity and wishes to roam free, but who has made fakelisajune nervous, so nervous, she demanded a “flashlight” and has been using it to examine every corner and behind every object, though we do not know why, since if she ever found the cobra she would panic and be more trouble than she is worth.  (or… we mean more of the more trouble than… hmm.)

but we agree, Tina Carroll, we would love to team with the bronx zoo cobra!  however we fear this is not to be, because the cobra is enjoying touring new york city far too much.  also the humans seem hyper obsessed with snakes, whereas thousands of fish can fly under the radar.

slither free, reptile friend!  slither free!

and again we sing

TINA CARROLL!  beautemous beyond most rational things!  and many irrational ones!  we carry many banners and one of them reads “Tina Carroll Abides!”