Meir Engel

This is How You Become Famous

This is how you hit a ball.

This is how you stand straight and Tall.

This is how you never lose,

but if you do, do it graciously.

Always be a gracious host,

even to those you hate most.

This is how you run the base,

FASTER!  FASTER! Keep the pace.

This is how you catch a ball,

if you miss your team will fall.

–but I can do all this I cry, and shout.

Why do you always have to doubt?

You won’t go pro with that attitude,

and for the love of god, don’t call the coach “dude”.

This is how you deal with pressure,

don’t ever mind the weather.

This is how you’ll make the big leagues

So we can be proud of all of your deeds.

Meir Engel

There once was a woman from Japan

Who dreamt she was a man.

The dream was surreal.

Because it felt so real.

So she moved to Uzbekistan.

The Weirdest Question I Have Ever Been Asked on a Rollercoaster

I should probably give some background to this story, or at least how I came up with the topic for this story.  It was the first day of the Young Writers Workshop and our Glorious Leader Stacy Waite had decided to do an interesting ice-breaking activity.  Looking at the kids around me all I could think was, “this isn’t going to end well”.  The activity was asking questions that are not clichés.  So the circus began.  Questions began to fly fast and furiously, some who interesting while others where downright scary.  I began to wonder if had accidentally signed up for the Young Writers Institute … for the Criminally Insane.  Finally, when the madness ended, it began again when people started to answer the questions.  The answers were interesting, although I was still slowly edging towards the door.  I almost escaped, but it came to my turn, so to buy some time I answered the first question I saw.  “What is the weirdest question you have ever been asked on a rollercoaster?  That brought me back to a sunny day two months ago.  It was the Kennywood Physics day and I was on the Phantom’s Revenge with a friend of mine who is shall we say of questionable character.  As we are nearing the top of the slow long incline he pulls something out of his pocket.  A certain leaf wrapped in paper.  He turned to me and said, “You wanna split this?”  Before I could reply, gravity answered the question for me as it violently reasserted its authority at 75 feet per second.  Let me say this now, the human hand was not able to hold anything at 75 feet per second.  The item in question flew out of my friend’s hand and was flung out, never to be seen by us again.  He cried.