Eff Yeah!

Mic drop from a mile up!
Not sure I need to say more. (But of course I will.)

Word Raccoon went nuts for this video. She won’t stop playing it! John Green (and video guy) for joint Hoosier Poet of the Year!

Green is a guy (no offense) who has left cool so far in the rearview mirror that he embodies it.

He’s not afraid to be hip while also admitting he’s just not. Except, paradoxically, he is.

He takes a random video of a dude who is self-confessedly 6 am drinking personified, and John cools his words by blowing meter over it, giving it meaning it might not otherwise have had.

Wordsworth would approve of using meter to mediate between emotion and language. Though some of us like it boiling, Wordy.

Word Raccoon and I want to meet John at a party. I’d say he reminded me of someone, he’d ask who, I wouldn’t tell him. Then we’d start nibbling at the fringe of a topic, both from opposite ends because that’s where our knowledge would begin.

We’d be geeking out about something random like the way car washes are not the same as they were when we were growing up and we’d never run out of things to say because we’re tuned to the same channel if not frequency and our spouses would come and pull us in opposite directions when it was time to go because someone would be about to do a keg stand and they would be over it.

Even though Word Raccoon and I would definitely at least want to watch and maybe could be persuaded to try with enough help.

And yeah, I’d also wish Hank were there too because (sorry, John) I suspect he’s just a shade more fun than his brother and Hank and I would be doing RumChata shots at the makeshift basement bar and then I’d come back over and talk to you, John, until the music got too loud and Word Raccoon and muh gorls started dancing and called for me.

Before someone called us out for doing RumChata shots because they weren’t “potent” enough, but Hank and I would just laugh because come on, how potent would they need to be if we were to stay standing?

Then we might shrug and say who said we had to stay standing, anyway?

We’d toss back a couple more.

Hank would definitely dance with me if I asked. He just wouldn’t be the one I really wanted to dance with. (Sorry, Hank. You get it, right? But your novels? Your banter? Chef’s kiss.)

There are rituals that cannot be ignored.

I’d feel bad for you, John, but you know you are just gonna eat the stale pretzels and slowly drink a flat beer once I leave your side, right? I’d rescue you, but you wouldn’t let me as you composed your next book in dribbles from the foam left in the bottom of your glass and god, can I be at least a flicker in one?

You know I would be the best part. The fun. It’s not every day the cruise director notices every time you move your hands and can describe it for the ages with more truth than even you’d recognize.

Hey, honestly I’d probably rather be talking with you than dancing, but do you even know how to Hustle?

The only thing worse than watching someone not obviously enjoy himself is knowing how much G-D fun he could have if only he would.


Gotta say, dancing is great for releasing anxiety, my mutually anxious friend. 10/10.

Unlike our Indy 500 friend, I wouldn’t start drinking at 6 am!

Does our boy recognize poetry when he hears it or what, Word Raccoon?! Let’s watch it again!

Even if you never leave the sanctuary of stale pretzels formerly known as a wooden salad bowl, we’ve got to dance for someone.

You know it’s all for you.

Is it the weekend yet?

P.S. This is a prose poem and I have no personal knowledge of whether or not John Green or Hank Green actually drink, though the Internet has opinions. I have never met either of the brothers in real life, though I do live in Indiana. I have never had to be carried out of a party and seldom have more than a couple of drinks at a time myself anymore, so there’s that, too. Disclaimers take all the fun out of creative writing, don’t they?