A rambling wastrel, I*

As usual, back to square one...

2011-08-24T20:24:00.003-04:00

Yo!

Well, it's been quite a while since I last posted something. Nothing new there.
So, I thought I'd rectify that right now.

But, this decision isn't as arbitrary as all that.

A couple weeks ago, I was put on temporary lay-off at work. I only work one day a week, 12 hrs a week now. As to how long that will last, I don't know.
In the meantime, I thought I'd... watch more movies!
This is not a new strategy. Back in December, 2009, I was injured at work and was on disability for three months. Among the most constructive things I did was watch more movies.
Coincidentally, this summer I had already been watching more movies than usual with my wife, particularly newer releases, and when I say "newer," I actually mean, still playing in the theater! That is uncharacteristic of us, generally. Usually it takes us FOREVER to see something, even when it comes out on DVD.
But, my wife's a teacher, so she has the summer off, and this summer (especially this summer), she's been embracing her time off, so we've actually been going to the theater fairly regularly.
So far, we've seen: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, COWBOYS & ALIENS, and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
I've also been trying to watch more movies on DVD that I've rented or borrowed from the library, and I've also been trying to watch more of the DVDs I actually own (crazy talk!).
My next step is to try and process all this watching of movies into some sort of written assessment of the films themselves, most obviously in terms of scribbling out some movie reviews.
Now, although that is writing, I'm actually going to post those reviews (if I ever finish any of them) on my Livejournal site, "But what I really want to do is direct," because my intent was to concentrate my "film thoughts" on that blog.

But, since I've been working part-time, I've also been reviewing some of my other unfinished writing. A short story, various story ideas for comics and movie scripts, and some new comics-related writing.
So, I'm trying to resurrect this whole writing side of myself.

That's where I am right now.
And I'm going to end right there as well, for today.
But, more to come-- soon!

Apples and oranges, a variation...

2009-12-13T07:57:00.006-05:00

So, I was talking to a close female friend of mine recently...
I'll call her "Maruschka." She's not interested in any publicity, even peripherally, hence the pseudonym.
I will confess that I chose the alias from an actress I like, Dutch actress Maruschka Detmers, who I primarily know from Italian director Marco Bellochio's DEVIL IN THE FLESH (1986). She also played Antonio Banderas' wife or girlfriend in THE MAMBO KINGS.
But seriously, I don't know Ms. Detmers personally, so don't misinterpret and think this account is of me talking with the lovely screen thespian.

Anyway, bla bla bla...

So, I happened to tell Maruschka this story about something I recently wrote in a blog comment.
I thought it was amusing, but Maruschka took some issue with it. She took it more, personally, let's say, as a woman, than I intended my comment to mean.
I won't elaborate on the actual thing I wrote (man! what kind of story IS this? Aliases! Censored context! This has "lame" written all over it!), but after she responded unfavorably, my mood noticeably changed.

So, she apologized. "I'm sorry," she said, "you were all happy about sharing your comment, and then I went and peed in your soup."
I thought that was kind of a strong analogy, but I know she was being funny.
Then I said, "Or you sneezed in my milk."
To which she immediately reacted: "Eewww!!"
"What? Sneezing in someone's milk is grosser than peeing in someone's soup?"
"Well, soup already is a broth and salty, so you wouldn't notice the difference... But the other thing, you're talking about snot in milk..! Blecch!"
"No, I'm talking about SNEEZING in someone's milk, not BLOWING THEIR NOSE in someone's milk! But you're talking about actually urinating in someone's soup!"
Maruschka laughed. "Well, it's different!"
"You act like you could actually get away with peeing in one's soup!"
She laughed.
I continued: "Jeez, you and this guy I used to work with should get together. When he was younger, he worked in this restaurant and he pissed in the soup once."
"Eewww! Let's stop talking about this now!"
I always thought that was a horrible personal anecdote to know about someone, and compounded by the fact that to this day he still finds that "defiant act" (my description) of his amusing, perhaps a highlight, of his younger, wilder days. But, he tends to be bitter and cynical about people in general, so that makes sense.
Anyway, we quickly dropped the subject of which was more disgusting, but I thought that what Maruschka felt was the grosser example still mind-boggling.

NOTE: My analogy of "sneezing in someone's milk" is actually taken from something written in a foreword to a collection of comic strips that Berke Breathed did at the University of Texas at Austin before he became famous doing Bloom County. The collection was called The Academia Waltz. My friend Pete attended the university, and he loved the strip which was printed in the school newspaper, and he bought me a copy.
In the foreward, the writer (whose name I've long forgotten, unfortunately) tells (and I'm paraphrasing, as usual) about Breathed working on his strip in his dorm room. He describes Breathed sitting at his desk, head bent over the paper, and the steady "skritch, skritch, skritch" sound of the metal nib of his ink pen drawing on the paper. So, as the writer says, if you were to suddenly stick your head into Breathed's light and suddenly ask, "Whatcha doin', Berky?", Breathed would simply turn to look at you, saying nothing, but have an expression on his face like you just sneezed into his milk.

That's basically it.

Great... I have a cold.

2009-09-22T09:55:00.001-04:00

Uh, I guess that's all I wanted to say.
I'm playing hooky and I guess I'm gonna go watch a movie and fall asleep in the chair while it's on. Yes!

Cripes! Autumn is officially here NEXT WEEK???

2009-09-17T12:27:00.005-04:00

Yo!
A very quick howdy, mostly.
Well, I should be glad I scribbled something down in June, but still, how annoying.

Mostly, the one significant thing that's happened lately is that I finally got my big procrastinating, disorganized butt over to visit a couple friends that live in the area, Sue and Paul.

I know Sue since, uh, 1984? Is that right? We happened to be doing a musical together (IT'S A DOGS LIFE) and we both played both dogs in a gang of dogs.
Yes.
(To clarify, the whole cast was pretty much dogs).

Anyway, besides being quite an interesting indiviual, she's also done cool things, like, live in Turkey, which I always thought was cool.
She and Paul also have a great couple of boys, who I finally met in person, and they're quite wonderful and precocious. Like, they draw their own comics and make movies precocious.

So, basically, that's why I'm writing this today, to say how humbling it was to meet these two kids (ages 10 and 8, I think?), and to see that they are arguably more productive than me with regards to my pet enthusiasms, comics and film!

I SUCK!

Sue also hapens to be a fan, incredibly, of my little bit of prose writing (the "Femme Ferines," natch!) and she asked about how my re-writing plans and finishing that story were going and I informed her that that little bit of creative work has yet to take place, dammit. But she very kindly seemed genuinely interested in reading my progress on this story idea, so, I really should get back to it.

While it's been a awhile since I've made contact with Sue, in person, I seem to keep running into Paul every now and then. The last time we happened to meet while attending a Q & A visit by comics writer Harvey Pekar, courtesy of the local library's program to interets kids in reading comics and graphic novels. So, it was a very nice get-together with both of them at their home and I hope to stay better in touch with them, at least through the internet (Facebook).

Of course, Buffalo's Theater Season officially started last week so there's a billion things I want to see and have to figure out schedules and finances to do such things, by God!

Meanwhile, my idea for a blogger journal on comics. etc. that I talked about in June is still an idea I may get around to.
But, now I got to get my ass out the door and pick up our repaired Jeep.

Later.

Well... howdy!

2009-06-20T11:40:00.002-04:00

Man... it's been awhile, hasn't it?
Sorry.

Well, trying my best to re-group here.
I seem to have a lot of ideas about various projects and how to follow through on them, but the jump from idea to action seems to be the problem! Heh heh! (he heh-ed nervously).

Right now, I'm just posting something to show I'm still alive and interested in maintaining this blog.
I haven't posted anything new on my various blogs and journals in at least sveeral months.
I also haven't done anything new creatively.
There's a single drawing I started some months ago that I've been working on fitfully, a "practice" portrait of Jheena the Jungle Fury, a masked wrestler comic book character I've been trying to develop. Part of these attempts at development is trying to standardize my ways of drawing her.
But, I can't seem to draw her definitively, yet.
Beyond the very first drawing I did of her that I simply whipped out at a work years ago (maybe seven years ago? Jeez...), since then, I've tried re-drawing her in various states of action or just a staid pose for reference purposes and I never seem pleased with my results 100%.
Grrrr.

But in the last year, I've come to know some local dudes, a writer (Tom Waters) and a cartoonist/aspiring comics mogul (Kyle Kaczmarczyk of Zombie Ink Comics). Both are fairly prolific and that's been kind of prodding me to get off the pot or shit, so to speak, drawing/writing-wise.
And MOST recently, like, this month, I 've discovered the newly self-published (mini)comics of Josh Tonn, another local cartoonist (who I haven't actually met) but he has a couple issues of his self-produced comics, Costumed Crimefighter Comics, available at Don's Atomic Comics which is where I picked them up... and which I found myself enjoying thoroughly!
It's a superhero parody and it's pretty freaking funny!

So, really, I have to get off my fat, whiney ass, if I want to make the transition from whiney-assed wannabe and mere patron of the local arts to actual comic book producing peer/colleague, etc.

I think I'm also going to start ANOTHER blog!
Actually, what I want to do is this: I seem to have a blog for various particular interests of mine: movies/movie-making, comics/art/comic book making, writing, etc.
But the journals/blogs that I have devoted to comics, etc., seem to be really accessible only to members of those same sites, namely Myspace or Deviant Art. But I'd like my posts to be more accessible, like if you google them, for instance, so I'm going to branch out to Blogger for my comics posts. I'm not going to delete or stop the other blogs I have going at the previous sites, I'll be just expanding the places where I do post my comic book musings-- which is something I sort of did already.
I started first with Myspace, then, when I joined DA, it seemed I was more comfortable blogging there because the whole site is more arts focused, but my plan was to still post at Myspace as well, because it existed... so, I thought I'd be just reaching other possible readers who weren't on DA as well. So, I just more or less duplicated the posts, you know?
But, I think going to Blogger will make it more search engine friendly, so to speak.
And, if I ever follow through on maintaining my own website and trying to develop a following of sorts for my own comics, etc., I think that's a necessary move.
Hence...

Alright.
I should go.
I have to continue cleaning my room so I can actually have a place TO draw.
Hey, maybe I should have a poll!

Who thinks I will ever actually produce my own comic book?
I have no idea how to do one of those damn poll things-- maybe if I figure it out, I'll amend this post later.
But for now, here's your choice of answers:

1. "Never-- you're all talk but nothing more than that. But, that's okay. You mean well, and you DO support other people who actually DO produce."

2. "Yes! I think you'll do it! And before the end of 2009!"

3. "I'll believe it when I see it, bub! But DEFINITELY not BEFORE 2010!"

4. "Not only do I think you'll produce a comic book, I think it will be by __________." (For those those psychics and, perhaps, bettors, out there)

So there.
Instant lamest poll ever!

Anyone who responds to this poll will receive a free copy of this comic book-to-be! If you said never and are right... uh... well, thanks for particpating!
If my first comic book does NOT have a Jheena the Jungle Fury story in it, then you will also receive the first comic book that does include her.
I mention that because Jheena seems like the most mainstream character I've come up with so far, so it seems cool to give out Jheena comics. But, it's quite possible that the first comic I "crank out" will be a weird one-shot story thing, either in the horror genre or the, uh, weirdness genre.
But if I DO finally publish something, then, crap! Chances are very good I'll actually make a Jungle Fury book!
So... there!

ANYONE who participates in the poll gets a free comic book (or two, as I said, depending on what I publish first) and this offer ends as soon as I publish this book. In other words, when I actually make this comic book, this offer ends.

Uh... so I'll get on that right now!

DD: If only I WERE a Mobster...

2008-10-17T14:05:00.006-04:00

... uh, financially speaking, mind you.

So, about a week or so ago, this guy at work--uh, we'll call him Gears Dude or GD for short-- told me that he invited me on Myspace to join his "mob" in the online game Mobsters.
I'm like, "Okay..." but I was a little thrown because I really don't do any computer games or online games at all.
But, I could at least join up and support him by expanding his mob.

Well, since then... I've been playing the damn thing fairly regularly.
I don't know if it's just a Myspace thing/application or if there's other variations of Mobsters online, but it's been an interesting time waster.
And I guess it's a text game versus an actual, uh, what, role playing game? There's no character online, other than my name (which is il bovini fabbrica, and about the closest I could come (with my very limited, non-existent knowledge of Italian) to "cattleworks") so I'm not watching myself running around on-screen armed with a tommygun or AK-47 or whatever (actually, tommyguns aren't an "equipment" option, I guess that's too old school). The computer does most (well, all) of the work.
You pick a fight from a list of other mobsters online, pressing a button and then a couple seconds later, it tells you if you won or lost.
Which is fine by me.
Right now, I'm 26 - 46, wins/losses. Yeah. Luckily this is all virtual or else my "recruitment drive" would suck even more (and I'm being very sarcastic here-- I don't really enlist other people from Myspace friends list at all, even though the game is constantly suggesting/pushing that tactic. But, I only picked one or two people that i thought would even be halfway interested (and so far, no takers, so my mob has just GD and me, plus the "500" invisible, virtual mobsters that automatically come with your mob when you start).
But the thing I'm really getting into, and I don't know if this is a reflection of the current headlines regarding economic meltdown, etc., is that you can buy property and develop it, and you earn money.
Depending on the type of property you purchase, you get a certain amount of financial return, interest.
Currently, I seem to be making just under $2000 every 55 minutes-- yeah... if only.
And this goes on while you're offline as well.
So, it was really cool leaving the game yesterday with zero money (well, I keep all my money in the "bank" for safe keeping. Your money accrues ourtside of the bank. Uh, maybe when I go to the mattresses, I check underneath them first for any dough?).
Yeah, I'm a laff-riot.
Whatever.
So, yesterday my money was zero in the mystery virtual money area.
Today, I go online, and I'm to the good-- OVER $40,000.
Uh huh-- like, holy mamma mia, right?

Ooooh, I want that money!!!!

So, while I'm getting mildly massacred in various fights daily, I'm doing well financially.
And THAT'S all I really care about, baby!

*sigh*

However, in the real world:
Well, it looks like a significant event will be occurring in my life in the near future. Next week, as a matter of fact.
It looks like my dad is going to give me the money to buy an iMac, which I'll be setting up at his house.
Ostensibly, he'll be using it for very mundane purposes; specifically, to reformat all his various notebooks that are cataloging his hundreds of VHS tapes. Each of these tapes have several different programs he's taped off the TV and he has a listing of what they are and roughly how far in each tape each program is.
It's all in his handwriting and he wants to type it all out neatly.
This is something he's been talking about for a while.
He bought a computer several years ago, a PC, maybe over 10 years ago, but he never really followed through on it. And now, it doesn't seem to work, perhaps through years of disuse?
I dunno.

But, this may be the perfect stone that kills two birds.
He gets his computer to work on updating and converting his notebooks and I get my computer for art and movie applications. I'm probably getting the best out of this deal, totally exploiting my dad's finances, but it's with his blessing, so, I ain't friggin' complaining, by god!

So, barring any awful new turn of events, this should happen next week.
And then-- and THEN-- we'll see how long it takes for me to produce a short film.
Hopefully in time for the November meeting of the Buffalo Movie and Video Makers Club (BM-VM), which I believe is 11/9.

*deep, hopeful and excited breath*

Stay tuned!
And who knows, by next week, I may be able to afford a bulletproof Escalade! (I'm back to Mobsters! Come on! Try to keep up here!)

Okay, later.
I need to go to sleep before tonight's night shift.

PS: "DD" stands for Dear Diary, natch!

Dear Diary: Man, I'm just really out of it...

2008-10-16T10:25:00.004-04:00

... or at least it seems that way judging by my blogging output.

All sorts of things are going on here.

The news in the last weeks of the economic meltdown nationally, and then internationally, has been in my head. Can't help but wonder what shoe is going to drop in my life because of all this crap.
Prior to the meltdown news, there were already rumblings at work that things weren't going well.
They aren't selling as many ads as they like, so that may affect us, like in terms of lay-offs.
Okay, actually, my boss said (more or less), that ads are down and the owners are going to be taking a much more hands on approach to things. The various managers of the departments are going to be giving a report of where they think they can save money and then they'll see what shakes out from those reports and recommendations.
Meanwhile, my boss intimated that if there was a layoff (or more), I wasn't going to be affected. For now (that's me saying THAT).

This info was passed on to me and a couple other employees because we were in my boss's office complaining about a particular situation and then he dropped this news on us. He said that if there were any layoffs (and specifically, I think he had one particular person in mind) it wouldn't affect us three.

But the bad news regarding the company's situation was news to me and sort of overshadowed the main reason why I went in to see him.
My reaction was this: prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

And then, a week or so later, the whole $700 billion crap hit the news and fans.

I had been idly thinking about getting another job already, like, for the last several months, primarily to escape my two overnight shifts a week. If I it weren't for those two days (well, nights, actually), I'd probably be more content to simply working there and trying to do my creative stuff on the side.
But, I didn't have any real options that I was considering in terms of other jobs.

Really, I'd like to do something with film and/or comics.
But, I'm not really prepared with either (in terms of a resume or portfolio), and even if I was, the job(s) I kept envisioning was purely an impractical fantasy, like self-publishing comics.

So, now what?

I don't know.

The good news is, I'm not laid off yet.

So, I think my current game plan is this: impractical fantasies be damned, I need to work on my resume/portfolio so I'm not starting from zero if the big layoff bomb drops on my head.
From an art standpoint it first means: get off my ass and draw a lot more. Like, at all.
So far, I'm still in the talk more and do (draw) less mode, when I should be in a draw more, talk less mode, obviously.

Regarding film(making): this year I've been elected to be the co-programming chair (along with Phil Utech) of this years's Buffalo Movie and Filmmakers Club (or BM-VM), which is in its 75th year. We meet once monthly, and Phil and I are in charge of coming up with the meeting's programming.
But along with these duties, I still occasionally help people out with their films, doing whatever they want me to.
But I haven't made my own film yet.
And I'm currently looking to finagle an iMac in order to enable myself to make some movies.
In order to do this, it looks like I'm content to exploit my retired 82 year-old father's finances. I won't go into the specifics, but that's basically the situation. Actually, more or less with his blessing. But still... I feel a little guilty spending his money.

However, if it means I actually start to make some damn movies, even short ones, instead of just whining about other people's films, then I really don't care.

Alright, this was just getting my toes back into the blogging water.
And, I think I'll be whining more often here, using this blog like a diary, ya lucky sucks. Whether that's good news or bad news for you "readers", I don't know (uh, althoguh I have a hunch).

Anyway, thanks for checking this out if there are any of you out there!
Later.

Weigh-in Monday, April 28

2008-05-19T11:18:00.003-04:00

Another good weigh-in!

165.o lbs.!
That's another -1.5 lbs.

This week: 165.0
Last week: 166.5

I've started eating Oatmeal bread, which isn't bad. Since I'm not a fan of oatmeal, we're trying to figure out creative ways to beat the stuff into me. Hey, I like the cookies!

We also got some Quaker Oats Oat Squares, which is tasty, but has much more calories than the Doctor would like-- for her, mind you, because she finds the cereal itself tasty.

I'm also eating lots of pretzel rods to get me by on the road.
The sodium issue is starting to creep in, of course.

Weigh-in Monday, April 21

2008-05-19T10:59:00.005-04:00

Oooh.
I'm bad.
I've actually been doing my weigh-ins, but I haven't posted.
So, uh, here's a bunch of catch-up posts. Sorry!

For April 21:

I lost 2 more pounds, improbably.

I'm at 166.5, down from 168.5.

Well, that's what happens when you make a point of watching what you eat and attempting to make some wiser choices rather than just saying, 'I don't give a damn" and eating vending machine food left and right and then, stopping at the nearby 7-11 after work and getting a 1 liter Diet Pepsi, a 'monster" cold cut sub and an eclair. And maybe one of their fried "tube food" dealies, too-- I forget what they're called. They're wrapped like tubes and have either chicken or beef or cheese or whatever in them.

So I cut the tasty-ish, greasy, tube dealies and delicious eclairs completely out of my diet. I still get a sandwich of some sort, especially after an all-nighter shift, but I've been getting either a tuna fish salad or turkey on "wheatberry" which is actually kind of interesting, texture-wise. They have some kind of nut in them, too, that's kind of fun to chew on when i get one between my teeth.

Plus, Cheerios.

Hoo hah! Or: A journey of a thousand miles begins with 1(.5) step(s), and that means YOU, fat ass!

2008-04-14T07:53:00.004-04:00

Well, hopefully this will be an indicator of good things to come:
at today's weigh-in (in my bathroom) I was 168.5!
So, I lost 1.5 lbs. this week!
Yay, me!

Meanwhile, I actually ate two apples in one day yesterday. It's astonishing that I even ate one.
With Dr. Sugar Lips' able assistance, I dug up some dietary information off WebMD and learned that apples are pretty good in combating cholesterol as well.
We also went shopping yesterday and we bought ridiculous amounts of cereal. Although, the responsibility for oat, bran and miscellaneous fiber cravings are split between my wife and myself. I will say, I was originally content to just eat Cheerios for the rest of my life, but I guess I'm getting more "reckless" in my old age and trying new foods: I bought some Quaker Oats Oatmeal cereal.
I'm not at all thrilled about oatmeal, but perhaps in cereal form I'll embrace it more.
TRIVIA(L) NOTE: I don't like coffee, either. Although, I generally make it for my wife in the morning. But, I do like coffee ice cream.

I was depressed to learn that the difference between beef and chicken wasn't very much, at least, for my current needs. I've been eating primarily chicken for years, figuring it was healthier than beef. That, or turkey substitutes, but mostly I focus on chicken.
Well, this one article on dietary suggestions pretty much didn't draw any distinctions between cattle or poultry.
But it highly recommends tofu.

So, it looks like I'll be going more vegetarian as the days and weeks progress.

But, the biggest challenge for me is NOT eating certain items (like, snacking at work from the vending machine, as a for instance) AND increasing my vegetable and fruit intake.

Gah. Particularly to the latter. Although, during my overnight shifts, the former will muy gah, as well.

But, for now, I bask in my -1.5 lb glory!!

More to come.

Dear Diary: Huh, I thought it was going to be the diabetes...

2008-04-10T09:54:00.006-04:00

A real quick post here.

I actually have to get my ass moving and off to the mechanic to get my wife's passenger side door fixed. The window no longer works and our solution of lots of duct tape keeping the damn thing closed just seems, well, lame.

Meanwhile, last week I had my physical and it turns out my cholesterol is 390, which I guess is pretty high. I'm like, oh, nothing about diabetes in the blood test?
My dad and several members of his side of the family have diabetes, and occasionally I wait for that hereditary shoe to drop.
So far, nothing indicated there... regarding that, at least.
But, my cholesterol levels, well, that's another story.

So, the Doctor's freaking out, more or less, and I'm now eating lots of Cheerios, which I'm told is some sort of cholsterol scrubber. Curiously, it occurs to me now, this nutritional fact was pointed out to me by my wife and her mother, but not my nurse practioner who did my physical.
The NP did go over dietary change stuff, though.

Also, I've been off Weight Watchers online for a couple months because I really wasn't doing anything with it, so I figured, save the money.
But with my wife now weighing significantly less than me (she's in the lower 150s), and also this cholesterol crap, I'm trying to psyche myself up to lose some more weight again. Besides, I never hit my target weight of 140 and my 30-year high school reunion is in three months (shut up!). The closest I got to my target weight was, like, 156 lbs.
Last Thursday, before we went out of town, I weighed myself and I was 170.5, merely 1.5 lbs below where I was when I originally joined WW last year (which was around this time of the year).
I weighed myself Monday (my former weigh-in day) and I was at 170.
So, half-assedly, I lost .5 lbs this week.

More to come.

Besides, my cereal's getting soggy.

Meanwhile...

2008-03-24T03:56:00.004-04:00

This isn't much of a post, but it pertains to writing, which has turned out to be one of the subjects I ramble on about on this blog.
One of the blogs I occasionally check out, The Groovy Age of Horror, is written by a dude who's writing a novel. Well, the "fourth draft" of that novel can be read here.

Someone asked him in the comments to the above site if he didn't think posting a draft of his unpublished novel would be counter-productive to his efforts to getting it published.
To the contrary, he cites this writer's success with doing something similar.

Something to think about, and when I say "something to think about," I mean, some info to inspire me to get to writing again.

What the--?

2008-03-09T10:53:00.002-04:00

Well, okay.
This really isn't much of a post at all. But I can't believe the last time I wrote anything here was back in November! Cripes!
Anyways, I bought a new pair of glasses yesterday.
And I shoveled this morning. Oh, yeah, LOTS of snow, less than a week after almost everything was melted away and we had 60+ degree temperatures…
Grrrr!

Um.
But that’s all for now.

But I’ll be back and sooner than in four months, I promise!

This year’s NaNoWriMo is almost over (79/33)

2007-11-29T03:20:00.000-05:00

This year’s online writing challenge, courtesy of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is almost over. It officially ends at midnight, Friday (November 30).

For those not in the know, NaNoWriMo has been annually challenging/inspiring authors and would-be authors to sit down and write a novel in only 30 days (throughout the month of November). You have to write 50,000 words, which breaks down to 1,667 words a day.
This is like the fourth year, I think, that my wife has participated and has successfully completed the challenge. She crossed the threshold of 50,000 on Sunday.
As of Monday night, she was at 51,219 words.
However, the actual story she's working on is still incomplete, so she still has some work to do, roughly 20,000 more words by her estimate.
Her first attempt at NaNoWriMo was her largest output: over 200,000 words! Gulp!

I had hoped to participate in some way as well; in spirit, at least. Specifically, just to do some writing, if not attempt 50,000 words.
None of those plans came to fruition.
My script SEPARATION ANXIETY, which I started as part of the online challenge Script Frenzy, which occurred earlier this year in June, is still waiting for me to finish it.
And so is my attempt at writing a short story of a chapter of my prose effort, the Femme Ferines (which, perhaps should be the Femmes Ferine, to be more properly French, according to my wife, but I don’t know if I care about Gallic grammar here, to be honest: I like the way “Femme Ferines” sounds, kind of mimicking Marines, in a way).

But, whatever, because I didn’t do anything to advance the cause of finishing the writing of either project.
Grrrr…

I guess I’ll be shooting for completion of some New Year’s Resolutions, then.
Hopefully, more to come…

79/33
Project 365: first entry / previous entry

Limping along here… (78/33)

2007-11-29T02:03:00.000-05:00

Oh, dear.
Things are just not progressing as I had hoped.
Oh, well.

Well, I didn’t weigh myself on Monday, but I did finally get around to heaving my big-ass butt-ass up on the scale yesterday.
165.5 lbs.

So, more or less, I lost half a pound this week.
Whoo-hooo!
YEEEEE HAAA!
Er, I mean... that's better than nothing, right?

Although, considering how much grazing I’ve been doing the last few days on the contents of the vending machine at work, I should be glad I don’t weigh more than what I did so many months ago when I started this meandering journey…

78/33
Project 365: first entry / previous entry / next entry

Happy Thanksgiving! or My Weight Loss Update! (77/40)

2007-11-22T09:58:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I thought the timing of this post was funny, I mean, it being the national day of eating excess and everything.

Well, the last time I focused on my diet, etc. in a post, was some time ago.
At that time, I thought I'd try to get myself back on track since I was wavering at best in my diligence and focus to healthy eating, perhaps even get into the habit of logging in what I eat every day, something I gave up very early on during my weight loss adventure.

After a single day of trying to keep track, I sort of loss steam again. It turns out I eat a number of things that seem to have no calorie information: specifically, these so-called "monster subs" from the 7-11 nearby where I work.
They're cold cut subs and have no condiments on them.
They also don't explain (beyond ingredient content), how many calories there are, what the fat content is, fiber what-sis, etc.
So, being totally undisciplined, that easily deflated my efforts at food intake documentation.
Which is a lame excuse, but I'm not denying that. because, what I can do to compensate is come up with a guesstimate of what the points are for such an item. Then, since I eat those subs regularly enough, I can just enter it as a favorite food on my site at Weightwatchers online. So, really, I'm just being lazy.
Sigh.

So, in the meantime, my desire to lose weight and to be disciplined about making wise choices regarding what I eat has been non-existent.

Which explains my increased weight readings lately.

Two weeks ago, I gained after after three weeks of losing weight.
I jumped from 161.0 to 164.5 lbs! A difference of 3.5 lbs-- in the WRONG direction!
Cripes.
Which probably explains why I didn't even check my weight the following week.
This week, I added another 1.5 lbs: 166.
So, I'm only 6, 6.5 lbs away from getting back to where I started.
Well, I'm not really throwing in the towel yet, but boy, I really need to get on track.

Um... after today.

Meanwhile, today being Thanksgiving, I hope everybody has a good holiday. Hopefully a holiday spent with the family and relatives will be limited in its stress, and I also hope you have a safe journey if traveling is in your plans.
Also, I hope (jeez, I'm just a hopeful suck, ain't I?) that you do have a chance to sit down, sit back, relax and reflect, even for a couple minutes, and take stock of what blessings you do have.
And if some of those blessings happen to be living people in your life, take a minute to let them know. You'll both be glad you did.

And as we enter the holiday shopping season, which I think actually began on the Fourth of July this year: "Vaya con Dios!"

Peace, man.

77/40

Trying to get something accomplished today… Part 2 (76/48)

2007-11-14T16:25:00.000-05:00

Hmph.

Well, took care of some utility bill junk via the phone.
Washed the dishes.
Ate some food, specifically focusing on stuff that’s getting old or has been lying around awhile: some Indian restaurant leftovers (gone!), a frozen pizza (gone!), a banana (three left!), and had some orange juice (working on a gallon jug).
Also did two loads of laundry (so far), drying one load now. Hopefully I’ll fold that first load before I go to the meeting.

While eating baingan-bartha, and some alu paratha and panak paneer, I was channel surfing.
Caught one of those brief actor’s tributes on TMC (only a couple minutes long); usually, a current actor offers their thoughts about an earlier actor and we see clips and photos of the “tributee” (okay, I don’t know if that’s actually a word, but I know tributary’s right out!).
I missed the beginning of this one, but I could see the tribute was for Barbara Stanwyck.
I haven’t seen a lot of her movies, but I’ve liked her a lot in what I have checked out: THE LADY EVE, BALL OF FIRE, MEET JOHN DOE, and DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Jeez, is that all?
I suck.
An actress was narrating the tribute and by the time it was done, I had correctly guessed who the voice belonged to (you never see the actor offering the tribute, it's always a voice-over to the images; unless, of course, the narrator happens to be in one of the clips or photos that are being shown): it was Jennifer Jason Leigh whose work I also like, but I’ve only seen some of her films as well.
I was impressed by Leigh's articulate thoughts. Not that I ever thought Leigh was stupid, but her thoughtful word-choice still surprised me. Her serious, respectful tone wasn’t expected, either, but that didn’t surprise me.
The tribute made me want to check out all the Barbara Stanwyck films I had already seen and, of course, check out many others I had not.
The same with Leigh’s body of work, including the last Final Girl Film Club selection which I missed: EYES OF A STRANGER.

Oh… crud!
I gotta get my butt moving if I’m gonna get to the meeting in time!

76/48
Project 365: first entry / previous entry

Trying to get something accomplished today… Part 1 (75/48)

2007-11-14T13:03:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s Wednesday and I have the day off.
Days off always seem to be a mind-f**k for me, to put it bluntly. I always think I have much more time available to me than I actually do. So, I always start off with grandiose plans of accomplishing all this crap and ultimately, I do very little or nothing. My brain seems to freak out at the amount of things I have to do when I get around to debating what I’m actually going to do, or what I’m going to do first of the things I want to do, and being by nature, indecisive and impulsive, I usually don’t prioritize what I need to do and impulsively start something I eventually don’t finish, so I wind up with arguably nothing done.
Boy, doesn’t that sound pathetic?
Well, it does because it is.

My wife once called me “pathologically disorganized,” unfairly, I thought, at the time.
However, even though I felt that the circumstances that triggered her outburst didn’t justify her assessment of those circumstances, the phrase now haunts me because I think it was something she’s articulated to herself about me prior to that incident, and it just spilled out prematurely, so to speak. As a description in general about myself, it actually hits the nail right on the head.

I also have this idea of the Devil sometimes… that he isn’t just a figure who tempts people into doing wrong, but is also quite content in amusing himself by watching people waste their entire lives through their ineffectual efforts at living. Particularly amusing are the individuals who have all these plans for what they’re going to do, yet somehow, years pass by and nothing happens.
That’s me, too, I think.

Alright, I’m whining.

I’m WHINING OUT LOUD!

So, in an effort to kill perhaps more than one bird with one stone, I’m going to do a multiple part post today to chronicle(ish) my efforts to accomplish something today.
I have a handful of domestic chores, some personal projects I’d like to work on, and also an Apple Corps meeting late this afternoon (one of my personal projects was to work on/finish up this drawing I started last week).
One casualty of trying to prioritize: I was hoping to see a movie at the theater today, one of the 8 FILMS 2 DIE 4 horror festival. I’m going to have to can those plans for today. NUTS!
Maybe tomorrow, but I don’t think any of the films I was planning to see are playing tomorrow. NUTS AND CRAP!
Grrrr…

Well, one more reason to check out another of LAST year’s 8 FILMS etc. on DVD, since I’ve only seen one, GRAVEDANCERS, and just recently, at that.
Crud, I have to get a review out on that, too.
Grrrr!

I’ll be back.

75/48
Project 365: first entry / previous entry

Night of the Fat Ass (70/54)

2007-11-08T18:00:00.000-05:00

Well, this is gonna be really quick.
Monday was my weigh-in and I clocked in at 164.5 lbs., meaning I gained 3.5 lbs. last week!
I don't understand! I've been eating everything in sight! Oh, and hardly exercising, too!
It's so unfair!

Well, apparently, I've decided to be a blob.

That's not actually true.
I haven't made a decision either way, so I'm just not changing old habits.
Also, last week was 1) me dealing with a cold and 2) Halloween (AKA hey, look! There's candy EVERYWHERE!).
So, circumstances were slightly against me, so I'm not throwing in the towel, yet.
Plus, with the cold weather setting in, I can't count on sweating it off at work anymore.

So, we'll see from now until the end of the year, how serious I am about wanting to get down to 140.
Also, the Doc is within 10 lbs. or so of my weight, having lost 92.5 lbs. since January. She's actually very close to the weight she was when she first joined Weight Watchers a couple years ago and then gave up when she hit a plateau and couldn't reach her target weight. But, she's definitely on track to lose 100 by the end of the year.

Perhaps shame will kick me in the ass..?

Okay, gotta go eat another burrito.
I mean, go take a nap before work!

(dammit!)

70/54
Project 365: first entry / previous entry / next entry

Monday Weigh-In OR This is NOT the Diary of Grant Williams (64/64)

2007-10-29T11:58:00.000-04:00

Man, all I wanna do is eat.
Um, be right back…

So, way back on March 19, when I started doing Weight Watchers Online. I had my first weigh-in. I was at the juicy weight of 172.0 lbs.
After an eye-opening first week of seeing how many points I consume non-chalantly, I started applying myself a bit more towards eating better, at least comparatively speaking.
But after some initial success, the last couple months, at best, I’ve had a serious lack of motivation.
All I seem to do is feed at the vending machines at work, and get something to eat from anywhere on the way home.
Most alarmingly (well, diet-wise), in the last couple weeks, I’ve returned to the Wendy’s drive-thru… and more than once.

Anyway, Mondays are my weigh-in days.
The last couple weeks I’ve actually lost weight each Monday trip to the scales, but part of that is because prior to I went on a real eating binge and ballooned up to 164.5 lbs. I had been down as low as 157.0 lbs on August 6, which was also the weigh-in before we started our two week vacation and I became a whore for anything seafood while on the New England and Maritime Province Road Trip. You know, the native living experience, man! So, understandably, my weight went up some after that date.
I was last under 160 lbs. on September 24, being just under at 159.5 lbs.
Since then, I’ve been on a steady climb up until I hit 163.5 a couple weeks ago.
So, I’ve been fitfully trying to get back on program.

Since I started back in March, for only a few weeks did I actually pay attention to points and keeping track of what I’ve been eating.
For the rest of the time, I’ve just been logging in my weigh-in totals every Monday.

So, now that I seem to be aimless in my weight-loss discipline, plus, since I no longer have a film shoot that I was trying to be skinny for, my new motivation is accumulating blog posts.
Yes, that damn impossible Project 365!
No way in hell am I gonna fulfill that goal of 365 posts by the end of 2007, but I’m curious to see how far I DO go.
Therefore, you’ll see updates on my Monday weigh-ins, and quite possibly, some info on what I’ve been eating as I try to document what crap I’ve been putting into my chubby carcass.
And, as a reminder, my ultimate goal is to get down to 140.0 lbs.

Anyways, today I weighed-in at 161.0 lbs.
I lost 1.0 lb since last week’s weigh-in.
My reward (uh, for merely weighing in, not so much for celebrating the loss of a pound): I feed!

64/64
Project 365: first entry / previous entry / next entry

Dear Diary... (44/110)

2007-09-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

Dear Diary:

Apparently I can’t write worth a damn.
I don’t know how well I write when I am able to put up with my wordsmithing efforts, but it was a VERY frustrating bunch of hours at the keyboard last night.
My work schedule right now is such that I have a small window and opportunity to try and catch up on my blogging (my current raison de’tre) and EVERYTHING I threw up on the screen WAS absolutely pukey.
I have like 5 different subjects started and I just gave up on each topic last night. Hopefully, over the next few days I’ll be able to wrap up some of these topics with some degree of competence and post them.
Nuts.

Let’s see: 321 more posts to go this year in order to complete Project 365???
Fuh!
Let’s see when I get to Post 50!

On a related writing note…
When I was on vacation, I was thinking that two ways I could improve my writing was to read more and also deliberately attempt to expand my vocabulary.
I’ve started reading Scott (A Simple Plan) Smith’s The Ruins, based on CRwM’s recommendation. I’m currently on page 47.

I go now.

And man, Kody refuses to take "no" (ie. a shove off my lap) for an answer! This is a cat that demands to be petted... he said, trying to type with a wet feline nose insistently pressed into one typing hand, four furry feet on his lap, and a cat butt resting in the crook of his other typing arm...

44/110
Project 365 : first / previous / next

On Vacation! Er, maybe... (34/125)

2007-08-22T23:59:00.000-04:00

Hi!

Currently, the Dr. and I are on a long "road trip" style vacation.
Okay. THAT'S a lie.
When I started writing this post, we were on vacation, but now I'm already home and trying to finish this thing AND eat leftover Chinese food from Springfield, Mass. AND make sure my cat Kody doesn't make off with any of my moo goo gai pan combo plate as I type...

My wife and I started our vacation Aug. 11 and we came back home Sunday, Aug. 26. It was our first two week vacation together, our usual breaks being only a week long. I actually didn't have the time saved up at work to do this. Hell, I didn't even have one week's worth of vacation saved up!

But, we had planned this for several months (and when I say we, I really mean my wife, because she did pretty much the majority of the preparations for this enterprise, but, uh, I knew about it!), so whether I had enough vacation time accrued or not wasn't going to stop me from going.

My sweetie-bear has been calling this the "Sam and Dean Road Trip," a reference to the TV show, Supernatural. If you're not familiar with the show, it's about two brothers who travel to all sorts of places in the U.S. in an old Impala, armed with various weapons to fight demons, monsters, etc.
A sort of combination of the Hardy Boys meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
My wife's become a big fan of Supernatural since she bought the DVD set of the first season, so her fantasy was to drive around like Dean and Sam Winchester, playing the music (Dean's into classic rock) that is often heard on the car radio during the series episodes. She burned all these CDs with music from the show's soundtrack or compilations of songs she liked with this road trip in mind.

Our trip took us from the Buffalo, NY area to Danvers, Mass. (located between(ish) Salem and Boston) to St. Andrew, New Brunswick to Dingwall in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to Halifax, NS to Bar Harbor, Maine to Springfield, Mass. and back home.

And yes, I'm behind in my blogging, but what else is new? Although my internet absence the last month or so was directly attibuted to the vacation and preparations for it. The last week and a half leading up to our departure was really hot weather-wise and work (where it's sans AC) was totally kicking my ass, so I barely had any energy to do anything when I got home, bla bla bla wah wah wah.

But the trip was great and I've been adjusting to being back. It is good to be home but my first day of work started at 7:00 am and wound up ending 12 hours later, so that was an adjustment...

Anyways, I'm back and there'll be more posts re: the vacation, plus other thoughts.
Ooh, and pictures, too! We bought a new digital camera online just before we left, so both of us were "practicing" with the new toy. Prepare to be bombarded with my damn vacation pictures!

So, just wanted to say hi, to, uh, whoever right now and let you know that more's coming!

Later!

34/125
Project 365 : first / previous / next

THINKING OUT LOUD: 150 DAYS LEFT UNTIL 2008 (33/150)

2007-08-04T09:07:00.000-04:00

Hi-ho.
Well, less than five full months are left in this fine friggin’ year.
Of the many projects and enterprises I’ve either initiated or gotten involved in this year, a number of them have been sort of stuck in idle recently.
One of those is the bloggy Project 365, inspired by Beedow’s blog who in turn was inspired by something more theatrical. But my take was a quasi-attempt at posting a blog entry every day this year, although I kind of bent the rules a bit (gee, how uncharacteristic of me!) and said I’d have 365 posts by the end of the year, although not necessarily daily. Oh, definitely not daily.
I’m currently at about 30-ish posts, I think. So, only 335 to go!
Actually, it’s not that impossible, if I consistently do two posts a day from now on.
If I make posts as short as the one I did yesterday, then I actually have a chance at doing this.
Anyways, that’s my rough game plan for stratemegizing on Project 365, although, there are bound to be lapses, because I have some distractions coming up on the calendar, so, for instance, I may be unable to post daily during that instance.
But, still…

Also, there are a few posts that I’ve been meaning to do that I never got around to. Like my daily diary of working on Emil Novak’s BANSHEE movie. I still plan on following up on that idea. But when I do, I think I’m going to post-date them, so that the entries fall more accurately on the calendar dates when I did that stuff (for example, the first week of shooting began May 7). But, I’ll still number the entries themselves in order of when I actually write/post them – you know, those goofy numbers in parentheses, the ridiculous Project 365 crap? So, I’m covering my ass both ways for those nitpicky, detail-obsessive readers/historians out there.

Um, I’ll pause for the laughter to die down… or wait for the confused staring or bored eye-rolling to get out of your system… or…

Meanwhile…
Well, I thought it was supposed to get up to 95 yesterday. It hit 90 Thursday. I didn’t check the weather report but someone at work told me it only hit 88.
Hot enough, hot enough, I say…

I’ve been thinking of this lately.
Five daily things to do:

1. Pray.
2. Wash the dishes.
3. Check/do the laundry.
4. Clean the cat litter.
5. Clean a little of my room.
6. Shave.
7. Shower.
8. Do at least one blog post.
9. Write (screenplay/story/comic script) or draw.
7. Read a chapter or two of my wife’s story/stories on-line. Comment.
8. Watch a Netflix movie once a week.

Did I say five? Now that I try to make an actual list, of course, I can’t keep it to a short number.

Hmmm.
I was debating whether or not to… dammit! I have this whiskery orange fur-face hovering over my left hand as I type here… I’m working on the laptop on the dining room table and our “first-born,” El Zorro, likes to keep me company when I’m working here. His fat-ass, prolate spheroid shape is buzzing next to me on the table, sitting sphinx-like but with his front legs curled under and his head directly over the TAB key. Occasionally, he tries to chew on my pinky finger every time I hit the shift key or type on the left side, meaning I briefly stick my pinky in his puss (ha!) and it’s interpreted as an invitation to munch.
But, as I was saying: I was debating whether or not to include this list of daily things to do, because some are personal or just embarrassing. However, even though in reality it’s dull, on paper those personal things are the stuff of good blogs, I think.

1. Pray. Even if it’s just the Lord’s Prayer. I say “just” because I guess I treat the Lord’s Prayer as sort of a generic prayer, because it’s something short and memorized. So, in the sense that something that’s repeated often eventually becomes taken for granted, in that way I mean generic. Although, having said that, there are little phrases that still have some meaning to me because they’re short and easy to remember, like “one day at a time.” Those are perfect reminders (and mantras): concise, to the point and easy to repeat over and over again, uh, mantra-like.
I remember my friend Steve told me years ago how he thought the Lord’s Prayer was, well, okay, I can’t remember exactly what he said, but the gist was, he was impressed by how it covered everything in a prayer, and in a short prayer at that.
Personally, I put this on the list to sort of get me in the door to another place that I rarely visit, the realm of spirituality. In a weird comparison, I guess this would be similar to hiking in the woods or in a park with my wife.
My wife is the acknowledged nature person, I am not. If I had not met her and fallen in love with her and married her, I could quite conceivably never go into the woods at all. I have no aversion to nature, I just don’t naturally go there.
But it’s always a positive experience for me to visit the outdoors and see different landscapes, trees, foliage, bugs, animals, various kinds of weather, and actually experience them firsthand. It beats a little humility into me, I think, makes me consider the place of mankind on earth, of Nature at work and how we may fit in. Rather than the idea of Man is always Number One and everybody better just accept it, but in reality, maybe we are Number One, but even that has its limitations.
So, perhaps a single minute of prayer may “beat a little God into me.”
Or, at least, make me consider some things beyond my nearsighted self and situation.

2. Wash the dishes.
3. Check/do the laundry.
4. Clean the cat litter. These are probably the closest I come to specific duties I do around the house, and I don’t even do those sometimes as regularly as I should. ‘Nuff said.

5. Clean a little of my room. My room is currently just an impregnable fortress of disorganization. My life has been an example of disorganization, with a few moments of real accomplishment in total disorganization. My room is in the latter category of achievement. But, I need to get in the room occasionally. And I can’t, that how stupid bad it’s gotten. So, ‘nuff said about that. What did I say about “one day at a time”?

6. Shave.
7. Shower. Actually, I consider all three things (including cleaning my room) as personal maintenance items. The last two just happen to be more hygiene related, obviously. Yeah, the showering thing is embarrassing. I won’t go into any more detail about that.
The shaving is more a concession to my wife. I like not shaving. I don’t want a beard because I look stupid with a beard* but if I shaved once a week versus daily, well, that would be quite fine with me. But from a smooching point of view, there are some complaints from my lovely, shapely partner, something along the lines of “Aagh, I’m getting stabbed!”, and her opinion certainly does matter to me in such areas, although I’m sure it doesn’t seem that way to her at times.
I’m just an inert, f***ing, lazy ass when it comes to showering. I don’t dislike showering. But when I get into the shower, I take forever because I become an obsessive time-consuming raccoon (and I don’t mean I like to handle my parts under water)(well… wait a minute...). Yes, water turns me into different creatures.
At the sink, I’m a duck.
In the shower, I’m a raccoon.
In the water, for brief moments I’m an otter (floating on my back wrapped in kelp eating shellfish as I use my stomach as a table. Okay, sans kelp and shellfish or any food.) or dog (my swimming prowess) or some creature that seems bent on drowning and flailing about a lot on his way to the bottom. Maybe that rubber octopus that Bela Lugosi/Martin Landau wrestles in ED WOOD.

8. Do at least one blog post.
9. Write (screenplay/story/comic script) or draw. Well, something’s better than nothing. In the case of the screenplay, for instance, some days I didn’t think I really had enough time or energy to create anything substantial, maybe only 100-500 words. But, then 3-4 days pass with nothing happening because of that reasoning. Following Akira Kurosawa’s advice from his autobiography, he says if you write even only a page a day, after a year, you have 360 pages of script. Perhaps three days of “insubstantial writing” would have given me at least another 1000 words, or another 20th towards my word count. So, there, Kimmel, ya procrastinating f***ing f***. Just do it. (Hey, another one of those mantra things!) (Meaning, the Nike thing… the self abuse comes naturally, and often, on its own.)

10. Read a chapter or two of my wife’s story/stories on-line. Comment.
11. Watch a Netflix movie once a week. More maintenance crap. Maintenance in the sense of there’s all these things I want to do, but I don’t seem to do any of them, so I need to consciously put them on a schedule now in an effort to remember to do them, which just seems stupid, but look who’s writing this in the first place so there you go, dammit.
That’s the eternal f***ing conflict, man! Wanting to do everything, having time to do only so much. It totally sucks. Totally.
But, I guess that’s how we ultimately make ourselves the type of person we become: what we prioritize in our lives. We then do what we really want to do, and we see what we’re really made of by the choices we’ve made in those priorities. Hmmm, that in itself is scary shit if you start thinking in terms of one’s eulogy. You know, which is spoken by someone else.
Um… nervous pause…

Crap. It’s 7:00 am already. I woke up at like 5:45.
Okay, I go now.

*When I let my beard grow, at a certain point, it gets long enough to, well, point. It points to the side. It looks like I have a perpetual wind blowing my chin hair to one direction, or if someone took a picture, one could wonder if my head were rotating as betrayed by my beard dragging off by the speed of rotation, but the picture happened to be snapped just as my head aligned itself with my neck in mid-turn. So, my head attached to my neck is actually an illusion.
Yeah. So: an actual beard for me? Heck, no.
Although… okay, I have a VERY fond memory of a picture taken of me from years ago with a goatee and mustache and a mullet and my sunglasses on. No, I’m not being ironic.

33/150
Project 365 : first / previous / next

Grrrrrr..! (32/152)

2007-08-02T18:37:00.000-04:00

Man, I freaking hate everything.
It's hot and sunny outside, but at work it's merely hot and hotter.
I suppose the upside is, this "diet" I'm on is only succeeding(ish) because I'm losing weight at work.
I was just unbelievably irritable today at work.
What a pain-in-the-ass to have to work with.
My apologies to my fellow employess. But it's supposed to be 95 tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll pick up where I left off today considering it's a 12 hour shift as well.

Project 365, my ass.

Oh, wait. Look.
Only 364 more to go.

I'm taking a long shower.

My wife will appreciate it.

32/152
Project 365 : first / previous / next

FEMME FERINES 2.O : a postscript (30/168)

2007-07-17T20:00:00.001-04:00

Before I receive any actual comments to my previous blogger post (ha! wishful thinking!), I wanted to be defensive and toss in my pre-emptive (more wishful thinking) 2-cents worth re: said writing excerpt.
I just want to say, I was so excited to have crammed all those ideas into one piece of writing, I was anxious to get it front of an audience and see their reaction, if any.
Now that I've had a chance to re-read it some, with the fire of just having written now all died away, it's obvious I still need to do a lot of work with it.
At the very least, it's unfinished, and not even where I arbitrarily and abruptly ended it.

The biggest issues I think are these:

1. Agnes' weird dying fantasies are perhaps too strange for her to just have, and I think I can set that up better, at least (setting it up even a little is more than what I've done so far), so that there may be at least some logic, some contrived justification for her morbid tangents of thought. Or, that is to say, the elements of her fantasies may make more sense. As to why she has this hard-on for "beautiful tragedy," I'll be honest, I have no real justification for her fascination or obsession with that. I think that's a blatant case of "it sounds kind of funny to me."
On the other hand, intinctively speaking, there's something interesting in that, and perhaps it may articulate itself to me later.

2. Agnes' mission of crime also needs to be set up more, I think.
Ultimately, I'd like the FEMME FERINES to be a novel. but I'm also thinking of exploring the possibility of sending out some sections as short stories to possible publishers to see what kind of response I'd get.
This particular episode of Agnes having to steal a comic book to "join" these other girls (I bet you didn't even know that's what was going on, did ya? See, I need to spell it out more and I think earlier, too) would make an interesting self-contained short story.
In fact, I'm going to try to develop this bit of writing in that direction first, as a short story.
In novel form, I think, I'll break up some of the introductions to the girls into one or more chapters.

3. My punctuation totally blows. I need to consult with my "editorial staff" on that front, but I was too impatient to do so before posting.

I guess that's really it. Those are my biggest concerns. Once I deal with those, I'm sure I'll discover other problems.

Anyways, thanks for listening to my desperate attempt at covering my ass...

30/168
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FEMME FERINES: another whack at it (as a writing process) (29/172)

2007-07-13T13:06:00.002-04:00

Well, as I threatened to do earlier, I'm still working on this story idea.
The FEMME FERINES is an idea for a young adult novel about these freshman high school girls.
The first version needed to be expanded and this is the first major expansion I've done on it.
It needs gobs of work still, but I just wanted to get it out there.
It seems when I share things, it makes me move on with it, to go back and do more work on it (eventually) instead of have it sit somewhere and be something I plan on getting to.

But, oh yeah, this needs some severe editing and more writing and re-writing.
Having said that:

THE FEMME FERINES, Liberation of the Slutty Fury (2.0)

Agnes thought she was having a heart attack.
Her chest felt incredibly tight from inside, like it was getting ready to explode – or was it implode?
Well, either way, who cares? When it finally happened -- the explosion/implosion -- what would it matter? She’d be dead. 14 years old and already a corpse.
Suddenly, she could clearly picture herself, dead, in the feverish theater of her mind. Her thin body, abruptly crumpled, carelessly, in a pile, a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, collapsed unceremoniously on the floor of Nadoulmann’s Delicatessen in front of the candy display counter. She was on her back looking up, her eyes blankly staring forward from behind her slightly askew wide frame glasses, her mouth stupidly agape, her pink tongue dangling out of her mouth ludicrously, and finally, a little bit of drool running slowly down the side of her face and collecting on the wooden floor like some colorless syrup.
Agnes considered the scene as if she were God looking down through the ceiling. Alas, there was no dignity in death, she concluded, at least not here going by this pathetic picture.
“Oh, dear,” the Lord Himself would most likely rumble. “Isn’t that skinny bit of bones on the floor Agnes Wildefleur? What happened to her?” Of course, since the Almighty was, uh, all mighty and stuff, He’d be omniscient – or was that omnipotent? (Heck, maybe both.) So, perhaps His question would be more philosophical than practical, because for Him it would already be old news that Agnes’ heart just couldn’t take it.
Too much anxiety.
Too much pressure.
“That poor, sweet, fragile child,” the Lord would most likely lament like articulate faint thunder.
“Yes,” Agnes agreed, “yes, I was,” unaware that she had effortlessly shifted from imagining her hypothetical stress-induced death to accepting this death as fact and referring to herself appropriately (now) in the past tense.
“What was I thinking, trying to pull off this stupid dare! ‘Dare!’ Ha!” She laughed bitterly. “That’s just a sneaky way of not calling it by its true name: crime! The crime of stealing! This was a test to see if I have the Criminal Element flowing in me! Mom and Dad are always talking about the Criminal Element, and that’s what this was about! Well, obviously, I don’t have it! There are normal human abilities and sometimes you need something extra to pull off something crazy. Like Courage! Or Passion! Or the Criminal Element! And I don’t have any of it! If I had known this ahead of time, I wouldn’t have tried. If I had known not to have tried, I wouldn’t be dead.”

Meanwhile, in the world where Agnes was still actually quite alive, there were four involved, four teenage girls: Monica, Isabel, Dora and Agnes. The reason why they were in the store was simple - the same reason why they usually did anything - because it was Monica's idea. Of the four young women, Monica may not have been the smartest (that probably would have been Isabel), the biggest (definitely Dora), or the most talented (the jury is still deliberating that question), but she was the de facto leader of the group by the sheer force of her personality (some would substitute "mouth" for "personality"). But that was fine, considering this coterie of teen-femininity had an agenda that was pretty much a blank slate, a blank slate that Monica's impulses conveniently filled in regularly.
So there stood Agnes. She could be seen standing frozen in one spot of the delicatessen floor, half-hidden by a spinner rack of sunglasses. Further back, by a display of greeting cards, Isabel, Dora and a majorly confused Monica were staring at the mannequin-like Agnes and the treasured rack of comic books and magazines further beyond, situated just under the main window. A furrow of concentration and bewilderment raged in conflict between Monica’s eyebrows, her eyes burning intensely into Agnes’ meek, motionless form.
Finally, the scrawny Beast that was Monica couldn’t take it anymore and spat out an intensely whispered: “Dora!”
“Hm?” Dora casually acknowledged. She, too, was looking at Agnes, but much more calmly, and she didn’t remove her gaze in response.
“What’s going on!?” Monica whisper-interrogated Dora as if they were in a library, perhaps a fascist library where interrogation was routine and librarians dressed smartly in brown blouses. The whispering persisted: “Is she okay? Does she have a habit of going into a trance? What’s up? And more importantly, when is she gonna grab that Jheena the Jungle Fury Summer Spectacular, huh?”
The big girl sort of shrugged and made an inarticulate sound that meant: “I have no idea.”
Isabel stared at the Agnes-test dummy, but could offer nothing constructive in comment.
After several beats of additional staring, Monica could only sigh deeply in restless mystification.

Meanwhile, Agnes continued to meditate on her demise.
“I misjudged my abilities. There are limits to everyone’s abilities and I was a big stupid when it came to knowing mine. But I give myself credit for trying. Well, trying to try. Obviously, I bit off more than I could chew. I was always small-mouthed. Small-mouthed but big-bited. But, did that make me bad? Did that mean I was a bad person in my life? Aww... I don’t think so. Not bad-bad… not really. Maybe I was… Okay, I would have to say I was reckless. Reckless with a lot of energy. Enthusiasm! Yes, reckless with ENTHUSIASM. I get a 10 for ‘EFFORT!’ That was always the best thing about me: I was small in person but big hearted.”
Then a realization hit her out of the blue.
“Aw! Kick me in the butt! If I had known that I was going to die today, I could’ve left instructions for Mom and Dad on what to write on my gravestone,” she thought, very annoyed at this sudden loose end. “Well, they’ll come up with something. I hope it’s something good. Something good, but it would have to be something simple, too… but thoughtful. Like…”
What?
“ ‘Agnes Wildefleur. Here she is.’
“No, wait. That’s too simple.
“ ‘Agnes Wildefleur…’”
Um…
“ ‘Agnes…’”
Oh!
“ ‘Agnes Wildefleur… Pruned tragically in her youth.’ Ooh… that sounds good. Really good! Unless ‘pruned’ makes me sound wrinkled. Hmmm, that may only confuse things… or the mourners…”

Back at the get well cards…
“We’re jerks,” Dora said, with quiet conviction.
Isabel looked at her, taking in Dora’s very serious expression.
Dora continued. “She hasn’t moved in the last five minutes. We shouldn’t’ve asked Aggie to swipe that stupid comic book. She gets kind of extra wound up sometimes, like extra excitable, and this whole thing probably psyched herself out so much that now she’s… psychically paralyzed.”
Monica perked up at the sound of that. “Psychically paralyzed! That sounds really… what does that mean? You mean, she can paralyze things with her brain? That doesn’t make sense but it sounds really… handy!”
Dora tried to clarify. “No, I meant, I think HER brain got paralyzed or something. Like, she went into shock because she couldn’t handle stealing your stupid Jungle Fury comic. Either that or she had a stroke. I shouldn’t’ve asked her to do this. I’m a jerk.”
“Aw, don’t say that, Dorrie,” said Isabel. She suddenly felt terrible about the whole situation. “Look, maybe she did freak out a little bit, but I think Agnes is okay. I mean, she couldn’t have a stroke and still stand up,” Dora didn’t look at her, but her mouth moved slightly, like a sad smirk, indicating that she heard what Izzy said. Isabel tried again. “Hey, come on, we’ll just go over and uh, let her off the hook, okay? Don’t feel bad, we all put her up to this.”
Monica didn’t protest, but emphatically blurted in her whispered voice, “Okay, fine! But I ain’t leaving this stupid store without a copy of Jheena the Jungle Fury Summer Spectacular! Because I can see it over there in all its colorful glory, calling to me!”
Dora turned to the intense Monica-creature. “Hey, nutjob, how much black coffee did you suck down today?”
Monica’e eyes gleamed crazily, evidence of the internal eternal brain cackle that only she heard and which seemed to operate 25/8. She still whispered weirdly: “Lost count hours ago. And it’s still morning! All I know is, I’m muy awake and will be peeing alot shortly. Hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha.” It was apparent that the blood of loons, mad scientists and the combless flowed within this slight girl’s body.
Isabel sighed, “Cripes…”
As they took their deliberate steps across the floor, Monica added, disturbingly: “the Summer Spectacular…it’s calling to me…”
Dora and Isabel exchanged troubled glances and the big girl muttered, “Double cripes…”
The intrepid trio carefully inched towards Agnes…

…who was still thinking about the ramifications of her death and subsequent burial arrangements.
“Mom and Dad will be upset and busy enough already dealing with the funeral home and everything like that without having to listen to everybody ask why I’m wrinkled.
“Oh. Wait. I’m making too much of a big deal about all this, which is what Mom says I always do.
“They’ll have me in a casket, and that’ll be open. I mean, nothing tore up my face like a car wreck or a crazy dog, so, it’ll definitely be open. So, everybody’ll see I’m not wrinkled.”
Super excellent.
Wait.
“Unless everybody who comes to the wake can’t wait to see Mom and Dad first as soon as they step into the funeral home. Shoot. I can hear it now.
“ ‘Marie, Robbie, we heard the news about your little Agnes!’
“ ‘Oh, little Agnes! So sweet, so fragile!’
“ ‘And now, so wrinkled, so dead! You two must be terribly upset!’
“And Mom would be, ‘Yes, we’re terribly upset but, it’s not as bad as you think. The casket’s over there. Go ahead check her out for yourself…it’s open…’
“But Mom’s gonna get pretty tired of that real fast. And Dad’s probably gonna keep passing everybody off to Mom.
“Darn it all! That gravestone thing sounded pretty good, too, otherwise. ‘Pruned’ made me sound like I was a flower, cut down suddenly. Unexpectedly. Tragically. In my youth. Oh, definitely tragically. Terribly tragically.
“Hey, why not, ‘Cut down tragically’? No, that sounds like I got shot. “Snipped tragically’?
Oh. Ew. That’s definitely wrong. Sounds like I got fixed… like there was some terrible spaying accident. Which is much worse than being wrinkled.”
Agnes swam deeper into her thoughts, which made her stare more intensely, an expression that if by seen by any onlookers would probably cause them some concern, because it looked like the girl’s brain was certainly occupied elsewhere, like Another Dimension Separate From Our Normal Plane Of Existence elsewhere. For a good minute, her brow was so furrowed, her eyebrows were this close to touching each other, becoming overly familiar with each other, and then weaving together inappropriately until they became one single blasphemous out-of-wedlock love-brow.
Then, after staring and being miles away, her face suddenly relaxed.
“Oh, wait a minute! How about ‘Agnes Wildefleur, She had a large heart And a big bite. And it… assassinated her.’ Wow. That sounds great.”
Her mouth eased into a smile. Except…
“No. That definitely sounds like someone shot me. But it sounds so cool! (Sigh). If people thought a guy with a gun took me out, that would be impressively tragic. But no one hates me that much. I don’t have that many friends, but I don’t think I have any real enemies. Well, that crazy baboon in the monkeyhouse always acts insane and spits at me whenever I go see him, but I think he’s just an old, crazy monkey.
“Naw, it would’ve been perfect if I were an elected person, like… the President or Governor. Hey, isn’t the Dog Catcher elected? Well, maybe not him, then… Oh!”
Suddenly, Agnes’ eyes became huge, as if inflated from within.
“But Spring Tree Queen would work! Oh, yes! If I were elected the Spring Tree Queen, then this would’ve been the perfect epitaph for me!
“If only I were the Spring Tree Queen.”
THE Spring Tree Queen...
“And here she comes , Ladies and Gentlemen!”
The announcer on the Grandstand would announce my arrival in the Annual Spring Tree Celebration Parade.
I see the speakers mounted on long pieces of wood at each end of the Grandstand. I can’t believe how excited I am hearing his scratchy, megaphoney voice.
“Please welcome the lovely Agnes Wildefleur, recently elected to the prestigious post of this year’s Spring Tree Queen! Like a beautiful, radiant flower, the youthful Miss Wildefleur exhibits the enthusiasm required to celebrate the local fruit tree industry. Normally this illustrious title is bestowed upon a high school senior, but Miss Wildefleur’s qualifications were so obvious, an exception had to be made in her case.”
And then the cheering begins.
They see the Mayor’s convertible, all blue and waxed shiny, the traditional car of the Spring Tree Queen, pulling slowly in front of the Grandstand. There I am! Seated in back, perched on the back of the back seat. The Mayor is my chauffeur and my little Saplings-in-Waiting sit in the back seat on either side of me and below me as I sit up on the back seat, waving to the people on the sides of the street, wearing my long, lime green gloves. The pale green translucent fabric leaves that decorate the gloves flutter and dance in the wind like they’re all hula-hooping. As we drive, my little Sapling Girls throw out seed packs and candy to the laughing children.
We follow behind the big flatbed truck for the Willy Jar-Woo Judo Academy. Little Mr. Jar-Woo is taking on all his black belt students, tossing them this way and that, flinging them like bean bags wearing white pajamas. There is the constant sound of “Hai! Hai! Hai!” as the serious looking students flip each other in a continuous demonstration. But there are no unexpected screams like that one year when Jupiter Greevus, Jr. had his collarbone broken.
Jupiter’s older brother Pluto Ray Greevus happened to catch the whole accident on the family video camera. Pluto Ray tried to make some secret money selling tickets in the schoolyard and behind the Dog and Shake Stand, selling them at a dollar a ticket, to come watch the tape in his basement.
A lot of kids wanted to see the tape, because everybody who was there for the parade heard the collarbone snap and it was sickening. And then when Jupiter wouldn’t stop screaming, it’s no wonder Pluto Ray thought he had a blockbuster on his hands. Rumor had it that Pluto Ray captured the moment as if he rehearsed for it. The moment the bone snapped, it was supposed to look so gross, they said you better not be eating while watching it.
But Pluto Ray was one of the most evil bullies that anyone had ever been subjected to. And his past caught up with him. Kids avoided him. In fact, he was an adult now, going to the community college, so that had an effect on breaking his stranglehold on manipulating all the weak kids around him. He had been away from his bullying grounds just enough that his bullying was old news, so kids just stayed away from him because they hated him.
So, even though he sold no tickets, his parents found out about him trying to sell tickets, and his dad dragged him back to their tool shed in the afternoon before dinner, so everybody in the neighborhood heard when his dad beat him with a belt for like fifteen minutes. Pluto Ray wound up screaming longer and crying louder than his younger brother did during the parade.
The Mayor’s convertible is all decorated with tissue flowers, all different colors. There’s a big banner mounted on the front bumper, beautifully lettered and printed, announcing this year’s Spring Tree Queen, which is me.
Behind us there is the high school band, all sweaty and dripping in the hot sun, all dressed up in their black and gold wool uniforms. They’re playing a song that was really popular last year on the radio, a disco song, but now it sounds like a march and there’s a lot of tubas and saxophones playing instead of the big thumping dance beat and singing girl chorus. It sounds funny. In front of the band are the rows of Majorettes and they all look glamorously beautiful. They all wear one piece bathing suits, half of them all gold, half all black, the letters of the high school on their fronts, either in black or gold, the opposite of their suit color. They all have the tall band hat with the black and gold plume sticking up in the top. They wear pointy heeled plastic white boots that go to the knee, the top of the boot shaped like the point of a calligraphy pen in front. On the instep are black and gold little pom-pommed tassels that bounce like jumping beans as they high step through their baton routines.
The Head Majorette also wears a gold one piece bathing suit, but she’s the only one who wears a black band jacket, too, open in the front with wide lapels. The jacket trails cool tails, too. In her mouth is a big silver whistle and she holds a long metal, silver marching stick, topped with a chrome ball and decorated with black and gold poms-poms. The girls are all beautiful, made up with eyeliner and mascara-ed lashes, and even though they’re all sweaty, too, just like the band behind them, the mascara starting to run down some faces and the swimsuits stuck up some of their butts, they all still spin and throw their brightly flashing batons like the whole street is actually air conditioned and there are no weird old men snapping their pictures.
Everybody’s happy.
I see Mom and Dad, and they’re all proud and beaming, pointing me out to the neighbors and relatives surrounding them, taking pictures and enjoying the magical moment.
I’ve been smiling and waving to people for so long it seems like I’ve been doing it forever. And I don’t mind. I wave so well, I sometimes want to just stare at my hand and watch it wave to everybody, the cheers of the crowd cheering it, not me.
Everything’s wonderful.
Which is why it’s so shocking to everyone when a sniper’s bullet hits me in the middle of my forehead. In the slow motion excitement, no one heard the gunshot from the rooftop of Mr. and Mrs. Stublinger’s 5 and 10 across the way. The little spunky bullet gleams proudly before it enters my head, punching a little round hole into my skull, as if my bobby pins pulled my bangs to either side to help the bullet find the center of my forehead. The little hole that’s in my head makes me think of the magnifying glass, and the spooky holes it burned into Sassy Sally last summer, points of flame that appeared out of nowhere, invisible and deadly and burning her plastic face without warning. Like they were possessed by the Devil and he was poking his burning finger through their skin from inside. Sassy Sally and the rest of those dolls never had a chance. Like the sniper, my aim last summer was flawless.
The bullet that hits me is so unexpected, I’m still waving, my smoothly waving hand turning back and forth like it’s a lawn sprinkler, except it doesn’t go tch-tch-tch-tch-tch half the time.
What was slow motion wonderful before is now frozen disbelief, like a flipbook of photos of me flipping by one page at a time slowly.
F L I P.
F L I P.
F L I P.
I slowly flip-flip-flip move back silently through the air, my arm still raised to the crowd.
F L I P.
F L I P.
F L I P.
I’m still smiling, but I’m not showing my teeth anymore. My eyes are open but they don’t look like they see anything anymore.
Because my head is suddenly going backwards, my hair sways. Oh, I had such lovely hair. It was full of curls and ribbons and little fake fruit tied up in it.
F L I P.
F L I P.
F L I P.
And suddenly the back of my head barfs. It barfs up pieces of my brain, and like a mid-air chunky leak, I spout red pieces out of my head into the bright blue sky. And I’m still smiling but my eyes are definitely dead.

When time decides to move on, I see myself from above looking down as my body slams back across the trunk. My brains are messing up the blue, waxy shine above me. My raised arm lies next to me, still looking like I’m in mid-wave. My eyes are open and the blue trunk is now my sky behind me. I don’t hear the screams of the people but the air is filled with it. The car keeps driving. High pitched screams of Sapling Girls are in the mayhem mix. I’m starting to slide backwards across the trunk, slipping into the dark sap pouring out of the Spring Tree Queen’s head.
There’s a close-up on my face, and my eyes are still open. I still look beautiful and kind of happy.
I just have a little hole in my forehead.
The casket would have to be closed because no one wants to put a cork in me.
But, I could definitely get away with ‘Agnes Wildefleur, She had a large heart And a big bite. And it assassinated her.

Neat...

**********************************

Thanks.

PS. I have a few nervous defensive comments regarding my efforts here. If you'd care to see them, go here. Thanks again.

29/172
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The day I went skydiving... (25/177)

2007-07-08T18:22:00.002-04:00

Yo.
This post originally was tagged onto a previous post, the first part of my "8 Things Meme."
But, since this account was so long, I decided to cut it off the original post and just run it separate.
That's all.
Hey, I get another post out of this! Cool!*

A dear friend of mine, Amelie (not her real name), who I was actually quite fond of at the time (well, I’m still fond of her but THEN my fondness was more actively on display) (no, not like that! Shut up!), one day asked me if I would do her a favor. Of course, I said sure, absolutely. She had always wanted to skydive. Would I want to go skydiving as well, to help her fulfill this wish?
Sure! Absolutely!
Well, that’s what my mouth said, but my brain was actually more like, “wait, what…?”
Jeez, I forget what year this was, but it was the early 80s, 1983 at the latest.
She took care of all the arrangements for the skydiving. It was going to be in the summer. Meanwhile, contemplating my options, like, what could possibly happen to me when I jumped out of a plane, I began therapy a couple months prior to that impending fateful day, in an attempt to deal with some personal issues, in case, you know, I didn’t have an opportunity to do so after the jump.
Whatever happened to her unfulfilled urges to go bowling?

It was a one-day training course in Wyoming County, NY, about 6 hours long. The jump would be a static-line jump, meaning, I wouldn’t have to pull the rip-cord myself in order to open the chute. You know how in those World War II movies, where a bunch of paratroopers are standing in line on a plane, waiting to jump out of an open door, and each one has a line attached to a wire running over the door? Every time a paratrooper jumps out the door, the line that’s attached to them is still attached to the plane, and it automatically pulls their chute open. They’re doing a static-line jump. But in my case, my line was attached to a metal ring set in the floor inside the small plane.
[NOTE: Now, we could've taken the option to pull our own rip cord as we jumped from the plane for our first jump, but the training is more involved and I think that would've been a two-day course. Also, in that situation, when you jump from the plane, you bail out at a higher atltitude, 10,000 feet (vs. 3,000, which is what we did), plus two instructors free-fall alongside you. As you plummet to the ground, the instructors watch as you pantomime pulling the cord. When they figure you’re ready, they peel away from you, and you yank away. At least, that’s how I remember it being told to me way back then. But Amelie just wanted to do the one-day deal, which was fine.]
Our training course covered what to look for after you exited the plane: how to check if your chute opened properly; if it hadn’t, what to do (no, not scream and die… jerks! No, you had to jettison this opened chute and deploy your back-up chute); what to do if you land in a tree, body of water, electrical lines, oncoming traffic, angry horned livestock; how to land properly in an open field; how to gather up your chute when on the ground.
And, of course, you pay up in advance.
I remember during that day’s training, the instructor made a point of saying how carefully the back-up chutes were packed. If someone crashed into the ground because of apparent parachute malfunction, someone from, uh, some monitoring agency? The skydiving place? People with credentials from both? (Somebody.) will come running up to the flattened corpse and immediately pull the back-up chute’s rip-cord to see if that was still operable. The instructor said there was a recent incident where something like that happened. A body mooshed into the dirt, and the back-up chute hadn’t gone off according to spectators. But these guys ran up to the sky-kill and pulled the cord, and the back-up chute immediately deployed, like an Acme product worn by Wile E. Coyote. So, in the recent death cited by the instructor, it was human error for the back-up chute not being used, not mechanical error. Or choice (You know: “Adios, cruel world, etc.”). Whichever. Why this should be a comforting story to us skydiving virgins before we hurl ourselves out into space New School Lemming Technique, I’m not sure. “So, don’t worry, you nervous ground-hugging maggots! This back-up chute is guaranteed to save your life should circumstances warrant its use. The only thing that could muck up this back up system is YOU. Your life is in YOUR hands now. Screw up and DIE. You get me? Hope you were paying attention to everything we said today. Okay, into the plane! Last one in gets to be ridiculed mercilessly all the way up, plus owes everyone a skippy cup. What are you waiting for? MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT!!”
Obviously, I’m being a silly ass.
The instructors were very pleasant and patient. Not a stereotypical drill sergeant in the bunch. If anything, they were laidback.
Like dope fiends.
Dammit!

It was a long hot day and by the time I got up in the air, I was pooped. But Amelie wound up going up before me with a couple other students (the plane was pretty itty bitty), so I got to see if she was going to survive this reckless endeav--, uh… if she was going to land close to the target they had set up on the ground. The target was an area drawn out in white lines on the ground, and if Mistress Fate decided to let you kiss the earth in celebration rather than very, very, VERY quickly, AND if She also decided to let you look really cool and like you knew what you were doing while you were landing, you’d land in that marked off area (like 10’x10’ or 15’x15’- not all that huge). On the ground they also had constructed a large movable wooden arrow, about 15 feet long, maybe bigger, maybe way bigger. It looked like one of those arrows you spin in a board game, except there were no areas marked with colors like in TWISTER. When you jumped from the plane, somebody was on the ground minding this arrow. Now, the significance of this arrow was this: your chute was designed with an opening in the back, like a sliver about 4 feet long. It ran the length of the outer edge of the chute and then was shaped like a wedge, about 6” wide, I think, at its biggest opening in the middle. This opening was directly behind you, supposedly giving you 3 miles per hour of forward thrust as you descended. You had two handles hanging down from the chute, each on a cord, one on either side of you, which you pulled to go in a particular direction. If there was a lot of wind that day, you might overshoot the target. So, while you were floating down, someone on the ground was aware of the wind’s speed and direction, and their job was informing the skydiver via the arrow’s direction as to what direction the skydiver should be facing in order to (theoretically) land close to this target.

Well, Amelie had an amazing landing.
Right in the square!
Crap! The pressure was on to not only survive my fall, but to also land competently.
Double crap!
Somewhere, there’s actually super-8 footage of her landing. It was fun, and disturbing, to watch this bit of film because when her feet hit the ground, her body pseudo-crumples on impact. She immediately falls/rolls to the side as instructed. When she quickly gets up, she’s all happy and laughing, obviously, because she’s not a huge-ass stain on the grass or 10 miles from the target either. But this crumpling thing… man! When we first watched the film together, we laughed and winced watching it.
“Oh, Jesus! Look at that!”
Then we kept replaying it, like Kevin Costner replaying the Zapruder film for the jury.
“Doesn’t it look like her head’s gonna snap off? Rewind that!”
It was fun to do this because we weren’t doing this at a memorial, of course.
So, then it was my turn, and the metaphorical fledgling-skydiving gauntlet had been flung merrily in my face: land as close as THAT, you muther!
Up I go.
In the plane, the instructor attaches the buckle of my line into the metal ring in the floor. There’s a gizmo he has behind the pilot’s seat, some sort of deal he looks into to figure when to tell me to go. Probably similar to how they site bombing targets from planes during wartime, some kind of scope with maybe a cross-hair and some measuring gauge, so that they could calculate when to release the bombs. Although, in this case, instead of explosives, they just yell at you as you wait in the doorway, “Go, ya bag of meat! Go!”
Meanwhile, I remember being really exhausted when I got in the plane. The door leading into the open air opened up (or was it already open? I can’t remember accurately anymore) and the instructor told me to get into position. I shimmy over to the opening, and then carefully sit on the edge of the doorway, my legs dangling out. I feel like a bunch of lead. I look outside and man, am I high in the sky. I see a couple of the Great Lakes on the curved horizon and I’m thinking, “Man, I’m actually going through with this, huh?”
The instructor yells: “Ready?”
“Yeah!” I yell back. “I guess,” I think to myself.
I look out. I get more in position, my foot on a metal step that sticks out, which gives me something to push off of from the plane. So this is 3,000 feet up, huh? Huh.
My instructor yells: “Okay, GO!”
“Okay!” Man, I’m just a big, pooped lump sitting in an open doorway of a small plane. Long day, man…
Instructor: “GO! NOW!”
Right. Hell, I paid the money, I might as well…

Not quite in slow motion, but sort of surreally, I remember both exiting deliberately, and feeling like I just kind of, fell out. Then, my training kicked in, but it felt like I remembered to do everything after a 3-second delay. For instance, when I jumped from the plane, I was supposed to arch my body back as I pushed forward away from the plane, my arms out. That was the form I practiced on the ground while hanging from a swing set sans its swings. But as I dropped through the air, THEN I remembered to do it. I was also supposed to count, to make sure I allowed enough time for my chute to deploy before I assessed how successful the deployment went. But I think I was already staring up at the open chute for several seconds before I thought, “hey, aren’t you supposed to count?” “Oh, right! One-one thousand, two-one thousand, etc…” So, I think being tired was my main excuse for the dragged out way I did everything. Luckily, everything went fine.
My chute opened, it didn’t trail me like a dead jelly fish, or form a “bra” (where one of the lines unfortunately gets caught dragging over the entire chute, thereby forming a brassiere-like chute with two cups rather than one large cup). So, I could relax and enjoy my singular view.
I floated down through the sky, and in the distance I saw the curved horizon and lakes Erie and Ontario. The sun reflected brightly over the water’s surfaces. Ridiculously, I started singing. I don’t recall what, but it seemed I should do something to celebrate the moment and that was all I could think of.
I then remembered to look down and check out the direction that the arrow was pointing in. Way, way down there was a comically dinky arrow. I really had to look to find it. But I did, and then made a slight adjustment in which way I was facing, pulling down on one of the steering lines dangling by my head. Then I hung around and looked some more at the sight.
My ears had popped. Singing was strange because of that, because I could only hear myself in my head, like I was next door to my voice. Plus, my choice of song was not that inspired. I forget what it was, but it wasn’t anything clever or earthshaking. It could have been a Sousa march I was singing. The usual silliness from me.
At regular intervals I’d look down at the arrow and make adjustments if necessary. I remember at one point thinking it seemed that even though the arrow appeared to be getting gradually larger, like everything else on the ground, it also seemed like the distance was staying the same or further. Instead of looking down at the arrow directly, it seemed that I continued to look down and off to one side all the time.
Eventually, I was close enough to the ground that I started to realize something. I remember starting to make out small figures moving on the ground. People. Running people. Then I looked closer at the arrow. No one was actually at the arrow. Ah. Crap. No one seemed to be “steering” me. I then decided to just aim my ass (okay, my front, actually) straight at that damn, definitely growing arrow and hope for the best.
I adjusted myself a 30 degree turn to my left and tried to be as heavy as possible. Meanwhile, I’m also noticing all these trees surrounding the landing strip, looking closer than I realized. Nuts. I really didn’t want to land in a tree. For the simple reason that if I was going to land in a tree, I had to adopt “Defensive Posture ‘S’ for ‘Freaking Squirrel Motherfreak” to protect all my physical parts that were, you know, the worst areas to be pierced by a branch, such as my armpits, my crotch, etc. But, I really didn’t have the energy to go through that defensive effort and consideration. So, I focused on being as dense as possible, like planet Jupiter dense. Soon enough, I knew that when I eventually plowed into the earth I wasn’t going to be anywhere NEAR the target square on the ground. As things on the ground loomed larger in quicker and quicker fashion, I wondered if I’d land ANYWHERE near the property of the site at all. The boundary of the nearby woods crept closer but they weren’t going to be an issue after all. Hooray! No armpit and crotch grabbing for me!
It looked like I was gonna hit field, specifically field just beyond the landing strip, behind a small hill.
In MY super8 landing footage, you see me exit the plane and the chute pop open. As I get closer to the ground, for some reason I never get bigger. My body and parachute disappear ever so lamely in the distance behind a hill. My parents remember watching the plane, seeing me jump out, watching my descent, and then Amelie running over to them, agitated, breathless, upset, and apologizing to them PROFUSELY about no one minding the arrow and directing my descent and apologizing about dragging me into this exciting venture, and then my parents turned back and watched me get, well, smaller as I got closer to the ground, disappearing behind a hill.
Or, as my mom told me, “Amelie was so upset! She kept apologizing to us. ‘I am so sorry! I am so sorry!’ But this seemed typical of you, so we weren’t too worried.”
At a hundred or so feet above the ground, and that ground coming up VERY quickly now, I remembered to look up at the horizon and not down at the ground, as per my training. The ground comes up so fast, you’ll always misjudge your landing if you stare down at the dirt in order to time your roll/fall. Instead, you are to look at the horizon and prepare yourself to act as soon as your legs make contact. Which I did. I rolled/fell immediately upon impact, and I was okay.
Although, man, when you finally touch earth, you hit it hard.
My best friend Steve came running over from around the hill, super8 camera in hand. I quickly restaged my landing for humorous effect. Getting up slowly from the high grass, I feigned a comical look on my face depicting the effects of a jostled brain after landing. Amelie came running over soon thereafter. Her expression was a curious combination of elation and apology as she saw me standing there safe, unscathed and un-tree impaled. She breathlessly told me all about how they had forgotten to man the arrow and how she gave them a proper tongue-lashing.

I remember that for at least a week after doing this, I felt invincible, like I could do it over and over again. But now?
Uh-uh.
Screw THAT noise.

*I am SO cheating.

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Both cool AND weird: check out Neil Gaiman's blog! (22/190)

2007-06-25T22:06:00.000-04:00

Hi.
Well, I have one week left to finish up the first draft of my screenplay for SCRIPT FRENZY.
If I do somehow accomplish it, most definitely it'll need another draft because the first draft will be CRAVING improvements left and right.
But...
that's not why I'm posting right now.

In this crazy world of blogs and bloggers, it's a strange phenomenon, I think, to be able to anonymously rub elbows with famous people and the such through their blogs.
One of those celebrities whose blog I occasionally I take a peek at is Neil Gaiman's.
Besides the fact that it's NEIL GAIMAN'S blog (he is the legendary writer behind the Sandman comic book from Vertigo/DC and author of several fantasy books including Stardust and American Gods ), it's also cool to check it out because of his curious intineraries and people he calls pals that appear in the blog.
Like, one day I was checking out the thing and he was talking about this wedding he was attending.
There was a picture of the groom. He looked like a friendly enough sort, almost like a big leprechaun, whether he was Irish or not. Well, it turned out this large red-faced "pixie" was ... freaking ALAN MOORE!

ALAN MOORE!

The only image I have in my head of freaking ALAN MOORE is of him looking very serious/dour/sinister, with long, LONG hair hanging down from his head, unglamourously, almost like a cape about his face.
He looked seriously dangerous or seriously humorless.
And that's always the image I have of him in my head.

And then... this Lucky Charms thing!
Anyways, he married his long-time girlfriend, Melinda, the artist for the self-described pornographic comic, LOST GIRLS, which Moore also wrote.

But, that's ALSO NOT why I write about Senor Gaiman's blog.
Why is this: for two weeks, Gaiman has a guest blogger taking over posting duties, and this guest blogger is his daughter, Maddy Gaiman.

I just find the whole business of reading this stuff a bit screwy. And charming. And just so cool and weird.
So, thought I'd share.
Here's her first post.

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8 THINGS MEME: Part One, Items 1-3 (20/209)

2007-06-06T12:48:00.000-04:00

Okay, I took up the challenge to do this meme from Sylvanwitch.
And boy, I am reminded yet again how indulgently long-winded I am. Therefore, Part One of this supposedly quick, disposable meme.
But, that means I get another blog post out of it! Yes!

The rules are as follows (courtesy SW):

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. (I'll tag you, but don't feel obligated.)
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

8 BRIEF FACTS ABOUT ME:

1. T, MY NAME IS NOT ALICE
If I remember correctly, I’m named after a character from a book my mom was reading (or had read), and he was a knight: Sir Terence. (And that’s how I spell it: one “r”, no “a’s”). I mention this in case there’s any confusion as to why a guy who’s Dutch-Chinese-German-Indonesian has an Irish first name.
…and that’s wrong.

Terence is NOT Irish. Crap. All these years I was mistaken. I googled to double-check ethnic origins of my first name and apparently Terence is Latin in origin, from Terentius. D’oh! Also, according to this little chart, it’s a popular first name (top 1000), peaking in 1950-60, in the top 300. So, I’m part of the popularity herd (I was born in ’60). Or a bunch of moms really dug this mysterious book.
Ut-everway.*

*Okay, this was a confusing attempt at Pig-Latin (get it? Yeah, I’m lame). The problem of course, was trying to make it readable to get the right pronunciation, because to just drop the “w” would leave you with “hateverway”, which LOOKS like it reads as, “HAT-everway,” doesn’t it? So, I attempted to spell it semi-phonetically. Mixed results ensued. Curses!, he cursed.

2. I, NUDIUS
For several minutes, I walked about in public in the nude in broad daylight. It was on the nude section of a beach in the Netherlands when I was 18. It took a while to walk to that section of the beach, too, from the regular public area where my mom and relatives were situated. But, determined to find it, I kept trucking. I realized I was getting closer when I’d see occasional “foxholes” in the sand where I briefly spied very undressed couples lying in them. Finally, I arrived: there was a large sign erected, written in several languages, explaining that this was the nude section of the beach.
A lot of the flesh-baring sun-lovers there were mostly middle-aged or older. Although, chasing after each other in the waves, playing, were a couple naked young men. I took a deep breath, yanked off my swim trunks, and pseudo-calmly walked on au naturel.
Other then the two young men, there weren’t any real leering memories I have of the experience, no feverish memories of hot naked young Dutch maidens bronzing in the altogether on the sand, perhaps wearing only wooden flip-flops.
The public beach did allow topless bathing, so I was able to get my eyeful that day, oh, don’t you worry, troubled readers.
Back at the El Nudo Sands, I saw a very old guy, all dressed up in a black suit, stooped over considerably, making his way with a cane as he went across the sand. But, as I said, mostly older, flabby people were displaying their sensual wares.
Another guy (in his 30s, 40s?) walked along starkly and as he reached the multi-lingual sign, almost without breaking stride, simply bent over and put on his trunks and continued walking into the non-nude section of the beach.
Finally, when I saw a couple unattended German Shepherds roaming the beach and water, their tongues hanging out hungrily, I nervously threw on my trunks to protect my modest but unprotected dangling meat.

3. THE SUMMER I STARTED THERAPY
I skydived once from 3,000 feet.
Ah! I remember it well!

I jumped out of a small airplane, and it was only at that point, when I left the safety of the plane, that I discovered that Lady Luck had decided to stiff me that day and, instead, she had taken this one inopportune opportunity to attend a sale at the mall, because my chute refused to open.
After my initial panic, I calmly assessed my situation, and then decided on my best course of action, which was… to start flapping my arms like a delirious, desperate bastard while simultaneously praying (although, it sounded more like hysterical girlish screaming. At best, it was hysterical girlish screaming in tongues.) Somehow, though, through sheer will, adrenaline - whatever - I actually defied physical logic enough to slow my whistling descent to the degree that my dark-green jumpsuit was no longer in danger of bursting into flames from friction.
My featherless, flapping, gibberish-screaming body crashed into a conveniently placed old barn, leaving a hole in the wooden roof that was distinctly in the shape of my body, just like a cartoon (it’s not just a funny bit, it’s physics!). Although my one eye was skewered upon entry by a sliver the size of a chopstick, the other eye that was more adept at winking and signaling morse code was still operational, and for a fraction of a split second, I saw a soft bed of hay beneath me.
Perhaps God had a miracle up his sleeve yet.
I reflexively cried, “Yes!” in optimistic jubilation. Unfortunately, bad luck trumped the Almighty (damn you, damn mall sale!), because there was a pitchfork in the hay as well. While still screaming “Yes!”, I was impaled on the business end of said fork, which had been left standing pointy-side up against a hay bale (uh, one word: “fucking unsafe you fucking farmer fucks!” ). Because of the speed of my descent, my body did not stop at all at the point of four-tined quadruple-puncture impact, and instead, my body quickly ran the length of the handle and rammed to an abrupt, dusty stop into the dirt floor, forcing another body shaped imprint, this time several inches deep into the earth. Since I hadn’t the time to finish screaming “Yes!” like a deluded idiot, the ground crammed immediately into my screaming maw, where it then exited by squirting out of both my ears like I was some Charles Addams themed Play-Doh Factory. The pitch fork’s tines had struck me squarely in the chest, and surreally, tore out both my lungs, which hung grotesquely like a bloody, spongy mop over my flattened carcass.

And that’s how I died that summer day in the 80s.

At my funeral, that irresponsible clothes-whore, Ms. Luck, was appropriately apologetic looking, while still looking stunning in the new floral print dress and wide brimmed hat she bought at the mall…

Okay, seriously, I actually DID skydive from 3,000 feet.
And after twenty-plus years, I remember it, um, okay.

If you want to read my recollection of that day, go here. I originally had it here, but it runs roughly 2700 words, and for the simple concept of an "8 Things meme", it seemed overwhelming. So, I've decided to break it off and post it as a separate entry.
Meanwhile, I WILL finish this meme, just not right now, because, um, I'm a bonehead.

NOTE: I’ll tag my people after I finish the 8 items in Part Two, coming soon…
Later!

Oh, and P.S.: I would include a link to Sylvanwitch's original post, except it's a locked blog entry, so no "general public readers" can read it. Sorry. And hence.

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THE FEMME FERINES! A meandering attempt at prose writing...(18/226)

2007-05-20T09:36:00.000-04:00

Yeah.
Anyways, I've always thought about writing something, perhaps not a book, but a short story or stories. My most specific writing fantasy is writing humorous stories a la Woody Allen. I have, I think, all his collections of pieces from the New Yorker, and I always thought they were great.
If I did write, a short story seemed more my speed rather than a novella or novel.
Having said that, I'm trying to write a novel.
But at a very leisurely pace.
Because I don't really know what I'm doing.
But, I had some ideas for a subject and some characters, and one day, I thought, well, why not try to see if I can realize this idea. What follows is what I more or less wrote.
Since then, I left it alone for a number of months, and while trying to create some room on one of my computer disks, came across it again.
I read it and I actually liked it for the most part.
Since then, I've attempted expanding on it.
And that expansion has so far resulted in 3 more pages of okay, exploratory, maybe even experimental, at least for me, writing. But mostly, like all the writing I seem to be doing lately, throwing words onto the paper seems to help me ask more questions and attempt to be more definitive in directions to go with my characters personalities, backgorund stories/histories and plot.
So my rough, rambling writing is very much a journey of discovery.

On its own, this little smidgen here has a nice little beginning, middle and end as an introduction to these four girls who are the stars of my story.
In the expansion process, I realized that I'd probably cover the introductions/exposition of these characters earlier than this particular point in the delicatessen.
Also, I expose many of my, as a writer, and this story's potential weaknesses, if not, immediately, than real damn soon.
Like, what do I really know about fourteen year-old girls, let alone four of them?
I'm kind of nervous about that, but that doesn't seem to be stopping me.
Irrational inspiration to plow on recklessly includes the French movie BETTY BLUE. In it, Jean-Hughes Anglade plays a character named Zorg, who meets Beatrice Dalle (Betty). She discovers boxes of a manuscript he wrote, in longhand, for a novel he never tried to get published. The manuscript takes up many hardcover journals, which I found to be an incredibly cool image.
Whatever.
Seriously.
As in whatever gets me to keep going.

This passage has the working title of "Chapter 2: The Liberation of the Slutty Fury."
In reality, it may not be Chapter 2, but it's definitely NOT Chapter 1. I'm thinking of introducing Agnes first as a student at a new school and very slow at making friends. Eventually, she meets Dora, becomes friends with her, and Dora introduces her to the other two characters.
Meanwhile, one of the bad habits I have is starting several ideas and never finishing any of them. One such idea is a comic book character, loosely inspired by Mexican lucha libre (as seen in the El santo films and also touched upon in the film NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES), as well as some influence from the comic book put out by los Bros. Hernandez --Jaime, Gilbert, and occasionally, Mario-- called LOVE AND ROCKETS. Anyways, the character is called Jheena the Jungle Fury.
Well, in the interim when I was doing nothing with this comic book character, I appropriated her into action in the Femme Ferines story. She's a comic book character that Monica obsessively reads and thinks about. Which is typical of me. If I have a number of unrealized ideas, they suddenly start appearing in other unrealized ideas.

A thought occurred to me in terms of structuring this goofy novel and i'm thinking of approaching it as a series of collected short stories about the girl, that occur chronologically. One appealing prospect of this approach is trying to get some of my "chapters" published as short stories. That way I can get some immediate feedback on my writing (also known as rejection letters, hate mail, etc.).

My intention, though, is to submit this, eventually, of course ("of course" implying the obviousness of sometime in the distant future), to a publisher of young adult fiction.
My meager research indicates that the subject matter for such a readership is wide, varied, sophisticated and occasionally quite provocative. With that small scrap of information, I hope I'm not being too presumptious in thinking that I'm not being too offensive in some of word choice or decriptions or subject matter.

Anyways, thought I'd share this little peek with the world here. Now, that may be presumptious, in all its meanings.

Agnes thought she was having a heart attack.
Her chest felt incredibly tight from inside, like it was getting ready to explode – or was it implode?
Well, either way, who cares? When it finally happened -- the explosion/implosion -- what would it matter? She’d be dead. 14 years old and already a corpse.
Suddenly, she could clearly picture herself, dead, in the feverish theater of her mind. Her thin body, abruptly crumpled, carelessly, in a pile, a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, collapsed unceremoniously on the floor of Nadoulmann’s Delicatessen in front of the candy display counter. She was on her back looking up, her eyes blankly staring forward from behind her slightly askew wide frame glasses, her mouth stupidly agape, her pink tongue dangling out of her mouth ludicrously, and finally, a little bit of drool running slowly down the side of her face and collecting on the wooden floor like some colorless syrup.
Agnes considered the scene as if she were God looking down through the ceiling. Alas, there was no dignity in death, she concluded, at least not here going by this pathetic picture.
“Oh, dear,” the Lord Himself would most likely softly rumble. “Isn’t that skinny bit of bones on the floor Agnes Wildefleur? What happened to her?” Of course, since the Almighty was, uh, all mighty and stuff, He’d be omniscient – or was that omnipotent? (Heck, maybe both.) So, perhaps His question would be more philosophical than practical, because for Him it would already be old news that Agnes’ heart just couldn’t take it.
Too much anxiety.
Too much pressure.
“That poor, sweet, fragile child,” the Lord would most likely lament like articulate faint thunder.
“Yes,” Agnes agreed, “yes, I was,” unaware that she had effortlessly shifted from imagining her hypothetical stress-induced death to accepting this death as fact and referring to herself appropriately (now) in the past tense.
“That poor, sweet, fragile child,” the Lord would rumblingly continue, “I guess she really WAS a pussy.”
Wha--? Pussy??
Agnes suddenly stopped imagining herself as a lifeless heap.
PUSSY?!
That’s what Monica called her outside in the alley out back just before they all entered the store.

Altogether there were four involved, four high school freshmen girls: Monica, Isabel, Dora and Agnes. The reason why they were in the store was simple - the same reason why they usually did anything - because it was Monica's idea. Of the four young women, Monica may not have been the smartest (that probably would have been Isabel), the biggest (definitely Dora), or the most talented (the jury is still deliberating that question), but she was the de facto leader of the group by the sheer force of her personality (some would substitute "mouth" for "personality"). Which was fine, considering this coterie of teen-femininity had an agenda that was pretty much a blank slate, thus Monica's daily impulses conveniently filled in the blank.

I keep going to the NaNoWriMo writing model in terms of word production, and they push for 1667 words a day, which will give you 50, 000 in 30 days.

Yeah, that ain't happening. Mostly because I still have too many questions about my characters and plotline.

But I'm trying to do the word count once a week. 1667 words a week. With a schedule that leisurely (arguably), it may offer me the appropriate amount of time to imagine more character and plot details as I write.

Well... it keeps me off the streets.

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Surreal sparrows: more dream fragments (12/269)

2007-04-07T20:55:00.000-04:00

Man, I started this post, like, a while ago, at least a few weeks.
Mainly, I was just happy that I’ve been waking up with some faint memories of dreams lingering about my skull. It’s been a long, long drought for me. Hence, the screwy, artsy-fartsy, briefly alliterative, Capistrano reference.
I still haven’t dug out that breathing machine again—that $1000 breathing machine—that we purchased to address my sleep apnea, but I think I’ve been trying to sleep longer lately. Which is sort of an explanation why I haven’t posted much recently, but not entirely. Anyways, longer durations of unconsciousness may be a simple explanation for the fitful re-appearance of dreams in my life.
But, I’m a little annoyed that I’m having difficulty remembering these damn dreams! Is it because I’m out of “practice”?
Like a couple days ago: I had some dream where Bruce Springsteen was involved. Somehow. I don’t know how. That’s my point. I don’t remember anything else.
And this morning, there seemed to be a lot of business going on in my head with rain slickers, yellow rain coats, maybe other kinds of rain gear, but there was a lot of putting them on and taking them off, and there were SIGNIFICANT REASONS as to why, but those reasons escaped me upon awakening.
Grrr!
A few weeks ago I had a long dream that focused on some fictional celebrity figure, at least in the scenario I dreamt. In the same way that Bill Gates of Windows notoriety or Steve Jobs of Apple fame have become famous and influential figures upon our society, this imaginary dream personality had made an equally significant impression on our lives and they way we lived.
But the specifics..? Ah, couldn’t really tell you.
He had something to do with our everyday architecture and the way we looked at constructing our cities, professionally and residentially.
He was a popular philosopher, spouting practical, thoughtful, insightful wisdom that was accessible to the masses, like Christ’s proverbs or, um, I guess Confucius’ cookie fortunes (sorry, that was sort of meant as a joke but I guess that came across really dismissively), but he also was a genuine genius, like R. Buckminster Fuller, so that when you met him and heard his casual but enthusiastic discussion of his thoughts and ideas, there was no denying his brilliance.
And he very cleverly disseminated his thoughts/proverbs/fortunes via… origami. There would be mass-produced folded paper birds, the kind where you pull the tail and the wings gently flap?
Except, in the dream, instead of delicate and beautiful, the one origami sample I held was pretty fat and clumsy looking. Picture the aforementioned paper bird and now add a huge-ass cube for a body. Like the size of a Chinese food container.
The “idea” in the dream was that it was pretty impressive and wondrous to behold, like, “ooh, how did they do that?” But in waking hindsight, it was pretty un-wondrous and quite laughable.
But all over this fat paper bird were handwritten this wunderkind dude’s aphorisms, with those magnetic ink markers. Gold or bronze colored ink. And I remember in the dream trying my damndest to remember one of these wise gems.
Of course, no such luck.
And the kicker?
This guy had something to do with skateboarding.
He rose out of the ranks of skateboarders.

But I never saw him. I just knew of his existence and his impact on “our” world.

Weird, man.

But, I’m dreaming again!
And THAT’S what makes me happy.

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Dear Diary: The Whining Game (11/292)

2007-03-15T14:25:00.000-04:00

WARNING: Way indiscriminate CAPITALIZING and italicizing follows!

Good lord.
I canNOT believe how bad I am at this. And “this” refers to two different things: maintaining my blogs and living like a human being.

Last week I attempted to inject some posts into my three blogs, because I haven’t been keeping up with that as much as I’d like. So I attempted a “Blog Post Cram Week,” which, strangely, at face value, actually accomplished a teeny bit of what I was trying to accomplish: create more blog posts within a specific period of time. But, I couldn’t even maintain a daily output. I did four. In a week.
Gah.
I have ideas for posts (well, “topics” may be more accurate; “ideas” sounds much more original than what I have in mind), I just can’t seem to get my brain on track to process what I want to say and thus articulate those ideas into any coherent or worthwhile writing.
Say… maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I don’t actually write as well as I think I can. A fact I’m reminded of each time I try reading the crap I’m trying to assemble together.
So, I’m a crappy writer or an inconsistent one at best. I have some moments, but in general, it’s forgettable stuff.
And maybe I’m not that inspired or insightful in my observations, either. Yippee… just some more humility fodder for me to gnaw on bitterly.

Grrrr….*

In opposition to this realization of my failings is my self-awareness and public reputation (amongst my friends) for having a penchant for not finishing or following through on my ideas.
So as I delay posting pieces that I’m (futilely) wrestling with until I “like” them, time trundles on like it do, has did, and will does (ha ha ha ha… Boy, THAT was seriously self-indulgent… but it cracked ME up)…
Which is more important? To try and write better OR try and produce more material for my blog -- my clumsy/gratuitously indulgent writing and lame thoughts be damned?
Umm…
Well, considering that my attempt at improving something (like a drawing, as a for instance) usually means re-working/erasing and re-drawing a piece continually within an inch of its life, and STILL not finishing it because I continue to be dissatisfied with my efforts, then perhaps it’s time to be focused on completing things FIRST and my so-called “quality control” can take a backseat for a little bit.
Having said that, be prepared, oh, sweet, disinterested reader, for some lame-ass movie and comic book reviews, among other things, to come.

MEANwhile…
I am not very happy with the way I’m living my life. I think I’m doing a bad job of it.
Since my mom died-- besides trying to deal with that emotional development, which has been going alright (I think)-- I’ve been mostly trying to assert myself more in terms of the way I live. Like, trying to live my life like it means something to me, like actually pursue those things I’d like to do before I move on to the next phase of my soul-journey (i.e., croak).
Now, part of me is well aware of the expression, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
A corollary to that would probably be, “okay, MAYBE you can, but the learning of the new trick ain’t gonna happen overnight, that’s for DAMN sure.”

Recently, there were some indications at work that things were looking brighter in terms of my shift schedule.
A month or so ago, my company bought up another local printing company, which was located in the Hamburg (south of Buffalo) area. We print a weekly shopper type of paper, delivered free to homes and financed through the various types of advertising our sales staff is able to sell. The company we bought out printed a similar product but not as many editions, roughly half as many as we print.
Now that we own this other company, we now print their additional papers, too. These new runs are referred to as our “South” editions.
Over a year ago, in an attempt to attract more advertisers, my company added a day to our advertising deadlines (at least for two-thirds of our editions), moving it from Thursday to Friday. But, we also tried to deliver our papers on the same weekend schedule that we always had. What that meant was, where we once used to print all twenty editions on a Friday during the day, starting at 5:00 am and finishing when we were done, approximately 10-12 hours later, the total number of editions were now split into three, with one-third to be printed Thursday overnight, and the other two-thirds to be printed Friday overnight, so that the papers would still be ready Saturday morning. With two presses and two press crews available, this meant both crews working a Friday graveyard shift each week, and alternating the duties of printing on a Thursday graveyard shift. Originally the night shift started at 1:00am, which was brutal. But over several months, it’s now evolved to 9:00 pm, which is brutal in a different way, but the way positive side is you get done earlier in the morning, like 3:00-5:00 am.
Personally, I disliked working this so-called third or graveyard shift. My body and mind always fought against having to go to bed in the late afternoon to rest up for the upcoming shift, and generally speaking, when you’re working a third shift, you usually do a whole week of it, so theoretically your body adjusts to the different schedule, not just one or two days suddenly tacked on at the end of the week.
Plus, working Friday night into early Saturday morning always screwed up my sleep and rest on Saturday, so my weekend seemed like only a partial weekend, like one and a half days.
But, what are you gonna do? Well, I suppose if it really bothered you, you could find another job, and when I say “you,” I guess I mean “me.” And apparently it never bothered me enough to do that, never bothered me enough to go beyond being bitchy and crabby on those days I did the “stupid” shifts.
ANYways… so we now have these new guys added to our web press staff from the company we bought.
The Thursday night and Friday night shifts are staying the same, but Friday also has a day shift running the “South” editions, starting at 6:00 am and finishing when we’re done, which has been around 5:00-5:30 pm. So I figured we were going into a big rotation of schedules: one week you do Thursday night, one week you do Thursday and Friday night, and finally, one week you do Friday day.
Rinse.
Repeat.
‘Til you die!

Well, after a month or so of the Hamburg guys working with us, I’ve been scheduled the Friday day shift three times out of four. The second time I was scheduled (rather than getting the double graveyard shift) the reason I got was that one of the pressman was on vacation so this was more of a seniority issue. I somehow have become the “senior rollman,” mostly through other guys quitting or getting fired, not through some cool Thunderdome scenario, and my boss who was helping one of the Hamburg pressmen run the “South” editions on Friday wanted me to do the rolls (loading the paper into the stands). Normally my boss just supervises, he doesn’t actually run anything.
Well, okay. That made some sense.
But then, last week, it seems that the new guys don’t really like the new Friday day shift. When they used to run their papers at Hamburg, I think the editions were split up over a couple days. But for our company’s purposes now, it makes more sense to gun through them on one day at the end of the week, hence...
So, they don’t seem to like the extended shift. They’d rather run a shorter shift (6-7 hours, more or less) on the graveyard shift.
Huh.
So, my boss asked me if I had a preference for the Friday day or the graveyard shifts and I coolly said: “Ooh! Ooh! Friday day! Friday day!”
Starting work at 6:00 am and working 11-12 hours be freaking damned: it would be a return to “Thank God it’s Friday!” and going home to a Friday night at home ALL NIGHT long, and waking up in my own bed to a whole day of a Saturday.
Plus, the other issue was the serious possibility of my flirting with a car accident driving home from a graveyard shift. I’ve had my issues staying awake in the past while driving.
There are numerous anecdotes of me sort of zoning out while standing up at work around 2 or 3 in the morning.
So, I figured from a safety perspective alone, the biggest plus to working Friday days and saying adios to the night shift was safety.

Which is why rear-ending that car driving home from work late Friday afternoon pissed me off so fucking much.

Usually, when I leave for home after a night shift, I stop by at a McDonald’s and order me a bunch of food to eat on the way home. Well, I sometimes do that after a regular shift, too. That’s how I usually deal with being tired when I drive, unless I have no food or am REALLY tired. Then I just pull over into a convenient parking lot and snooze for a half-hour or two.
Well, I was about 15 minutes away from home and I was starting to get really tired. There was a market I was passing by but I figured I’d only be picking up cookies or potato chips to eat if I went there, which didn’t seem very healthy. Tim Horton’s was also nearby but a bunch of sweet Timbits also seemed a bad choice.
Five minutes later, I’m thinking, no, I should really get something to eat to get me home the last little bit. I keep drifting off. Suck! Maybe that Arby’s coming up in a couple minutes, get me a couple cheddar beef sandwiches...? Shoot, I’m always eating fast food! If only I could focus on getting home, just get home. Crap, I think I really need to eat something, though. Okay, Arby’s. Haven’t eaten there in a while. Cheddar roast beef sounds…
BANG!
I zoned out just long enough, that the guy in front of me, who had to suddenly slow down because the guy in front of him suddenly turned into a parking lot, had the swell fortune of me introducing my Ford Contour to his car’s ass-end.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.**

God, I was in SUCH a crappy mood after that incident. The guy I drove into was nice and calm and seemed content, if not eager, to try and fix his loose bumper himself. Yeah, his car looked fine. The bumper moved a little when you pushed on it. I asked him if he could still open his trunk and he tried it and could. (Unfortunately, this question comes from a previous experience YEARS ago of me inflicting damage on another poor motorist’s rear-end). Anyways, this dude didn’t seem anxious to get his insurance company involved and I was miserable and guilty enough not to pursue it. Okay, I did scribble his license plate number down from memory on a greasy napkin, just in case I actually screwed myself by not having any of his info. Meanwhile, I must’ve slid under his bumper and his trailer hitch destroyed my grill and punched a dent into my car’s nose above my bumper, just right of center, shattering my driver’s side headlight frame, and crimping the edge of my hood.
“Safer shift,” my ass. I suck.

That night I was in a plenty shitty mood.

I said barely anything to my wife. I had no words. I was just bile-filled and darkly clouded, which really made me a prick to deal with because I was cleaning up our living room. My wife had some people visiting the house the next day, so I had to remove my clutter, so, you know, they had some place to sit down. I had dragged down a bunch of crap from my workroom to the living room in an effort to clean it out, but that (the workroom rehab) was still taking forever. So I was slowly returning said crap to same messy room.
But my dark, bitter silence was being misinterpreted by my poor wife as anger and resentment towards her for having to clean for her benefit, which was not the case at all.
But I never corrected her. I just stewed in ugly silence.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I finally blurted out to her about my accident.
She was very understanding, undeservedly, and said I should be able to tell her things like that.
I can. I really can.
I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time the previous night to do so.
Anyways.
Cue long, long, long sigh.

Eh.

Que sera sera.

11/292
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*Hey, look at me! I’ve magically turned into an irritable little dog!

**For a suitable interpretation of these last two lines, you may want to check out Rod Steiger’s performance as a Mississippi police chief in 1967’s IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT when he learns that Sidney Poitier, the black man he picked up at a train station for suspicion of murder, is a homicide detective from Philadelphia visiting his mother. Totally different circumstances. Similar emotional reaction.

Dream... (9/308)

2007-02-28T01:34:00.000-05:00

I woke up from a dream tonight.
Which is cool, because it seems I haven't dreamt for the longest time. I used to dream alot, but that seems like years and years ago.
I love my dreams, even the scary ones, and I try to remember them, for story ideas or self-analysis, or most likely, both.
But a few years ago, I was disagnosed with sleep apnea and I got one of those machines where you wear the breathing mask at night. Well, for a short period of time I was wearing it, but then I stopped and it's been a couple years since I have. The last couple times I did, I woke up in the middle of the night with my throat really sore from being dried out, an occasional consequence from the breathing mask and forced air. For those people with sleep apnea that use the machine and also suffer from a dried out throat, they have another machine with a water reservoir, which I guess acts like a humidifier for your throat.
But, I haven't gotten off my fat ass to go about getting one.
And I really should. Because if I'm not sleeping properly, I'm probably setting up my heart for an early heart attack, and that, dear bored readers (ooh, plural! I'm being optimistic!), will completely screw up my strategy to live at least as long as my dad in order to squeeze in some sort of creative career that I never seemed to have pursued properly while I was younger.
I just turned 47, my dad's 81, and my mom just died: the theoretical prescriptive elements for motivation to step out on my journey of creativity.
Uh, more on that at a later date.

But the dream, the dream...

Unfortunately, it's a bit unclear.
Apparently I knew this guy who somehow wound up on the wrong end of a chase/warrant from the authorities.
I'm in someone's apartment and the hunted friend is there and also one of the "feds"(?). The fed reminds me facially, a little, of actor Aaron Eckhart (THANK YOU FOR SMOKING).
I seem to have gotten into some conversation with Agent Eckhart that there's been a mistake.
My "fugitive/hunted/whatever friend" is always in the background, never fully appearing front and center in the dream. I seem to have gotten involved enough in this scenario because of him that I've replaced him in terms of importance.
Anyways, through some vague chain of circumstances, the feds are after my pal (and me because I'm with him). Is my friend Native American? He's not white, which is my sense of him, not becauise I really ever see him clearly in front of me. I wonder if the semi-recent events of the manhunt for Ralph Bucky Phillips influences this thought (the manhunt took place in the Western New York area, so progress of it was constantly in the local news). Although, nationality-wise, I'm an Indo (Indonesian-European) and that's actually what I was thinking was my friend's nationality as well when I woke up.
But Agent Eckhart seems accessible and I've been trying to reason with him about the circumstances that lead to our being caught up in this manhunt by mistake.
There's the sound of a bullhorn from the street outside? It's daytime.
It's Eckhart's superiors. They're coming in for us.
There's a sense of urgency because of this but I don't seem to be making a point of pleading our case to Eckhart any more urgently.
Suddenly, two older men appear in the apartment, specifically the kitchen. I quickly see them through the kitchen doorway. They came in unseen through a window via the fire escape? They're wearing brown, thick jackets, with a dark red plaid interior lining, like hunting coats, rather than FBI or some other appropriate agency gear.
I also have the sense that their motivation is more corrupt than just bringing in a suspect or fugitive.
NOW I proceed to talk quickly to Eckhart explaining the details of our involvement.
My friend (and by implication, me-- I guess I was tagging along) came to this apartment to visit someone. But that someone was part of this investigation. My friend was not involved with what Eckhart's superiors think he was involved with. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Eckhart doesn't know what to do. I can tell he's thinking and he knows he has no time to process this.
My feeling is, it's not a matter of just going with the authorities and straightening it out back at headquarters. If we get taken in, that's it.
I look back at the other two men and suddenly one has a hunting rifle and he's raising it to his eye, taking aim towards me. The other man with him seems to be along for the ride, or at least, letting this one dude take the lead. Without saying anything, their body language seems to say that they're on a hunt as hunters not a manhunt as federal authorities. This further informs my sense that they are corrupt and are hunting us down to conceal some sort of evidence of wrong-doing.
I suddenly run towards a back door and stuff explodes off a nearby dining room table as a shot is fired at me.
As I scramble to escape, apparently I ain't in the mood for this being chased and shot at shit because I struggle to pull myself out of the dream.
I open my eyes and I'm on the couch, Kody (short for Kodiak) is a warm ball next to my chest.
I fumble for my glasses on the cluttered table next to me and I see it's only 12:40 am.
I thought it was going to be 3 or 4 in the morning.
Oh, crap. I remember I left my car in the street...

My explanation of the circumstances that led us to being chased seemed more complicated in the telling to Agent Eckhart, but it seeemed to make sense.
In my re-telling here, I told it more clearly and it made sense, but it's quite possible that my actual explanation made no sense whatsoever during the dream, even if it seemed to make perfect sense.
My lack of urgency after the bullhorn moment makes me think of my mom's recent illness, specifically when she was finally back home.
Part of me has regrets that I wasn't more aggressive in trying to get to the bottom of her sluggish recovery, that perhaps there were signs that she needed to go back to a doctor or the hospital, but I wasn't sensitive to those warning signs. I should have behaved more urgently.
Perhaps that's why I forced myself awake... I know the resolution of this scenario will not be favorable to me.

9/308
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Some sad, terrible news... and beyond (7/312)

2007-02-25T09:06:00.000-05:00

A day that I’ve been dreading for the past several years (but doing very little in terms of preparation for) occurred on February 7, 2007.

My mom unexpectedly passed away.

The dread I speak of wasn’t because she was severely or terminally ill for a prolonged period of time. Although, my mom’s health did take a sudden turn for the worse more or less out of the blue on December 7, 2006 and for her it was all downhill from that day on. But my secret anxiety at the inevitable passing of one of my parents came simply from a few facts:
I’m an only child;
aside from my parents, all my blood kin live outside of North America;
and we all succumb to death at some point.

For the last several days I’ve been thinking of various posts I wanted to do relating to my mom in some way, but the most important, initial information of her dying was a stumbling block for me. So, I’m just blurting it out here and I apologize for that.
Understandably, this event has made an impact on me, and in true blogger fashion, I hope to share-- well, process is a better word-- that impact with the “world” via my puny posts.
Yeah.
Anyways, more to come.

Love and kisses,
Elly’s kid

7/312
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Where have I been? What's going on? (4/355)

2007-01-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

Gah!
I can't seem to focus on anything!
So, I'm just puking SOMEthing out here before several weeks more go by without posting anything.

Meanwhile, THIS damn blog!

And: yes, yes, YES... I know it's BEYOND stupid that I'm keeping three blogs (on myspace, livejournal, and here on blogger). However, I'm compensating by not really doing much with them... isn't that something?
Seriously, I liked the idea of each blog focusing on an interest of mine, and ultimately, each particular blog being a sort of tool to help me go further into each interest (comics, film). Ultimately, I wanted this pursuit to culminate in my actively creating work in each medium.
Well, my livejournal (movies) is the closest to having any sort of success like that. I've actually worked on a few low-budget movies. Okay, not my own, but helping on others' film projects is still filmmaking. Perhaps this year I can include my own personal projects on that list of filmmaking.
But, this third blog is different, and intentionally. I decided to address my other interests here, the ones that I usually ignore because I'm distracted by my creative daydreaming (or even work and sleep).

Specifically, these are areas that are more intellectual or abstract, I guess, instead of tangible creative pursuits, although comics and film have their intellectual dynamics as well. They just aren't purely intellectual to the degree these topics are.
For instance, I'm talking about: politics, spirituality, charity, and um, other issues i can't think of right now.
I have my opinions, but I usually don't voice them because I only know so much, and I really haven't made the effort to actively expand on what I know and decrease what I don't know (Oh. My. God. I'm starting to descend into Rumsfeld territory here). Actually, "what I know," is a misleading crap statement... "what I know" is more accurately "what I believe to be true," or something that I think of as a "valid theory." Again, having arrived at said (thin) theory, I've usually done very little to try to confirm or deny the theory's validity.
And this is because I'm either cowardly (to learn the truth or defend my views), lazy and/or undisciplined to focus my mind on these topics with any sort of regularity.
Personal cowardice aside, I also think the principle of "out of sight, out of mind" is at work here with regard to these topics. Which is why I think, as a practical example, going to church regularly is good, because at least once a week, theoretically, I'll be forced to consider some of these issues (well, primarily spiritual issues). True, a purely primitive reason for going to church, but isn't that the basic reason why we build a church in the first place?.
But, that's the point where I'm at. Primitive. Simple.

So, in a way, this blog will focus on my weaknesses. Not so much to simply expose them to whoever few readers there are, but hopefully to embarrass me into some sort of action that these subjects seem to imply should be taken. In other words, a discussion on charity seems useless if it doesn't motivate some charitable work of some sort (or is that purely a theory of mine? Ha!).
And it was only a couple nights ago while driving that I articulated this blog's distinction to myself (in terms of its relation to the other two sites): this site focuses on my weaknesses.
But, again, not to denigrate myself for having these weaknesses, but as a starting point for attempting to shore up those weaknesses and perhaps, optimistically, convert them into surprising strengths.

Okay, considering I have fragments of several blog posts on the back burner because I can't seem to finish them for one reason or another, I'll end here and act as if I finished saying something here.

No, seriously. I'm done for today.

4/355
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I suck.

2006-10-18T23:00:00.000-04:00

I say that a lot, for a variety of reasons.
I've been meaning to do a sporadic series of blogs focused on why I suck. Or, the I SUCK series.

Let's inaugurate it today, spontaneously, off-the-cuffly, because another reason why I suck is i have all sorts of ideas but never freaking follow up on ANY of them...

WHY I SUCK: part 1.

Oh, there are so many reasons why I feel I'm lacking as a person, and to be honest, they're all pretty trivial. But that won't stop me from obsessing about them.
One of the major reasons I exude suckage is my lack of drawing.
I have some actual drawing talent, but I REALLY lack sitting down and drawing discipline, so I SUCK because I'm squandering a real talent. This is not news to me or others who know me.

A guy I know locally, Joel, is an illustrator who designs a number of posters for local bands.
These posters are terrific.
Check 'em out:
http://www.gigposters.com/designers.php?designer=4788

Joel can also be seen on Myspace. Recently, he's returned to his site and started posting his sketches and drawings again after a lengthy hiatus. Yaaaay! I love looking at his work.
A friend of Joel's and myself is Jim, who's sometimes referred to in each of our blogs. Jim is also an artist, but he uses a lot of photoshop or some damn software, so I'm not as directly inspired because I know crap about that using that stuff. I'm just a pencil and ink dude. hence my Joel envy and admiration.
Anyways here's Joel's Myspace site:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=102037

And here's Jim's website:
http://www.spancwear.com/

So, anyways, with Joel spewing out magnificent sketches and drawings again (the F'n' F!), it seems almost disgusting for me to merely spectate and salivate. I need to join the fray.
I need to get off my cowardly perfectionist ass and draw stuff and post it myself.

Let's see what happens, huh?

Welcome, welcome!

2006-09-23T15:48:00.000-04:00

Well, this poor, lonely site has been lying unfulfilled a little too long. So, let the champagne bottle smashing commence!

Actually, I have no idea what I want to do with this site. but, I think that's part of the vague purpose I have for it, as an outlet for some thinking, an opportunity to contemplate subjects I normally don't allow myself time to .

I have two other blogs, one on Myspace (comic books) and one at Livejournal (movies).
I'd like to consider myself an artist, but I think I haven't produced enough art to have legitimately achieved that status. So, instead, I'm currently a creative individual with alot of unexplored potential.
That is a large part of myself, this creative aspect. I'm forever coming up with ideas for projects, but I never seem to properly apply myself to the execution of those projects.
Unfortunately, I'm now of an age where that fact is becoming a large, and perhaps growing, amount of psychological baggage. I guess the good thing going for me is that we are of a generation that's seeing a longer life expectancy (hell, my dad's survived eight decades so far, and he's not really taking care of himself... he's just freaking durable! So, perhaps I, too, have those, "in spite of myself" extended mortality genes), so I may still salvage some sort of artistic career before I leave this mortal coil, by God!

Actually, there is another aspect of myself that is not creative, that is, I used to think there was, and that is spirituality. I used to consider myself a spiritual person. I'm not sure if I am now. Or perhaps, like my artistic talents, I have spiritual talents, but they, too, are going unrealized.

The hope is that this blog may prove to be a small toehold into a way back into expressing that spirituality again, or living it more in my life. Whatever that means.

Alright, that's it for now. Not quite the dramatic cannon shot across the bow, but something, the heck!