Yay! Last Post Of The Semester!

Well, UW Sheb Luce was asking for submissions, be it art, short stories, poems or what not. So I submitted a song I had published in my second book Jackie Reaper, called "Siren's Song." It was accepted and published in their literary magazine for the spring. Luce also had a reading being done at Paradigm this past Thursday. I agreed to do a reading of my song. A friend from class showed up to cheer me on. They did a good job. My first time doing a public speaking thing like this I didn't know what to expect. Some how or another I was asked if I would be the first to read! I said okay. If you remember from an earlier post I mentioned my stagefright, and this is me forcing myself to get over it. Also, since I am so bad at marketing I plugged my two books before the reading as well. So I was the first up and it seemed surreal (and I hate that word) but I was looking at the audience and even though I saw them it was like they weren't even there, like I was invisible and they just happened to be looking in my direction. My eyes scanned the crowd as I plugged my books, but I never made eye contact that I was aware of. Then I started to sing, I wasn't even really that nervous. I tried to make eye contact with the crowd, but soon lost myself in my own song and the words I was singing. Pretty soon I was just singing and I was the only one there. Just me and the words in front of me. The song done I gathered my books and went back to my seat. Enjoying the rest of the evening with my friend and the others who were doing thier own readings from their own submissions. The ice broken now, I may go to Paradigm for their open mic every third sunday of the month, and try to plug my book some more. Yay! Last post of the semester!

Video Gaming The Rule Rather Than The Exception

Video games have become a cultural norm. I remember when I was little having an Atari and playing Pitfall and Pac-Man. Later we graduated to Nintendo and playing Super Mario Bros. My mother for some odd reason loved watching me play Tetris. I think the Atari went the way of the dodo, and the Nintendo ended in the basement for a while until my daughter wanted it, and fixed what was broken on it. Flash forward to the internet and pc games and online games. My brother is very heavy into this online gaming culture. He even talked me into playing one that was free called Rappelz. It's pretty much a game where you go around and kill things in a medival fantasy setting. But the problem with these games that are free is that you have to pay for all of the good stuff! Me being a casual player I never spent a dime on an online game. My brother on the other hand has spent thousands over the years on these free games. I was playing Rappelz infrequently up until a few months ago when my mediocre account got hacked and someone stole the things I had worked so hard to achieve over the last four or five years. My son logged into his account and found the same thing had happened to him. I was upset, but not really as it was just a time waster, and I wasn't playing all that much anyways. I wonder if my brothers account got hacked, since he had a ton more stuff that he payed money for. So now my friend has introduced me to a game called League Of Legends, that I've played a bunch of times in the last few weeks. But I've never been a big video game fan, they are too addicting, and people waste so much time staring at a monitor or a tv screen instead of going out and enjoying life. Video games should be an infrequent entertainment, like going to the movies or a sports event. Video games have become a cultural rule rather than the exception. But after publishing this I may waste some time on League Of Legends.

Emotionally Atrophied

I've sat down four times today to try and write this, and I stared at the abyss and the abyss stared back at me. I really don't feel like writing about my love life or lack thereof. But I suppose I could try. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post about my shyness, I think it was the one about self-publishing, regardless; I grew up from the little shy boy into a tall shy man. I never dated in high school. I had crush on this girl in the fifth grade, and I only worked up the nerve to ask her out in eleventh grade. I'm not sure why it is so hard for me to talk to women. I guess I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. It took me several months of being friends with my ex-wife before I finally asked her out. After my divorce I dated sporadically, nothing really lasting longer than a year or so. So here I am in my thirties trying to do the dating I should've done in my teens and twenties. But I'm still that shy little boy in a grownups body. But I try to learn from my mistakes. I've encouraged my kids to date in their teens. My daughter has taken quicker to it than my son, but that's because he's a big softy like me. I also encourage my kids to wait until they are in thier late twenties or early thirties before having children. So many teens and twenty-somethings are having kids not realizing how much thier lives are going to change for the next eighteen years or longer. How many people want to get divorced? Not many, but they do, sometimes multiple times. How many people want a marriage like thier parents? Not many want that either, but they do. I would've thought by now that I would've had the typical American family, found someone and remarried, but no. Now I have this overwhelmingly irrational fear that I am going to grow old and alone like my mother, eventually to die alone as she did. Isn't that just about the saddest thing you've ever heard. Then again some people enjoy being alone, but I am not one of them.

Life According To An EKG

It's kind of hard to think of something to write about. Do I write about something positive or something negative? Well, since I don't think I should write about things better told to a therapist, I guess I will share a theory of mine on life. Which as it happens deals with both positive and negative. Life is most often referred to as a road that we travel with different paths and forks to take, the experiences learned along the way equals the person we are today, or in that particular moment, as life is constantly in motion. But I like to think of life as an EKG. The "flat line" is our path in life, same as the road in the above expression. The pulse of the EKG is our highs and lows, our happiness and our sadness, the roller coaster at Great America and the day a loved one died; our experiences. Now one of our experiences may take us so far away from the "flat line" that it becomes a completely different path in life. Let us say for example someone who abuses drugs. Thier EKG dips so low in addiction that now they are no longer the person they were on the original "flat line" and they may never climb back up to the person they were supposed to be, and this new "flat line" will have it's own ups and downs. Conversely someone may take a vacation to Europe and love the country and lifestyle so much they move there away from friends, family and other loved ones, and now they are on a completely different "flatline" with it's own EKG ups and downs. Ever have a day where things just seem to go right? Like life is flowing and you're right where you need to be. Then you have those days where life is throwing you curve after curve and you just want to go home and start over, or realign yourself with the "flatline". Of course this is just my own little theory, the way I like to look at life according to an EKG.

A Very Merry Unbirthday

My birthday is coming up on Monday and it gets me thinking about my life and how I perceive birthdays in general. Growing up my mother never really threw me any birthday parties, I'm not really sure why. I remember her making a cake and giving my presents, but that is about all. That carried over into my fatherhood, somewhat. When the children were young I would have a little get-together, inviting over family and my close friends for a lunch with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. But as they got older that went away. Conversely, as the kids got older my Ex would throw your typical party inviting the kids friends over for more of an evening dinner with cake. She would really go all out. I remember once throwing that typical party for myself after my divorce almost ten years ago, inviting friends over, drinking, eating, loud music. But I've never done it since. I'm not sure why. Is it just that as I've gotten older that the celebration no longer appeals to me the way it would and does for others? But then again, didn't I say that the celebration was never really a part of my life to begin with. I guess I've always been introverted like that. I almost envy those that had that experience growing up, and how it can carry over into adulthood, going out for a night on the town to celebrate. So now I wonder how will my children celebrate thier own birthdays as they grow into adulthood, as well as how they will celebrate thier own children's birthday's. Will they take a more introverted approach as I have, or will they be more extroverted and invite friends and family over, or go out for a night on the town? Oh well, until Monday, a very merry unbirthday to me and to you.

What Easter Means To Me

Every year I go up north to visit family for Easter. It's where my mother was from and a lot of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandmother still live there. Also it's where my mother is buried. She passed away on April 4th, so it's easy to remember that she passed around Easter.  I also visit up north in the fall in late September or early October as that is when her birthday is. It's also interesting to note that my mother passed from ovarian cancer, and that if she hadn't died when she did, a lot more of my relatives may have died. After describing the lump in her belly to her sister (my aunt), my aunt found a smaller lump in the same area. My aunt got tested and sure enough it was cancer, and went through surgery and chemo. My cousin got tested as well, and when hers came back positive she when one step further and had a test done to isolate the gene, she was young enough that there was no lump and just had her ovaries removed. So this cancer was genetic. So far most of the family has gotten tested, and the chance of having this cancer gene is 50/50. Last year I finally got tested, two years after my mom's passing. And I'm fine; my chances of having cancer are the same as that of the average person. But what my mother's passing did, if not save half the family from a potential cancer gene, she also brought me back to my loved ones up north. I had been neglecting to go up and visit them for ten to fifteen years, only for special occasions like say a wedding, or a funeral as when my grandfather passed. But there is so much that I have missed not visiting them for so long, there are other cousins that have moved away and I may never see again, my cousins children that I may never know, so now I make it a habit to go up twice a year. 

The Walking Dead

I wonder how many of you enjoy the tv series The Walking Dead. I also wonder how many of you knew it started out as a comic book. I don't really watch tv at my house, only at friends or relatives houses. When The Walking Dead became a tv series my daughter was very excited about it as she reads the comics along with me. But after the first season she kind of gave up on it, prefering the comic to the tv series (yay for reading!) But I told her it was going to be different and that you had to keep the two seperate, and enjoy each individually. I enjoy talking with a coworker of mine who really enjoys the tv series, and I always compare it to the comic books and what happened in the comics was different than the tv and vice versa. I've only rented the first season, so all I know of the second season was from what my coworker said. But did you know that in the comics Rick's son Carl killed Shane before they left Atlanta, not out at the farm like in the tv series, and not because he was a zombie either. In the comics, when they found out that if you die normally you come back as a zombie, Rick left the group to go back to Atlanta and dig up Shane where they had buried him. Rick sees Shane as a zombie and cuts off his head. In the third season of the tv series I'm guessing they get to the prison as that was the last image of the second season (acording to my coworker). All I can say is, don't get too attached to Lori and her new born, but then again, like I told my daughter, you have to keep the comics and the tv seperate, maybe they'll survive the attack by the Governor, but then again, maybe not. And Michonne is deadly with that sword, I wonder how true they will stay to the comics and at least hint off screen at what the Governor does to her, and if they do that then they would have to at least hint off screen what she does to the Governor, but that might be too graphic. And I also have to wonder if they'll put into the tv series what the Governor does to Rick. I don't mind being a season behind, patience is a virtue I keep telling myself. So by the time I've seen the second season, the third season should probably be close to airing. Enjoy!