the month with the costumes

Updated Author's Note:

I failed to mention one of the annual Halloween rituals!  How could I forget my mother's yearly warning when we set our pumpkins out?  Josh and Megan, you know what I'm about to say.  Every year we would carve pumpkins either the day before or the day of Halloween.  Any earlier and they would rot.  And every year, without fail, up until probably 2010 before my parents moved out to the boonies, my mother had the same warning.

"Don't put those pumpkins too close to the door!  The last thing we need is a fairy princess catching her dress on fire."  Some years it alternated to "a ballerina," but you catch my drift.

Because the tealight inside of a pumpkin could set flame-retardant material on fire in such an absolute flash that it would set a child ablaze before you could even say "Ooh, watch out for that candle!"  I love you mom!

1986

Everyone knows what my favorite holiday is.  It's not hard to figure it out if you know me and my theatrical qualities at all ::tosses hair::

When people tell me they don't get into Halloween, I think a small piece of me dies.  It shrivels up, it rots away, and it dies.  Forever.  How can you NOT get into Halloween?  It's the one time of year you can let your inner freak out without fear of the consequences!  Dress up, go out, have a blast and return to normal life the next day!

Well, not really normal for me, at least.  Typically I dress up a few times and the razor burn and makeup lasts a little bit longer than anyone intended.  But I digress.

Saying you don't get into Halloween automatically makes me think you grew up in the most religious, reserved house in the world.  I think my dad enjoyed Halloween but I know my mom sure as shit has always loved it and the proof to that is in the pudding.  Let's review 28 years worth of Halloween and all that it meant!  Or just skip to the end if you want to know what I'll be this year.

1986, 1988, 1989

I don't remember much about those first years.  I'm sure most of you are thinking "Well no shit, you're hardly bigger than the sperm that made you," but that would play no effect here.  I have a crazy memory about things in general, but I can remember weird details with pinpoint accuracy particularly when it comes to holidays gone by.

Those years, however, there's nothing to recall.

So we've of course got the cute little farmer, with drawn on (and subsequently smeared) freckles.  Then the first and last time I'll ever be a fucking clown (thanks mom).  And then Merlin, which is pretty cool I must say because I was a wizard with a taped and stapled hat and really, does it get any better?  Nope.

1990

Alrighty, here we go, and indeed it DOES get better!  This was the last Halloween at Lanfair Street, and it is the first one I can remember.  My FIRST time as Peter Pan!  The Disney version came out on VHS that year, and upon seeing it I was in love.  What wasn't there to adore about a boy who could fly, wield a dagger and NEVER grow up?  I was hooked.  We grew up in a house that seldom (if ever) bought our costumes from a store.  If you were buying it from a store, you were buying random pieces to make the whole look.

My mom was the best mom in the world because she made us our costumes each year.  And no, not by putting things together, she actually went with us to the fabric store and we picked out a costume and pattern, and then she sewed the damn thing.  Case in point, exhibit below.

1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996

We moved to a new house on Knightsbridge Lane and with it ushered in a new era of costumes and traditions.  We've got the Grim Reaper (and an introduction to makeup that would in later years become... something else) and a Pirate (and probably a gay pirate because hello, check out the shirt and fancy vest).  Then there was my second go at Peter Pan, with a new costume that was based off of "Hook" because it was a live action version and I liked wearing the tights.  Better shade of green, too.

In 1994 I was initially just a dead guy, but then decided with the OJ Simpson trial in full swing, I was Ron Goldman.  Which was tactless, I admit, but I was 8 and didn't care.  What was more tactless was when I shouted it at the neighbor lady when she answered the door.

"Haha, hi Sean!  Who are you supposed to be?"
"I'm Ron Goldman!"
"Oh... ohhh..."

1995 is unaccounted for.  I can neither confirm nor deny I tried fitting into the Peter Pan costume again.  So... that happened.

And then in 1996 (which was the last Halloween we spent living in California), I went as this weird Warlock thing and reused my brother's vampire cape that I had taken to running around the house and backyard in.  It was one of those foam mask things that you paint yourself and then stick on, but it didn't stay on and I think we ended up just kinda painting my face before going out Trick'r'Treating.  You can see my face is all scrunched up as I tried to keep it on.

The tradition I spoke of was obviously the chili tradition, which still holds sway now as many of you can attest to.  And I make a pretty damn good chili.  We would come home from school and start dicking around with our costumes while mom made dinner.  We weren't allowed to leave until we ate, so there was no point in even trying to convince my mom otherwise.  "Siddown (not "sit down," it was "siddown") and eat!  You're not going anywhere 'til you're done!" And out in California (not sure how it is now), you started going door to door when it got dark, and you went home when you felt like it.

None of this "4-8" bullshit.

So if it was dark outside and the doorbell was starting to ring, we'd get ants in our pants and start freaking out as if all of the candy would be gone.  And sometimes it was all gone from certain houses... one year it was our house that ran out.  And then we got toilet papered.

1998, 2000, 2001

We moved to Wisconsin in 1997 and that year I was a hippie.  It was a wasted effort that was boring as hell and you don't get to see a picture of it.  Mostly because it was bad enough that mom didn't even take a picture.

But my days of Trick'r'Treating were nearing an end anyway because I was encroaching on six feet of height and just getting older in general.  In 1998 I was home from school for a couple months due to my gallbladder illness, and with surgery being on October 21st that year I wasn't healed up enough to go out.  So I put on my Scream costume and pretended I was a dummy on the front porch.

And I scared the living shit out of any kid that took candy from the bowl.

It's the simple things in life and we all know how much I like to scare people in general.  What a hoot!  I did it in 2000 with @klreynol as my companion and again in 2001 for the last time.  That's my dad being an asshole behind me.

1999

Ah yes, the first year in drag.  What a glimpse of things to come!  This was in 8th grade and @klreynol and I went out together for the first time ever.  The gown and wig were both from Goodwill (what a shit wig) and the various bullet wounds were obviously from a Halloween store.  People kept saying "Oh it's Carrie!" and I went with it, but in my head I kept thinking about how dumb they were because Carrie never got shot, she was doused in pig's blood.

It also took place in the 70's, while CLEARLY I was a dead prom queen from the 80's.  With washcloths for boobs.  Dummies.

2002

This was the last time I went out for candy, and yes, I was a Junior in High School.  My friend Jenny and I didn't care, she went as a goth person and I was a frozen mountain climber.  I think we only did two blocks and then went home and watched a movie.  Talk about going out with a whimper and not a bang.

The Era of Drag BEGINS

2005

I took 2004 off because I had started working in retail and Express had the Christmas floorset on Halloween night.  It was a definite bummer to spend my first Halloween as an adult by working until 4 am, but there was all kinds of candy there and we had a good time in the end.

The next year, however, was a different tune.  Albeit a lower-key one.

I worked at a call center called Converygs and there was a costume contest on Halloween.  Anybody could dress up, anybody could enter.  And I figured "What the fuck?" and went as a demented fairy.  I was decently chubby so I wore that lighter pink around my stomach so that I could cinch it tight behind me and suck in my gut in the process.  It sucked having to sit in that stupid outfit all day long at work but the result was that I won first place in the costume contest.

Didn't matter I won "scariest," I still won a DVD player.  And then promptly took it to Wal-Mart the next day to exchange for a couple movies because I already had a DVD player and it was a crappy one anyway.  Then things got real.

2006

The first year I ever picked a character was Paris Hilton in 2006.  I didn't really succeed, but I had a great time that night in Chicago.  When I got down there, I went with @kconn to buy my very first pair of heels (size 15, natch) to stomp around his apartment in.  The skirt was an old black t-shirt that I cut the sleeves off of and then pushed down over my hips to tuck into my underwear.

This was the last year I'd ever have a shitty wig (from a cheap-o store) and bad makeup, though I suppose the makeup aspect is in the eye of the beholder.  I covered myself in bronzer (super thick) and eyeliner, and I suppose I was more of a precursor to Snooki than I was to Paris Hilton.  But people got the joke and it was all good.

2007

Then came Paulette Bonafonte from Legally Blonde, and probably the most fun I have ever had on Halloween in my life.  I think part of it worked because I had Jennifer Coolidge's manish face, and the other part was because I absolutely nailed her voice.  @kconn was Elle Woods and we marched all over Chicago that night in our stilettos, earning our blisters and laughing hysterically the entire time.

And what was better was that people actually KNEW who we were.  What a compliment!  And people knew who I was!  From that stupid ass shirt (It's All About ME!) to the denim vest and skirt, all courtesy of "Faded Glory" at Wal-Mart, I owned the character.  I also got kissed by some guy dressed as a farmer with the best pecs I've ever seen in person, and really, how could the night have gone wrong after that?

Answer: it didn't.

2008

Then Ken and I met, and though the first year and the last year we were together weren't really the best costumes, the second year was a blast.  I thought "Glitter Glam Barbie" and "Perfect Date Ken" was a cute couple idea (my first couple costume) and ran with it.  Ken didn't want to wear foundation but I forced him to because I said he needed to look like plastic.  I got my clothes at Express and re-used @kconn's wig from the year before.  Probably the least I have ever spent on a costume.

2009

Hocus Pocus.  I went from the cheapest costume to the most expensive (I think when all was said and done it was north of $250 for everything).  This was also the first year since I was a kid that I enlisted my mom for her help, and she made me the awesome dress for Winifred Sanderson from scratch.  It was big enough to fit two of me inside, but I had a belt to hold it back so all was well in the end.  And again, as had happened two years earlier, everyone knew who we were.

And they were ecstatic.

Hocus Pocus is just one of those movies that people adore at Halloween time (even if it didn't do very well when it originally came out in theaters) but it isn't a costume you see very often.  Partly because it's a pain in the ass.  @kconn was a fantastic Mary and after a lot of coaxing I got Ken to agree to dress in drag and be Sarah. We wore them twice, once for the big Halloween party Ken and I put on, and then again a week later to go out to the bars.  I won first place at my own party.  We won second place at the bar as a group, and that was fine because it was a $50 tab whereas first place was for a keg party.  Who gives a shit about beer?

2010

The Baroness.  Ken and I were having our second Halloween party (which was absolutely out of control, huge, and a RAGING success) and knew we couldn't blow a ton of money on our costumes.  So I got thrifty at Goodwill and put together this puppy.  I decided I wanted to do an ugly year, a pretty year, an ugly year, etc., and this was my ugly year (not to say Winifred was pretty).

But we had a great time (Ken was the Baron), and I won first place at my own party again.  And no, it was not rigged.  I think people felt bad for me, hahaha.  This party had one big flaw and it was that I did Tarot card readings for the first two hours of it, and my little booth was set up in the basement.  So I missed a huge portion of the night and I regret that.  But people enjoyed the readings and that's what mattered, right?

Sure.

2011

Oh man, I was so skinny.  Break-ups are great things, lol.  I was obsessed with the movie "Suckerpunch" and decided I would be Babydoll in 2011.  It was a one night only costume, because I not only had to shave my legs, but my stomach and chest as well (and that's no small feat) and the razor burn was an absolute horrible nightmare the day after.

Right before this event was also when I started writing the blog, so that's something you can just take with you all the way to the bank.

Babydoll was another creation of my mother's though, and aside from me ironing the pleats into the skirt, she made that costume from the top to the bottom.  And I keep every costume (for whatever reason, because I'll never double-dip like Peter Pan again) and I'm pleased this one still fits.  Kind of.  Well not really, but somewhat and I'm sure with a little grease I could get back into it just fine.

2012

Twisted Sleeping Beauty.  I was inspired by the collection of pictures this guy drew of all of the Disney princesses as evil versions and thought Sleeping Beauty would be the most attainable.  I had a pretty good time with this one, but those contacts were a awful and I ended up flicking one out the car window at one point and then just dealing with the other one the rest of the night.  I don't ever want to do contacts again, but I'll never say never.

For the full details on that year, you can read all about it here.

2013

Finally we come to last year and my return to dressing as a dude as Superman.  I made the costume myself and the only bummer of the three times I wore it last year was that people thought I bought it from the store.  That's really disappointing when you spend countless hours on something, lol, but it is what it is.  And it was a fantastic costume because really, a cape is the coolest thing you can wear.

The full recount can be viewed here.

And then we come to this year.  I didn't want to go from being macho Superman last year to delicate lady this year (ahem), and since I traditionally do an ugly year and then a somewhat attractive year, 2014 falls into the former.  Best kick this bitch off in 5-inch heel/platform stilettos as a sweet transvestite.

From transexual... Transylvania... that is (c;

I'll put up the makeup test soon, and then at the end of the month you'll hear all about how good (or bad) it went.  I'm looking forward to a new challenge like this and I have the voice down already.  I'm a smidgen nervous to show so much skin but hey, if you can't do it on Halloween, when can you?  I'll remember not to eat chili first.  No one needs that.  Ciao!

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the september update: second edition

When September ends, can you officially say summer is over?  I think so, though this last weekend was kinda humid and in the 80's which sure as shit felt like summer to me.  Is it all about the weather?  Seems to be, but apparently September's all about birthdays too, because there were so many of them throughout the month that I missed more than a couple entirely.  And if I missed your birthday, I apologize tremendously.  To quote Eddie Izzard, "I was dead at the time!"

I also can't spell "apologize" without spelling it with two p's first.  Thank god my only rule with the blog applies to not deleting any thoughts I write.  I can always correct the spelling, otherwise you'd know how dumb I really am.

Speaking of editing things, how about a lesson for y'all?  Anytime I go back to work on a book, I take with me a red pen.  Very rarely have I run out of ink when it was time to edit a book, but I think it's happened maybe twice on two separate projects in the last 14 years where I had to start a second pen.

With my second novel in its current state, I am on my fourth red pen.  I also still have 140 pages left to edit.

At the top of the left page, near the right hand corner, you see a small arrow.  On the right page, you see a bigger arrow.  Those aim for the opposite sides of their pages, where you will see the amount of work added to the scenes, respectively.

Wanna know the best notes I could ever leave for myself?  The fun little ones you see to the left of that red dialogue that says "expand."  How elusive sounding!  Expand!  And y'know what?  Nothing makes me want to go back in time and bitch-slap myself more than seeing that word!

Expand!

Expand!

EXPAND!

None of this is to say the book is bad, because it is quite the opposite.  There is just a lot of material that needs to be added to not only tie it more directly to Episode I, but to also expand on the new characters and direct you (the reader) toward the ultimate goal.  It's just a lot of work, and really it has taken up all of my free time in the month of September.  Every day off, every evening off, I am working on this.  I cannot wait to finish the edit so I can type it up and really sink my teeth into the continuation of Banning's journey.  A lot of my determination stems from people asking for the second book that have read the first, and that is plenty enough fire under my ass to get me going.

Other than the book there were of course other things that came about on the docket.  I was able to spend a good amount of time with all of my friends, including but not limited to rekindling my relationship with an old best, @kconn.  Coming back to an old friend that was there for so much feels a lot like coming home after a long time away.  I can't really explain why but I think the majority of you will understand what I mean.  Or not and who cares.

The only truly big event was Octoberfest, which by all intents and purposes is what ushers out summer and lets fall come high kicking through the door like Nicki Kidman at the Moulin Rouge.

I started my day at 9am downtown this past Saturday, meeting up with @markstyleme and Mr. Kloehn to begin the 2014 festivities.  I never was a big fan of Oktoberfest, and for some reason the allure of it has only captured me the last three years.  Before 2012, I'd probably been four times and never stayed for more than an hour.

One of those years I had diarrhea.

::shrugs::

2012 was the best year to start participating because it was so damn warm that day.  I was still working on the "26 Golden Things" video project and had a fantastic time filming throughout the day and drinking with my friends.  Last year it was warm but super windy to the point where it wasn't really that fun, and you kept wanting to put on a hoodie but didn't want to commit to carrying one around.  And then you have this year, without any wind and a temperature at roughly 80.  Decent.

The Mark's and I bummed up and down the avenue a couple times before grabbing some food and then each enjoying an Old Fashioned at this fantastic new bar downtown called Ambassador.  @caitcd met us there and then when the boys left us to move into their brand new house (new to them, that is), she and I began wandering up and down the avenue until running into @joleneelizabeth and continuing with her.  I started drinking a newer hard cider called Johnny Appleseed (beer gives me the worst chest pain ever within minutes of taking a sip, anyone have any ideas why?) that went down super easy.

We ate more.  We drank more.  I met up with Miss T eventually and then we split off, doing our own thing.  Eating.  Drinking.  And of course listening to music of which there was an absolute TON (and most of it was pretty excellent) this year.  The day wrapped for me around 5:30 when I decided to pack up my heels and go home.

They ran out of my drink anyway around 4:30. Pfffft.

I went back to my apartment and cleaned up a little bit in lieu of my love @jillybean coming up from Chicago to spend the night.  After quick hugs and exclamations of weight loss (she has) and long hair (mine is) we set off to meet with Miss T, Mr. J and a couple friends for dinner at Katsuya.  Does anyone else ever consistently strike out with hibachi dinner by getting the new guy?  It's not even the white guy syndrome either, because last time we went we had a white guy making dinner for us and we nicknamed him "White Lightning" because he was fuckin' amazing.

So after a somewhat lackluster dinner and enough bad jokes from whitey to fill a book, we headed out to see @kconn at his bar because he was working.  There were a lot of drinks, there was a lot of singing, and sometime between 9am when my day started and 1am when my day ended, I lost my voice.  But the memories of the 2014 Octoberfest will endure and for that I will of course remain eternally grateful.

Even if @jillybean spent the night on the floor of my bathroom puking.  And the morning as well.

Sorry girl, you had that coming.  Zing!

So what else happened in September?  I spent an evening killing hundreds of spiders with my trusty bucket of Orkin Home Defense and a battery powered sprayer.  I sold my old furniture, got a fantastic new sofa, and won Catch the Spirit (employee of the month) for my store AND district for the second time during my tenure at Pottery Barn.  I was catfished by a bitchy 17 year old, ate amazing southern food at the Cozzy Corner (and subsequently devoured my first hush puppy), and started listening to Christmas music.  I thought I dislocated my jaw eating ice-cream, wrote the second wedding speech I'll ever give, and of course burned the hell out of my forehead at Octoberfest for wearing my hair back in a knot all day.

Stay tuned for the next two blogs, one's about Halloween costumes and the other is of course the "Fourth Iteration" of this blog in which you find yourself, Musings of a Self-Proclaimed Author.  Coincidentally, it will also be my 100th blog.  Toodles gang!

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random truths, second edition

Alrighty, second edition here we come!  A few more random things about me that some of you may or may not know (c:

1.) I'm so stressed out about writing books that it seems to be all I ever think about anymore.  The funny thing is that where I'm at right now is the longest I have ever spent writing continuously.  I started the final edit of Episode I back in early January, finished it in mid June, and started working on Episode II right away.

I should have expected this... I think at one point I knew when I put Episode I out into the world I would be so dead focused on finishing the rest that it would consume my life.  But now that it has, I'm still somehow surprised.  It isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm very focused right now and that's great because the work I am churning out is pretty excellent when it comes to progressing the storyline and characters.

The trouble arrives when I start to only talk about the books, and then I get panicked.  I feel like very few people actually care, and there are even less people who have read the old material that would know what I was even talking about.  We all have our torches to carry ::dramatic sigh:: 

2.) Fall makes me sad.  I say that every year, I'm fully aware, but it does.  And it really has nothing to do with being in a relationship or not, because the season always does the same thing to me.  Maybe it's not about being "sad," but instead feeling melancholy.  It's a nostalgic season, an entertaining one as always (Halloween, hey-o!), but overall it's the "slow down" time of year and that's always an adjustment.

Everything is starting to die, from the flowers shriveling up to the leaves on the trees falling away.  It rains a lot more, coffee dates and cuddling up with loved ones or fuzzy pets seems much more alluring, and the general darkness of daylight begins to set in.  The warmth is starting to leave the air and there's a certain crispness that is at once ideal because it unlocks the better part of a wardrobe and at the same time is such a bummer because it means the cold snap of winter is not far away.  It's time to cozy up, stay indoors, and withdraw your grand plans of outdoor life that you somehow didn't live up to in the summer like you thought and will now have to shelve for the next 6 months.

Or 8 months if you live in Wisconsin like I do.

3.) I used to be so terrified to move away from here that the thought was almost crippling.  It is what stopped me from attending a college more than five minutes from home.  Over time the thought process has changed and more often than not I find myself now weighing the pro's and con's as you should with any major decision.  Like a Venn diagram, only it's in my head and not drawn in two huge circles like boobs in front of me.  

I should probably draw one anyway.

The pro's keep adding up though, and eventually they'll reach a fever pitch where I just say "fuck it" and throw caution to the wind, packing up my bags and getting the hell out of dodge with two cats in tow.  I said I'd like to be out of Appleton by the time I'm 30 and the awkward reality is that turning 30 is hardly more than a year away.  I won't feel like a failure if I don't get out of here by then, but I am good at setting goals for myself and striving to achieve them.  (As evidenced here, here, here, and here.)  Plain and simple it just feels good to set out to do something and have it so gloriously come to life before your eyes.  To be proud of yourself for something you did on your own is a terrific feeling.  I don't see why moving away should be so different.

4.) On Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, my awesome boss is going to be having her third baby (a girl, as yet unnamed).  It's very exciting, not just for the fact that she is having a baby but the fact that for the first time in 10 years of retail, I am going to be the acting General Manager of a store.  Two years ago I wouldn't have had any what the hell I was doing, but right now I am going into the holiday season with my head held high and a certain level of adrenaline and excitement raging inside of me.

It's a fantastic feeling and is compounded by the fact that AFTER the season is over and she is back to work, I will be signed off on as a General Manager.  Meaning I can go anywhere in the company... meaning that move away from Wisconsin is suddenly going to be much more real and a whooooole lot easier.

5.) It's been mentioned quite vaguely a couple times over the last three years that I've been writing blogs, and now it's time to share the story.  The poop in the fitting rooms story, that is.  Enjoy.

You said it, lady.

I was minding my own business, executing a floorset and smiling politely at customers I didn't really want to deal with.  Normal day at Express.  A girl asked if she could be let into the fitting rooms and I of course obliged, directing her to the side fits at Express in the Fox River Mall.  There were four rooms, three of them "normal" rooms and the last one being a handicap room.  The first three were occupied so I let her in the handicap room and said I'd be back in a bit to check on her.

No more than five minutes later, another girl wanted to try on clothes.  I took her to the fits, knocked on the first three doors (believing the handicap room was still occupied) and then said we were all full.  I didn't see a shadow moving in the fourth room, however, and decided to just knock and see if the girl had left or not.  

No answer.

So I open the door to let the customer in and see that there is coffee spilled all over the floor.  The third door opens on cue and a customer leaves.

"You can just take that one," I said, "I think someone spilled coffee in here."  So I let her into the room.  Meanwhile, there is a lady standing at the end of the fitting rooms by Go-Back racks while she waits for a friend.  I glance down at her and she chuckles.

"Someone spilled coffee?" She asked with that oh-I-feel-sorry-for-you tone.

"I think so," I said, opening the door again and looking in the room.  No clothes, no hangars, just the coffee.  So I leaned in a little bit and then the smell hit me.  I recoiled and looked down at the woman a dozen feet away.  "It's not coffee."

"What?" she said, looking up from her phone.  "What is it?"  I looked again.

"Oh my god it's poop."  She gets this horrified face (I probably shouldn't have said anything in hindsight) and then I called for the other managers.  "Trish, Mark, come to the side fits.  Someone shit all over the floor."

So of course they come running over and we are all giggling and making the appropriate gag sounds.  Around this point I'm wondering how the girl I had let in had accomplished this task and gotten away with it so effortlessly.  It quickly becomes apparent that my two comrades will NOT be cleaning this up, so instead of calling a hazmat team as we should have, I determinedly walked over the men's side of the store and grabbed a long-sleeved henley and then marched into the back room and grabbed cleaning supplies.

I'll just take care of it myself, damnit.

Tying the henley around my nose and mouth and then tucking it down into the collar of my shirt, I doubled up my gloves and started sopping the mess up.  It was about three feet off the ground where it had hit the mirror, streaked down, and detonated all over the tile floor.  As I'm wiping it up and putting it in a trash bag, I see a weird streak trailing away from the mirror and leading under the bench.  So I leaned forward to see what it was.

Well, it was about 6 inches long, rubber, clear, cone shaped, and with a white/black double helix running up the inside of it.  It was a butt-plug.

Of course I went straight to Facebook with it.

To this day, four years later, I don't know what could have possibly possessed a 21-ish year old girl, maybe 5'6", very polite and quite thin, to come shopping at the mall with a butt-plug firmly shoved up her tush.  Or not so firmly, as it were.  Whether it was due to a combination of Taco Bell or whatever sort of gut-rot hell she was in, either way you look at it, her ass exploded in the fitting rooms at Express with a velocity that probably sent her airborne across the cramped space.

I wonder if she has shared the story nearly as much as I have?  Surely not.  And for as foul and nasty as it was to have to clean that up, I'd still take it any day over cleaning up vomit.

A boy has to have his standards.

6.) When I sit down to write new material, I gauge what kind of mood the scene is going to be that I'm about to write.  Is it an action scene?  A fight scene?  Dialogue?  Is it sad?  Am I killing someone off (again)?  Whatever the mood, I pick music to suit it.

And I don't pick music with words... music you'd hear on the radio, per se.  I pick movie scores, of which I have 1,829 songs.

I find that writing to instrumental music puts me in a mindset so perfectly that it then directly influences the words coming out of my fingers.  Amazing, actually, because it just pulls emotions out of me.  I doubt I could write anything the way I do if I didn't have this system in place, but I'd certainly like to read what I would write if that were the case.  Some perennial favorites are the scores to Inception, Man of Steel, Tron: Legacy, Stardust, and Avatar.  

I suggest you try it sometime if you do anything that requires creative thought (painting, drawing, crafting, etc.)  Maybe it'll make a difference in your work too?

7.) In less than a month, my best friend of the last 16 years, @klreynol, will be moving very far away.  

It absolutely breaks my heart.  There's not much more to say about it.  

8.) I'm that annoying person who has to have everything in order all the time, especially when it comes to my music in iTunes.  Every song I obtain (I won't say how), I will find out what the name of the album is that it came from, what track number it was, and of course I'll get the album artwork that goes with it.

I trust you're beginning to understand I have small OCD tendencies, but before you say I'm a freak, I did just go a year a half without adding those said bits of information.  It was only two weeks ago when I accidentally deleted everything out of iTunes that I had to go back to the old habit.  Talk about a time-consuming whoopsie.

The Knightsbridge House

9.) When I was five years old we moved to a house on Knightsbridge Lane in Redlands, CA.  For some reason, one night when it was time for bed I decided to spout off something to my mother.  I said it to her every single night for the next seven years.  If I was spending the night somewhere, I'd either tell her before I left or call home to tell her.

"Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.  You're beautiful, you're lovely, you're pretty, you dress nice, you have beautiful makeup.  See you later alligator."  And then she'd always say: "After a while crocodile."  

And then my life would feel complete.

10.) Adults with tiny baby teeth and enormous gums; I could stop right there and you'd know what I'm talking about.

We've all seen 'em, we all know how we feel.  I know not everyone in the world has perfect teeth and a perfect amount of gums, but it doesn't stop me from shuddering when I see it.  Am I alone here?  I don't feel bad sharing this.  After-all, the blog you currently find yourself in is "random truths," and it doesn't get any more fuckin' random than that.

Ciao!

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another fail for sean

I recently met someone.  I shouldn't say I met him, because we never actually met.  We met online.  And after a week and a half of fantastic conversation, witty banter, emotional tugs and thoughts of the possible future, the little affair is over.

I feel like I've run a marathon and lost, and I feel like I did when things I ended with Ken.

Left behind without a choice.

It's funny, really, because I never even met the guy in person.  How crazy is that?  Am I one of "those" people now?  So desperate for a connection that I latch on to the first good looking person that gives me a chance and lose said chance when I finally question if I'm being catfished?  Was it so wrong to say it was feeling too good to be true?  And further more, does that mean I actually WAS being catfished?

For those not in the know:
catfished; having a relationship of any sort on social media with someone who is not who they say they are, by using another person's pictures and/or living a totally different lifestyle from what they told you.

And it sucks.  Plainly, simply, and yet somehow infinitely, it sucks.  I'm torn about it because I also feel like I have no right to be upset.  We never hugged, held hands, kissed, or even set on eyes on each other... so what claim do I have to feeling such solid emotions?  I dunno.

Maybe it's the realization at how incredibly alone I feel right now.  Not "suicidal" alone, I would never even contemplate that so don't even venture down that path, but I feel alone.  And I feel that I'm ready to love, and more than ready to be loved.  And I no longer think there is anything wrong with feeling I deserve that, but I have to wonder why it is so hard for me to let people in to even give them the chance.  Why is that so difficult for me?

I don't get "real" very often in this thing because some thoughts are best kept close to the heart, but today, in this moment, with however small I feel right now... I also feel that if I don't get it out of me I'm going to burst.  And if I burst I'm going to lash out and take people down with me, and that's not fair nor something I want.

Now I'm laughing because I'm crying and it is just so ridiculous.

I live on my own, which you know.  I pay for everything myself, I never ask for money, and I rarely if ever ask for help from the people in my life for random things.  I have a successful career, I've published my first novel at 28 years old, I have a nice car, a small but wonderful group of friends, and of course a loving family.  But still, I go home to the place I pay for, all alone... and I sit alone... and I listen to music and write words down that probably don't mean much to anyone but me, and it just sucks.  It sucks.

I don't mean to unload on you but if I can't unload here then I can't anywhere.  And even though all of you are silent to me, and never really say anything, it somehow helps to think you're all on my side through this roller coaster I call a life and choose to share with you.  It's embarrassing to have this happen, to myself or anybody else, and it's embarrassing to share whether I was catfished or just gambled and lost.  Maybe it serves as a reminded to people who do this kind of thing, if that is any of you, and that it's a really awful thing to do to a person.  That there are consequences to your actions.

I have to believe that someone who could turn their emotions off so completely, in only a matter of hours, couldn't have been real from the start... but I don't know that.  Because if it sounded real, it looked real, and it felt real in my heart... who is to say it wasn't?  Not me.

Ever the eternal optimist.

 

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the august update: second edition

My oh my, where did summer go?  Seems like I just packed up my sweaters and jackets a few days ago, and it's already getting to the point where you need to think about layering again.  Not that it was the warmest summer ever, of course.  Summer 2014 was pretty bullshit when it came to the weather in northeast Wisconsin.  But we do what we do and that's why we live here.

And why I want to move away from here, hey-o!

Right now though it's super humid outside (I believe I referred to it as "an armpit" yesterday) and I'm thankful for a light breeze and several fans in my apartment.  Oscillating fans, not "fan" fans.  Because I'm a published author now, you know, and stilllllll waiting for my Kathy Bates to come calling.  Hope ya'll get that reference!

I'm actually not going to talk about the book at all in this blog, mostly because I'm sick of it.  But should you like to know, you can read about the release of the book here and you can read about my publishing experience here.

This was a very emotional month for me.  Honestly and truly.  I cried a lot (said I wouldn't talk about the book and here I go) about publishing and what it ultimately meant.  I was emotional over that to an extent that shocked me and ranged in all sorts of ways.  But there were other things as well including but not limited to my future, @klreynol deciding she'd be moving away, and the death of Robin Williams that hit me a lot harder than I'd have ever thought a celebrity death would (recounted here).

But August wasn't all sad and there was actually a lot in it that I was able to enjoy to the fullest.  And like the quote above says, feelings are just visitors and you've got to let them come and go.  No use in holding on.

We had the great fortune of hot weather on a Saturday this month, and even better that it was for @caitcd's bachelorette party and we were spending it floating down the river.  It bums me out that as I've gotten older I've spent less time on the river each summer, but getting at least one trip in quiets the beast within me.  Especially with a fews bests like @caitcd and @markstyleme.

I think partly because it's such a drive (an hour and a half) is why I don't go as often, but another reason probably has to do with people are just too busy now.  And that's never a good thing because we should always make time for a little bit of fun.  Scheduling conflicts tend to rise at a consistent pace though, especially in the summer, and especially when you're friends primarily with creative types that have all kinds of projects and things going on.

But for one day we were all able to get together and go rolling down the river (cue Tina Turner reference) and it was fantastic.  @caitcd got a pretty gross cut on her foot right away, I ended the trip with a little cut as well, but in between there was a lot of drinking and snacking and jumping off trees and spotting turtles and anything else that comes with a hot day in the sun on the water.  You can just forget about your responsibilities for a few blissful hours and enjoy the company around you.

I was nominated by my sister to do the ALS ice-bucket challenge this month.  I had it in my head what I would do were someone to nominate me and I didn't think it was going to happen, but alas it did.  I'm not a big charity person.  I donate once a year to the Human Rights Campaign and that's about it.  But if I get challenged to do things then I will partake because I try to be a good sport, and this was a prime example.

They give you 24 hours to respond to the challenge and I knew I wouldn't be able to get my video together in time, so I donated and then filmed it the following weekend.  I was lucky enough to have my parents be more than willing to help out and I assume it's because they wanted to jump at the opportunity to douse their son in two buckets of water.  And the hose.  And then again with the water remaining in the buckets after I'd stopped recording.

I had Lane help me out a little bit too, which you can see below.

While we're on this topic, I've just got to state for the record that I am not schizophrenic.  Nor do I have multiple personality disorder.  I make these videos (and the pictures, I suppose) as a way to be creative and to give myself something to do when I'm bored.  It's an outlet that allows me to flex my artistic side and hopefully give people a chuckle in the process.  Any references to me being mentally unstable can go ahead and desist from here on out, because it kinda annoys me.  Thank you (c:

::eye starts twitching and I start speaking in tongues::

Aside from those two bigger things it was just a month to wind down summer, as it usually is.  The leaves start turning a lighter shade of green and you grow increasingly annoyed with the heat and for that ONE week of miserable humidity you think about the allure of a blustery fall day.  The countdown for school to resume begins, people like me who work retail start the countdown to holiday, and the world just keeps right on spinning.

So what else happened in August?  Had not one but TWO parties for my book, went to a bonfire that sported green fire, blocked out all of my second book and subsequently started re-editing it, and got myself a fancy author page on Amazon.com.  I reconnected with an old best, documented the frogs around my apartment, and reveled in the amount of people my book has made cry so far.  Celebrate your victories!

September will have three blogs (I have to plan ahead now because the fourth iteration is approaching quickly and that'll be a very special one) and I just noticed I've passed 9,000 views.  Think we can push it to 10,000 by the end of the year?  I think so!  Mostly because you're all so great (c:

Until then, toodles gang (c:

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when it comes to publishing

What a whirlwind.  That sums all of this up.

On the one hand it feels like just yesterday I was celebrating the end of 8th grade in 2000 with @klreynol (pic on left) and within mere weeks of starting my book series.  On the other hand it seems like a lifetime passed before I was celebrating the publication of the first novel with @klreynol in 2014 (on the right, duh) and within six months of releasing the second.  It is in some ways as if I just sat down to start tinkering with Createspace, reading how to go about submitting a document for publishing.  And in other ways it feels like I've spent 14 years running a marathon and now it's time to cross the finish line and let people see what kind of time I made.

On the third hand (........) it feels like this was never going to get here and now that it has I want it to go back to how it was before when things were so much simpler.

It's funny how things like that happen, right?  I think so, at least.  Three hands and all.

Publishing has been everything I thought it would be and yet not how I pictured it at all.  I think if you asked me ten years ago what I thought would happen I would have said I'd be getting a big 'ol author's advance and sitting pretty in a huge house while the book FLEW off the shelves.  Not really the case, as I sit in my apartment and stress out about buying so much marketing material and boxes of books to sell to people because it's easier than Amazon.  But still, the book is out there, and still, the book is selling.  Not by the thousands, but it's selling.  And it's great and terrifying both at once and for however scared I was to do this I am infinitely pleased it's finally done.

No more going back and changing storylines, no more sliding in and adding a page or two of dialogue and undoing the wrongs one character did to another.  No more changing Banning's tone, no more making Bryna snarkier than she was or Sydney more charming than she ultimately became.  No more beefing up roles.... no more making the death of certain characters more or less horrifying.

For those of you already in the know, I clearly don't hold back in my death toll.  And I don't kill any of my characters just for the sake of killing them, FYI.  Everything in these books happens for a reason, and that is one of the morals of the story throughout "The Onyxus Chronicles."  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or so Newton's third law so eloquently states.

And bottom line, life was never supposed to be fair for Banning David Sol.  Shucks.

Every time I get the notification I've been tagged in a photo, my heart skips a beat to see that it's a copy of my book someone has taken a picture of.  Everytime I get a message in my e-mail or from Facebook in regards to what someone thought of something they read, I can't keep the smile off my face.  All I wanted from this was to know people were reading my work and getting something out of it.

Even the people who send a big 'ol "FUCK YOU!" to my inbox in regards to the ending of the book, it still makes me smile.  I always said if I could make someone cry with what I wrote then I did my job.  it means I created characters that on some level resonate and there is no greater victory than that.  At least for me there's not.

I had the launch/signing last week Friday and it was a great success.  Mostly because people actually came.  It's always my fear when I throw any sort of party that no one is going to come, so there was a lot of relief flooding through me when it wasn't just my parents and a handful of friends.  And for every person that walked through the door my smile just got bigger and bigger because I didn't do all of this for myself, I did it for everybody else.  To see people willingly take part in this adventure just popped me right over the moon.

We ate, we drank, we laughed a lot.  My friend Joni had everyone get up and form a circle around me at one point to commemorate the occasion.  @klreynol and @markstyleme both said some nice words and then I in turn said a few as well.  You can see that below if you'd like (c:

I spent the day after the event feeling a bit under the weather.  I don't know if it was the culmination of all that stress melting away or what, but that's how it happened.  Between sleeping for long chunks of time throughout the day, I attempted to clean my neglected apartment.  While listening to some good music I thought a lot about how far I've come and how far I have yet to go (and probably pretended I was "deep" while doing so).  One book coming out is fantastic and having a signing of said book is even better, but there are more books to edit/write, more signings to plan for, and more people to get on my side when it comes to this literary journey I've embarked on.

As I was vacuuming I started thinking about my Grandpa Bill.  He passed away last March, and after we'd gone to Indiana to pay our respects I wrote a blog about how bad of a week it had been, including but not limited to his death (Part I here and Part II here).  In the second blog I shared a quick story about my Grandpa that occurred when I was twelve while visiting he and my grandmother for a few days in the summer of 1997.

I'd been left alone with them for maybe three or four days, my parents having driven back to Wisconsin so I could spend some time in Indianapolis and visit with my aunt, uncle and cousin as well.  When my parents came back to get me, they stayed the night and we left the next day.  I remember getting buckled into the backseat and seeing my grandfather shuffling toward the car so I rolled the window down and he leaned in through it.

"I've got some advice for you, boy," he said, kinda smirking the way he did when he felt like he was being clever.
"Yeah?"
"Whatever you do, do it good."  And he patted my arm and took a step back and waved goodbye.

It makes me so happy I was able to get this book finished with so much of my family able to see it.  When I think alllllllll the way back to the very beginning of this journey, I had made a cheap-o Geocities webpage for my book.  On it I asked people for money (cue embarrassment), claiming I needed funding for paper and supplies to keep on writing.  And really what a sham because my parents bought me everything I needed to print off copies of the book and all that jazz and I just had some big picture in my head that I needed to be bankrolled.

I'm sure my mom scoffed in the way she does, and I'd imitate it right now if everyone could hear me do it.

A few weeks after I made the webpage, I saw my grandfather when we flew to California for a wedding.  As soon as he saw me get off the plane, he gave me a big hug and he handed me a $100 bill.  He told me he wanted a signed copy whenever I got around to publishing my book.

And it makes me so sad that I won't be able to hand him his copy.

I know he's somewhere else now and I know he would be/is proud of what I've done, but nothing could really compare to any of this other than seeing that crooked smile and maybe a wink from him as I hand over my creation.  I think that's what would really drive all of this home and make it come full circle for me... I think that's what would break down the final barrier for me to realize just how real this all is.

But he's gone now, and that's okay too.  I wanted to keep a copy of the finished book for myself to sit on my own bookshelf, but I felt stupid doing it because I have every copy ever written sitting in a box in my garage.  Now however, I feel keeping this particular one as my own copy will suit me just fine.

When all is said and done I look back on this journey and realize, only now, that I have finished what I set out to do.  I think I have a habit of doing that and I don't think it's a bad habit to have at all.  Saying you'll publish and actually doing it are two very different things and now that it is over with, I feel much more confident going forward.  There is a lot of editing to do now on the remaining two books, a few wonderful characters that need my love and attention, and a fourth book to write and send the series off with a bang.

I'm gonna have to buy more red pens.  Toodles gang (c:

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when a celebrity passes

People die all the time.  Obviously we know this.  If you Googled it you'd find that an estimated 153,000 people die every day.  That's 6,375 an hour, or if you're interested, 106 every minute.  Those figures equate to just under two people every second.  Now, realizing in the time it took you to read this paragraph that 40 people have died on the planet, you probably won't bat an eyelash.

Yet when it comes to a celebrity dying the whole world stops to notice.  Maybe not every celebrity... I myself have heard of some dying (particularly recently) and thought "well who was that?"  Sometimes they make me sad, most times I end up shrugging and saying "that's too bad."  Aaliyah, Jim Varney, Heath Ledger, Phillip Seymour Hoffman... those ones got me.

And then you have one like Robin Williams.

I didn't know him.  I've seen countless movies of his, but still, I didn't know him.  Why is it that I feel like I did?  I grew up watching him, maybe that's why.  His persona(s) was always around me from a very young age.  He looked like my Uncle Andy when they were both younger, respectively, and as he got older he looked like my father, too.  In fact he always reminded me a lot of my father.

The Parker family was always a silly family, stemming particularly from my Grandpa Bill.  My dad did different voices a lot, he still does, and eventually my brother and I started to imitate voices as well.  Who better to guide us along the way than Robin Williams, champion of voices?  The early days of me doing voices came from those he did in "Mrs. Doubtfire," because there was such a wide array to choose from.  We didn't own the movie, but my Grandma Natalie did, so when my mom and I would drive up to Northern California to visit her I had free reign to watch it as much as I wanted.

People who know me will know that I quote movies all the time, all day every day.  When I'm not saying them out loud, I'm saying them in my head.  I still quote "Mrs. Doubtfire" all the time ("It was a run-by fruiting!") and I doubt I'll ever stop.  it's just in my head, Robin Williams with it.  My parents always liked him, and because of that, I simply grew up liking him as well.  I could show them a trailer at any point in time and upon learning he was in the movie "Oh I love him!"

I wanted to see him as my absolute favorite FAVORITE literary character, Peter Pan, in the movie "Hook" for my birthday in 1991.

A year later I wanted to see him as the Genie in "Aladdin" for my birthday in 1992.

Then there was "Jumanji" for my birthday in 1995.

It was just... always him.  This was a person's sheer talent that I grew up with and always respected, not just for voices but for his comedic skill.  I learned all kinds of things from him and you can't put a value on that.  I got to see it anytime a new movie of his came out, because I never had to convince my parents to take me.  There is something to be said about that.

Like with any death of someone you know... even if you didn't really know them... I suppose what gets you is the fact that it's shocking.  And with the way he died, I suppose it's more so in the fact that it was so unexpected to a casual observer like me.  I wouldn't think that someone who always seemed so happy could be anything but.

I've been getting teary eyed the last few days seeing things on Facebook from his family and the little memoriam pieces other people have put together.  Jimmy Fallon's tribute?  Tears.  The day they revealed exactly how he died, someone was telling me about it at work and I just didn't want to hear it.  I didn't want to know, and I've never been like that with a celebrity death before.  I've always thought suicide was such a selfish thing and good riddance if you did it, but this hit me in a way that made me rethink that.  It made me look at it in a different light and realize how bad I felt for a person driven to do something like that.  And in the end, it doesn't matter how he died.

What matters is that he is gone.

Tonight I was making dinner and I wanted to listen to a movie while I was cooking, so I turned on HBO GO and scrolled through what was available.  "Robots" was in there.  I figured I'd rather listen to him than watch him (for right now at least) and selected that movie to play.  I ended up writing my Jillybean a message because hearing him started getting to me.  She and I watched "Robots" back in 2006 when we drove down to Florida for vacation and we quoted his lines through the majority of the trip.  ("Come on!  Don't you want to guess?  I ran all this way in cha-cha heels!")  Jillybean is in the small group of people I know who adored Robin Williams so I knew she'd understand my feelings over this and she certainly did.

I'd love to quote a million lines from movies of his but there isn't enough space on the blog or time in the day to do so.  I wanted to write this to just get it off my chest.  To draw out the emotion and have a good cry over someone the world lost.  I was afraid that would make it seem like I was just scrambling for something to write about, and that is just not true.  Having the outlet of a blog is a great thing, even when it revolves around something not so great to deal with.

I always loved the movie "Jack" that he was in, about a boy who physically ages too fast.  Like "Benjamin Button" in reverse.  I remember seeing it with my parents on a Saturday in Southern California at the AMC 16 in Riverside.  Now, I've forgotten a lot of things about the movie, but I always remembered he gave a really good speech at the end.  So I'll leave you with that, because it resounded with me when I looked it back up and in a way much different than back then, I'm sure.

Even though Robin Williams is gone, we're lucky in that there is so much of his work we get to look back on and laugh about.  There's something very wonderful about that... it just makes me so sad.

"I don't have very much time these days so I'll make it quick, like my life.  You know, as we come to the end of this phase of our life we find ourselves trying to remember the good times and trying to forget the bad times.  We find ourselves thinking about the future, we start to worry, thinking "What am I gonna do?  Where am I gonna be in ten years?" But I say to you "Hey, look at me."  Please, don't worry so much, because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth.  Life is fleeting.  And if you're ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky -when the stars are strung across the velvety night- and when a shooting star streaks through the blackness turning night into day, make a wish.  Think of me... and make your life spectacular.  I know I did."

R.I.P Peter Pan