no longer self-proclaimed: second edition

The very first cover.  Yikes, what a snooze.  Mountains?  Really?

Who cares?

Episode I was not originally what it was called.  Did I ever tell you that?  The first book in my series (The Originality Series, at that time) carried the moniker of "The Beginning."  I think at the time I felt by calling it something as elusive as "The Beginning," it implied the story was only the start of bigger and badder things to come.

Trouble was I didn't know what was to come.  Like... at all.

In the original manuscript, the first two books were combined.  "The Journey," or what would eventually be called Episode II, was supposed to just be the second part of a single book.  I knew at some point there would be "The Adventure," or Episode III, though I didn't even know what was supposed to happen in the middle chapter of all this so how could I devise the plans for that one?  I dunno.  And I didn't.

In the first incarnation of the book, Banning and Bryna were best friends.  When the first story ended, the second portion was to pick up five years later (which is still what happens) and both had gone to college and finished as Marine Biologists.  Yep.  Now keep in mind back then, this book dealt with certain Witch-like powers, with spells thrown into the mix as well.  So "The Journey" picked up five years later and very quickly after an "incident" at a SeaWorld-esque place they worked at, Banning and Bryna decide to take a tropical vacation.  Blah blah blah, the plane gets blown apart and they crash/wash up ashore an island.

And then it ended because I never finished it.

(Until now, and you can buy the book right here if ya want.)

So let's take a little trip back to the spring of 2005 when I started skipping college to go and write at Barnes & Noble, in a land called "Sean Used to be Super Irresponsible."

The college experience for me was one that I hated, and in the end one I didn't take seriously.  I used to tell people that when I dropped out it was after talking to an English professor who said "College won't teach you how to tell a good story, only you can come up with an idea."  Which I felt was very Smokey the Bear "only you can prevent forest fires" in its logic.  The truth of the matter was that I missed my first English class and was subsequently bumped from it.  I read that quote online somewhere and took it to heart and used it as an excuse to justify leaving school behind.  So the spring of 2005 saw me getting my first laptop, a Dell, and as soon as I had it I installed Microsoft Word and started spending my days at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble in Appleton.

The first few weeks were spent tinkering and not really making outlines but mostly writing down ideas and branching them out.  I didn't know how helpful outlines would actually be at that point and though you can argue that's the same as an outline, it was different.  It was just a series of disjointed ideas I was going to have to somehow string together cohesively.  By April I had moved on to actually writing the second book, having made the decision to split this series out of "parts" and into "episodes."  The original prologue is still dated in my computer as April 15th, 2005.  It's also super bad to read and gives me a good chuckle to do so.

The story was written over the course of a few weeks, coming in at a total of eight chapters and 165 pages.  At the time I thought that was pretty hot shit and it still kind of is because it's the bulk of a story "mostly" fleshed out.  But it wasn't good.  @klreynol can testify to the silly nature of it.

Let's begin with the basics:

The story took place on "The Island of Myth," which is a genius name, and it exists in the "Originality Domain."  You heard it here first, folks.  On Myth, five species of creatures ran the place: humans, elves, mermaids, fairies, and goblins.  Yes!  Banning gets there, he makes a few friends in the elves Saphrinity and her brother Cale, loses the ring Onyxus, becomes an enemy of Queen Selena of the humans, and then he leaves.  That was pretty much it.

Subsequent rewrites changed all of this.  As you can see by buying the book here.

First order of business, the "Island of Myth" became the "Island Dagrún," which means Day of Secret Lore in Old Norse.  And it was moved out of the "Originality Domain" into the "Örjan Domain."  The humans became the manu, elves became ailill, mermaids became enki, fairies the tien, and goblins the usha.  By resolving the issue of using species people were familiar with already, I could move on to the characters.  Queen Selena became Queen Themis Juniparius.  Saphrinity survived the rewrite but her brother became Tristan, with the aforementioned "Cale" relegated to supporting-character status.  Another character came to life as well, Aurora Genesis, the daughter of the tien (fairy) leader.

The book has always started the same and it has always ended the same, with several large plot points throughout remaining the same as well.  It wasn't until the big "hold on to your butts, this bitch is getting a complete re-working" in 2011 that the story became what it is now.  What was once 165 pages transformed into 685.  Yes, you read that correctly.

The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode II sits at 685 pages.  (Don't worry, it's only 456 pages in printed-book-form.)

As the book became what it now is, I had to again start thinking about a synopsis and it took me a while to get around to making one that was decent.  Even then, I had to send it to @klreynol and my brother to polish and toss ideas back as to what should change.  Because writing a synopsis sucks.  But here she is:

When I started re-writing Episode II, I was going through a tremendous transitional period in my life.  My relationship had failed with my ex right in the middle of it, which is interesting for one simple fact: the book feels like two stories that are split at Chapter Five.  It used to bug me, but you know what?  It makes sense now.  In the context of the story, it makes sense why you the reader should feel such a shift in things, and I am totally fine with that.

The book starts in a very sad place, both dark and brooding and with little light at the end of the tunnel.  But then it shifts around and transforms itself into something better.  The characters we follow become something better than they once were.  I can't help but see how this mirrored my life at the time.

When the relationship was over and I moved back in with my parents, it was a chance for me to rediscover who I was because at that point I was a shell.  And damaged, and sad and a million other things I hope to never have to feel again.  As the summer went on and time went on and I could start seeing the world in a different way, let alone myself, it came out in my writing.  My best @markstyleme went through a breakup just a few months before I did and we spent a lot of time together because of it.  I think when the world crumbles around you, it says a lot about you based on the people you turn to for support.  And he was certainly one of them.

He ended up finding a new and better love that spring, and it was through their relationship that I could see a light at the end of my own tunnel.  I wasn't ready to date anyone, certainly I wasn't ready to love, but it was a fantastic thing to see and think about.  Hope.

I've known @markstyleme for a very long time, he being one of the first friends I made after high school had ended.  One of the things that brought us together was our love for pop culture and cinema.  Not just cinema, but television in particular.  Will&Grace and The Simple Life more than anything else.  The inside jokes, the little short sentences that eventually could send us into hysterics.  You begin building a history and a camaraderie with a person through these things and he gently, and slowly, became the best guy friend I've ever had.  Not to discount my friendships with any others, but he has just been there non-stop for the last 11 years and I still appreciate it to this day.

For his birthday in 2011, I decided to give him a gift and show my appreciation.  I took him out one day in August and had a series of cards made out to him.  On the front of each card was a line from a movie or television show, ones that we quoted all the time, and then the card would direct us where next to go.  We started at the old Parker Family house, where I gave him the first-ever printed copy of Episode II (in a huge binder).  We went to a movie and out to lunch and ice-cream and then finally drinks.  Eventually the day wound down to a close and I took him home, where we went upstairs and I handed him the final gift of the day.

It was a large framed picture of the book cover, only it was slightly different from the cover the binder had because this one had the dedication.

The second version of the cover.  

It's a hard thing to dedicate your work to someone.  He and I had fights before the dedication, we've certainly had fights after the dedication, but do those matter in the end?  The answer is no, they do not.  I find that dedicating a book is something you do in the moment, thinking back on what was going on during the creation of the work and what it would be applicable to.  And for Episode II it is @markstyleme.  What was great about it was that he never ended up even reading the book, so now as I go to publish it, I'm sure there will be several of you who read it before he does despite his four-year head start.

I had to get that one dig in, Silly (c;
So when all's said and done, the pages are written and the stage is effectively set, you're left with the juicy meat of the Onyxus Chronicles.  Episode II's job was to create the lore behind The Onyxus Chronicles, making Dagrún aptly named.  A sense of history has been injected with this portion of the story and instead of becoming the weird bastard middle child of a trilogy, it stands quite effectively on its own.  With a couple show-stopper battles that still get my blood pumping.

The final Episode II cover.

I'm so excited to release this book.  So many people read Episode I before I had ever published it, but Episode II has only been read by five people.  Five!  That's it!  So when you pick up your copy just know you are right with the rest of the world in finding out what happened in Quillsberg, what will happen on Dagrún, and eventually where all of this leads in Episode III.

Go ahead and buy it here.

Thank you all for being with me so far and especially thank you to the people that donated to my gofundme campaign to help offset the cost of publication.  Remember, the launch party is Friday August 14th in Appleton, you can find the event here, and I want to see any and ALL of you!

I listened to this song over and over again when I was writing the book and I'm thrilled to remember that detail so that I can share it with you too.  See you in a month (c:

when it comes to being gay

I've never had much appreciation for that flag up there.  I'm not sure why that is.  I suppose when I first knew I was gay, the rainbow was synonymous with older "queens," flaunting it around in a way I never found appealing.  Back then, you were a rebel if you had a rainbow sticker on your car or a patch on your backpack, and especially if you belonged to the LGBT club at school.  Which I did not.  And it wasn't because I didn't want to belong to it, I was embarrassed.  Being gay at that point meant standing out in a way that opened you up to ridicule and I was not about that at all.  I wanted to feel like I belonged, not shove something in peoples faces and know they were uncomfortable with it.

I realized I was gay in February of 2002.  Or bi.  I should say I realized I was bi.  I was sitting in math class, freshman year of high school, and my friend Mandy was beside me.  Class hadn't started yet and she was telling me about a few nights before when she took a shower with a girl and that she was actually bisexual.  It struck me in that moment because it was something I'd never put words to.

I knew I liked me.  Despite having girlfriends, "man thoughts" were merely something on the side that I'd never paid much attention to.  After all, I had never met a gay person that I knew of.  Hearing the words, as odd as it may be, is what set my mind in motion.  If someone I knew could be attracted to the same sex then that meant it was a real thing that happened in real life, not just movies and shows.  That may have been naive on my part for being 14 years old, but it is the truth.

And then I realized I must be bisexual as well and that it was just fine to have those thoughts.  And she became my confidant because of it and thus, the first person I ever came out to.

Scratch that.  The first person I came out to was @klreynol almost a year earlier in a weird, awkward moment where I insisted I was done with "those" thoughts.  I just didn't know what they meant.

Full-blown GAY didn't happen for a few years.  Samantha on Sex and the City once so eloquently put it as "Oh please, being bi is just a stop on the road to gay town," and I couldn't have said it better myself.  Eventually the bi part fell away and I just succumbed to things being what they were.  No point in denying it!

When I came out to my parents, they were amongst the last important people to know.  It wasn't because they didn't deserve to know first and before anyone else, it was because I was terrified of the reaction.  It was an unknown, even if they had their suspicions leading up to it.  I'd slowly built my network of support over the years, from first telling a couple of friends and then a handful of more friends, only putting my trust in those that were like me and relishing in the inclusiveness of the friendships.  The gays are great people to have on your side, and if you don't have at least one good gay friend, plain and simple you are missing out.

I told my sister-in-law, then my brother shortly after.  My sister was soon to follow.  But you have to remember one thing: even though it was 2004, this wasn't "okay" with people.  At best, being gay was a groan-inducing statement that put you at risk for ridicule, hate and anger.  Queer As Folk was a monster success on Showtime but if you didn't have the channel, you didn't know.  Will & Grace was still a huge deal but that's a show where being gay is used for comedic effect and you hardly if ever saw two men kiss let alone hold hands.

Massachusetts legalized gay marriage a few months before I came out, and while it was exhilarating and exciting to have that happen it meant very little in rural Wisconsin.  I felt removed from the situation, and I think back on the rainbow flag and how I felt removed from that too.  It was almost as if the "real" gays were in a club all of their own, and I was still attempting to fit in along the sidelines.

Coming out was a horrible experience for me and it's one I am so happy I will never have to live through again.  Me, the person who likes to control how people see me and hear me; I had no control over this truth.  It was embarrassing.  It was allowing the image people had of me to shatter before their very eyes, the pieces scattering in an array of colors some of them simply did not want to acknowledge.  And though it was like ripping off a band-aid, where the pain is immediate but it doesn't last long, it took several years before the big pink elephant in the room (or rainbow elephant, whichever) could be addressed without a blush and a sideways glance to the door in case a quick escape was needed.

But like the ad-campaign for bullying a few years ago, in time it got better.

When I entered my first "real" relationship with a man, Ken, my family's opinion of my lifestyle started to change.  I don't think they'd ever admit it, but I felt it.  Because Ken was so likable and I was so happy, being gay was suddenly not such a weird thing.  It wasn't such a horrible thing.  I don't fault my parents or family in general for being confused when all of this initially came to light, not at all.  I didn't know a single gay person while growing up in Southern California, and they certainly weren't friends with any.  Not by choice, I assume.  My parents never spent nights out on the town and they didn't travel in huge social circles, so it just was a taboo thing that they weren't subjected to and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.  It is what it is.  Or was.

But suddenly they had a gay son.  A lifestyle becoming familiar only from shows like Will & Grace and the occasional horror story like what happened to Matthew Shepard, being tortured and left to die in a field.  There were certainly other things that were similarly awful and they were things that would make any parent fear for their own child's safety.

Still, I was disconnected from that world.  And I remained that way.  I donated annually to the Human Rights Campaign, proudly displayed the equality sticker on my car, and I participated in the things the gay society tends to embody.  Pride parades in Chicago, the gay bars, dancing, a certain penchant for musicals and Divas.

But I never considered myself an activist by any means.

And then I saw this video.

Living where I currently do, staying aloof to certain topics as I have, I've been ignorant to a lot of things.  Mostly the gay rights movement.  And seeing that video put everything in perspective.  Not necessarily to let me know that it's "okay to be gay," because shoot, I am well aware.  After the initial coming out when I was 18, I've never had a problem with it.  But it showed me how easy I've had it in my life.  I was bullied but it was mostly because all of my friends were girls and the white-trash boys didn't understand why and how and it made them jealous.  I was a "pretty" kid, with nice clothes and nice hair and a nice smile, so of course that meant I wasn't like the rest of them.  I was never bullied to the point I thought about suicide.

I didn't worry about being an activist or fighting for change because in my own little world, it wasn't an issue.

I've never been in a relationship where I remotely even thought about getting married.  There were a few instances with Ken that are ridiculous to think back on now because of how they came about, but I never seriously entertained the thought.  It was pointless.  The movement throughout the country of legalizing gay marriage was slow and arduous, and then Wisconsin actually voted quite specifically on making it illegal.

So you give up.  I gave up.  If it isn't going to be real, why hope for it?  For every victory in another state, there was a Proposition 8 or piece of shit Governor that wanted to steal more rights away.  "We'll give you domestic partnerships, that's as good as marriage."  Only it wasn't.

But the video showed me that I did want it.  If not for myself, then for everyone else.  For the two men that had been together for 54 years and didn't have the legal documents to acknowledge it.  For the men and women kept away from hospital beds of their spouses simply because the law said they weren't really family.  So I continued to donate to the HRC, realizing that by donating it made me exactly what I never thought of myself as: an activist.  I started signing the petitions that were forwarded to me, particularly the one to get Scott Walker out of office because he's such a dickface.

He's a huge dickface.  I can't stand him.  Let's all say it together: "Scott Walker is a dickface."  The day he becomes president is the day I shave my head and join the army.

When I got the flurry of texts yesterday morning from friends and family letting me know what the Supreme Court had decided, I had been in a meeting at work.  Reading those words, everything just sort of washed over me at once.  It's an interesting feeling to realize you are suddenly, as dictated by the law, as good as everyone else.  That there is nothing any other loving couple can do that you can't.  I can instantly turn my focus to my own love, the love I feel for the special guy moving across the country with me in just two months, and it somehow feels more valid than it already did.  That's amazing.

I never put much faith into marriage because until yesterday, it was something that just didn't feel real.  "Gay marriage" wasn't the same as "marriage."  But it is now and there is something so wonderful about that.  It's so wonderful to see so many people so genuinely and divinely happy over something that never should have been denied in the first place.  As the slogan became, love is love.  You can't control who you love any more than you can control the way the sun rises.  Some things just are what they are.

And if you don't like it?  There's the door.

It's an amazing thing to see so many profile pictures turn into the haze of a rainbow on Facebook, showing who is proud and openly in support of this.  What is even more amazing is how many of these people, my friends and family, are heterosexuals that support the fight for equality.  Only it's not a fight anymore... because now we're all equal.  I am so overjoyed to know that when the time comes, I can put a ring on it and plan the wedding I've never had brewing in the back of my mind.  It's one more excuse for me to be creative and I'm sure when the day is here I will knock it out of the park.  Friday, June 26th was a great day today to look at Facebook and so many news sites and not see images of death and sadness, but of rainbows and loving couples.

Now us gays can bring our dastardly plans to life.

I never appreciated the rainbow symbol the gays utilize because I didn't understand it.  I thought it was a silly, frivolous thing.  But now I feel like I do, even if it's just a little bit more than before.  The word "gay" means happiness and I think rainbows go hand-in-hand with it.  So if something looks happy and it means happy... then just embrace it and be happy too.

And I am truly and divinely happy.  Gay and proud.

Congratulations, America; you've caught up with progress.  Yesterday was not a bad way at all to spend my half-birthday, getting the freedom to marry when I'm ready.

Oh shit... that means I'm 6 months away from turning 30.

an ode to jurassic park

Have you ever loved something so much and for so long that it ended up shaping who you became in ways both large and small?  I'm not talking about a person that shaped you, but more of a thing.  I guess the real question is how many of you can name a defining moment from your childhood that became something you never forgot?  I tend to ask questions like this, I know, and it's always to no answer because you are the faceless entities that read these and I am the humble author that puts them out to the ether.  Still, rhetorical or not, they seem like good questions to ask.

I want to take you back 22 years and some change.  Let's say 22 years and 2 weeks.  More than 2 weeks and I'd be way off in the logic of my timeline, and less than two weeks and I wouldn't be granting myself enough time to anticipate the event that would shape me.  I'm a big proponent of things that inspire, and this is as far back as my memory goes on something that inspired me.

June 1993, so picture that adorable kid whilst reading.
Yes, I said adorable.

I can remember doing something in the kitchen when I was 7 years old, either pouring cereal or warming up 'Lil Smokies to eat with mustard (deal with it), and my mom was folding laundry in the living room.  Mom hollered "Sean come in here!" and I ran into the living room to see she was watching an Oprah episode that she had recorded.  As I got into the room, Oprah was introducing a clip for a movie some people were promoting and when it started, my heart stopped.  It was for the dinosaur movie coming out, the one that I had only heard about because my mom and brother had read the book.

The sights you never forget.

I can't recall much about the clip, or if it was a commercial, but I do remember a huge foot coming down in the mud and seeing two people crouched against an upside-down car as they watched it approach.  Then the clip was over, with the announcement of June 11th at the end.

Must have been a commercial then.  There, see?  I answered my own question.

Oh wait, lookie here.  It's the commercial!  Thanks Google!

The thing you should know about me is that I was always a dinosaur kid.  You can even see that on my childhood blanket, which was red gingham on one side and baby dinosaur cartoons on the other.  Thanks mom!  I loved Lego's, and I suppose I enjoyed cars to an extent (usually to open the doors and thus "fly" them through the back yard) but my passion was dinosaurs.  I think there was just something about extinct animals that were so huge and so fantastic that they seemed like it was impossible they ever existed.  And if it was impossible, that meant you had to use your imagination to bring it to life and I was allllll about using my imagination.

I'd heard at some point that this book called "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton was being brought to life as a movie.  Knowing my mom and brother had read it, I asked a lot of questions about the book and my mom was admittedly not great about answering them, insisting I should wait for the movie.  My brother was a little better about giving me details of certain scenes but the questions of a seven-year-old child aren't usually super specific.

More often than not it was probably "what happens?" and I'm sure that gets pretty fuckin' old.

Living in Southern California and really not too far from Los Angeles (just an hour East of it), we were privy to a larger amount of movie advertising than I'm sure other areas had.  At least that was true at the time in 1993.  However, I can recall seeing the billboard for Jurassic Park and imagining over and over and what going to happen in the movie because the billboard was just an image of the movie logo.

I think the important thing to note here is that way back in 1993 there was no internet in our house.  And yes we all know the story of "back in my day" that accompanies statements like that, but it's really something to think about.  Being seven, I had no access to the trailers, teasers, commercials, clips, interviews and behind the scenes footage that we are inundated with today on youtube and the like.  The media couldn't get a hold of stuff, there were no spy-cams out to capture pictures of the actors on set and speculation as to what they were doing and why.  It was a secret, and a huge part of me misses that aspect of movies.  Just make it, keep it quiet, and then show off what you did.

There were commercials on TV and if you missed 'em, tough shit.  We didn't go to the movies that often so we never had the chance to catch the trailers either, and if you rented a VHS and were LUCKY enough to have previews before the movie then good for you.  I had access to a couple newspaper ads in black and white, a commercial during Oprah, and what felt like an eternity to wait for June 11th.

Then the night came.

I remember being picked up from school and my mom telling me we were going home for dinner and then the five of us (dad, brother and sister) would be going to see Jurassic Park.  It was one of those instances like Halloween, where you start shoveling food in your mouth before you go trick-r-treating because the sooner you eat, the sooner the magic starts.  Eventually we packed up the Suburban and drove out to Riverside to the AMC Tyler Galleria 16.  Here's my creepy memory hard at work:

I can remember sitting in the backseat, passenger side, and approaching the theater with it on the same side.  The sun was starting to set so you had that amber-colored glow on the building and the lines to get in were wrapped around it.  I see movies all the time and that shit NEVER happens anymore.  I don't know if mom and dad had already purchased tickets or not, they probably had, but the anticipation of seeing the line just about killed me.  I knew I was going to like the movie, I knew it was supposed to be "groundbreaking" (though I didn't understand the how or why), but I had no idea how it would come to shape me.  Standing in that line was agony and all anyone was talking was wondering what they were going to see on the screen.

Such a fantastic scare.

We sat a few rows from the front, there was no stadium-seating at that point so it was one of those theaters where the ground just kinda slopes upward to the back.  I remember covering my eyes during the sick triceratops scene, being unable to move to cover my eyes during the t-rex attack on the cars, and then jumping out of my fucking skin when the velociraptor breaks through the pipes behind Dr. Sattler (shown above).

Mom talked for years about the annoying little girl in front of us.  During the brachiosaurus scene when Dr. Grant says the animals were singing, the little girl loudly asked "Daddy what are they singing? Daddy!  What are they singing?"  I can still hear mom's impression and it still makes me chuckle.

I can guaran-fuckin-tee I ran off to play Jurassic Park 

by myself after that picture was taken, on month after
the movie came out in theaters.

I had a nightmare that night when we got home, imagining a t-rex biting through the roof of our house and into me on the second floor.  The next week at school, it was time to play "Jurassic Park" on the playground, and I was the one in charge because I was the only kid that had seen it.  Obviously I was the coolest kid around ::tosses hair::  I was usually the velociraptor chasing the other kids, because I had a really high-pitched girl scream and I was pretty quick on my feet.

In the weeks and months to follow I collected many "things" despite only seeing the movie once.  Candies, toys, bedsheets, books; the works.  I don't believe I had any clothing but I had everything else you could own.  What absolutely kills me is that I didn't keep all of it.  At some point in time most of it vanished, most likely from when we moved to Wisconsin in 1997 and I just didn't play with the toys anymore.  But we had the VHS (which came out a full year and a half after the movie hit theaters and scared the shit out of me all over again) that I watched religiously.  I watched it so many times that I literally wore the tape out and we had to buy a new one.

I could (still can) recite every line from the movie without batting an eye.  I had the soundtrack on cassette tape too and cranked that bitch on my boombox whenever I could.  I still credit it for getting me interested in movie scores (which comprise about 60% of my iTunes library).  The first Jurassic Park movie ended up having the biggest opening weekend of all time (up until that point) with $47 million, and went on to be the highest grossing movie of all time (until Titanic) with $900 million worldwide.  It still sits at #17 on the all-time highest box office earning movies.

After we moved to Wisconsin, mom deemed me old enough to read the book and that was a whole new experience for me when we borrowed it from the public library.

I read it twice, back to back, and couldn't put it down either time.  I didn't understand most of the science talk in the beginning but that was okay because the book gave me an even greater gift.  It showed me what the movie could have been.  And as I said before, with just a little bit of the imagination I love to utilize, I could what the movie could have been, in my head, any time I wanted.  A few years later I loaned the book to @klreynol and it was while she was reading it that we decided to go for a walk one day.

On that walk, we discussed what it would be like to write a story if the idea behind Jurassic Park (a dinosaur theme park) had actually worked.  That idea led to us writing our own short stories, and my short story ended up becoming The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode I.

You can also buy my book right here (c:

I started collecting memorabilia a few years later when eBay became a thing, and I've never gotten anything CRAZY but I will say I'm quite proud to own a cardboard standee used in a movie theater lobby during the initial theatrical run.  I'm always adding to my collection, ps.  So feel free to donate to it.  I've got some promotional material, Derek bought me the McDonald's cups the other day which made me ridiculously happy, and there are a few other things that have been added to my collection over the years.

When high school was coming to an end, Seniors were given the opportunity to have a "Senior Quote" at the end of the yearbook.  I went back and forth a few times on what I wanted to do and then decided I should just "do me" and put something from Jurassic Park in.  In hindsight, I wish I had used a better quote ("Mr. Hammond, after careful consideration I've decided not to endorse your park."), but I don't really care.  It was original and not a quote of a Dave Matthews song like everyone else did.  Assholes.  I win.

When I went to visit my brother in Austin, TX in November of 2011, we were walking down 6th street one night and he pointed out a movie theater called The Alamo Drafthouse (look it up, seriously awesome company) and this particular location was The Ritz.  So we stroll by it and I look at the movies showing and my heart stops.  Jurassic Park.  I imagine I looked at him in mild shock/horror/glee/happiness/panic at the sight of it.  The movie had been in a limited re-release at the Alamo earlier in the year (I knew this because the poster pictured above was commissioned for that occasion) but seeing as the theater chain only existed down in Texas, I knew I'd never get the chance in time.  They were randomly re-showing it.

The last shows of the day were done, sadly, so we went home and I just sighed in an "oh well, woulda been neat, not like I haven't seen it 200+ times," kind of way.  Then my brother texted me from his bedroom that he bought two tickets for us for the next day.

The Alamo experience is one thing, but seeing your favorite movie on the big-screen for the first time in 18 years is pretty special.  And not just that, but it was an original print of the movie.  Filled with grainy images and some scratchy sounds here and there coupled with brilliant green or magenta lines every now and then, and I adored every second of it.  I was like a kid again seeing these things for the first time.  Experiencing them in a way I had truly forgotten.

I'd like to thank Macy's for making a shirt that faded so quickly 

after washing it that it looked like I bought it 20 years ago.

This puppy gets noticed when I wear it, and I love that to no end.

The following spring it was announced that for the 20th anniversary of the film it would be re-released in 3D.  Again, I about pooped.  I saw it at midnight with my closest friends and then I saw it again the next day.  I also saw it again a week later but that's neither here nor there.  20 years is a long time to love something but that love had not swayed one bit.  What was also interesting were how many people wanted to see the movie with me.

I assume it's because I'm amazing ::tosses hair again:: but I know it's because seeing something with a hardcore fan is a big deal.  I feel it when I watch Star Wars with my brother... you can sense the emotional bond a person has with something and being there makes you feel special.  At least that's how it makes me feel.

The ticket is blurry but I wanted to get "her" on the wall

in the frame more than anything else.

So you see why this movie made such an impression on me, at least I hope you do.  There are a hundred other reasons why it is so important, from the breakthroughs in CGI to implementing new technologies used in movies forever after.  It has its flaws of course, which I love to point out when I re-watch the movie with people, but that is all part of the charm.

When Jurassic World was announced three years ago I was excited but skeptical.  The sequels have been less than... less than.  I'll leave it at that.  They each have their charm, though Jurassic Park III has very very very little of it, and because they are part of the series they get a pass from me.  What would a new movie bring to the table?  The rumors constantly swirling around a fourth movie typically involved weaponizing the dinosaurs, putting machinery on them, blending the DNA with humans to make weird monsters (I'm not kidding, read about it here), etc. etc.

None of it sounded good.

Not that I was ever in a position to judge something before seeing it... but if I wasn't, who was?  I think anyone who labels themselves as a huge f'in nerd fan for a movie should have the right to shake their head at an idea.  But then information started leaking.

Information: "This will be a direct sequel to Jurassic Park."
Sean: "Oh puh-lease."
Information: "It takes place 22 years later, on the same island as the original."
Sean: "Wait... what?"
Information: "The park will be open for business."
Sean: "I'll give you my first born child at no charge."

And then the first trailer came out.

It doesn't shame me to say that I watched this in the parking lot of my dentist's office after getting a crown on my tooth and that I started crying when I saw it.  Because it looked good... it seemed and felt and sounded good.  And I watched it a dozen times.  And made Derek watch it a dozen times.  And over the months to follow I watched it and everything else that came out for it on an almost endless stream.  All I ever wanted was to see the park open and operating.  What could it have been?  What would it have looked like?  To take it out of the 90's and give it a futuristic feel while still being grounded in reality was just icing on the cake.

Finally I was able to buy my tickets in advance for a screening at 7pm on Thursday June 11th.  I think if you take the timezones into account, and assuming we saw a 7pm showing of the first movie back in 1993, I was 2 hours shy of watching this exactly 22 years after the first film.

Hey again, ladybird over my shoulder.  No, not you Michelle Pfeiffer.

So how was it?

Nothing will ever beat the first movie for me.  That's just fact.  But Jurassic World beats the other sequels by doing what none of them did before: it pays attention to the source material.  Not just the first movie, but the book as well.  It takes the ideas and it expands upon them, creating a fully-realized world with a theme park that by all accounts felt as real as any I've ever been to.  And it was a relief.  It was a bigger relief to see it performed well Thursday night.  And then an even bigger relief to see the media had severely underestimated how much money this would make opening weekend, and re-adjusted the figures to be more accurate.

It's great to have been on the bandwagon of something for the majority of my life and get to see the excitement of a new generation as they discover these movies for themselves.  Skip 2 and 3 if you want, particularly 3 because it's a terd, but there is no denying the social and technical impact of Jurassic Park.  I know more of these are on the way now with this being the start of a new trilogy, and I cannot wait to see where the ride leads next.

I wanted to wait to post this until Sunday, just because I was curious as to what Jurassic World would open at.  Universal Pictures initially estimated the movie would bring in $100 million, which is about on par for movies like this now.  Apparently they didn't account for the people that would be coming out of the woodwork to get a fix of nostalgia:

* Jurassic World opened with $82.8 million on Friday, making is the third highest opening day of all time.

* It made an average of $48.8 thousand per theatre, giving it the highest per-theater-average of all time.

* It became Universal Pictures highest opening weekend movie, you guessed it, of all time.

* It doubled initial estimates and will be coming in right at about $208.8 million, making it the biggest opening weekend for a movie ever.

* Outside of the US Jurassic World pulled in $314 million, making it the biggest international opening ever.

* Finally (and most importantly) Jurassic World had the biggest worldwide opening of all time with $524 million, also marking the first time a movie made over $500 million in a single weekend.

I could not be more proud to have put my dreams and love behind this series and see it pay off in this manner.  Jurassic Park broke box office records when it started on top 22 years ago, I find it only fitting that Jurassic World continue the trend.  Until the next sequel, toodles gang (c:

the may update: third edition

I planned ahead for May and still ended up not getting the update out when I was supposed to.  HOWEVER, I did get this out quicker than April and that has to account for something.  I suppose the other silver lining is that I will be writing a lot more of these in the coming months because things are really going to start ramping up here for me in a bit.  With book publication and moving and a new job and three monthly updates, this summer is going to be over before I know it.  Makes me sad but excited all in the same moment.

So, May.  Lovely month.  This year and most of the years in the past, actually.  I think because it is the prelude to summer and you know that grilling out and running in the grass and hopefully a few swims are right around the corner.  Ttrips tubing down the river aren't far away, then fireworks for the 4th and maybe a trip to the water park in Wisconsin Dells.  None of those are up to bat yet, so May is spent with bated breath for the most part.  And it started with a bang.

Ready for the Derby

Derek and I were invited to go to Minnesota for the first weekend of the month to join in on the fun of a Kentucky Derby Party.  The timing was actually pretty perfect because Derek's birthday was April 30th and we had both taken extended weekends off of work in order to celebrate and this tied right in with that.  So that was exciting!  We took a chartered plane from Appleton out to Northern Minnesota, which was a slightly harrowing experience seeing as I had never been on anything other than a commercial airliner.

The creepy thing about flying on such a small aircraft is that once it takes off you realize just how small it really is.  Yeesh.  Take off from the ground and you understand how little there is between you and said ground, other than the thousands of feet of air of course.  You feel every little bump, every little buffet of wind, but in the end it's a really fun experience.  The girls riding with us made it all worth it because each leg of the flight (there and back) was absolutely hysterical.

The party itself was a bit of a let down, everyone agreed.  It just wasn't as big or grand as I guess any of us were anticipating, but the weather was good so that was a plus.  We all got dressed to the nines and had the best time we could.  There was the initial party, then we went for dinner at a restaurant on a harbor and after that dropped by a couple country clubs before ending the night at a bar called Zorba's that was... interesting.  Tiki torches, drunk college kids, and in the end, a girl that spilled her drink all over me and Derek and then insisted it was alright because her best friend is gay.

In this moment, bitch, I don't care.  Now scoot.

The next morning we were laying low with our coffees and had breakfast at our friend's home, overlooking the lake and enjoying the good breeze coming off of it.  Then it was time to go, and as you can see below, we had a great time.  There was a ton of turbulence leaving Minnesota and two of our travel companions were not the biggest fans of the situation.

Later in the month I reconnected with a former best in a one-on-one circumstance, and it was really nice.  When all's said and done, it's funny how things that were once so completely great could end in such an upheaval of angry words and thoughtless accusations.  From both sides, not just one.  And it's funny how nearly three years needs to go by before people (like me) are able to get over it and people (like her) are able to be resigned to the facts.  I think once both sides of a party have hit their limit of caring (one having cared too much, one having not cared enough) things can finally mend back together.  You look at the time that was lost and think about how silly things were to have gone so far.

But people like me... people like her... we put too much heart into things.  And when you love as fiercely as we do, you fight as fiercely as well.  If anything comes in the way to jeopardize your feelings you immediately put up a wall of defense and then it gets bad.

I think the great thing about that type of situation is that you can come back to a person and things fall into order the way they had been before.  The same thing happened with @klreynol back in high school.  The bottom line is that people make stupid mistakes about how they feel in stupid situations and the result is a stupid decision that wastes a few years of your life better served by just being friends.  It's as simple as that.

I started thinking the other day about how interesting it is when things just start to wrap up, all by themselves, and how good that can make you feel.  Derek was telling me about some show he watched that Bill Nye was on and how he had been laughing at people who say things "are a sign from the universe."  Have I ever said that?  I certainly hope not.  The example given was some girl riding her bike at the gym or something and thinking about how tough her life was and she looked up at the person riding in front of her and saw that her shirt said "keep trucking" or something lame like that.  She claimed it was the universe giving her a sign.

I think I look at it in more of a... karma way.  I got the windshield on the car fixed, I consolidated my credit cards and finally took advantage of the cashback bonuses waiting for me on a credit card I've had since I turned 18.  It wasn't a million dollars but it was still a chunk of change.  It starts to feel like everything I have been putting out into the universe has finally started coming back to me, and that's a really great feeling.  Do unto others, give when you can, yadda yadda... I think for people like me, and that's not saying I am a gleaming example by any means, but for people like me, the hope is that eventually karma will come around and fortune will smile.

Speaking of karma.

The beginning of the end.

I decided I want to finish writing my book series while I still live in Wisconsin, which means that I have approximately 80 days and some change to pump out The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode IV.  A daunting task, to be sure, but one that I know I can handle.  Mostly because I said I would and that means I will.  The thing that ties hand-in-hand with that is in one month, the first week of July, Episode II will be published.  I want to do something this time around that I couldn't do initially, and that is to market the book.

I didn't have the money last year, I barely had the money to print off a few banners and host the launch party.  So against my better judgement, I have decided to start a gofundme campaing.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, gofundme is a website that allows people to raise money for projects, medical bill, ideas, etc.  Unlike a Kickstarter campaign, everything you raise you get to keep.  I hate asking for money, I really do, particularly when it is for something slightly invisible like marketing.  But, no one ever got ahead by sitting on their behind so I said screw it and made one anyway.  This is where I hope the karma comes back to me.

There are several incentives for people who want to donate, and they get better as the amount increases.  All funds donated go directly into the book, not my pocket.  There are banners and posters to buy, a Facebook ad-campaign to pay for, and of course a launch party and signing on August 14th that EVERYONE is invited to attend.  I would not be asking for money to finance The Onyxus Chronicles if I didn't need it, so please consider donating and filling the part of you that wants to be a philanthropist.  I honestly and truly appreciate it.  The link to donate is below the picture of the cast established by the end of Episode II.

DONATE HERE!!

So what else happened in May?  Saw the new Avenger's movie and had some mixed feelings, saw the new Mad Max movie and had some mixed feelings, and probably saw a couple others with mixed feelings as well.  Partook in Mrs. V's baby shower, commemorated my own furry babies turning five years old, and had to shave my face for a photoshoot.  Got drunk on margaritas on the Solea patio, didn't hesitate to enjoy the first BBQ of the year, and ended the month feeling fulfilled and ready for the final countdown to moving away from Wisconsin.

A lot of stuff is going to be happening over the next couple months and I cannot wait to share it with all of you.  Because that's what I do!  Until then, take care, see Jurassic World next week (three times in four days like I plan on), and rock steady.  Ciao for now (c:

the april update: third edition

The April Update, also known as "The Blog that Refused to be Written," also know as the "No Fuckin' Place in the World" blog, is finally here.  Two weeks late.  Y'know, one of these days I'm going to post a monthly update so late in the game that it's going to be out the day before the next one is due.  I'm not going to apologize as if I were being paid to do these, but I feel like I should anyway.

Sorry 'bout it.

I really did sit down to write this blog several times but each time I just sort of wandered off, staring at the daisies and thinking about events coming up sooner than I realize.  It isn't so much that I don't have anything to write about, I actually do.  Loads of stuff.  Typically when I put these off and put these off, the resulting blog is typically good.  Sometimes not.  This blog in particular is (in hindsight as I go to click "publish") extremely random, but maybe that's just par for the course and something to break up the usual formula.  Anyway, on with it.

April was a fast month.  The months seem to habitually drag in the cold months until the world starts turning green again then everything seems to suddenly slip by so much faster.  At least that's what I find.  Do you?  Just the feeling of all things being relative I guess.  Remember that movie Deep Blue Sea that came out in 1999?  LL Cool J said it best: "Grab hold of a hot pan, a second can seem like an hour.  Put your hands on a hot woman, an hour can seem like a second."  I suppose in my circumstance it'd be hands on a hot man.  Or Derek.  I digress.

I'm sitting here in Starbucks right now on my 6 year old Toshiba laptop, the one I just dug out of the closet and brought back to life with a re-installation of Windows 7 (boom).  Only now as I type am I realizing the headphone jack doesn't work anymore and my music has been playing for the lovely crowd around me.  You're welcome!  I've got my ear-buds plugged into my phone now.

It has more music on it anyway.

::tosses hair::

I once lovingly referred to this place as "my" Starbucks but I don't think I'm allowed to do that anymore.  So many great spans of time have occurred between my sessions writing or editing here that I think claiming it as my own is silly.  But I do know I'm one of the few regulars and they (for the most part) all know my name without asking, so maybe carving my name into all of the table tops just now wasn't such a bad idea.  I dunno.

April got me to start understanding the reality of the situation set before me.  The encroaching date in August when Derek and I pack up and move to Austin is growing closer and closer and all I have been able to think about is that I want to finish writing my fourth book while still living here.  And by "finish" writing I of course mean "start it, work on it, and the complete it," because as stands only the outline is finished.  And if I were to finish the series here there would be a great feeling of having come full circle on one phase of my life.

That being said, it'd sure as shit be easier to come here in my days off and maybe even some evenings to indulge in a drink and write my book if I had a new laptop.  I've gotten so used to writing things on my Mac at home that typing on this keyboard feels foreign and weird.  I don't want to rest my wrists on the edges of it because it gets so warm so fast, and as a consequence my hands end up flying over the keys in a flutter of fingers and a blur of pale skin that needs to see some sunlight.  And if I can't listen to my tunes then what good are you!?

It should be noted that I just stepped away from this current blog to write three paragraphs of "the may update: third edition."  April certainly is the blog that refused to be written, and so far it hasn't really even been about anything at all.  Another rambler on a sunny day in Wisconsin!  But at least that means May will be on time, right?  On time-ish, at least.

There is a man that just sat down next to me at the "meeting" table because all of the other seats are taken.  I'm immediately uncomfortable because I don't like having my personal bubble invaded and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that.  He doesn't seem to be reading over my shoulder (re: hands) as I write, so for now I suppose he's cool.  He looks like Ben Kingsley but chubbier.  And less Middle Eastern... like maybe his grandparents were Middle Eastern but not his direct parents.  And just one of them, let's say grandma.  I'm just gonna say his name is Alec (with a C, not an X) and call it a day.

I've got a strange desire right now to watch 26 Golden Things.  I think I've been feeling incredibly nostalgic lately.  What was that quote from Mr. & Mrs. Smith... "I guess in the end you start thinking about the beginning."  I need to stop quoting shit.  Time here in Wisconsin is coming to an end and I know it and I guess I just want to relive everything great that's ever happened here before a new zip code claims me for its own and I develop a southern drawl.  Not an intense one that gets on your nerves like Matthew McConaughey's but more like...someone else.  I don't know, ask me later.

So what else happened in April that this blog so clearly did not write about in the very least?  Went to the graduation of @markstyleme from hair school, had the best Lemon Drop Martini of my life, and celebrated my best @kconn turning 30.  I sold 500 movies from my collection, I sold 3/4 of my book collection, and in the end felt so much lighter and just a little more organized for the future.  Celebrated Derek turning 24, saw a wonderful movie in The Age of Adaline, and had a great double date at Cannova's.  It's the nights like those that I think I'll miss the most.

For now I am content sitting here in a place I give full credit as my source of inspiration.  I wonder how many writers feel that way?  How many books does a person have to write in a public space before they should just dedicate said book to that place?  I don't know.  At least I don't know right now.  It'll be the last book of my series... it'll be the last book I write while living in Wisconsin.  There is an odd sort of finality to that, don't you think?  I think so at least.  Time will tell a tale.  Until then, toodles gang (c:

Sorry this blog sucked.

 

random truths, third edition

Welcome!  If this is your first time to one of the "Random Truths" blogs, I extend my most heartfelt apologies.  I mean welcomes.

Yes... welcomes.

I pop these puppies out every few months or so as "random" things occur to me.  If you feel so inclined, you can read part one here and part two here.  I thought for round three it'd be fun to label it as the "video edition."  And of course, I apologize if you're on your cell phone and this is taking forever to load.  These aren't as particularly random as the items in the other blogs, but again it's just to break with tradition and try something new.  Calm down.

1.) Obviously I'm gonna have to kick this off with some shameless self-promotion.  That should just be a given at this point ::tosses hair::  I actually wanted to post the entire "26 Golden Things" video but at some point in time Youtube decided to mute the audio.

Something about music copyrights.  I don't know.

I spent a year writing about "26 Golden Things" and if you're interested in the detailed account you are free to read about it here.  And if you are interested in watching it then just get a hold of me, I still have a few copies on DVD lying around.  As more time passes from not only starting that project but from finishing it as well, it now begins to feel like it happened to someone else.  Sure, I can still remember doing all of the things in the video, but that doesn't override the fact that it's mostly a series of fun snapshots of a person's life.  Re: my life.

You only put the good things out there, we all know this.  You don't take five pictures and then choose the semi-decent one to frame.  You choose the best one.  So the video is full of the best moments and the happiest times and the biggest laughs, and in a way it gives me a false portrayal of what 2012 was like.  But in the end it was still good.  And it's great to be able to look back on it with pure content.  Smiley face, exclamation point.

2.) When I was still working for Express I worked with @corkalynn in Green Bay at the Bay Park Square mall.  We did a lot of talking when we worked together and she encouraged me to do a lot of voices (because I can) and recite lines from movies (because I do) to make the hours go by quicker.  One day she posted a link on my Facebook wall and it was of the latest person to jump on the "Shit Girls Say" bandwagon.  Admittedly I was apprehensive because a lot of these things failed to inspire but I was wrong in this instance.

"Let's go to Miami!" 

I pull this video out way too often and laugh my ass off each time.  The second video is good but the "Fashion Week" entry is my favorite.  I know you're not for one second supposed to believe he's really a woman, but the fact that people actually would say the shit coming out of his mouth coupled with that beard caps off the hilariousness.  P'Trique and I could be best friends.

I'm also delusional.  There was a brief moment in time after this where we were going to make our own video, "Shit Retail Girls Say," but it never came to light.

3.) When I watch this, I can't stop my ass from moving in my seat.  I just can't.

Everyone loves a good 80's tune and "Kickstart my Heart" by Motley Crue is riiiiiiight up there for me.  This video has two things going for it: an awesome song and a MONTAGE!  We should all know by now that I am always always always down for a movie montage, particularly when it is well made.

In the summer when the air is warm and it's night time, I like to go driving.  Usually it's dusk and not totally dark but let's not be too picky.  I go driving with a big drink from the gas station or a milkshake to appease my inner fatty; it's a great time to just think about life and deep stuff like that with no one to bother you.  After this video came out I downloaded the song and went driving and found that as it started ramping up I had to roll the windows down and fuckin' floor it.  I had to!  Because of how the song is used in this video I start imagining all of the action scenes in my books, the show stoppers if you will, and I choreograph them in my mind as to how they would look in a film.  Call it a good imagination (or a bad one if you don't like the fight scenes in my books, natch) but it's what I do.

How many movies could you name from what was shown?

4.) Movie montages, while we're on the subject, are my favorite thing ever.  I could write a book about them.  I don't know why I've always responded so strongly to them but I guess it boils down to my love of movies and getting excited by someone else having the same level of interest.  Take the guy who made the one below as an example.

For five years he did these "End of Year" montages.  To be able to take a couple hundred movies that came out over the course of a fiscal year and combine the clips of them into a cohesive story is something I wish I had the time and patience to do.  It just flabbergasts me how he does this so perfectly.  The video above in particular is bittersweet for me because it was for 2012 (we know why I loved that year) and because it was the last time he made one of these.

His name is Kees Van Dijkhuizen Jr and I think he's nothing short of amazing.  He started making these things when he was 14 years old and achieved some pretty high praise in doing so.  He's 21 now and lives in Amsterdam, and I'd love to just pick his brain about how he did these.  He also has a great series called "Films Of" that chronicles the works of several big directors and all of the movies they have released (the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan ones are quite good) and a few other passion projects intermixed (including a Harry potter Retrospective worth checking out if you're a fan of the series).

I look somewhat frequently at his personal website to see if he has come out with anything new but to no avail, he seems to be focusing solely on college work at the moment.  I think more than anything I just want more suggestions for music from him because I have downloaded each and every song he has used in all of his videos and have listened to them countless times.

K.  I'll stop fangirling.

5.) There will be a whole blog about Jurassic Park in about two months, don't you fret.  Otherwise JP is like the montages and I could ramble about it forever.  But this trailer in particular has gotten me more excited for a movie than anything in the last decade.  For reals.

Let's just say I have been waiting a very very long time for this movie to come along in the manner that it is.  Not necessarily a fourth installment to the franchise, but more accurately a look at what the park itself was supposed to be.  I read Jurassic Park when I was 10 and fell in love with the book as much if not more than the movie I'd already seen close to 200 times.  It was the very idea behind it that got me going (I was a dinosaur kid, not into space or cars or any of that stuff) and had my brain running too.

What would have happened if that fat ass Dennis Nedry hadn't ruined everything?  Would the park have actually worked?  Yes?  No?  We finally get a chance to find out this summer and that is what I've been waiting what feels like an eternity for.  And allegedly we get to see the old park and that has me pooping my pants in excitement.  I liked the teaser trailer for Jurassic World but the Superbowl spot they showed had me tearing up and getting all emotional because it looks like they finally did a good job with a sequel.  Time will tell on June 12th!

6.) The first R rated movie I ever saw in the theater was Scream, and my mom took my sister and I to see it for my 11th birthday (albeit in January of 1997, a few weeks late).  We were at Edwards Cinemas (not sure why I remember that) and I think there were only a couple other people in the theatre because it was during the day and in the middle of the week.  Thanks Year-round schooling with a long winter break!

The lights dimmed and we saw a few trailers and then the screen was black and you could hear wind rustling in the trees.  I remember thinking "It'd be so cool if they made a sequel to Jurassic Park."  Keep in mind this was before we had access to the internet, the gossip sites, the plethora of movie themed magazines, all that.  Really, my only sources would have been something like Entertainment Weekly and my parents didn't subscribe to that.  We had TV Guide, whoop-dee-doo.

Then I realized it was a sequel and practically leapt out of my seat in shock.  I feel this is still one of the best teasers for a sequel I've ever seen.  Shows you nothing really, save for a somewhat badly rendered t-rex, and gives you a date.  But with how huge of a movie Jruassic Park was in 1993, that teaser alone gave you something to look forward to.  The hope you could be wowed again.

The Lost World didn't really wow me like the original movie but it's still a fun ride.  Damn teaser trailers, sometimes they are fulllllll of trickery.

7.) A lot of times when hanging out with random friends at their houses, gradually we turn to watching videos on Youtube.  I then feel obligated to ask "Have you seen that video, blueberries?"  Usually people say "no."  Then I show them the magic.

The first time I saw it I screamed in laughter.  Then I kept rewinding it and laughing and screaming louder and harder.  Then I ran into my mom's room with my laptop and showed her, and she barked in laughter as well and kept having me rewind it just the same way as our eyes welled up with tears of joy.  It has turned into an easily quotable clip "Yumma!" between my mom and I and something she will regularly repeat even now.  Hope you enjoyed it too (c;

8.) I love movie scores.  I have more songs in my "Instrumental" playlist in iTunes than I do in all of of the other playlists combined and I pride myself on my collection.  I turn to certain albums when it is time to write books or blogs and chief among them is the score for Inception by Hans Zimmer.

"Time" is my favorite track on the album.  I don't really have much to say about it other than I find it hauntingly beautiful and sad.  To me Inception is a really sad movie and one that stays with you after you've watched it.  I love it, I love the song, and what surprises me the most is that it was this score that got me to change my mind about Hans Zimmer (never a fan before).

9.) Superman has been my favorite comic hero for a long time, but up until 2013's Man of Steel he'd always been kinda "one note" to me.  Sure he was fun to watch in the old movies, on Smallville, and that slightly lackluster 2006 entry, but when the trailer arrived for the newest version I was immediately hooked.  It even got me to dress up as him for Halloween that year (read about it here) and buck the trend of drag I had been embracing for the seven years prior.

And so much of it is the music!  There is so much heart in this trailer that it was impossible for me to not be counting the days for the movie to come out.  It's not often that trailers come around that have me rewatching them every few days because I love them so much.  I guess the big hope with a trailer like this is that the movie is going to make you feel the same way by the time it is finished.

It was great to be able to say that the movie did invoke the same feeling.

And Henry Cavill?  Yes please.

10.) TI can't explain this final video very well, other than to say Derek showed it to me after we had been dating for a couple weeks and there was something about it that stuck with me.

It's of course silly and a little odd, but I find it charming and heartwarming and so entirely innocent.  There's something a little more introspective about these videos than you would think at first and each one is pretty great.  And that final line?  Melt me.

"Guess why I smile a lot?"

"Why?

"Uh... cuz it's worth it."

That's all I've got for this video edition... maybe I'll do another one in a year.  And maybe another normal version of the random truths in a few months.  Until then, I hope you're all smiling.  As Marcel says, it's worth it.

Toodles gang (c:

the march update: third edition

What a busy month.  And you'd think I would have cataloged it appropriately so as to give an accurate and detailed account of what went on, but after writing this blog for nearly four years you should know me well enough by now.  And I didn't catalog it.

Whoops!  Here's a picture of a flower I took from the dentist to help you get over it.

I think as more time passes and I keep up with writing these updates (or kind of keep up with writing them), the format continues to change.  I used to give a detailed account of what I did throughout the month, maybe bookending it with major events and a few thoughts scattered in between.  But as of late I've really just felt like writing more about my mindset and less about the things that occurred.  I s'pose I decide the format so what I say goes, but I just felt like looping you in on that.

Geeze, don't jump down my throat!

The thing that struck me the most in March was the passing of time.  You can look at that in a whole manner of ways but the one that it boils down to is that I've lived in Wisconsin for 18 years as of March 15th.  That's a long time.  Probably not a long time if it's where you're going to spend the rest of forever, but from the day we moved here in 1997 I thought about moving away.  Initially it was back to Southern California, then for a long long time it was Chicago, but since 2009 it has been Austin.  When I set my mind on things I have a hard time letting go of them.  You know this.

So that being said, since I met Derek I've been thinking more and more about leaving Appleton.  More and more about getting on with things, with life and my book and work and all that jazz.  So, in order to get one with the easiest of those things, I reached out to the powers that be and scheduled everyone to come and shoot the final pieces of my book covers.  We had some re-shoots to take care of as well as a new character to figure out (ears, I tell ya, make things difficult).  As happened last summer, I had some booze and snacks and it was really just a couple of hours spent with really great people having a really great time.  Sadly @klreynol could not be present but she was there in spirit!

Saphrinity Nargos

And also as happened last summer, I got a little emotional seeing these characters come to life once more.  It's an interesting thing to write so much about people that are not real, in places that certainly are not real, and then see "them" standing in front of you.  I love the silhouettes so much because they allow me to imagine these characters exactly as they are in my mind.  It wasn't a ground-breaking idea but it was a good one and I'll never re-think that decision.  You get an outline of a person and then you can fill in the rest of the details yourself.

To me, the worst thing about books being made into movies is that you have to let your own vision of that world die.  Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, etc; they are all great movies in their own right but they are not necessarily accurate to the books.  They aren't what I thought they would be.

I know the cheese doesn't stand alone.

The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode II main characters:

Saphrinity Nargos, Aurora Genesis, Banning Sol and Tristan Nargos

But we did get the shoot done that night, I put on the mantle of "Banning" one last time (yes, I'll reveal officially that I am him (like you hadn't figured it out (surprise if not!))), and then that was a wrap.  I spent the morning of the next day photoshopping to get everything ready to send off to my brother for "assembly" of the cover, and then it was time to hitch up my suitcase and climb aboard a plane to finish the biggest part of the month.

I'd been planning since @klreynol left town in October to visit her in Arizona, and decided in January that I would actually do it and then slingshot over to Austin to visit my brother.  It was early February when Derek decided he'd go to Austin with me to explore and see if it could be a potential place for him to live, as I so often mentioned it was for me.  I would fly to Mesa on Monday the 16th, then to Austin on Thursday the 19th to meet Derek, and then we'd fly back home on Monday the 23rd.

The best

The weird thing about @klreynol and I is that for as hard as it was to say goodbye six months ago, we not once spoke on the phone between then and now.  We texted fairly frequently, had long conversations online, but never chatted with our voices.  I suppose that harkens back to how our relationship really began?  Rambling on AIM and whittling away the hours of the night because we had nothing else to do.  Of course I missed her (and she me I assume), but that's not something that can be cured by hearing a voice.  If it is, then that part of me is broken.  A text message does just as much for me as a quick phone call would.  More, actually, because I can just walk away at a certain point and not have to do the awkward dance of trying to hang up.

The BEST thing about @klreynol is that no matter how much time passes between seeing each other, there is no awkwardness at all upon reconnecting.  We slip into our old groove as if no time at all has passed... we just have a shit ton more to talk about.  And that's how the visit went.  Very smoothly, nice and warm weather, and plenty of conversation to fill a book.  I got to see her husband, her adorable little boys, and of course her immediate family that moved down as well.  It was a great trip and one I will make again sometime in the near future, after I get all of my other little duckies in a row of course.

It's a lot cheaper to fly to Arizona direct from a larger airport anyway (c;

Atop Mt. Bonnell

Now I hate to disappoint anybody that was potentially looking for a full detailed account of exactly what Derek and I got up to while we were in Austin, but I'm not going to rehash it here.  90% of the trip was spent doing things I'd already done down there.  I just wanted to share them with him so he could experience them and hopefully be as wowed and impressed as I was.  And he was.

I suppose the biggest take away is that we went down there together to see if it was somewhere Derek wanted to live, and the answer is yes.  And we will.  The current plan is to get down by August/September, which is kind of scary to think about when you realize it is only 4 or 5 months away.  It's something that has been building for a long time and I am just lucky to have someone to do it with me when I was so afraid to do it alone.  @klreynol and I always bonded over the fact that we hated going to new places alone for the first time (i.e. experiencing new things alone) and that was a big inhibitor for me going into this.

But then someone like Derek comes along and everything feels like it is just going to work.  Effortlessly, simply, and finitely.

A kiss that launches my heart (c:

Y'know, the other day I told him to meet me at the mall after work so we could go pick out some clothes for a special event coming up.  Derek doesn't normally meet me at work, there isn't any reason to, so it's not a place I ever actually see him.  I was standing around talking to my co-workers and saw him walking in and my heart jumped up in my throat.

I didn't tell him at the time because I didn't want to give him a big head (kidding), but I went into the backroom to get my things and told a co-worker about it because I was all flustered.  I think with this officially being my second-longest relationship, it's a good sign I can still get nervous and excited and sweaty when I see him.  The trip went better than I ever anticipated it would.  We had a blast on our own and with my brother, his kids, and my former sister-in-law.  I'm so excited to start planning for my future and I'm so excited that it is finally time to do so.

When we got back to Appleton, Derek officially moved in.  And in the words of Carrie Bradshaw, that's just fabulous.

So what else happened in March?  I started physical therapy for my constantly sore back, finished Episode II of my book, wrote the outline for Episode IV, and successfully visited the dentist and left without any problems.  Downsized my movie collection by about 500 movies, decided I hate Frontier Airlines, and started to love my job once more.  Celebrated a few birthdays, let go of a few insecurites, and in the end got back on track to living my life the way I had gotten used to after four years on my own.  The only difference is that I share it with someone else now.

Toodles gang (c: