Tag Archives: reese

Mwahahahahahaha!

18 Wednesday Mar 2009

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , ,



A several weeks ticked by…just like that.

Over a month in fact.

They’ve been light laughter and heavy laughter weeks. A little life and a little death. A coin flips…but it all balances out in the end. I promise.

DEATH:

My friend, Ken’s grandmother died several weeks ago. Ken is my oldest friend that I still see on a regular basis (and having someone around that knew you in 3rd grade sometimes helps to keep certain things in perspective) and I knew his grandmother.

I could conjure up any number of memories of her, but the one that surfaces quickest, for no reason that I’m able to discern, is sitting in her living room, in the very same retirement home that my brother Nick and I had performed a magic show for the residents (where we horribly, horribly botched the Floating Mummy Trick), with Ken and her, back in high school, just as Fall was starting to deepen, the candies in the bowl on the coffee table were already taking on Halloweenish shapes, the Thriller video played in the background on a TV, and all seemed very, very right with the world…


 

I went to the wake and the funeral. Among other things, she was buried with a Cubs cap. Even in her final letter to her family, she still had not figured out what she had done wrong to raise so many Sox fans.

Outside it was cold and bright. The graveyard was small.

I, not having the normal schedule and responsibilities of an upstanding person my age, was in the unique position to spend the majority of three days with Ken to facilitate the grieving process. Our chosen method: nostalgic video games. Ken purchased a disc containing some 30+ old Sega games from the late 80s early 90s and we played and played.

Remember 16-Bit pixels?

Oh you kids with your advanced polygons, blackberry phones, and flying cars!

It’s amazing just how many memories are locked in sensory stimulus…even very specific beeps, squawks, menus, and digital music.

Games we played when those who are gone were still around.

We supplemented the games with alcohol, more friends, cookies, smoke breaks, laughs, and forming a new band on Guitar Hero: World Tour.

LIFE:

The next week I went to help celebrate a new life—Caitlyn Jade Glass, the daughter of my good friends, Amy and Jeramie, was getting baptized. This also gave me the opportunity to visit little Caitlyn’s older sister, my Goddaughter, Reese.

Reese was barely past infancy the last I saw of her…and now she is almost three. I had worries that she wouldn’t remember me…or what if we didn’t get along?

These doubts vanished when we shared several conspiratorial smiles throughout the mass.

I discovered Reese is very talkative. She gave me an entire symposium on here theories on the phenomenon of princessdom (“A princess just gots to!”).

In talking with Amy, I also discovered that Reese has taken to performing mischievous acts (like snatching various objects and declaring them hers) finishing off with a super-villain laugh. Not just a “ha-ha”…but a full blown, genuine super-villain-mad-scientist laugh.

“Mwahahaha!”

I’m very proud. A lot goes into a good mad scientist laugh—cackle and pitch and cadence. Technique is everything. Such a good start and so many years ahead to help Reese perfect that maniacal laughter.

I’ve half a mind to build a Doomsday Device for her third birthday.

I also, a while back, promised Reese a children’s book—something I can’t solve by driving out to Barnes & Noble…as I promised to write it.

I finished my evening with Reese with a very competitive game of face-making. I’m no slouch. I summon up every ounce of humility when I say I’m freaking brilliant at making faces. But Reese kept right up with me. I’m impressed. Even overwhelmed.

What can I say? She had me at, “Mwahahahaha!”

Lookin’ Back…

30 Monday Apr 2007

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

And some days I stare off into the stratosphere and think to myself, Thank God I’m not allergic to peanuts.  Peanut butter would be a too, too delicious suicide.

 

And I had my birthday over the weekend and I’m another year more clever and 360 days cuter.

 

Humans travel in time in a unique way.  We go a whole year being one age – when you’re 27, you are 27 (with no variance) for the whole year, up to the day before your birthday.  And then, BAM, in one day you age a year.  Time manipulation:  slow-fast-slow-fast.  That’s the dance.  Repeat until exhausted . . . but flourish often (trust me).

 

I had a fun weekend.  I petted a shark and a stingray.  I had my fortune told to me by a mechanical gypsy.  I ran into a tame raccoon in a tunnel.  I saw the museum of mischief and madness.  I squeezed into a photo booth with two lovely ladies for pictures.  I saw exotic insects.  I slept in the grass by a pond because the Art Museum was closed and we had time to kill.  I saw a stage play version of Plan 9 From Outer Space (it was most excellent).

 

All the above was accomplished in St. Louis, where two of my favorite females, Genenda and Torrie, celebrated with me.  We went to a theatre’s garage sale, the City Museum (the most unique museum I’ve ever been to…I recommend it), The Zoo (which is free in St. Louis), the Art Museum (free as well…but closed when we got there), and finally the Plan 9 play at the Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre (I think that’s the name of the group).

 

Lots of driving this weekend, I passed the time listening to American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, on audio and had the strange, surreal experience of driving through the places mentioned in the book as the protagonist traveled to many of the same places that I passed through…right down to driving over the Big Muddy River.

 

And to top it all off, I got to celebrate my Goddaughter, Reese’s first birthday at Chuckee Cheeses.  She’s an adorable and very happy kid.  Sky-Ball should be an Olympic sport.

 

And, finally, since Saturday marked the anniversary of my birth, and because I happen to have gotten the digital version of a lot of old photos, I thought I’d embarace myself by posting a few of them up where just a few dozen of my most personal friends (and any internet lurkers) could view them.  So . . . if you dare . . . travel back in TIME . . .

YIKES!!!  OK…that’s probably too far back in time.  Oh well.  Here I am, seconds after being born, at home.

Here I ham giving some of my first literary criticisms…

And forward in time . . .

Me crawling around…with a Damien sort of a hair cut,

Yeah, my Spiderman fixation goes way back.

Me and my little brother.

I believe that’s me and my little sister.

Nick and I:  so adorable…you’ll puke…

First day of school…

People are sometimes perplexed by my near obsessive like of Halloween.  But I think it stretches back to good memories…very early on:

And if you still don’t understand…read more Ray Bradbury (he understands why Halloween is important).

Incidentally, those pumpkins are from a pumpken patch that my Great Grandparents had on their farm when they were alive.  We’d go there and pick pumpkins every Halloween.

And this picture is photographic proof, PROOF that I was doing the pirate thing long before the Disney movies (though I may not have been drinking rum just then…).

Wow….I was cool…yeah…

And here, my brother, sister, and I are going through that milestone that every family goes through:  being eaten by King Kong.

Nick and I, some where, at some point in time.

Here I am doing my civic duty and holding up the arches in Utah.

I’m about to go sky diving here.  And yes, those straps near the crotch…they hurt…

Here, Nick and I performed a magic show in high school.  That’s our principal.  We shoved a flaming torch through his head for the finale.


My brother, dad, and I doing some wildlife photography in the Florida Everglades (in 98′ I believe).

Here’s a Halloween with my cousin Steve, Nick, and I (5 or six years back).  That’s right…we were still trick or treating in college…but we entertained people with magic tricks and strange behavior, so it was alright.

OK…that’s more than enough.  I don’t want to put you all asleep . . .

Spiral

11 Wednesday Apr 2007

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Graveyards.

 

Beginning and ending, over and under, and all my stories lately seem to start and stop at the graveyard . . .

 

Let’s start with BOOK OF DEAD THINGS.  I just sent my signed contract, in the mail, for my short story (“Snow, Blood, and Sparrows”) to appear in the anthology.  I got an email from the editor saying my story was “one of the strongest pieces in the book.”  Twilight Tales Press will debut the book at Printer’s Row, a big book festival in Chicago, June 9th and 10th.  Twilight Tales will have a booth there and I plan on attending for signing/reading type activities.  Look for the guy under the black fedora.

 

In the meantime, you can preorder Book of Dead Things at 50% off.  Orders should be made and paid through PayPal:  sales@TwilightTales.com.  Normally the book will be $18, but preorder books will cost $9 (plus $1.50 per copy for shipping).  You can preorder through April 16th (only a handful of days away).

 

Where were we . . .

 

The last time I posted was to announce winning the White Wolf Novel Contest.  The couple of weeks since then have mostly involved bouncing up and down Illinois and celebrating with various people . . .

 

. . . on March 30th, I went down to central Illinois where I got to go to the DZ formal at Eureka, with the lovely, lovely Sara Joy Boeke (who was looking like a movie star in a dangerous blue dress).

 

. . . the 31st saw me in Morton, playing a LARP game with friends and receiving the most kickassest bottle of rum I ever did see.

 

. . . April Fool’s Day and my cousin, Steve, sends me a nicely distorted picture of myself.  I’ll show you the before and after below.  I don’t know.  Even distorted, I think I still look pretty hot . . . in an inbred-mutant-Ringo sort of a way.  Yep, yep…it ain’t easy wiping the sexy off of this mug.  See the rest of Steve’s fiendish creations HERE.

  

 


. . . then, I sling shot back north, to go read the prologue chapter of my upcoming novel (Strangeness in the Proportion) and announce it’s immanent printing to the fine, supportive folks at Twilight Tales in Chicago, on April 2nd.  The MC, Eric, called me “something of a hero.” Activate blush . . . engage.

 

. . . next day and I’m back down in central IL, seeing some friend’s in Bloomington, who I haven’t seen in a long, long time.  And I got to play with my Goddaughter, Reese, who can now walk and talk in a strange, dead language.  She didn’t pay much attention to me until I stuck out my tongue and spoke in the same language . . . but then she came running.  Which reminds me . . . I owe her one children’s book, to be written in the uncertain future.  Oh, and it was her birthday on Monday.  The big . . .1.  I’ll be back, again (come this weekend), in Bloomington, to celebrate with her and her parents at Chuckee Cheeses.  Oh yes my lovelings, the Whack-A-Moles will be singing dirges and telling horror stories of my unforgiving assault for generations to come!!!

 

. . . hung around the Eureka for the rest of that week, mostly with Wil.  I got to see a baby horse, moments after its birth (unfortunately, the mother died soon thereafter) and watch it learning to stand and walk.

 

. . . back up north, on Saturday, Matty and Sara Jacobsen held a little dinner to celebrate the novel, at a restaurant in Wauconda and a lot of strangeness, magic tricks, crude jokes, and hilarity ensued.  Luckily, the waiting staff seemed entertained with us (which was nice as they could have easily been annoyed or scared of us).

 

. . . Easter involved the standard get together with the extended family and lots and lots of good food . . . but then drifted into seeing Grind House with my parents and brother (the family that goes to see ultra-violent gore-fests on holy days is the family that stays together).

 

And here we are and I’m back at home and I’m playing catch up.  But my nights have been sprinkled with encounters with fellow nocturnal folk (which is always fun as everyone else is usually asleep).  One, via internet, was with someone with an increasingly larger and larger list of things in common with me (right down to the same cemeteries wandered and the same ghost stories in Key West listened to).  The second, via phone, was with a friend I already know (and who also shares some similarities with me).  He called me, from a cemetery and we talked.  We touched upon life and death and that depression that creeps in during the early to mid twenties that I like to refer to as the Wasteland (this deserves a longer post . . . at a later date).

 

And so we come back to the cemetery.  Enjoy the ouroboros loop . . . just don’t choke on the serpent tail.

 

Night.