Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: Stories

  • Great Reads

    Recently I’ve read two older books that I wouldn’t normally have picked up to read: The Godfather by Mario Puzo and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

    Below this line there may be significant spoilers, if you think you want to read these books and never have before just stop reading now.

    ——

    I read Fahrenheit 451 after a friend posted on Facebook that he’d never read it, having never read it myself and having Mr. Bradbury die recently I thought I’d better see what all the fuss was about.   I hadn’t read any synopsis of the story and only went into it with the knowledge of Ray Bradbury being a sci-fi guy so I had an open mind – I’d learned long ago that just because it’s science fiction doesn’t mean it’s good. What I found was a world where firemen don’t put out fires anymore, they start them. They burn houses that have books and if there are people inside those houses that wont move then the people burn too. It’s the story of one particular fireman who starts to think… that’s it, he meets this strange girl who proposes silly questions to him that start his mind working again. When he goes home that night his wife has taken a bottle of pills and the emergency crews come and resuscitate her and tell him they deal with a few of those each night, nothing to be worried about, sure enough the next day the wife has no idea what he’s talking about and just wants to watch her series in the “room”. There is a lot more to the story, but that’s where it starts.

    The story is really quite good, very short and I recommend you pick it up if you’ve never read it. For me it was a reflection on modern times of all the brainless zombies watching TV and longing to be entertained but unwilling to think for themselves and those that do think for themselves are taken away and made to conform to the norm. It touches on all aspects of society today – young kids with no supervision, government officials and media squashing the truth, millions of brain addled glued to the TV. Go pick it up, you’ll thank me later and you know what? You might see something totally different from I did, and that’s perfectly OK. Authors love that, well I think they do anyway, I’d rather someone see what they want to see in one of my stories instead of seeing only what I want – your imagination could make mine look like a nanobyte.

    —-

    Also on Facebook I saw a link listing top movies of all time and realized I’ve never seen The Godfather so I posted that and asked if it was a necessity. Quite a few folks said I should see it, and my friend Chip said: “The movies.. especially the first are great.. The book.. is wonderful.. Read it.. you’ll thank me later..” So I purchased it on my Kindle app and entered a rich world of characters, stories, connections… it was beautiful the way it was laid out and each piece fit so well together. I went in expecting to be bored, I mean what do I care about mobsters? The storytelling was just phenomenal and I kept wondering what was going to happen to characters with each turn of the electronic page. I didn’t want to like any of the characters to start out with but I ended up really just being a part of the story. I started it on a Sunday and was finished on a Thursday – I was in the middle of a hundred different things and only had a chance to read most of it at night before drifting to sleep.

    Now, having read it I thought that I’d probably better see the movie to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve made it through half of the movie so far and I really am not very happy watching. There are so many rich details from the book that didn’t come through the parts I’ve seen. So many scenes that defined a character or a reaction that weren’t there at all before a pivotal scene. I know what you’re thinking… The book is always better than the movie. But this was really lackluster in comparison to what I’ve seen done with movies – the Lord of the Rings Trilogy for example was a beautiful transition from page to screen and I felt I could state word for word the lines I expected to be coming. The Watchmen is another story that was done really well (yes, they screwed up some of the stories for odd reasons, but) it stuck remarkably well to the book. I guess that’s what I was really hoping to see. If you’re going to name a movie one of the top 10 of all time, I would expect more than what I’ve seen so far of it… Some have said “you have to watch the second one, that fills in a lot of what your talking about” Well, that’s not really what I had hoped to do… I think the first one made the list, not the second one.

    Maybe someday I’ll try to watch the movie again when the book isn’t so fresh in my mind, but I think it’s a shame that this much goodness wasn’t better. Some might be offended, but hey it’s what I thought so bite me.

  • Wisconsin, Wedding, Withering Heat

    I flew out to Wisconsin this time for the wedding of very dear friends, Eric and Rosy. Eric and Rosy dated back in high school and like most high school romances it came to an end and they went their separate ways. A few years back they rekindled the love they felt and I was fortunate enough to be the best man for the ceremony. They got hitched in Wisconsin Dells at a little hotel called the White Rose Inn. I had never been to Wisconsin Dells before and was amazed at the traffic, tourists and teething toddlers.

    The Happy Couple

    I stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, Eric picked it I think, a family friendly resort with it’s own water park – let me say it was more expensive than a very nice hotel in DC would have been; Eric is no longer allowed to pick hotels. I was given an accessible room (there was a wheelchair symbol on the sign outside the door) that wasn’t fully compliant, I notice these things now that I’ve worked for Jim for six years – I’ve sent them an email about the issues I noticed. Eric and Rosy managed to pick one of the hottest days of the year to get married, and I’m amazed we all survived the sweltering heat. It was very sweet and I finally got to meet all of the kids and had a great time.

    On Sunday morning I left the Dells for Galesville, I told my Ma I’d be there about noon so she wouldn’t skip church or her regular Sunday routine, I really don’t want her to go out of her way. Rhonda, Michael and Michelle were at the house when I arrived. Ma returned from lunch and Cory and Danielle came over with Charlie and Patrick and we had pizza. Mostly at Ma’s Ma and I read while Rhonda went to work and Michael worked on demos or what ever. At the suggestion of my best friend Suzanne’s dad, Chip, I started to read The Godfather and couldn’t put it down – after reading it I started to watch the movie but it really is watered down so I don’t know how much I’m going to enjoy it.

    Tuesday night I had dinner with my sister Amy, her daughter Joplin and Amy’s long term boyfriend who’s name escapes me for whatever reason. Afterwards we played Cranium for a while which was fun.

    Wednesday I headed up to the Chippewa Valley. Pat and I went off to see The Amazing Spider-Man which I really liked. Pat, Brenda and I went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then headed back to my hotel where we all partook of the swimming pool. Did I mention this was the hottest week of the year? Thursday I had lunch with Nicholas at Taco John’s, swam for a while in the hotel pool, napped and finally headed out to the Eau Claire Pacific Group where I was the main speaker – I did ok, nothing to get excited about, just ok. After the meeting I joined the guys for food at Perkin’s before heading back home to bed. Friday I had breakfast with Pat and Brenda. Friday afternoon I met my brother Ryan for dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then we went to see the movie Savages, which was ok.

    Saturday morning after dropping in to say goodbye to the Isenberger’s I drove down to Galesville and used my GPS, which was a huge mistake. The GPS on the way down to the Dells had me leave the interstate to go off on a county road for a few miles only to put me back on the interstate – it also had me drive through the Dells to my hotel which was two exits up and would have been easier to get to had I stayed there… had I remembered all that I might have not even thought of following the GPS. But I did and ended up on several back roads but finally did make it to my Ma’s. Ma and I went to Winona for dinner. Michael was brough back from canoeing and was passed out in his truck until about 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning Ma, Rhonda, Greg, Michael and I went out to breakfast and around noon I headed off to the LaCrosse airport.

    I had a long lay over in Minneapolis, three hours, and then the head flight attendant was pretty grumpy on our plane. She had us turn off our electronic devices 5 – 10 minutes before the door was closed and came on the loudspeaker a few times to insist that we turn off our electronic devices so we could depart on time, meanwhile folks were still coming on board and we were subjected to listening to children crying an obnoxious laughter. Any time she made announcements you could here the frustration in her voice, obviously she’d had a long day and been subjected to annoying passengers, but at the end of the day you still have to treat your customers right. As we were landing there was some turbulence before the initial decent and she had us turn off our electronic devices much sooner than we normally would and then when the pilot announced we were beginning our initial decent she came on to say something about us not following crew member instructions – really if she had been even a bit nicer I’m sure it would have gone better for her.

    Then I arrived home and the kitty was very happy to see me, and she’s interrupted my writing this several times for love… so I’d better go see to her.

  • Twist Tied Past

    Tonight at dinner I bit into my salad and found an unexpected treat. A twist tie from a bread bag or something had somehow ended up in my salad. I took it out and showed it to my waiter who then gave me the meal free, which was nice but not necessary, these things happen – I did continue to eat the salad, hell I love that thing. What was interesting was a memory got tugged out of the nether and put back into conscious thought of a time that had happened to me once before.

    *activate wavy screen effect to simulate a warp back through the time-stream to see the story Jamez is talking about here*

    Probably twenty years ago now I used to stop at the Kwik Trip on Main Street in Whitehall after spending countless hours at Dave’s Bar. Fortunately for me at the time not only was Kwik Trip open 24 hours a day, they cooked food… which was nice if you’re a drunk on a winter night in WI with no home of your own. On many a night I would stop there after running out of drinking money, or to pick up a cheap case of beer to take back where ever I was staying – usually just had enough for a lottery ticket or a burger.

    (A completely different story at this quick trip I had one dollar left in my wallet – was out of booze and cigarettes and I decided to purchase a lottery ticket, that’s the logical thing to do in that situation if you’re a drunk. I scratched away and got three TV’s that means I won $100 and a chance to be on the Wisconsin Lottery TV show in Milwaukee which I think netted me a little over $400 – not that that was helping me get beer or cigarettes at this point, the $100 wasn’t instant and I was more pissed off than I was excited. On another note, recently that Kwik Trip sold two 1 Million Dollar lottery tickets, that would have likely pissed me off too as it wasn’t instant booze).

    So I was pretty drunk the night I stumbled into the Kwik Trip, someone had probably pissed me off as I can remember being a little mad just getting there. Where were my friends? Hell I don’t know either passed out or still at Dave’s drinking away. I ordered my usual burger at the counter and waited at one of the tables until they brought it out to me. I was likely talking to myself, likely reeked of beer and might have smiled at the lady who brought it, but that might have taken too much effort.

    I was eating away at the burger and fries and washing them down with a Dr. Pepper most likely – you can’t drink beer in the Kwik Trip, silly rules… then it happened, I bit down into the burger and bit something hard. I pulled it out and sure enough it was a twisty like the ones used for bread packages and such… My alcoholic mind did something like this:

    Wow, I could have died. 

    I wonder if someone is trying to kill me, does that girl know me?

    Where am I? I thought I was at Dave’s? 

    I could sue, I wonder how much money I could get?

    If I sued then I’d likely not be able to buy beer here anymore, or maybe I could buy beer here but they’d probably find a different way to screw me over. 

    It’s too late to buy beer at the store, damn it I hope there is some left at the house.

    I might have a beer or two stashed in my room.

    Why is this twist tie in my hand? Oh yeah…

    What should I do now? 

    I managed to get my head straight enough to figure out I should talk to someone at the store about this and got up and went to the counter. I told them I had found this twisty tie in my burger and I think I actually said “I should be mad about this I think” and then I’m pretty sure I said “Shouldn’t I be mad about this?” and “My burger should be free or something, I could have been hurt” probably a “this is unacceptable” as I always thought things were unacceptable. I tried very hard to be very upset but a part of me realized how drunk I was and I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep it together long enough to get the story straight. Most of me was convinced they’d accuse me of lying and placing the twist tie in there myself for attention.

    I think I did actually get my meal paid for and I honestly forgot all about the incident until this night when I bit into the twisty tie in my salad.  Anyway, I just had to get that out of my head and on “paper” so to speak before it disappeared again.

  • Juror Number Nine

    In DC I get a jury summons every two years. On most of these occasions the case has been a drug related offense and once I mention that I’m in recovery they excuse me, they never say “Oh you’re in a twelve step program you can’t be impartial” but they’ve never let me stay. I think I could be impartial in a drug or alcohol related case, I can differentiate between my own experience and events in other peoples lives… right? On a few of the times I’ve been called I was dismissed almost immediately with a group of other potential jurors, perhaps a judge was on vacation that day. I was even called once to be a member of a grand jury, I think it was, where each night before 6:00 I had to call a number to see if I had to be present at a jury the next morning – that was like two weeks and I’m glad I didn’t get chosen for that.

    This time I was hoping for the usual result, maybe get released no later than 3:00 – but that was not to be. When the second group of jurors was being called my number was selected and I got in line with everyone else and waited, and waited some more. Then they sorted us by some means that was not apparent to us and marched us into the court room. I was seated in the jury box in seat number 9 and never moved from that spot, I kept waiting and waiting but they never asked me to move to the audience. The judge, avery efficient no nonsense type lady, asked us ten questions that might get us excused from the case. I can’t remember most of the questions but they were like: do you recognize anyone on the witness list? have you or anyone in your immediate family been charged within the last ten years for resisting arrest, property damage, reckless endangerment or …, and if there were any reason you felt you couldn’t serve on the jury (sick kid, wedding, whatever). I honestly couldn’t answer any of the questions “yes” so I didn’t. The judge still called each member of the jury up to the bench, one by one for about an hour and a half to ask if they had any of the questions answered yes – in that time I did get to go out to lunch after I talked to her. That afternoon they played musical chairs with the jury, pulling this person out and replacing them with another they shuffled folks about five times before the judge finally let us know that those of us in the jury box were the “winners”.

    My fellow jurors (12 with two alternates) and I all listened intently to the judge explain all the rules as the trial started, she was telling us to turn off our electronic devices when her own cell phone beeped and she smiled and said, this is exactly why. She explained that the lawyers could say lots of different things in their opening and closing statements, but those were statements and beliefs not evidence. We were to judge the case based on the evidence and while the attorney might believe that what they are saying is true, if it’s not presented as evidence then we should not consider it to be so. I could be messing this up, but this is what I interpreted her saying. The judge then read off a long list of charges for the defendant, a young looking african-american male, evading arrest, property damage, reckless driving… there were a lot.

    We then heard the opening statement from the government, the prosecutor seemed nice enough, talked clearly and smiled an awful lot. The defense opted not to give an opening statement, which is their right. Before we knew it we started to hear testimony from the first witness called by the government. A police officer one of two that were involved in the incident came and answered the prosecutions questions amidst the objections and questions from the defense and occasionally prompted by the judge who could probably tell we (the jury) were already getting tired of the mundane nature of the questions. The defense questioned the witness next and did manage to poke holes into his testimony. The defense attorney was an older african-american woman who took a few minutes to get out of her chair and a few more just to get to the bench for private discussions – all the jurors mentioned it or giggled when talking about it in the jury room.

    We had a break and when we came back there was a new officer on the stand who’s answers to the same questions were remarkably different from the previous officer. There was even a large map where the first officer placed stickers where the suspect was first seen, where he jumped a fence and where he was apprehended but the second officer placed his stickers in different spots blocks away. One officer said it was too dark to see in the vehicle, the other said he saw three or four people in it…. it was really kind of funny and it took a bit of effort not to giggle.

    Then the day came to an end and we were asked to return the next day for a 10:00 a.m. start, getting into the courthouse through the security line can take a good 30 minutes if its backed up.

    All 14 of us were there by 10:00 and we sat in the jury room for 45 more minutes before we were called into the courtroom. Once there the judge apologized for keeping us waiting and then explained that all but two of the charges were dropped from this trial. All we had left to rule on was reckless driving and evading arrest. We had heard the judge talk to the attorneys at the bench – we could hear in spite of the white noise machine and she had berated the prosecutor for trying to prove charges without any evidence to back it up.

    We then were treated to closing arguments from the government then the defense and then a rebuttal closing from the government. Lots of statements that had no basis in the evidence that was presented, lots of boasting and such but nothing that told me this kid was even in the car.

    The judge then revealed that the two alternate jurors were to be excused now and that those two jurors had been picked at random before the jury selection process had even begun. The two jurors were #11 and #9. So that was it, I was excused and sent home, they told me if something were to happen to one of the jurors in deliberations I might be called to fill their place.

    I didn’t get to discuss the case with my fellow jurors, I’d like to think that they also hadn’t seen any actual evidence linking the defendant to the crime. I’d like to think they remembered it’s “innocent until proven guilty”. But, I know that people perceive things very differently and what I saw as Keystone cops they might have thought of brilliant work… you just never know.

    I’m glad that I got to serve. Was it inconvenient? sure. But I hope that if I’m unfortunate enough to end up on trial for something (it’ll likely be murder) that people would have an open mind and examine the evidence before deciding my guilt or innocence.

  • Ooooh That Smell

    For a while now I’ve had super sensitive sense of smell. I think it’s getting worse… better… more intense maybe is the word I’m looking for here. Sometimes it affects what I’m tasting or maybe it would be easier to say that I can taste things in foods and liquids that others don’t. A few examples are listed below in no particular order.

    • Mildew on towels (fresh from the dryer or clothes line or hanging on the towel rack for however long)
    • My cats litter box is on the second floor of the house, I can smell if she’s used it from anywhere on the first floor or when I first get home
    • friends and strangers have bad breath that I’ve asked others about but they say they didn’t smell anything
    • perfumes and colognes can be detected strongly from a train car length away or a good block if the wind is blowing properly
    • something in my house smells like chicken, I can’t find it and I’m not sure what it is but I have lots of scented candles and odor eater things placed about to make the smell less evident
    • there is a tree near my house that smells horribly like stale beer
    • I can’t walk in the middle of the prepared foods part near the deli of the grocery store the smells of the foods in the buffet part is well, too smelly
    • dogs and cats – just touching them and I can smell them on me for hours after and I LIKE dogs and cats
    • sometimes when I’m sitting or standing next to someone I can detect that they’ve either been wearing the same underwear for a few days or don’t wipe well
    • there are things that I would have never considered to have a smell at all that have a smell
    • feet, gas, fish, body odor – none of these things would I consider to smell good anyway, but they seem to overpower my senses

    If that’s not disgusting enough for you, some of the taste things include water or tea where I can taste sewage in them (what does sewage taste like? just like what it smells like) and milk starts to go bad to my tongue a week before the expiration date. I can actually taste when food I’m eating has been touched by something that isn’t on my plate – onions, peppers, fish – or maybe the preparers didn’t wash their hands in-between touching the items.

    The smell of things can be so intense that I’ll stop walking down the street to avoid scents coming from someone, or move to entirely different cars on the Metro. At meetings I try to distance myself from smells. If someone comes into a restaurant and their perfume or cologne is too strong my meal can end up tasting like what they are wearing. It’s not every scent, it appears to be just some scents and I’m sure there is a pattern I’m missing somewhere. It sounds crazy.

    When I smell something so strongly I often look around wondering why none of the people near me seem to notice and ask others if they can smell it – they say no. If you were Superman or Wolverine you’d go crazy being able to smell the things they can smell hell, I’ve been crazy a long time and I know this is driving me crazier. When I talked to my doctor about this he actually suggested I might be turning into a superhero – sniffing out crime… I like my doctor, he’s funny.

    Friends have suggested I might be pregnant as they’ve experienced an enhanced sense of smell then, but the condoms have been intact – I know they are only 99.9% effective, but I’m fairly certain I’m not pregnant.

    So after my doctor and I talked he talked to colleagues who didn’t know what this was either and then I had an MRI last week. The results of the MRI were normal or “non specific white matter change in some part of the brain, which is normal and doesn’t explain the smell symptoms” – but it does confirm that I actually have a brain in case you were wondering.

    So if I offer you a breath mint or a stick of gum – you should really take it, especially if you want me to keep talking to you. If I don’t want to shower at your house or spend the night – it could be that I don’t like people but really it’s probably that your towels smell mildewy or that you have a pet who’s smells overtake all my other senses.

    You might see me breathing out of my mouth a lot – yes I’m a mouth breather. I’ll be a mouth breather when I have to be and apparently I have to be a lot right now.

  • Tales of Old Re-Read Anew

    In 1985, I was either a Freshman or Sophomore in Whitehall Memorial High School (who was it a Memorial to? I have no idea) and we were required to go to the school library to attend the R.I.F. event. [The library was not one of my favorite places anyway, learning the dewey decimal system was required – yeah, that’ll get me interested in books or suicide, lets risk it.] We’d been having R.I.F. events at school each year, maybe twice a year and I was never really interested in the speel they’d give before they let us pick a book or even the books that were available to us. At this particular R.I.F. event I was there with my friend Ted and after the opening remarks we started looking at the books, not too hopeful at all that there would be anything good.

    We stumbled upon a book or two that had dragons on the cover and in the title. Both were from the same series Dragonlance Chronicles and were the 2nd and 3rd in the series. Ted grabbed Dragons of Winter Night and I grabbed Dragons of Spring Dawning and agreed to read what we could and talk about them with one another. Ted and I were already talking about comic books regularly and all that was going on there so this was a natural progression I suppose. I don’t know why the first book wasn’t available nor why I didn’t seem to grasp the whole idea of a story progressing from one book to another…

     

     

    Over the next few weeks Ted and I would share what we were reading and became enthralled with the characters of the books and the story that was happening. Being on the third book I was really rather lost as to what was going on and the significance of the characters as they related to the whole story. But it was still a good story that kept me reading from one page to the next – Ted too. At some point we switched up the two books. Fortunately for Ted he was following the progression, but I was a bit confused and tried to piece it all together. Later on when we found the first book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, we’d both be in the same boat. After starting at the middle and the end we both re-read the books from the beginning to the end and really appreciated them all the more. We loved the story, the characters the ideas that stretched our imagination.

     

     

    Most importantly, we kept reading other things – so R.I.F. was successful for us. It got two guys that mostly only cared about comic books to read other things. It didn’t mean either of us put our comics away or that we were only going to read about stories with dragons and wizards, but it did mean that we actually came to find the enjoyment only a book can offer.

    Recently these titles have become available for the Kindle and I just finished re-reading the first book and fell in love with the characters and story all over again. In moving and aging somehow I lost my original books to this series, I have a collected works that has all these books in one large volume, the cover and first few pages have come off and it’s aged and yellow. I really love this old story and reading it again.

    Thank you Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Margaret McNamara and the 1975 U.S. Congress for helping me find something I enjoy so much.

     

  • Cotton – 8/95 – 10/11

    My best friend Suzanne received word from her ex-husband Randy last weekend that their dog Cotton was failing in health and might need to be helped along her journey soon. That day came to pass yesterday.

    Cotton was probably my favorite dog of all time.

    A Westie (West Highland White Terrier) with an attitude, hell for all I know all Westie’s have attitude. She was so sure she was the toughest dog on the block, she didn’t back away from danger and barked at any little creatures (children) fiercely.

    I was fortunate enough to dog sit for Suzanne and Randy more than a few times over the years and Cotton was always the best behaved of the dog. At bed time she’d crawl under the blankets and sleep right between your legs, and you weren’t to move, she was comfortable. When you’d pet her she’d be so content, and if you’d dare to stop she’d paw at you until you started again. I’m certain that if it were possible for her to she would have purred like a cat during those times.

    I always gave all of Suzanne’s dogs love and attention, but I’d go out of my way for Cotton, she was the best. She could look at you with the saddest puppy eyes that said “Don’t Club Me” and you’d feel so sorry for her, even though she was spoiled rotten.

    She was Daddy’s girl really, she would go wherever Daddy was and just sit there with him for hours, and if the door was shut she’d whine until she could be with him. In these later years in life her Daddy would carry her on his shoulder with him and you know she was in heaven during those moments.

    In 2008 when my Pa died Suzanne couldn’t come to the funeral but she called Randy and had him bring Cotton down for me and it really meant the world to me to have that little girl there for me to get love. Cotton always made every person she loved feel like they were the most important human in the world. I’m a little teary right now thinking about the little angel.

    She was a good girl and I’ll miss being able to see her when I visit Wisconsin. Last night she joined her sister Destiny and her brother Rocky. Cotton, love and miss you.

  • Dreaded Dentist

    A small cavity had me at the dentist this morning, the decay was located on my lower right wisdom tooth. Going to the dentist for a cleaning is a stressful situation for me so going when I have to have a cavity filled is even worse.

    I arrived 10 minutes early in case they could get me out of there sooner, sadly I was there until 10:25 (25 minutes after my scheduled appointment) waiting and letting fear get the better of me. I imagine every conceivable and inconceivable scenario that can possibly go through my mind – they’ll need to do an emergency root canal, maybe they’ll have to pull out all my teeth after discovering a rare form of mouth cancer, perhaps this batch of Novocaine is faulty and it doesn’t dull pain but enhances it… yes, my mind goes to all those places for the entire 25 minutes.

    The Dentists office has several dentists working there and dentists that I become accustomed to leave right when I’ve gotten used to them – Is it my breath? So this current dentist I’ve only seen once and that was the week before, she seems nice, but like all dentists, is an evil monster who thrives on causing others pain. That smile, it’s only in anticipation of hearing a patient scream. I remind her that I usually get nitrous oxide when I’m at the dentist and she didn’t know that so I had to sit in the chair longer while they prepared the gas. This is not a good sign, they haven’t read my chart and know how fearful this event is for me – it reminds me of the last time I had a cavity and a new dentist was there and he was talking about my root canal – I wasn’t there for a root canal so I freaked out a bit and had one of my anxiety attacks – never saw that guy again fortunately.

    They give me the gas, I breathe in and out in deep full breaths. I picture a nice ocean front beach with blue water, palm trees and serenity – I can’t concentrate on that for long though, before I know it I’m anticipating pain again and then the sweat starts to roll off my body in all places conceivable – it’s possible I sweat more in the dentists chair then I do at the gym – ok, not really, but it all pools into the lower half of my body and it’s icky. My heart is racing pretty quickly even with the gas when she arrives to puncture me with a needle that makes the right side of my head feel heavy and tingly in places. The gas has started to affect my legs and they are numb – I think to myself, stupid gas my legs don’t need to be numb my head does get up here!

    The dentists female assistant suddenly leaves and is replaced by a male assistant and this is another thing that worries me – was what they were about to perform in my mouth to gross for the female assistant to witness? Again… Is it my breath?

    The dentist informs me that they are going to start and stuffs huge balls of cotton in my mouth and reminds me to continue to breath through my nose so I can continue receiving the nitrous oxide, I gladly obliged and am starting to feel fine – then I hear the drill.

    This entire time I’ve had a tight grasp on the arm rests and when the drill kicks in I squeeze a little tighter. The dentist instructs me to raise my hand if they need to stop – like I could suddenly make my hands release their death grip on the chair and lift up in the air in a panic – yeah, that’s very likely to happen. I’ve also not opened my eyes since I sat back in the chair, I know they’ll be grinning evilly and their instruments of pain will be dripping with blood and enamel.

    I’m actually doing ok for a while then they hurt me and I cringe, but I think it’s going to be ok it was just a minor pain – then they hurt me twice more in rapid succession and my body squirms all over the chair. The sweat pouring off my body has tripled and my breathing is more panting then anything else. She stops and they pretend to be concerned for my welfare, but I imagine they’re giggling up a storm and savoring the pain that is evident on my face. They give me another shot of Novocaine and we wait for a few minutes for it to take effect. The dental assistant uses one of their tools to blow air on my face and I start to relax again.

    Shortly thereafter they finish up and the dentist asks me to bite down – after doing so she asks if that “feels normal” I try to tell her that I have no idea if it “feels normal” the entire right side of my head is numb, how should I know…

    As I approach the counter to pay my co-pay the receptionist person asks “How was your visit?”

     

    Horrible

  • I can feel them downstairs…

    I can feel them downstairs.

    I know they are rifling through the papers on the end table, planting listening devices in the phone and drugging the milk. They are there every night and every night its the same, I pretend I can’t feel them and hear them whispering. The whispers are the worst I can almost make out what their saying and it makes my skin crawl when I get so close to interpreting the words but then realize it’s gobbledygook.

    I think the cat knows they’re there too, sometimes she’ll glance sharply over at the stair case, eyes wide sparkling her dangerous green. I wonder if they’ve been here long enough for her to be used to them, perhaps they’ve even pet her when I’m asleep – I know they do other things, but can the cat tolerate them – whatever they are? I hope she’ll be like an early warning system for me, if she jumps off the bed and heads to a hole I may have a chance to defend myself, I might even have a chance to run – if they let me.

    Sometimes I awaken from a deep sleep and know one of them is standing over me. I lay perfectly still  – if they know I know they are there they would be more likely to hurt me or something – its the something that is the most frightening, trying to figure out what they want with me. After a while when I can hear their heartbeat, almost feel their breath on my face I cannot stand it anymore, sometimes I moan or yawn and very slowly roll over on my side  and as much as I want to I don’t breathe a heavy sigh of relief, I just freeze like that. One of two things usually happens, if I’m lucky I just pass out from exhaustion if I’m not I can lie there all night wondering when they’ll leave me alone or if this is the night they take me.

    I somehow know they want to take me, I can feel it in my soul a deep need for them to take me with them wherever it is that they go and I know that would be a bad thing for me, the worst thing I’m fairly certain.

    I can feel one behind me as I write this. I can’t see his reflection in the screen but I can feel him standing in the doorway and I know he can read all of this. That frightens part of me and relieves the other part – perhaps the fear can end it’s the anticipation and not knowing that are the worst for me. Not knowing what they’re looking for, when they will take me and especially how much it will hurt.

    Tonight when I turn off the light and pull the sheet over me I know I’ll hear them again downstairs – a scritch scratch of papers moving here and there, a creak in the floor board and like I heard the other night a foot step or two on the stair.

    I can feel them downstairs…

  • DC's Change

    DC Comics announced their plans this week to relaunch the DC Universe this summer renumbering most of its current series and giving almost every hero a makeover to make them into heroes that would fit into the modern world. You can read about on USA Today, CNN or Facebook and probably even on DC‘s very own website. Most of the fanboys I know are not very happy about this news – we’ve seen it before and it hasn’t gone well and usually ends up screwing up the continuity even more than before.

    I started reading super-hero comics quite by accident really. My Mother would have copies of Archie or Casper the Friendly Ghost and the like but it was never anything like Superman or Spider-Man. Then one visit to my great aunts I found a beat up copy of the X-Men – by beat up I mean this thing had no cover, was missing a few pages and was ripped here and there. What was inside though was beyond my imagination – heroes unlike any that I had ever seen before on panel after panel and all working as a team. I was immediately most in love with Ice Man – and this was before he became all glossy and sleek, he was still more snowman than iceman but he was my favorite. I was really confused about all their powers and didn’t have a clue about their origins but my whole universe changed as a result of that comic book – it became an obsession.

    For the next few years I would search out comic books wherever I thought they might be – the grocery store, Ben Franklin, magazine stands at road side cafes anywhere that might have the slimmest I would scour the store for an issue of anything that looked remotely entertaining. When I was fifteen, living with my grandmother I was fortunate enough to find a local store that not only sold comic books, but didn’t realize they should be taxing me for them – this lasted for about 2 years before the merchant caught on and then was nice enough to let me know why the prices went up – I didn’t know they should be taxed either. It was in that store that I found a copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths – which I only bought because I had read everything else the store had to offer. Back when I first started reading comics were about .35 cents each.

    What was inside for me was absolute confusion – I didn’t know any of these heroes and the infinite earth thing was really a lot for me to try to wrap my mind around. I think this was the third issue, I eventually found a copy of the first and tried to piece together what was going on. There were heroes in the story that I did recognize: Flash, Batman, Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Robin, Green Lantern, Spectre… but there were also alternate versions of some of these characters which kind of kept me in the dark for a while. I did manage to collect all the issues and I honestly cried when Supergirl sacrificed her life for her cousin Superman – for me it was a defining moment, there are somethings worth dying for. It made superheroes something more for me than just some silly drawings on a page, they stood up for what was right and made the world a better price, no matter what the personal cost may be. It mattered to me at 15, and if I reread those issues today it would still have an effect on me – it was a great story.

    Crisis was supposed to help clean up some of the notorious continuity issues that DC had for the last 50 years or so – they were going to make Superman more super and really make him the last survivor of his destroyed planet, Pre-Crisis there was Superman, Supergirl, Power Girl, Superman from Earth II (which was really the first Earth)… well there were suddenly an awful lot of Kryptonians for a planet that had been destroyed when Kal-El (Superman) was rocketed to Earth as a babe. One of the ways to do this was by killing Supergirl. She wasn’t  the only hero to die during this series, we lost The Flash (Barry Allen), Kole, Robin and Huntress (the old ones not the new ones) and a bunch of others…

    However, Supergirl is not dead anymore – I’m getting off track here, go read my post about dead heroes not staying dead: “…and it sold comics“.

    In 85 or 86 I met my friend Ted who introduced me to a darker side of comic books that I had not yet known. He showed me Cerebus, Magic, Hellblazer, Nexus (which helped me get the US Military recruiters to quit calling – long story) The Titans (ok, maybe not dark, but definitely outside the scope of what I was reading), Swamp Thing, (Mike Grell’s) Green Arrow – it was pretty amazing. We would read for hours on end these spectacular stories that took us to a different world, away from all the troubles that happen to trouble two teen outcasts in rural Wisconsin. Ted even introduced me to the Dark Phoenix saga, which I had missed – most of the X-Men issues were not regularly stocked at the store where I got books. Ted also introduced me to Westfield which delivered comics to his home – wow, unheard of for me. Ted was also the guy took me to my first comic book store – geek heaven, let me tell you (In my adult life I’ve been to much larger comic book stores across the country but the one in Eau Claire was pretty amazing for a small town boy). Ted and I had dreams of writing comics and owning our own store when we were young… sometimes you grow up and dreams change.

    Present Day: Books and Comic books can be read on portable devices – some of you may remember the movie with Tom Hanks in 1988 called Big. During that movie Tom had a job at a toy company and he proposed electronic comics way back then and today it’s a reality.

    I can read DC, Marvel, Image and whatever other companies are out there making comics on my phone, my iPad, and even on my computer screen – and the comic book companies are charging me the same price they would charge for an actual comic that I could hold in my hand and read smell and touch. This technology has to change the way that comics are made and distributed – and I’m sad to say that it’s probably for the best, but I’ll miss the old ones.

    So back to the point of my rant here, DC is relaunching 52 titles over the next year and giving almost every character in the DC universe a makeover. They say they’re doing this to clear things up for new readers and bring in new readers as well as keep old readers. I don’t know that that’s what’s going to happen nor do I really believe that that’s their sole purpose here. See some people think all of these #1 issues are going to be worth big bucks, but I’ve been around long enough to remember all the “Alternate Covers” back in the 90s that they printed hundreds of and sure enough suckers bought em, but I don’t think most of them are worth what they paid for em.

    If you want to know why some comic books are worth a lot of money from way back when you really need to see a documentary about it from the History Channel (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373763/ ) and realize that those comics were around during the war and parents (and children probably) donated them towards the war effort making the remaining copies the rare finds that they are.

    So to DC I say, good luck guys and gals. I’ve been reading DC and Marvel comics since that first X-Men book and chances are I’ll continue to read them until my eyesight fails. But I hope for their sake that this isn’t a gimick, that this wont be like the episode of Dallas when Bobby was in the shower – change is necessary for everything, but meaningless change wont help you here . Also, as a 15 year old boy I cried when you killed Supergirl not just because it was a tragic sacrifice, but because at the time you had made the story so engrossing I actually cared about her – return to those days with your stories, return to the days when a death had more finality and a hero was believed in because they brought a sense of hope and wonder to the minds of readers. Make us care again and make it worth out $2.99.