Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Tag: Writing

  • Songs Tied to Memories

    In the car today the song New York, New York came on. It’s on my iTunes account as part of a Frank Sinatra greatest hits album. I love Frank, he can really get me singing along with songs. New York, New York though brings up a childhood memory that I can’t let go of. So I hit skip.

    I was relatively new to a school district, I think in Florida. I had garnered all the attention for a few days. It was pleasant to have the attention, fear and distrust of others focused on me. (I seek attention in all its forms) But just a few days into my new school another new kid came to the school. I don’t even remember his name. When the teacher introduced him to the class she made a big deal about him having been to Broadway and singing on stage. For me, all she did was say “this is James, he’s new here”. (more…)

  • Something New

    I can’t study. Or maybe I don’t know how? I’m uncertain. Maybe I forgot how.

    I once studied to be a police officer – had to learn about laws, guns, and algebra. I studied and recopied everything they gave me to prepare. I memorized guns by their shape and abilities. Somehow I passed the written tests to become a police officer with 80% all around (even math)… then they asked me about LSD and I told them the truth – so they said I couldn’t be a police officer. Was kind of sad I suppose. (I think everyone should do LSD at least once, was my favorite drug and I’m fairly certain it’s not physically addicting) (more…)

  • Unity.. no thanks, I have plans

    I don’t like people. (I frequently say “hate” which might be a strong word)

    I’ve said that a million times before and it’s still true. One of my bosses says that too – I tell him he doesn’t because he’s so nice to everyone, but he insists that he does. Probably why I like him so much. I guess you could say I’m something of an introvert – I would rather spend time alone than in a group setting. My “fun” time is at home with a good book, writing or watching some TV. I find it very difficult to have “fun” in a group of people… can’t do it.  (more…)

  • Happy Birthday "Book Of Jamez" – 10 Years

    Ten years ago today I started blogging. I started this site out on Blogger and moved it to WordPress when I changed my name as there were issues with changing my email address and linking it to the site. I average about 5 posts a month – sometimes I post up to 15 stories a month, sometimes only 2 – depending on what I’m willing to put out there.

    One of the first stories I blogged was …and it sold comics where I talked about death and dying in comic books and how Supergirl’s death back in the 80s was a significant moment for me. But I went on to talk about the seeming resurrection of all heroes and how it’s just used for sales purposes instead of a good story that touches the heart. I recently cancelled my comic subscription box at the store as both DC and Marvel apparently used up all their ideas and are retelling stories and undoing some of those changes that kept me reading about characters. If they get done with Secret Wars and Convergence in the near future and stories aren’t too complicated to figure out again I’ll start reading them again, but it’s just a mess.

    I also wrote about a trip to visit my good friend Julie in Cleveland OH in the story Fish Pride. She had left DC and moved and I missed her (still do, she’s pretty great). I should go visit again – that was ten years ago and her kids are almost all grown up now. Julie actually lived in Phoenix once upon a time and really liked it here.

    It was the year I quit smoking too – I was often complaining about the smell of smokers after that – still today it’s just nasty to be in an elevator or to kiss one (I no longer date/fuck/make out with smokers no matter what). I was bitching about one of those things that I used to love to do… and I had only been smoke free 6 months when I wrote Ex Smokers Soap Box.

    I went back to college in 2005 and wrote a lot about classes and shared stories I wrote for school. Many months there were 15 – 18 posts a month. Some great things that I wrote that I still love are Foster Home, Race for the Cure, Creepy Guy on the Bike, and My Knuckles are White – I think I’m a little calmer driving now after two years of living in Phoenix.

    I write a lot of stories because I like writing – I love getting the thoughts that are running through my head down on virtual paper and sometimes other people like what I have to write – sometimes they don’t. Whether it’s liked or not I have to get it out of my head – once it’s been put down here I can move on to something else. I don’t publish everything here, somethings are inappropriate and some items I’m working on long term hoping that they become something eventually.

    To all my readers new and old thanks for taking a look – I’m going to keep on doing this thing until my fingers don’t work anymore.

  • Writing

    The earliest things I remember writing for pleasure were stories of Pegasus II and Cygnus with my friend Ted, I think we started talking about them in Spanish class (as we weren’t big on paying attention). We had characters that were partially named after Spanish verbs like “Jorge Dar” was a character. It was our comic book based on ourselves and my practicing religion of the ancient Greek gods. It was interesting to try to write in a way that I found readable – I’m not very good with dialogue still to this day, but I keep trying. I kept writing those stories until I was about 21 or 22.

    Once in a while I’d write a different story – a house fire and all the neighbors come and gawk, the little girls charred doll clutched in her hands and the father drives off in their Buick regal,  I liked that one, don’t know what happened to it; a student struggling to learn something new in class and the teacher who just wouldn’t change the way he taught – it was very rough; the rock and roll band playing in local bars, drinking and causing trouble… stories that kind of reflected what was going on with me and how I lived.

    Then I didn’t write for a good long time.

    In drug and alcohol treatment they suggested I keep a journal and write down my thoughts and actions for the day – I wasn’t a big fan of that idea, it reflected on when my Ma found my diary on my bed and was mad at what I wrote. It was shortly after xmas and I had received underwear, socks and t-shirts (among many other things I’m sure) and I whined a bit… ok, maybe a lot, in my diary about receiving socks and underwear. Her thinking at the time was that I left it our purposefully so she’d see it, but I doubt I was that clever – sometimes I was just a whiny teenager who enjoyed complaining. So keeping my thoughts on paper where someone else could see them didn’t seem like a good idea – I’m often misunderstood. 🙂

    In 1998 I was published in The Grapevine. I had read in the magazine that they needed stories to print from members. So I thought for a good long time and then wrote my piece they put in their wet drunk section. I have that framed as it was the first thing that made it out of my paper and into something else.

    It was 1999 when I started working at Children’s Hospital in Washington DC. I made some fast friends in my department and connected departments – one of those was Staci. Staci is a psychologist, that means she asks lots of questions, and many lunches were spent with her, Christy and others just talking. When I would share stories Staci would listen intently and sometimes she would say “You should write a book.” I never really took her seriously, this was just my life we were talking about nothing that would capture anyone’s attention.

    But that suggestion stayed with me and I started to jot down notes here and there and eventually decided to write where I could keep it always (I remembered not being able to find my old stories) so with the internet being new and blogs not that popular yet, I launched “Jamez in the life” on Blogger in 2005, and I started to write about whatever was on my mind.

    So of course the first story had to be about comic books. I wrote about death in comic books and how one time it mattered and then it didn’t. Then I wrote about a visit to my friend Julie’s (she also always wanted me to write a book) and smoking (as I had recently quit).

    Shortly after that I went to school for a year (just to prove I could do it) and then I began to write for grades and wrote about learning, that was pretty exciting… and I even wrote about the dreaded math… During school I posted 15 to 20 stories a month, usually pretty short.

    I try to get 4 posts a month now and sometimes that’s a struggle. It’s not that I don’t want to write, things get in the way or there are things that I can’t write about for confidentiality reasons and some porn that shouldn’t go here (I did submit it to a magazine though).

    I often have many different stories in my head all rambling around trying to find a place to go and when they coalesce I obsess about them and on occasion can’t sleep until I get them out on paper (or the electronic equivalent as the case usually is – though I did write about a savage beating I stopped, on paper as I didn’t own a laptop at the time.)

    My friend Staci came to Scottsdale this week to talk about some new therapy that she’s really excited about – it includes mindfulness meditation, of which I’m a big fan. So she and her husband had dinner with me and I let her know about my blog, she might even stop in and read a story or two. I hope she likes it – it was her idea after all 🙂 We even talked a bit about her research and meditation being good for you and how it seems so hard to find the time to do it.

    I’m glad I have this outlet – sometimes just writing something out can change my attitude on a situation – seeing it play out across the scenes and help me to see other points of view and become a better person.

  • Weird Funeral Experiences

    I read a lot of different blogs and read random things that I find on the internet – WordPress helps by giving me suggestions for blogs that have similar themes ore that are comparable to ones I’ve favorited.

    dead dead, mostly dead ...probably
    dead dead, mostly dead …probably

    I read this blog piece the other day and commented on it:

    The Wednesday Question: What was the Weirdest Experience you  had at at Funeral

    (more…)

  • Weird Ol Jamezovich

    Sometimes I rewrite famous songs – ala Weird Al … I’ve been doing this for a long, long time. The first song I ever did like this (well that I performed anywhere) was George Michael’s I Want Your Sex which I did as I Want Your Socks and had a laundry basket with real laundry too onstage at G-E-T High and then got a job singing in a band. I don’t recall all the lyrics, but I remember it went well and was one of the criteria the music teacher used to get me a “letter” in music… not a goal I had in high school.

    the hats for the song
    the hats for the song

    Recently here at work we had a special person move to the east coast and had a farewell lunch for her at Humble Pie (local restaurant – good pizza) and I rewrote Don McLean’s American Pie to bye bye at Humble Pie (more…)

  • Start and Stop

    “My mother was born in the psychiatric unit…”

    IMG_2889

    That’s how I always planned to start my book. It’s true… we think… and I like truth. Also it really kind of makes things seem like they happened for reasons. Some of the things that happened probably didn’t have to happen at all, but they happened nonetheless. But I wonder if I were a reader reading that first sentence would I then expect to find a book about my mother? Cause it wouldn’t be about her that much, it would be about my experiences. I find though that it helps to have backstory for your own experiences to strengthen the validity of the story.

    –

    I wrote a lot more of this and expanded a bit on mothers aunts and siblings… and then I kept running into things that I didn’t want to say here … partly because I didn’t want to suddenly argue with her born again christian brother and sister and partly because I wanted to be sure my stories were accurate. That means I have to collaborate with someone and that’ll be fun, but it also means that this story will have to be told somewhere else and I’m alright with that.

    I’m in a writing mood I guess, I’ve got thoughts running rampant in my head and have written quite a lot in the last few days… a few posts I cannot post yet due to surprises that are in store for others that I can’t share now… don’t you just hate a tease? But after next Wednesday those will start to appear.

    I’ll continue the story of my mother, myself and growing up… and maybe once in a while I’ll post a snippet of that here for your amusement or shock or what have you, depending on the situation. I never thought the story was all that but others have consistently told me it is so we’ll get it out there and deal with debate after the fact.

  • Chapter One

    I’ll be adding a few of the chapters here to the blog so you can follow my progress, here is Chapter One, let me know what you think.

    Chapter One

    Having been born in a mental institution, I often find myself wondering if I’m crazy myself. Fortunately, too often, I run into someone else that I’m convinced is crazy and puts my mind at ease – for at least a moment or two.

    My mother, it turns out, was one of those cases where no one even knew she was pregnant, I’m sure you’ve seen them on the news. Seems she was so big when she was admitted to the ward that they didn’t even think to run a pregnancy test. The birth was too much for her to handle and she died giving birth to me; I heard all of this relayed to what had been a long list of foster parents by a loud-mouthed social worker. She informed them that was why I had been to so many homes, but I knew that wasn’t it, I’m not the crazy one but most of the foster parents had been. Some foster homes would turn me down right there or only agree to take me temporarily, and this is the main reason I was never adopted – or at least that is my theory.

    Foster homes are always an adventure; you never know what might happen to you. Id met all kind of monsters in them; pyromaniac kids, molesting adults, drunks, drug addicts, and slave labor traders top the list. Each placement I’d find a way out or would be asked to leave – usually if I threatened to tell on the men who wanted to touch me or if I’d defend myself against rotten kids. Those people were crazy, even a young kid could see that. Sometimes I couldn’t get away, those scars will always be with me. There were good foster homes, the one I ended up for the last three years especially, but more on that later.

    But it does beg to question, do crazy people think they’re crazy? Probably not, but I’m not crazy… of that I’m fairly certain. Ride the bus you’ll see crazy.

    The other day I had left my iPod at home and by the time I realized it I would have been late to work had I gone to retrieve it. I knew I’d hear crazy on the bus, but I also didn’t want to be late for work – so when the bus arrived I walked on, paid my fare and found a seat near the window. In the rare occasions that I had forgotten my iPod before I had learned a few tricks that sometimes keep me safe from conversation or confrontation, lean your head against the window, slouch down and make sure your eyes are closed. Above all, don’t react, that’s the important thing, don’t react.

    So when the tap, tap, tap was felt on my shoulder I knew I should have ignored it, but there I was opening my eyes. I looked across the aisle at what appeared to be a lovely lady, dressed nicely for the morning commute with a handbag on her purse. She smiles at me and I say “Yes?” to which point she asks me what times it is. Seriously, she wakes me from my fake slumber to ask me what time it was I’m mildly furious yet kindly tell her that I do not know.  This was pretense of course, she’s not really interested in the time, instead only wants to talk to me, even if I’m not interested in talking to her at all. I lean back against the window and close my eyes, she keeps on talking at me hoping I’ll take part in the conversation – but this time I remember not to react. Bus people are like that, I wouldn’t be surprised if she smiles at me the next time she sees me and considers us old friends.

    At the junction I get off the bus and wait for the next, lighting a cigarette and generally go over what is sure to be a busy day. Before the third drag on the cigarette the bus has arrived and it’s full, most of the seats are taken and none of the open seats are windows. There is one guy in the fourth seat back that is hogging up both seats, but past experience has made it clear the odors that waft from him are not worth sitting next to him even if your feet are about to fall off. So I find a seat next to a young man, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he looks harmless enough.

    Very quickly I discover that he’s far from harmless. Almost as soon as I sat down he started to chat away at me incessantly. Seems his father was a bad man, he tells me four or five times, so I’m sure he must have been bad. He talks with what I assume is African accent that makes it hard to understand the words I’m trying to ignore. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the lives of crazy people, so I can’t help but listen. It’s not too long before he starts to tell me how he shot his father in the leg, doesn’t tell me why he shot him, but does go into graphic details about the amount of blood and screaming that happened after he had pulled the trigger. (At this moment one of the other people on the bus looks up suddenly at him in horror, so part of me thinks she is either not crazy, or upset that someone mentioned blood or guns or screaming on the bus, any of these are possible) Then the really crazy part happens, he asks me if I’ve ever been shot – to which I answer, “No” and a smile as huge as I’ve ever seen spreads across his face while his eyes get a glint of expectation and he gets lost in his own world. Thankfully, that’s my stop. I make a note never to sit by this individual again come hell or high water.

    The work day goes as expected and I’m so overwhelmed with things to do at the office at five o’clock I don’t remember that I had left the iPod at home, so tentatively I head to the bus stop and hope for a quiet commute home.

    When the bus arrives I get in line to board and can see the sane people on the bus – they’re the ones wearing headphone or talking on their cell phones (listen carefully to their conversations and you can tell it’s a ruse – they only do that to avoid the crazy people on the bus). There is an empty seat and I sit by the window thankfully, but as I start to slouch in my seat someone comes to sit next to me, I glance up and a guy smiles at me, naturally I smile back, but still slouch down and get ready for my faux slumbering – of course it’s never quite that easy. He of course wants to talk, and at first it’s just casual conversation so I let my guard down and start to participate – bad mistake. Before I know it he lets me know that he has recently had penis reduction surgery, which is of course not something I hear every day but definitely in the realm of possible conversations you’d hear on a bus any given day of the week. He goes into details about how difficult of a life it had been for him up until the surgery no girls were interested in dating him as soon as they saw his humongous member – apparently it was difficult in physical education classes as well, all the other boys gave him a hard time (no pun intended) for the size of it. He goes into very specific details about not just the length of it, but also how enormously thick it was.

    If that weren’t enough he wants me to know that they can’t just cut it off at the top, they actually have to take a chunk out of the middle and then reattach the two halves for it to work properly again. The doctors explained to him that there was nothing to be done for the thickness of it, he was dismayed at the news but hopeful that he might find someone who’d be able to withstand his big member.

    In spite of myself, I’m fascinated but I’m not sure if what fascinates me is the whole story or the details to which this man has gone to creating such a tale. There are several people around me also listening to him go on and on about his dong, some with smiles others with blushes and some with eyes as big as saucers.

    Inevitably, he has to ask the question: “Do you want to see it” and in all honesty, no I had no desire to see this mans reattached penis – not something I’d ever thought I’d say to myself or another human being. Nor did anyone else, as they all suddenly had other things to look at besides this man and me. Fortunately he didn’t pull it out there on the bus next to me – the bus was crowded enough. I politely say no, and luckily see that my bus stop is just a few more minutes down the road. The man with the monster penis looks disappointed that I’ve not wanted to see it but remains quiet for the rest of my ride. When I pull the cord to stop and ask him to get up I can’t help but glance down at his groin area, where indeed there is a very big mound.

    So while forgetting my iPod can be an adventure, it’s not something I hope to repeat in the future. Maybe I should just carry a set of headphones with me, that way I could pretend to be listening to music but really listening to all the crazy, without having to actually be a participant. I may not be crazy myself, the jury is still out, but I obviously attract crazy. Ride the bus, you’ll see crazy.

     

  • November Novel Idea

    I’ve decided to participate in this years NaNoWriMo and that’s just scary. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month an annual event that challenges people from all walks of life to write one 50,000 word novel from scratch during the month of November. I like to write, which will be helpful, but thinking about writing that much during a one month period of time … well, I don’t know. Some months in this very blog I only write one or two posts and those are usually pretty short.

    So I’ve been spending the last few days trying to figure out what to write about. It seems the definition of a novel by default is fiction, so it can’t be the memoir that people keep asking me to write, it’ll have to be a work from the depths of my mind. Thinking of characters that have been forming in my mind’s eye for a while now and tweaking them a bit here and there.

    It doesn’t have to be a good story, it doesn’t have to make sense, nor does it have to be a best seller. The point of the challenge is to get me to do it – to finally put pent to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and do what I say I’ve always wanted to do. I will struggle with some punctuation, some verb usage and probably some other issues but who cares. Just so long as I write one 50,000 story in a thirty-day time period.

    So what will I write about? still trying to figure that out. But I know I can’t actually start until November 1 and when I do then I’m just going to let the creative juices flow and be done with it. I hope it makes senses… but we’ll just have to see.

    So what do I win? It is a contest after all. If I get all 50,000 words done by November 30 at 11:59 p.m. then I get the satisfaction of doing that one thing that I keep putting off. That should be prize enough.