The porcelain bowl-shaped collection dish of my thoughts

I’d die a happy man if I could shake the hand of Bill Watterson.  I wouldn’t push for a lengthy conversation, an autograph, or a tour of his paintings & other work.  Just a handshake to show my gratitude. He’s been a big part of my childhood and, with having been learning more about his values and behind-the-scenes work, am still impressed with the guy.

I think seeking him out would be disrespectful, but is the only reason I don’t consider achieving such a goal.  His reluctance from the public eye has made him intentionally difficult to communicate with.  Still, it’d be such an honor. 

It came and went.

Family, bunches of social networking folks, and a couple friends wished me Happy Birthday.  They’re awesome.

Also awesome, I got a call from Bethany in the wee morning hours, she took it upon herself even.  <3

But overall, the whole event was pretty depressing.  The highlights of this poo sammich:

-  20 minutes into the day, a close friend elected to ask for tech support prior to the acknowledgment.

- The one person that spent time with me to celebrate the milestone, received some harsh news that abruptly ended things.

- I was complimented for my superior gift selection from a friend on their birthday, but on my birthday they neglected to even acknowledge it.  Even worse, they congratulated somebody else that they’ve openly spoken ill about.

- Even the people I talk to the most frequently had forgotten, they heard about the upcoming day a mere 4 days prior.

As a couple disclaimers,  I’ve become a hermit lately so I can’t expect people to hold onto my day with breathless anticipation.  Plus I’m guilty of forgetting birthdays too.

Its not like I’d want gifts or a party, no material perks at all.  If a birthday is somebody’s ‘next lap’ in their life long run, then I’d want an occasional cheer from the audience to know they’re still watching.

The last few days have been pretty complicated with figuring out an optimal schedule.  Handling my nerd groups, reducing my obligations for carpooling, and most importantly opening up the ability to see other friends again.  Here’s what I’m at now:

4pm-2am, Friday thru Sunday off

Saturday and Sunday are routinely open now, which will certainly help.  I’m pretty excited.  =D

And since I know yall are curious, I had landed my previous schedule to help with carpooling a car-less friend to work.  So in addition to the open-invitation to switch back whenever, going to second shift was anything but a fleeting thought (*cough* Steven *cough*).

Now invite me to places, people.

My grandma (yes, my family calls her Nana) isn’t doing so well, an inevitability for most grandmas.  Kidney issues have lead to various medication complications and the resulting side effects.  That’s not to say any malpractice is present, but I’m learning that people with a number of medication-worthy issues run into conflicting ‘solutions’.  Basically she’s faced with either frequent dialysis treatments or opting out of any further treatment.

My conversation with my aunt is similar to what I’m posting here.   Mind you, I wasn’t THIS upfront about such feelings, but the point was still conveyed.

A few years ago, an aunt (different from the aforementioned aunt) passed away.  Her husband, my Uncle Sal, was understandably distraught from her passing.  His health failed during the next year or so until he too passed away.  While I attended his funeral, I couldn’t help but feel relief knowing that he’s with her now.  His crossing over means they’ll never have to be separated again, wherever they’re at now.  So, in some sense, the whole thing seems oddly romantic to me.  A ‘together forever’ type of thing.

For Nana, I feel the same way.  She absolutely does not want dialysis, she’s been persnickety about her medication up till this point too.  Her husband, my grandpa, died  10 years ago.  It feels wrong to withhold her wishes to follow in his footsteps and rejoin him.

My booming fanbase for my blog has reached gut-wrenching new records.  Within a matter of months, my unique visitors will achieve a 2-digit count (before excluding Google and Yahoo search bots).  To give back to my loyal followers, I’ve considered expanding my operations.

Games – Blogging about them can ‘brain poop’ that stuff out of my head, freeing up space for more interesting opinions.  I don’t want to post comprehensive short-novels, just share some of the finer points (or annoyances) of the games I’m into.

Dreams – I have a lot of them.  I’m pretty sure they’re random, but they still manage to fall into a set few categories.  Blogging about them would keep record of such events before they’re lost in the dark cat pee-smelling closet of my shoddy memory.  The usual dream categories for me are:

Special powers – Usually flight, sometimes telekinesis.  I occasionally have dreams where I realize I can do something really awesome, then spend lots of time practicing, or showing it off, or trying to understand why I never noticed such abnormalities before.

Epic failure – Personality flaw, clairvoyance, or a negative interpretation of random images ?  These dreams present a challenge of some sort that inevitably results in a grim outcome.  I’ve been mauled by shadowy K-9 hounds from my parents’ basement, chomped by possessed dolls, and murdered in hostage & robbery situations.

Girls – Names omitted, obviously.  Satisfyingly successful dates, rescuing old crushes, romantic entanglements of random female acquaintances.  The morning always brings disappointment or dramatic WTFs.

Morbid – Lately, the most popular category for me.  But also the prime reason I’m hesitant to share.  Why don’t I skip this one?  Because it’d offer the most consistent resource of interesting updates… just at the expense of wary looks at the office.  Pretty sick stuff though, enough to make me queasy when I wake up.  Or is the queasiness what causes the morbid dreams?  Hmm.

Comments, suggestions, criticisms welcome.  Providing I agree with them.

My family used to be big in Civil War Reenacting.  Around the time I was in elementary thru middle school, we’d go to multiple yearly events.  Jackson, Linden, Chickamauga, and Gettysburg were places we went for camping, war games, and reenacting old battles fought between the North and South.  Spectators were everywhere, friends from school came to reenact, and the campfire food was outstanding.

With all the things that went on at those events, I actually cared about the historical parts the least.  These are some of the staples of those memories:

The chicks – Contrary to the muscle-bound ladies man that you see nowadays, back then I was a total wallflower.  It wasn’t until the later years, in reenacting of all places, that I started to take strides with the opposite sex.  And man was it awesome.  A lot of firsts at those events (no, not that first), laid the groundwork for more ‘skirmishes’ later on.

The ghosts – Staying at places like the Cashtown Inn in Gettysburg (used as a hospital for wounded Civil War soldiers) garnered some pretty memorable, albeit sleep depriving moments.  My family and I don’t need much provoking to tell of our experiences.

The family tension – As mentioned previously, I didn’t care much for the reenacting part.  Going on war games with my group, assisting in events for the spectators, and contributing to the (nearly useless) obligatory nightly guard duty of the camp wasn’t for me.  I’d try to skirt on such obligations wherever possible.  Among other unnecessary catalysts, this often sparked arguments between my parents and I.  Especially my dad.  Being less interested than him in Reenacting or Church typically resulted in moodiness and guilt trips.  I don’t miss it.

Oh, and I’m much less likely to be startled now thanks to random nightly cannon fire in the distance.

Disclaimer:  This post spoils the first 50 or 60 pages of  House of Leaves.  But considering it’s length, it’s not a staggering blow to your fulfillment of the story.

Nearly finished with House of Leaves, but even still I’m impressed by it’s awesome premise.  More-so because the author created it by simply breaking a rule we’ve all taken for granted.  Space, not the Outer kind, the Anywhere kind.  It’s existence is a constant.  Never created or destroyed, just different.  Like matter.  Or is space a form of matter?  I don’t think so, but that topic is far too thought-provoking for a blog like mine.  Anyways, the author dictates that space can exist in places where the quantity of it exceeds more than whats possible.

A family buys a house of Ash Tree Lane somewhere down south.  They’re gone on a trip for the weekend.  When they return, they discover a door in their master bedroom.  The door reveals an empty ‘thru closet’ to the adjacent kids’ bedroom.  Their pictures, shot when they first moved in, as well as the original house blueprints, prove that the closet is indeed new.  Careful measuring reveals an even stranger fact; the addition of the closet extends the house’s interior dimensions further than the exterior.  In other words, the house is bigger on the inside than the outside.

Weeks pass while the husband remeasures and re-remeasures the dimensions, using new tools & techniques.  The wife decides to make the best of the situation by decorating and purchasing a bookshelf to add to the new room.  The bookshelf’s width perfectly occupies the span between the master bedroom to the kid’s room.  As the husband conducts a self-shot video documentary about the new room, wind blows the closet door shut.  In the moment that it takes the wife to open the door, she shrieks as she discovers that the bookshelf no longer fully occupies that distance between the two bedrooms; an extra foot-long gap is suddenly present.

Buy the book.  It was a mere $20 at Schuler’s when I picked it up.  An easy expense for such an epic introduction.  I’d like to paraphrase another passage, but I’d feel like I was taking away more of the fulfillment.  For those of you that read it, you’ll know which I’m referring to when a primary character says “I am not who I used to be”.  An awesome line for the situation that triggers it.

By reading this blog post, you obligate yourself to either sharing your opinion of the story when it’s finished, or writing a 500-page essay on why you’re a cheap prick.