The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett's Journal
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "The Ferrett" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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05:00 pm
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A Crazy Magic Poll
For those of you who are not Magic players, the new Magic core set (M10) was released today, which means tons of new art. And after I imported the new cards, I took a look at the artwork. And I think really, we have two cards that are staggeringly creepy - but which one is worse?
Poll #1427990 Creepiest M10 Art
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllWhich artwork is creepier?
If you're in the mood, feel free to go nuts what you think is the best card in M10. You can either tell me which ones have the prettiest art or just "OMG, Baneslayer Angel is going to rock my casual table." But I gotta say, flavorwise, this one's a total hit for me.
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10:32 am
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My Review Of Transformers (Not 2)
ERIN: "So how was the first Transformers?"
FERRETT: "Well, I was never a fan of the cartoon, but it did have one thing going for it: all the robots were pretty clearly defined. I mean, I don't know the show at all, but I can tell Optimus Prime from Bumblebee. They had different colors and clearly different shapes."
ERIN: "...and?"
FERRETT: "Well, in the movie, they went for 'realism,' so the robots all looked like walking garbage heaps. No colors, no particular profile, just mounds of gears smashing into each other. I honestly couldn't tell who was fighting who."
ERIN: "Was it that bad?"
FERRETT: "Imagine the first fight scene of Pirates of the Carribean, the one where Johnny Depp fights Orlando Bloom. Now, imagine that exact same scene, except that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom have been replaced by two swarms of bees."
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10:08 am
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The Flip Side of Secrets
So a couple of days ago, I asked for secrets, and got many. Secrets are a slightly tricky thing; I usually wait a few days and then go back and respond to the people I thought might want feedback on their secretageitude. I mean, if someone leaves a feedback like, "I accidentally killed my grandmother with a bad batch of pancake mix and now I'm suicidal every time I see a tub of butter," it feels a little strange not to comment or offer suspport.
That said, there is the flip side of the secret post, and it's equally traditional: Ask me something. Anything. If you think it's too private, feel free to email me at theferrett@theferrett.com and I'll answer there. But ask me, and I shall answer true.
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10:17 pm
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You Can Certainly Blame ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) delosd For This
So tonight, against my doctor's wishes, my Rock Band "The Overzealous Showoffs" began touring.
The difference? It's a two-man band, both me. Me on guitar on Expert, me on vocals on Hard. Yes, you can thank Steve for this, because he bought me the mic stand for my birthday.
And man, I pity poor Gini's ears, because a) finding the right octave to sing in for songs out of your range is capital-H hard, and b) my preference for Mystery Setlists (wherein I don't choose the songs) backfired dramatically when I got Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" (which I knew, but was clearly not prepared to sing in her range) followed by Maroon 5's "A Little Of Your Time," which I had never heard before, ever.
Yes, that's correct: I had to sight read guitar and vocals for a song I didn't know. Gini was entertained by the sheer panic on my face, but I did manage three stars (86% on guitar, 84% on vocals). I am considering that a win.
In the meantime, I played until I got the van and then retired, breathless. This is a new challenge. Now I fear that "Master Exploder" will truly kill me.
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05:55 pm
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The Teleporter
I often wish I could develop a convenient, personal teleporter. If I could, of course I'd visit my Mom and Dad weekly, and take my daughters out to dinner, and spend weekends with wolflady26 in Germany, and of course I'd do some jetsetting with my wife and visit Intarwebz friends.
At this moment, however, pretty much the only place I'd like to teleport to would be to New Orleans, The Green Goddess. This menu looks right up my alley, and as much as I love Cleveland, we don't have food this experimental hereabouts. (We have some damn fine drinks, of course, but that's another matter.)
I really should compile a list of all the restaurants I'd like to eat at. Just so if I find myself in the city, I could stop by and check them out. Life is too damn short.
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11:23 am
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A Brief Rant On Fame
Pardon me whilst I talk about Michael Jackson for a moment, but this isn't really about Michael Jackson. It's about how famous people can't act like normal people who are trapped in bizarre circumstances.
See, over on Salon, they're questioning Paris Jackson's tearful goodbye to her dad, and after a long essay they ask a seemingly vital question: "Shouldn't a truly loving family know better than to spotlight the grief of an 11 year old who has just lost a parent?"
And my answer is, wholeheartedly, "Fuck you and your version of a truly loving family."
Don't get me wrong: I'm not going to defend Michael Jackson, who had more issues than a magazine rack. Nor am I going to claim that the Jackson family are a bunch of caring, loving individuals, because their dysfunctionality has long been on parade. As it turns out, we absolutely love the idea of The Addams Family, but when they exist in real life people get a little spooked - and perhaps rightfully so.
But by all accounts, Michael Jackson was a man who inspired amazing loyalty. I never met the guy, nor would I want to - Howard Stern's description of talking to MJ as his nose peeled off is something that stayed with me - but it does say something that the people who loved him loved him powerfully, and wholeheartedly, to the point where even those eventually rejected by him still speak of him wistfully, with great fondness, as if they did something wrong to offend him. He was someone who generated love, regardless of whether he deserved it or not.
The question, I may remind you, is this: "Shouldn't a truly loving family know better than to spotlight the grief of an 11 year old who has just lost a parent?"
And I think of my own family, who do love each other dearly. And how hard it would be if we all woke up one morning and found that my wife - who is lovely and talented and beautiful - had been accused of something we didn't think she actually did. We'd be furious, and hurt, and not quite sure how to respond.
It doesn't take that much for that kind of thing to get created when you're in the limelight all the time, you know. Cameras are watching you 24/7. They're hungry for you to do something interesting. The tabloids are looking for a place to slot you - they sell more magazines if they can find a celebrity who's pathetically hung up on their ex-husband, or a sad drug addict, or a bulimic in denial.
If you don't act perfectly every moment you step out of the house, or if one of your old enemies decides to start spreading rumors, Things can start.
And the important thing to know about fame is this: if you're in the spotlight at all, once you get accused of anything detrimental, it doesn't stop there. Suddenly, now that it's known that you're a nut or a violent crazy or a pill-popper, every single interaction you ever had with anyone gets revisited to see if there were any clues to your foul nature back when you were better loved. Did you have a headache at someone's house once and need pills? Well, if you're known to be a pill-popper, that's now evidence of your crazy addiction!
Your entire life gets to be reinterpreted in the light of this new vision of you. Anything you ever wrote or said will be dredged up and analyzed in light of this new information.
Is that interpretation fair? Who cares? It's a good story. And the people who didn't like you bring the knives out, and some of the folks who did kinda like you hear all these rumors back away, thinking maybe they didn't know you all that well, and the people who defend you are mere sockpuppets. Why would they defend you? After all, everyone now knows you're a crazy drug addict - anyone who says otherwise must be deluded, in your pocket.
After a while, the rumors start to trump the actual substance. People meet you and they wait eagerly for the slip where you give them the pinball payoff that confirms that "WHOOP! YES, PILL-POPPER!" - now they have a good story they can tell to all their friends. And when you withdraw from public sight because you're tired of people continually scanning you for evidence of a bias you don't think you actually have - then guess what? Now you're a crazy recluse as well.
I can envision that very clearly, yes. I'm not saying that Michael Jackson is sane - he wasn't, insofar as I know - but I am saying that one wrong-headed opinion about a sane person released into the wild could push anyone into bizarre circumstances. If you weren't crazy when the accusations started, you will be when it's over. There's a shark tank out there for celebrities, and people loooove to watch crazy celebs falling apart. They don't want to hear that Paris Hilton is getting her act together, they want to see that herpes-infected skank fly apart like a firework on the Fourth of July.
And I imagine being here with my wife who's gotten caught up in this net, this strange exaggerating sheen cast upon someone who I think didn't deserve it. I imagine wanting to tell the press the real version of her, the version only I have because I've known her for years and I love her and I see how much this is all hurting her - and when I try to tell the press my story, I'm written off as some PR flack, a whoring leech desperate to protect my sugar daddy's income.
Who does matter? The ones who have the negative dirt - all the strangers have the real stories. Doesn't matter how long they've been around or how reliable their knowledge is, all that matters is that they spent a couple of days with my wife, and she said one thing wrong, and boy do they have a kooky story! And that makes headlines, not the thousand ways the person I know shows love.
And if my wife, miserable and lonely because she's been fucking walled off from the media, drinks herself to death? I'd be furious, and angry, and I would want the world to know the real her. Not this chew-toy they've been kicking around for the better part of three decades, but the person we knew. The person that we loved for years, tormented by all the folks who'd arbitrarily decided what he was.
How could we tell people we were sane, but the world had gone crazy? We couldn't. If I got angry at the press, they'd tear me to shreds for being whiny. After all, when you're with a celebrity, the important thing to remember is that they sought fame. The world knows that they deserve every ounce of scrutiny they've ever gotten, and if you dare to say that maybe people shouldn't have been interested, well, you're just ungrateful and stupid and naive. I'd speak.
But would I let my daughter? My daughter, who also knew the wife I loved, who also feels the pain of what I'm going through as keenly as anyone?
God, yes. If she wanted, I'd let her say whatever she wanted to that crowd. Because this would be her moment to speak truth to people unfiltered by that toxic media reaction - for a brief time, it'd be her on stage, speaking as she saw fit, telling the world how she thought of her Mom. And if that helped her to get past it, to give her little slice of how she saw her momma, oh God I'd let her talk.
Then some stupid fucking media cocksucker would post an article the next day, asking, "Aren't you just using your daughter? Don't you know what a loving family is?" And my answer would be, fuck you. It's people like you who helped put my family in a place where we do things that you can never, ever understand.
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09:27 am
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Clarionniversary, July Wrapup
Stories worked on this month:- "Season to Taste," Second Revision My infamous "gay cannibal rhino" story, which I revised in preparation for workshopping by the ever-vigilant Cajun Sushi Hamsters this Sunday. I think it's got a strong storyline, but I'm equally sure the Hamsters will point out what I think is lacking from it at this stage in revision.
- "Unreal Estate," Third revision. Opening line (one of my better ones) can be found here. Speaking of Hamster crits, this one was generally liked but was confusing thanks to an overly baroque structure - which I cleaned up, telling it in chronological order, and found some core emotional notes that really, really needed to be hit. It made Gini tear up a bit, so I'm countin' it as a win.
- "Pork Pie Wars" (heavily working title). This is my Story Of Doom - I was hoping to finish it before my Clarionniversary, but a) I got sick, and b) I have written the opening five times. This story seems like it should be simple - a kid who stops a long-running (and extremely stupid) war between a pair of rural towns - but I keep starting in the wrong place. Fortunately, Clarion taught me the value of being able to see that it's not the right place, and I am learning a lot about how to structure a story from this... But honestly, I prefer the easy stories that slide out.
- "Sleeping Dreamer" (Heavily working title). A flash fiction (well, sorta - 1,200 words) about a story told from Cthulhu the freedom fighter's point of view. Cute, quick, perhaps too cute and quick. Ending needs mondo work.
June Acceptances:
I did get one sale - not a pro sale, but according to Duotrope, it's one of the top 20 most challenging markets in the nation. But that contract hasn't come back to me yet, so I'm gonna hold off on announcing this one. Still, if all goes well you should see it in Spring 2010.
Oh, and though it's technically not an acceptance in the spirit I usually mean here - I'm paying for the privilege, after all - I did get accepted to October's Viable Paradise workshop, where I shall be taught by (among others) such Intarwebz illuminaries as John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, and the Nielsen Haydens. I've decided that really, I'm a workshop kinda guy - even if the amount I've spent on workshops at this point will take a looong time to make up in actual sales. Right now, I'm treating it like a modified vacation; sure, it's dough, but it's my week away from work.
'Sides, I'm middle-class and middle-aged. I gotta spend my lucre on something aside from Rock Band downloads. It's gonna be awesome.
June Rejections:
One for "A Window, Clear As A Mirror" (boilerplate), one for "Unreal Estate" (a personal rejection stating that he didn't like afterlife stories), one boilerplate for "In The Land of the Deaf."
Hmm. Seems like there should be more, but I do have at least three stories on hold whil they go through a second editorial pass, and I was out of it for a lot of it.
Stories In Circulation:
"The Backdated Romance," "The Insecure Cyborg,""...At The End Of All Prophecy," "iTime," "Under the Thumb of the Brain Patrol," "Home Despot," "In The Land of the Deaf," "Amanda Rose's Travelling, Earth-Destroying Circus," "The Elderly Cyborg," "A Window, Clear As A Mirror," "What Killed Tyra Herschel?",
Currently on hold: "An Excuse To Buy String."
Overall...
A very tough month due to the surgery - I lost ten days of writing, and then motivation was really hard to find. I have a lot of good ideas, but the stories aren't calling to me the way I want them to. (I really don't feel like I have a choice on which story I work on.) But I'm hackin' away, and looking forward to meeting a bunch of cool folks at VP.
It's also a very tough month due to a secret goal I had, but I'll let you know how that went come next month.
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10:31 am
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Secrets, Secrets
It's the usual post when I feel a need for interaction but don't have much to say: Tell me a secret. All comments are, as usual, screened.
I will not attempt to guilt you into providing me with secrets by pointing out that there was a 35% chance of me dying two weeks ago, and who would you have told your secret to then? Nossirree, we don't pull that kinda stupidity here at The Watchtower of Destruction. We're cooler than that. No, really.
(Seriously, I'm fine.)
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10:22 am
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Announcements And Setch
For those interested, Rock Band Wednesday is on for tonight. Please, drop by and help me rock the artificial house!
In other related news, the journal here is undergoing a bit of transformation. Time was, I felt I had to write in it every day just to do the little dance to keep people's attention - and when I wrote quickly, I wrote stuff that I didn't actually like. I have no problem saying things that offend people; I do have problems when what I say, thanks to the haste with which I wrote it, can be interpreted as saying something I actually didn't mean.
There's a line there, of course; you have to deal with a small audience for years before you really realize there's no such thing as a bulletproof essay. People are remarkably willing to ignore the actual words on the page in order to bring their own grievances to your writing. These people are idiots, but they do exist. The only way to write something that's even mostly bulletproof from these folks is to write in a philosophy-style method where every thought is dissected thoroughly over seventeen paragraphs, and then it's bulletproof only because the gunmen get so bored that hardly anyone comes to the shooting range.
Vibrant writing is writing that can be misinterpreted. No, really.
Still, I can - and do - differentiate between people sharpening their own axe and when I misstate something. Everything in this journal is something I should be willing to stand behind, so when the inevitable shitstorm of comments arises (as it will occasionally do), it'll be for a post where I'll be able to say, "Yes, goddammit, that's the truth as I see it, and I will argue it." And to do that, I need to construct better.
The more spontaneous stuff will be handled on my Twitter feed, where I can do less damage in 140 characters. But what's here in my journal should be a purer reflection of me, and I'm tired of arguing things I didn't mean to - nor should I - have said.
I've been trying this for the past week or so, and have been happy with the results. You may not have even noticed a difference. But it's there. We'll see how it goes.
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08:53 am
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A Thought On Health And Happiness
I used to get completely bent out of shape when my nose got stuffed up. If I couldn't breathe freely through my nostrils thanks to a cold or an allergy, I'd feel absolutely miserable.
Then, one day, I said to myself: "Self, the problem is that you never remember what it's like to breathe through your nose when you're sick. So the next time you're healthy, take a couple of deep breaths and relish the feeling. That way you'll at least have some strong memory to sense-compare against when it happens."
And lo! Now, when I'm feeling good, I'll sometimes just suck in a deep, lovely breath through two perfectly clear nasal canals, and appreciate how wonderful it is to be healthy. It makes me feel absolutely spiffy when I am tip-top. And when I do get stuffed up, at least I can say, "Well, I really took advantage of my nose when I had working usage of it." It makes life a little better.
Likewise, now that I've had abdominal surgery, I'm mostly better, but there's still a cost involved in, say, getting up out of the chair or off the bed. It's not as bad as the day after the cutting, when it took five agonizing minutes to shuffle to the bathroom... But still. When I want to get a drink or fetch a book I have this little twinge that says, "Do you need to do this? Are you sure?" Because my shredded gutses will kick up a minor fuss. It'll cost me a squidge of hurt or two to move, now.
I've had forty years of just getting up whenever the heck I wanted, treating mobility as a sort of free pass that was just given to me. Now, like my nose, once I've healed I'm going to think, "I can get up and get that damn soda, and it doesn't cause me any pain or injury at all. This is a lovely, lovely thing." Because I really should appreciate the fine way my body works, since I only have about thirty more years of it doing this at best before the opportunity cost of rising settles back in.
Might as well take the time to enjoy it while it's here.
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08:00 am
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Word Counts, Word Bits
Every day, on my friends' list, I see the word counts from authors zipping by. "I did 2,800 words today," they chirp brightly, and then another person says, "I kicked 4,400 words out!" I drown in a sea of other people's words while I look at my own pathetic scribbles, and realize that really, I've changed.
Before Clarion, I used to have these tremendous writing jags where I could turn out 4,000 words in an hour. I'd sit down at the keyboard and open up my brain, and images would just spill out from my fingers and into Word. If I had the idea and the energy, I could write three stories a week. NaNoWriMo was more like three weeks for 120,000 words.
Now? My words come much more slowly. I'm lucky if I can write three stories a month (and usually it's closer to two). I pace back and forth in the basement, muttering to myself like a madman, going, "Okay, what happens next?" I craft sentences slowly, squeezing them out like the last bits of toothpaste. A good day for me is about 1,200 words, and generally I hit 800.
Then the next day I wake up, realize I wrote the wrong scene, and have to write it all over again.
When I left Clarion, I wondered whether this new inchy-slow pace was just a temporary recuperation period, or the new me. Almost a year later, I think it's who I am. When I wrote fast, I also wrote a lot of cliches, and I wasn't paying attention to the tiny details that make up character. Clarion taught me that I really need to investigate my own writing for honesty, to think about whether this is what this person would actually do in this situation - to rely less on plotting and more on authenticity. And delving deep to find the authenticity in my own imagination creates stories that are so uniquely me some days I worry that they're not salable, but it does take time to scrape those little bits out of m'insides.
It's not a bad thing. I remember the days when I ran rampant through the writing-fields, spilling verbiage from my fingertips, and all those words were riotously wrong. I'm closer now. But still, to a certain extent I feel like my Uncle Tommy, handicapped by arthritis, knowing that he used to play crazy baseball and now all he can do is watch the kids whiz by, glove in hand.
It's an illusion, though. What matters is that I apply ass to chair, and then hands to keyboard, and spend however much time I need to pouring the words into that document. This pace matters not as much as the final page.
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01:03 pm
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A Brief Note
I hopped on for a brief lunchtime session today and discovered that lo, I am totally on Rock Band-wise. Racked up major increases in points over three Disturbed songs, almost gold-starring "Inside the Fire" and topping my previous "Stricken" score by - yeesh - 40,000 points.
I told this to Gini and she said, "Apparently your appendix was holding you back."
As a side note to Rock Band developers, would it kill you to put a "You have a new high score!" calculation in the game? For those of us trying to beat our old scores, memorizing them at the beginning of the song and trying to recall what that was at the end of the song is getting old. Give us some money, even in Quickplay mode, if we best an old score!
P.S. - Please also give me a free Beatles Rock Band set and a pony. I love you guys. Really I do.
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10:48 am
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My 40th Birthday Party: Prep and Con Report
"I know what you're getting for your fortieth birthday," said a room full of giggling women, hands over their mouths. "It's gonna be awesome."
The room full of women was the local book group, a women's-only party that met once a month to discuss a book for five minutes and then gossip and drink excessive amounts of wine for the next three hours. And apparently, one of the topics that had come up this evening was, "What should Ferrett do on his fortieth?"
The boozy collective of my female friends had delivered. Which was a gigantic relief to me.
See, Gini went to New Orleans for her fiftieth birthday party - but though I wanted something big and splashy for my transition into the big four-oh, travelling just seemed mundane. See, for me, the best way to get me to do anything is to tell me that I've never done it before. I'm a total Sensate, utterly at the mercy of any new experience - and while seeing a new city would be kind of new, the experience of travelling is something I've done a hundred times over.
No, I wanted to mark me waving goodbye to my childhood with something I had never done - some genuine first to mark the start of a new voyage. Problem was, I couldn't think of anything that I'd wanted to do that I hadn't.
Which is not to say that I've done everything I wanted to, but I'm terrible with lists. There are a thousand books I want to read, but usher me through the doors of a competent book shop and I will forget every last one of them. I kept thinking, "Wow, what did I say I wanted to do?" and it slipped my mind again and again... So I asked Gini. Between the two of us, we were struggling; it looked like it was gonna be cake and Rock Band for my birthday, which is cool, but kind of anticlimactic for a major event like this. Yet put Gini together with a bunch of creative, intelligent, and wine-lubricated women, and they can solve the Ferratic Equation.
Best of all, nobody would tell me what it was.
It was still four months until my birthday, but not a day went by when I didn't imagine what the big surprise would be. Was it harmful? Well, injury could occur. Was it fun? They didn't know whether I'd enjoy it, but I'd remember it. Was it in Cleveland? Yes, and they were considering blindfolding me so I wouldn't see it before I got there. It was in an industrial complex.
The suspense was driving me happily mad.
Unfortunately, three weeks later, someone spoiled the party - as was inevitable, I think. Someone emailed me privately to say, "We were really hoping to make a day trip down there and be able to make it to your birthday party and the bounce house..." And there went the surprise. Bounce house.
I had never realized it was possible to be so disappointed and elated at once. The mystery had been popped like a balloon. But, hey! BOUNCE HOUSE!
Gini was being so good about keeping the party a surprise that I didn't tell her that someone had accidentally spilled the beans. Why ruin it for her? She'd worked so hard, so I kept my mouth shut and practiced my "Oh, it's a bounce house!" squeal. Yet one night three weeks after that, she told me that our friend Kat's surgery wouldn't ruin the party, because "We'll just set her in the middle of the castle and bounce her slowly."
She was mortified, but hey. When you have a party with fifty-something invitees, secrets are hard to keep. But now I knew: I'd long complained about being too tall to bounce in the big inflatable castles at the various fairs, and now we had a place that would let me bounce around! Awesome!
Then my appendix ruptured ten days before my birthday.
Gini asked me whether I wanted to cancel. "No," I said. "Even if I can't bounce, I want to watch my friends having fun. They'll just have to bounce extra-high for me, is all." At the time I said this, I was so immobilized that I had to pee into little plastic jugs because I couldn't get out of the hospital bed three times a night. Moving was slow and painful. I fell asleep for no apparent reason.
Fortunately, by the time of my birthday, the stitches were out and I had just successfully bent over for the first time that morning, so I had hopes that I'd be able to do something. I was still a little weak - I had to excuse myself from a dinner with two friends I really love so I could go home and nap - but Gini drove me to the bounce house.
My gut still ached as I wedged myself into the car, and every pothole still sent bolts of pain travelling up my suture wound and into my torn abdominal muscles. But I was not going to let that stop me. As I said to Gini, "I'm probably going to hurt myself a little today." I had fears of winding back in the hospital, but I had to at least bounce a little
She quashed her meeping noises adoringly.
Bec and Adam were out front, gaily waving people in, and inside was Angie, so immediately all three of my favorite huggable women were right there. The entryway had people in space uniforms that reminded me a lot of the stewardess' outfits in 2001: A Sspace Odyssey. They had us sign a release form (always a good sign for fun), and made us put our shoes in little cubbyholes that were, endearingly, almost too small for our adult-sized feet. We were, apparently, the first all-adults party at Zero Gravity ever.
To get into the bounce room, you are escorted into a small "airlock" and given a speech about how the bounce room is in zero gravity because - OMG - it is in outer space. They have to transport you safely through the stars, and to get there safely you should all press your backs against the walls "So a meteor cannot hit you." You can, however, feel free to reach out and grab a star - which is when they dim the lights and start up the laser light show, complete with two glowing flux capacitors set into the ceiling.
Then I limped out into the room to find everyone there.
I sometimes forget how many wonderful friends I have in Cleveland, but seeing twenty-five folks (none of whom I get to spend enough time with) shouting, "FERRETT!" as I entered a room made me feel totally fuckin' loved. But not all of them were paying attention to me - inside was a huge space filled with a bouncy castle, and an inflatable obstacle course, and a bungee race, and a small ovipositor-like dragon thing that we were all, sadly, far too large to get into.
I made the rounds, and then - a little terrified that my guts would rip open and spill out like some overfilled paper sack on trash day - I gingerly climbed into the bouncy castle.
The bouncy castle was, thankfully, not a purely open floor. It was Jurassic Park-themed, and as such the floor was studded with inflatable dinosaur heads and mammoth tusks, which meant that unsteady me always had something to grab onto - and more importantly, it made the usual "run across the castle and jump" tactics impossible. I bounced, and nothing really hurt, and I could fall to my knees without injury.
As more people crowded in, I discovered that the floor was littered with nerf balls - which, of course, led to a game of dodgeball, as everyone ran in and chucked nerf at peoples' heads, and hid behind the dino heads, and bounced around and fell to the floor to try to get the next balls, and leapt out of the way, and I was forty and playing nerf dodgeball in a bouncy house with my friends and God life was sweet.
My side ached, but that was fine. I had to escape in a fashion a little less manlier than I would have liked - everyone else slid out, whereas I had to sort of crawl down, because I could not bend in half - but I stepped out with a fierce pride. Megan Rose Gedris summed up my feelings perfectly at this moment:
I gimped over to the bungee cord races, where you are strapped onto a giant bungee cord and asked to run as far as you can down a bouncy corridor before the cord yanks you back. It reminded me of the movie Dodgeball, where I honestly expected to get bored of watching people get whonged in the face with a dodgeball, but it never got old. Likewise, it doesn't matter how many times you see it, watching a fully-grown adult run hell-for-leather down a hallway and then get this "SHIT" look on their face, and wham, white socks flailing in the air as they go ass-over-teakettle, hauled backwards towards the source? IT NEVER GETS OLD.
But I did regain energy, and when nobody who would stop me was looking, I went through the inflatable obstacle course.
This was, it must be acknowledged, a sketchy decision. But I didn't dare try the bungee race, and damned if I was only going to experience a third of my birthday party. So I wriggled through a narrow circular opening, and started the course.
It was everything I couldn't do.
The course wanted me to bend over. It wanted me to crawl on my belly through small tubes. It wanted me to climb six-foot cliffs, then slide down on my stitches. And worse, it was mostly made for kids, so everywhere it was just a little too small. I kept getting stuck, with no way to get out.
Thing is, I never felt more alive. I felt weirdly like Spider-Man, injured from a prior battle, navigating a series of traps set by his enemies. When I got stuck in the inflatable tube because I had to go on my knees through it, I had to haul myself out with my bare hands. It hurt. Likewise, climbing the hand-holds of the final slide meant that I risked slipping, and if I did that, I might land my damn stitches right on the blocklike footholds.
I was sweating far more than I should have. This was the most exercise I'd had in two weeks, and my body told me that I was too weak to do this. I felt the urge to call for help.
But I fucking didn't, and I fucking got up that last slide, and I fucking got my legs over so I wouldn't slide down head-first, and when I got out I felt like I had triumphed over the elements.
My friend Dmitri had an actual wrestling match on his thirtieth birthday; he wore a mask, and in a ceremony he had to fight a warrior to "win" his way through to year #30. I didn't like fighting, but I always did admire the fact that D. had a challenge to face to win through to his next stage in life. And though it sounds supremely silly, when I emerged from the slippery plastic bowels of the inflatable obstacle course, sweating and so weak I could barely stand, I felt like I had just won the world. My surgery? Gone. My childhood? I got past it. I stood, trembling and free, having hauled myself out by my own shaking hands, and fuck yeah I won.
After which, Gini found me and asked, "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?" I couldn't answer. I was too proud.
So I sat down and talked (and dammit, with so many people there I didn't get to talk to everyone I wanted to for nearly as much time as I'd hoped), and after I'd recuperated I played some more dodgeball, and then I got to cut my cake - a cake from the best custard place in Cleveland - and when I was too tired I played Ms. Pac-Man. I didn't beat the high score of 104,000 because that machine was set way too difficult, but I did get 60,000 and to the second post-banana board, which I consider a triumph.
Full of cake and candy and win, I went home. And sang Rock Band, and played guitar, and got hugs from lovely women, and eventually collapsed at 2:00 a.m. in too much pain but too much victory.
It was a good day.
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08:49 pm
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Love and Guesswork.
My stepfather, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, is entering his terminal phase. Before the end of July, he'll be gone. It may well be the next week.
I've told my mother that I will fly out there to be with her, if she needs me. And that's really tough. Bruce is dying (you can see a summary of my history with him here), and there's a part of me that wants to run out and go take care of Mom right now. But on the other hand, I also know that she may want to just spend her last days alone with her husband, and me being there would be an intrusion that would take time and effort away from the man she loves.
In other words, I want to help. But I don't want to make it about me.
So I've told her: "If you need me, I will fly out there tomorrow. But you have to tell me. I'm not going to pressure you with a thousand requests." And that's really, really tough. I have to trust her that if she wants me there, she'll call. And I'll call her daily to check in on her, and see how things are doing, and see what the daily status report on Bruce is. I'll give her opportunities to ask for me there. Even so, it may well be that I don't see her until the funeral.
She's crying on the phone. It's a long way away. I hope she's as okay as she can be, and I just wish I knew the best way to navigate her through this time. But like everything with family, it's all down to love and guesswork.
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11:25 am
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Question Du Jour: Dead Celebrities
Here's a weird question for you: What celebrity would you be least surprised to find out had come back from the dead? (Warning: "Chuck Norris" is not a funny answer.)
I'm gonna go with Clint Eastwood. He'd just sorta brush the dirt off his shoulder, get up, look vaguely irritated, and get back to directing.
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10:59 pm
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Fireworks
For me, fireworks are like Benihana Japanese Steakhouses. I know there's something inherently cheesy about both of them, and really I expect to wake up one morning and discover that yes, like any true adult, I have outgrown such base pleasures.
But every time that steak hits the grill or the fire lights the sky, a grin tugs the corners of my mouth, and I begin to applaud, and I realize the last of my childhood has yet to leak out of me.
As long as I have wonder, I shall last.
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04:32 pm
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My Father And My Birthday
My Dad enjoys sending me many cards on my birthday. This selection is from him and him alone this year.
He is a lunatic, but I love him.
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12:42 pm
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Exhausted Weasel
My birthday party yesterday was made of pure, unadulterated awesome... But I burned up so much energy in playing yesterday that I don't have the time for a writeup today. I will, I promise.
Suffice it to say that despite the 1998-style web design shown on their web site, having a grown-up party at Zero Gravity is incredibly fun. Bouncing around in a full-sized inflatable dinosaur arena, chucking foam balls at each other, is about as much entertainment as it sounds.
Plus, I horrified Gini by going through the inflatable obstacle course, but hey. It's my goddamned birthday. I'm not letting any wounds stop me.
Anyway, barbecue today, stop by if you'd like, I'm now going to curl up with Grant Imahara's Bot Building book. Yay! And happy fourth, everyone!
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10:22 am
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Mysterious Stories Of My Youth
A man summons a demon to get immense wealth. The demon drops bags of money all around him, but tells him, "You must never pass through a red door, or I will get you." The man, overjoyed, goes to the bank - and when he walks through, THE DEMON is waiting for him! "But I didn't walk through a red door!" he protests.
"But you totally did!" the demon cackles. "Don't you see? I MADE YOU COLORBLIND!"
This sounds like the kind of story a six-year-old kid would make up by a campfire, but no - it's an actual story from House of Secrets, a comic I used to read. Want another example?
A guy sneaks into a small town to discover that ALIENS have taken over! He leads a revolution of the terrified townsfolk and begins driving the aliens back, when suddenly the "aliens" take off their helmets - it's actually good ol' US soldiers, giving a military training exercise to prepare themselves for alien invasions! They have a good laugh when they realize that wait - THOSE aliens are attacking, and they're not soldiers! IT'S A REAL INVASION OMG.
But no, it's okay. The aliens explain, after a brief kerfluffle, that they were flying overhead and saw the "fake" aliens invading and thought it was real OTHER aliens invading, and came to help out the beleaguered humans. And now we're all friends!
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKING FUCK.
Thing is, you could be excused for thinking these things were written by Alzheimers-afflicted ex-Twilight Zone writers. I mean, these twists are stupid. The guy's colorblind, which presumably means that he's R/G colorblind, so wouldn't he have noticed that the cash he was diving in Scrooge McDuck-style was gray? And he's walking to the BANK. How many banks have bright red doors? Wouldn't he have noticed on his WALK to the bank that the stoplights were flashing gray at him? This is ridiculous.
But I loved this stuff. When I was eleven, these were the scariest stories ever. You had Cain, with his creepy devil's hair and his John Lennon spectacles, leering and making bad puns as people got their tricky comeuppance. In these stories, every guy marrying a woman either was out to kill her, or discovered she was a hideous beast who would devour him whole, or - best of all - BOTH. The devil just popped up all the time, eager to make bargains for souls. (It never went well.) Criminals, always dappily dressed in suits and pork-pie hats, robbed banks and double-crossed each other. Aliens slobbered, invariably hungry for human flesh no matter what those lying sacks of goo claimed.
And always, always THE TWIST at the end. You didn't see that coming, did you, children? No, but Cain did. Cain always does. Because he's THAT FUCKING AWESOME.
I really do think that House of Mystery set my writing career back fifteen years. House of Mystery taught me that characters could - nay, should - be one-note dudes with a single motivation that leads them to wherever you want them to go. House of Mystery taught me that a good plot involved a TWIST at the end that pulled the rug out from under the reader's feet, regardless of whether that rug-pulling made a blamed lick of sense. And House of Mystery taught me that stock stereotypes were your best friend - the greedy banker, the lonely mortician, the noble astronaut, the frightened horny widow, the witch-doctor with the bone through his nose and a well-honed axe to grind against Whitey.
For years, I wrote stories where the stereotype wandered into a TWIST. And it was ZOMG AWESOME. DID YOU SEE THAT COMING? NO YOU DID NOT. THAT'S A FUCKIN' STORY! I could have rocked House of Mystery, had it still been published.... but strangely enough, Asimov's was not terribly interested in my half-baked Outer Limits clones.
Even now, I love reading House of Mystery. Gini can't understand why I have the collections, reading them and madly giggling one story at a time. But in them, I see all my worst sins remembered, and realize that maybe I have to step away from Orlando to write something worthwhile.
House of Mystery's like fifteen years off my career. Some day, I'll discuss the Archie Gap.
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08:58 am
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"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
It's my birthday!I am now 40 years old - or, if I want to be a cranky old cuss (which, I mean, why not start now?), I will be one as of 10:13 p.m. tonight. I have crossed the great threshold into four-zero, and no sign of a midlife crisis yet.
The nice thing is that life seems poised to help me through midlife crises. When I was thirty and in danger of one, I got married to a lovely, wonderful woman, which made life seem all fuzzy and full of potential. I might be in danger of one this year, but my lovely Clarionmates really kicked the cobwebs off my writing and revitalized me, so I'm filled with "I-can-do-it" juice. I'm forty, grizzled, and happy. Now I'm going to go out onto my lawn and yell at some kids.
As for birthday celebrations, today will be awesome. My wife reserved a bounce house for me, where I can jump around in a kidlike inflated structure and enjoy the thrill of boinging on air. Unfortunately, the appendectomy put a cramp in that, but I will get to watch my friends make silly jumps, which is almost as good. (When I am down, nothing cheers me up more than seeing other people having fun.) Plus, I'm going to try to finagle a cake from the finest custard shop in town today, if I can get my order in in time.
What can you get me for my big 4-0? Well, as noted, go out and do something awesome for yourself. Tell me about your personal bounce house, man. I wanna know!
Failing that (and I really wish you wouldn't), if you'd like to get me an inexpensive gift that will nevertheless make me do little happydances of joy, feel free to post cheesecake pictures of yourself in the comments here. (Alternatively, if they're spicy or you're shy, mail 'em to me at theferrett@theferrett.com.) I'm a little asexed right now thanks to copious amounts of healing/Vicodin, but some people have told me they've been saving pictures for me (which is very sweet of them), and I know at some point I'll wake up again.
(Incidentally, every year I do this, some guy goes, "Oh ho, here I am! You didn't expect this!" and posts a picture of himself. And it's true that I'm straight, but a) I like seeing pictures of people anyway, b) I'm never shocked by photos of guys, and c) as far as I'm concerned, posting cute pictures of yourself where women can see them is always a good idea. So it's like whoah, you sure are alternative, buddy.)
Anyway, it's my birthday. As always, I reserve these fireworks for me.
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