At Times I Am Downright Maniacal

I have a good vocabulary and am a fairly good speller. Therefore, I tend to murder people on the Scrabble board. How fitting, then, that the best way I can describe my faltering memory is with a key component of my favorite game!

The doctor has me on a few meds. It’s cool, I admit it, no shame. But they have side effects. Whatever. As of right now the cure is better than the disease. One of the most notable side effects I’ve found (of the ones that I’ll talk about on a site read by my mother and father) is the deterioration of my memory.

I never had a great memory to begin with. It’s not a big loss. But the way it works now is silly. And that’s where Scrabble comes in. These days, each time I experience an event, it becomes its own isolated little thing. Like a letter tile. My memory is like the little velvet bag, stuffed full of these tiles. I can’t always remember which came first if both events are several days ago. Everything is jumbled together and it’s all I can do to puzzle out how the letters relate. The big problem is remembering who I talked to about what memory. My new catch phrase is “Did I already tell you that…?”

When I was a sophomore in college I was introduced, via the internet, to a friend of a friend (of a friend, in all honesty). There was a group of us chattering away on AOL Instant Messenger, usually in a chatroom, having discussions about absolutely nothing. What was peculiar was that my friend lived in Arizona, where he had moved junior year of high school. He met this other guy, who introduced him to his friends from the internet. One of these friends ironically lived maybe an hour or two away from me in South Jersey. After a while we began to hang out, and one day we decided she would come visit me at my school so we could party and have fun. At this point I was a junior and had discovered the joys of drinking so we were set to have a blast. We dropped her car at my mom’s house (I went to school 20 minutes away but lived on campus) and headed back to good old Daniels University.

Sheila and I were a lot alike. She was a girl and a lot shorter than I was, but personality-wise we were a good fit. We told stupid jokes, giggled, (Er, she giggled. As a man I gave a hearty guffaw) and generally enjoyed each other’s company for the usual two or three days she’d visit. We were basically good kids. Until we decided to become the Bonnie and Clyde of New Jersey. We were driving along, almost to campus, and drove by a series of road cones strewn about by the curb.

“Huh,” I said, passingly, “those aren’t really doing much, huh?” She agreed. Somehow the idea came up that we could take two. “One for me, and one for you.” I forget whose idea it was, but I quickly turned the car around and drove back to the scattered pylons. Little Sheila hopped out and quickly scooped up our booty and we sped back off into the night.

Three blocks later I was stopped at a red light and glanced in my rear-view mirror. The fuzz! “Sheila!” I spat out in a frantic whisper, “There’s a cop behind us. Hide the cones!” She twisted in the passenger seat and tried to cover them with a jacket. In retrospect this was probably a bad idea, as the cruiser’s roof almost immediately blazed into red and blue lights.

Let me take a moment to describe the town Daniels is in. It is not a college town. It’s your typical little Jersey town full of big houses and rich people. This means that there is little a college kid can do to get in a lot of trouble. This also means there is very little for the police to do.

Fairly soon a second cruiser, roof alight, pulled up. The first officer approached my car and asked us to step out. We were asked a few questions, but it was for show. They had us pegged. Someone had seen us and ratted us out. They took back our hot goods and one officer looked around inside my car a bit while we waited. I turned to the other, prepared to deliver the most macho thing anyone has ever said to the police ever.

“Uh. Um. Officer?”

“Yeah?”

“I er, have this anxiety thing so if, uh, I throw up it’s not because I’ve been drinking or on drugs or, like, anything? Ok?” (Whenever I recount this story, that’s the part that drives the women crazy.)

“There’s nothing to worry about, we just have to ask you some questions. Calm down.” Ok, so, they were gonna take the cones back, give us what-for, slap on the wrist, send us on our way. Then they separated us for questioning. There was one key question. “Who took the cones?”

“Er. We did.”

“No. Which one of you actually took them?” Oh. So it came down to this. I was the wheelman. The getaway driver. I kept the motor running; my little Bonnie grabbed the goods. I like to think what I did next was honorable. Even if it was lying to a cop.

“Me. I took them.”

“Ok.” He returned to his back-up who was questioning Sheila. About this time a third police car, this one an SUV, pulled up on the opposite curb lit up like a Christmas tree. Did I mention that we were literally in front of the police station? I could see it. I was not shaping up to be a good criminal mastermind. My officer came back. “So… you say you took the cones. But she’s saying that she took them. Which is it?” I wanted to keep up my lie, but I was afraid Sheila would stick to her story too, which had the benefit of being true, and then I’d be in trouble for stealing and lying to a policeman. I came clean.

“S-she did.”

“Alright.” Our story clear, it was time for our slap on the wrist. Or so I thought. Sheila was cuffed and stuffed into the back of the cruiser. We could have walked to the station, but I guess it had to be done by the books. Then one of the cops came towards me. I halfheartedly held out my arms, wrists close together. Would they tow my car? Just leave it here? Why oh why did I turn to this life of crime?!

“Alright. Go on. Get out of here.”

I stared at him, lowering my wrists a fraction. “What?”

“We’ve gotta process her. You can go.”

“I- what? But she…” I looked over his shoulder at my sullen friend locked in the back of the car. “Shouldn’t I come too? Can’t I stay with her?”

“No. It’s gonna take a while. Hour or two. It’s best if you just go home and we’ll call you when we’re done.”

And so I was forced to get back into my car and leave Sheila to her fate. I drove the remaining few blocks to campus like any criminal would after narrowly escaping the coppers- sobbing uncontrollably with fear and guilt.

Dear girl who shot down my party invitation,

What is the deal, girl who shot down my party invitation? I don’t think you appreciate the work that went into trying to get you to that party! My friend thought you were cute and pointed you out when we went to your place of work, a bizarre Chinese-Mexican combo place. You knew his name and paid slightly more attention to him than you did to me. I am so super hot that this can only mean that you are into him or myopic. I tried to get him to invite you to the party and he chatted you up while your co-worker fed me all sorts of spicy food. I do not like spicy food, girl who shot down my party invitation!

So he didn’t ask you that night. The party was in a scant few days! We did what we had to do. We went back the next day! You were not even working. We had to sit in gloomy defeat and eat Chinese food quesadillas for the second day in a row. Do you know what happens when you eat Chinese food quesadillas two days in a row? You get a lot of time to yourself, sitting on the toilet until your feet go numb.

Well, we are no quitters and you had told my buddy that your little shop of gastrointestinal horrors would be selling special delicious cookies on Saturday. Saturday was the day of the party and, incidentally, the day after visit two! That’s right, we came back for cookies! However someone with the worst taste ever decided to have their wedding reception at a Chinese-Mexican fast food place. While I meandered around so he could ask you, the boss of the whole store offered me free samples. I took it, to be polite, but it was chicken with green crap on it. I pretended to like it and threw it away when he wasn’t looking. I was beginning to get the impression that my friend was not going to ask you and the very act of being in that store was making my intestines slither and my bowels weep so I told him I was going to ask you and get it over with. I sauntered over when you were by yourself setting up the buffet and tried to start a conversation. Turns out I talk a big game but when it comes down to it I couldn’t ask you either. Sorry girl who shot down my party invitation but I couldn’t think of a segue from “is that guy really the owner” to “come to this party tonight to make out with my friend.”

Finally you were back behind the counter and it was time to make the move. You came to help us. I said we had been told your store would be selling very special cookies that day. I acted like I knew nothing about them, even though I had choked down a sample earlier. You asked how many I wanted, six or twelve. I turned to my friend. “What do you think? A dozen? We should get some for the party.” Then I turned back to you. “We’re having a party tonight. Would you like to come?” Girl who shot down my party invitation, this was not an off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment idea. This was carefully formulated to appear casual! And you told me you had to go to a barbeque. I let this roll away as if it were just a little idea that was not the basis for going to the same eatery three days in a row. But then you asked me what my name was.

Girl who shot down my party invitation, I was not asking you out on my behalf. You gave me agony of the colon. This is not something I look for in a girl. Quit sweating me.

Sincerely,
JD

Sleep. You fickle bitch. I don’t need you! You’ve been a bit of a flake lately anyway. You don’t come over til way late, for starts. Where are you all night? You’re off someplace and I’m sitting up at home waiting for you. You finally traipse in around three or four in the morning and then you bend me to your whims until the next afternoon? Bah! Whatever!

So you didn’t come over last night. Where were you? Don’t answer that, I don’t care. I don’t NEED YOU. I had a lovely evening (morning) of video games and movies. I must have watched three or four movies already today and it’s only eleven! Ok sure I can’t remember what all the movies were. I think I watched something before Knocked Up, but I’m not sure. But who cares! I can have a good time without you. I’m fine without you! I don’t need you!

…please come back.

I used to be a cartoonist. Kinda. It’s not like I was a cartoonist and retired or anything, I just don’t do it as much anymore. I rarely just draw for my own enjoyment. It’s sad, but only a little.

Depending on who you ask, I was great. If you ask someone who isn’t my mom they might agree. I think I’m ok. Just ok. And then one day I started clacking out words, stringing them into sentences, those into paragraphs, and soon I was spinning yarns almost daily.

For me, writing is more fulfilling than cartooning. A finished (by my standards) piece takes me a long time. Something like a crisp comic strip takes me even longer. When I write, I can get down more story, more detail, more everything in less time. And I feel like the writing is a lot better, quality wise.

Others have expressed concerns that I’d totally given up on cartoons and drawing. And honestly, outside a few doodles, I was starting to think they were right. But today, for no really great reason I can figure, I started to draw. I didn’t finish the picture, but it’s done enough for right this second to make me happy. I haven’t done a really finished cartoon for my own personal enjoyment since about February.

I don’t think I’ll ever make my own comic book or webcomic or anything, but at least I’m not totally out of the game yet.

And that makes me just a little bit happy.

The other day was my mother’s birthday! (She reads this, so it would be super nice of you to wish her a happy belated) And, dutiful and loving son that I am, I planned to take her out to dinner. Since I am a poor planner as well, I had to go to the mall and buy her present in the small window of time between getting out of work and going to dinner. I had planned on getting her one of those little baby iPods, since she’d been lamenting the loss of her old one, but she managed to buy herself one a scant three days before her birthday. (Note: I catch hell for buying anything at all for myself for an entire month before Christmas so I don’t think that was particularly cool.) I picked up a nice car-adapter-slash-charger for her and then it was off to the fancy gift wrapping store, and that’s where I was swindled by a no-good trollop.

I entered the store which was manned (Womanned? Girled maybe.) by a young lady about my age who was fairly good looking. She greeted me, I returned fire, and then began to wander the store. I have a curse. I cannot wrap presents well. My gifts have the aesthetic effect of “Oh look how cute! You let your five year old try and wrap the presents!” So imagine my excitement to see a wide selection of gift bags. Jackpot. After careful examinations, including holding the present up to the bag to make sure it would fit, I selected a blue bag with big pink flowers on it. Since even I know it is poor form to just toss the present in a bag and let it flop around loose, I turned to the tissue paper. I managed to find paper in the exact shade of blue as the bag. This was going to be one classy looking present. I take my selections to the girl behind the counter and as she rings me up we exchange small talk. She puts my things in a shopping bag with a humming bird on it (Yes indeed, a bag for my bag, thank you.) which I stuffed into the bag the iPod people had given me.

I rushed home and went to “wrap” my present. Let’s see. The bag opens like this, the box goes in like that, and the tissue paper goes… wait. Wait. Where is my tissue paper? I frantically search my bags. No dice. I had dumped all my things out on my bed, was it somehow lost under the covers? Nada. I had carried everything in bundled in my coat, maybe it was stuck in a sleeve? Don’t be ridiculous.

That strumpet! Ten dollars for a bag and tissue paper and then she doesn’t give me the paper? Curséd woman! Painted jezebel! Taken by a hussy! She rings me up, flashes me a smile, and then she can re-sell the paper to the next chump! Before the anger can truly grasp me, I try and step back and think about it logically. Jeff, I tell myself, because that is my name and therefore how I address myself, Jeff, maybe it’s not like that. You could be right, Jeff, you clever thing, you. Let’s consider a more logical alternative. Perhaps she simply made a mistake? Indeed, my old friend, that could be the case. Let us consider the situation from her shoes. Here she is, doing her job, and a devilishly handsome fellow comes up to buy gift wrap. An exciting change of pace from the little old ladies that usually occupy the store. You raise an excellent point, myself! My countenance has been well known to set ladies all a-tingle. Could be that in her fluster, she simply left the paper on the counter? Mollified, I took the bag with the present flopping around loose inside (poor form, I know!) and presented it to my mother, explaining my folly at the hands of a harlot. The present is a hit, I am hero-son, let’s go to dinner, I’ll drive. My mother has to clear a bit of debris off the passenger seat before she can get in…

Including a slim package of bright blue tissue paper.

Everyone knows the old warning. Don’t judge a book by its cover. It’s not about books, it’s about not judging people based on their appearance. That’s fine, that’s good advice. But it also gets people down on book covers, and that’s not really right.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. I learned this just yesterday as I stalked the aisles at my local book store. I was on the lookout for a book that hadn’t actually come out yet and was forced to find something else to read. I’m very faithful to my usual authors and don’t stray from their books, all of which I have read. That meant I would have to leave the store empty handed or pick something totally new. I wandered, aimlessly, and began that proverbial crime of book cover judgment.

I drifted past books covered with elaborate drawings depicting wizards fighting dragons amidst bursts of flame and swirling powers. I’m not a huge fan of straight up fantasy and nothing screams straight up fantasy like a scene one usually expects to be airbrushed onto the side of a van.

I did not even pause at the rack of covers sporting women, bosoms heaving, standing next to men with their shirts undone. I’m not a pre-menopausal mother of three so romance novels are not my fare. Though, to be honest, I may have paused a little. Come on! Heaving bosoms!

I circled the little display tables set up. Each had a theme- for dad, for grads, summer reading, etc. I don’t know which table I stopped at but I glanced down and a couple books looked back up at me. Each one was a slightly hazy photo of a girl, or a boy and a girl, or maybe two girls, faces cut off by the top of the book. They looked like little Abercrombie photos. Do I strike you as someone who would read “OMG Boyz R soooo cute,” the latest Gossip Girl book? Don’t say yes, you jerks, I’m not.

Then I ambled over to the “New Fiction” table. I was drawn almost immediately to a hardcover book in the middle of the table. A book, by authors I had never heard of, called “Time Spike” had just come in. Don’t judge a book by its cover? “Time Spike” features a conquistador being eaten by a tyrannosaurus rex outside the walls of a maximum security prison while a volcano smolders away in the background. I bought it.

So far it is just ok.

(Note: You can see the cover on Amazon)

When I was in college, I took a trip out to Arizona to visit my friend who had moved out there while we were in high school. Scott was my best friend and it was great to see him again. As we toured the mean streets of Phoenix I thought it would be swell to impress some ladies. Being even more helpless with girls than I am now, I somehow came up with the idea that girls would be interested in us if we met a few basic benchmarks. A cellular telephone was, for some reason, important. Furthermore, being recently dumped and on the rebound would be a bonus. Seeing as we didn’t have any exes handy, I made it all up.

Don’t misunderstand and think I was wandering up to strangers and saying “hey my friend over there was dumped and I have a bitchin’ cell phone, make out with us.” Though that would have worked just as well as my actual plan. No, my plan was one of cunning subterfuge. I pretended to talk to a third friend on my cell phone as we stalked the streets. This was all make-believe. (Even the cell phone, I was talking into my wallet.) In a minute, poor Scott had been loved and left by Mallory Grant.

Mallory was a very pretty girl. She dyed her dark hair even darker, giving it a purple sheen. Her long bangs, the color of ripe plums, contrasted nicely with her eyes, which were such a light shade of brown that in the right light they looked almost orange.

She was an art major at Arizona State. That explained the unnatural hair color and her fondness for slightly eccentric outfits. Mallory (We started calling her Malalicious after she dumped Scott) had a thing for dark skirts and thigh-high argyle socks. Unfortunately, as an art major she was open to the sort of things outside mainstream, straight-laced society. She had done a little modeling for some of the life drawing classes to make a bit of extra scratch to pay for books and liked it enough that she went on to “model” with a male model in a film student’s senior project “The Irreversible Beauty of Mother Gaia” which involved Mallory taking it from behind in the woods for two hours from a dude dressed as a satyr. Naturally this marked the end of the relationship and the beginning of my own career as a patron of the arts.

I’m sure that some of you want to hear about how my incredibly stupid plan was a total bust. “Women don’t want a guy who’s just been dumped,” “women don’t care about fancy cell phones that look like and are wallets.” Well, I’m sorry but as it turned out it was a devilishly clever plan. A woman who was chaining up her bike asked me what time it was. I told her. I may have done so in an English accent. I really don’t know much about girls.

I admire Nintendo. Not in some sort of geeky slobbering fanboy way, but the guys are innovators. I’ve had a Wii for a month or two now and, frankly, that is some good stuff.

Before the Wii, each generation of consoles had bigger controllers with more buttons than its predecessors. The standard Wiimote has six for gameplay and a directional pad. A “nunchuk” attachment needs to be connected for some games, bringing the total to eight buttons, the d-pad, and a control stick. There aren’t a lot of controls to learn or an overwhelming controlled covered in multi-colored buttons. You can just pick one up and go. It’s the great Wiiquilizer. Eight year old kids can play as easily as I can as easily as their moms can. My girlfriend, who is not a gamer by any definition, actually enjoys playing baseball on the Wii. I still win because I’m awesome and this isn’t a virtual “A League of Their Own” but the fact remains that she enjoys it.

I won’t deny that the system has its share of problems. Some of these games do involve a lot of arm movement. The aforementioned baseball, for example. You have to swing the remote like a bat to get your player (a Mii) to hit the ball when you are at bat and you have to whip your arm forward as the pitcher to really fire one over the plate. The problem is that you are swinging your arm hard without any real resistance and you run the risk of serious personal injurWiis. After an hour of playing the puzzle game “Boom Blox” with my friend (which consists mostly of chucking balls at towers of blocks) we both suffered from somewhat sore elbows. This is, most likely, the lamest injury one can sustain.

The Wii is much more family friendly than other systems. There are very few violent action games. Most of the titles are either sugary kids games (which are awful if you are over six) or unique games like Boom Blox, the ultimate game crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Brawl, (Pikachu vs Mario vs Kirby vs the dude from Metal Gear Solid? Sign me up!) or the ER based Trauma Center. (Not ER the show, ER the actual room.)

Now, I’m not suggesting everyone rush out and buy a Wii. Some people actually have productive uses of their time and money. However, if you were thinking of getting a system, or you just want something to try with the kids, I highly recommend it. And if you do get one, let me know, we can play Smash Bros. online. I will destroy you.

When I was a bit younger, I was making a sandwich when my brother “rode” the dog into the kitchen. Teddy was a golden retriever, and Ryan was just tall enough that he could walk straddling the dog and it would look like he was actually riding him.

“I’m a cowboy,” he laughed, “shoot me off my horse.”

Always one for a suburban shootout, I whipped out my two-finger revolver and pulled back its thumb-hammer. With a mighty bang (that I had to supply myself) I emptied a round into my brother’s chest.

“Ugh!” My slain brother cried and began a slow-motion death tumble from his mount. He threw back his head, his back arching, arms pinwheeling backwards over his head. Then it happened. His fingers splayed apart, he wheeled one arm back and around and, with pin-point accuracy, jammed his thumb right up the dog’s bottom.

Now, this was a good natured dog. This was a good natured anything, really. I’m a good natured guy and if someone jammed a thumb up my ass without warning, I would be angry. He just kind of took it. Really, that dog did a lot of stuff that placed his sexuality under question. I digress. Regardless of whether or not the dog liked it, my brother most certainly did not.

Gagging and sputtering, he ran into the kitchen and jammed his hand into the sink. While he was frantically wiping up with paper towel, I asked him what happened. Being the caring compassionate older brother I am, I started laughing hysterically when he told me.

“How did you do that?” I gasped.

“I was on the dog, like this,” he straddled the dog again, “and I swung my arm back, like this,” he said, mimicking his arm flailing.

“Yeah, and?”

“And I brought it around and…”

It was a faithful reenactment. I laughed even harder watching him wash his hands a second time. I’d asked him how he’d done it. When it came to the details I hadn’t expected him to be so… anal about it.