A welcomed sight

I cried to Amber when I left my old apartment behind. She entwined her fingers in mine and let me vent.

In itself, I am glad to be rid of that place. It had black mold in the ceiling from a conspicuous lack of maintenance and pernicious stinkbugs that liked few things more than dying on my window sills. It was entirely too small, though it served as a decent quasi-monastic cell for a few years (alone, I do not need much more than a bed, bathroom, and ...

Merrill

Daniel and his Canadian companion Eva say their goodbyes well before midnight on New Year's Eve. They, with Merrill in tow, had arrived to Tom's party less than an hour prior. None of them actually knew Tom, after all, though it turned out Daniel had a few coincidental associations among the other guests, none strong enough to overrule spending the rest of the night alone with Eva. I just told Eva that it was a pleasure to meet her (it was, albeit so briefly) and wished Daniel a nice night, ...

This helps a lot.

I have spent the day learning and performing how to execute therapeutic holds, how to cuff children efficiently, how to repel clumsy attacks with irresistible force. This is perhaps a part of my job, though as a teacher, I would just as soon leave the regular exploitation of these skills to the omnipresent guards in my facility.

Muscles I forgot I had are sore and I realize how this job creates, from necessity, compartmentalized versions of me. The self that works in this facility needs to use ...

This helps.

Amber and I go to Jacki's Die Hard Christmas party, which is to say that we go to Jacki's home and, in exchange for some tasty bread and a beverage, eat copiously of the potluck and watch Bruce Willis in his best role (aside from criminally underappreciated Unbreakable). We cannot stay long - this is the weekend we go from living in our respective homes to ...

Despite having found an apartment Amber and I both like (if not love), this move rattles me.

Moving to Jo-anna's three years ago was relatively easy because I had known I had a deadline in Amenia from the moment I took the job there. This deadline was something I looked forward to daily (though I had then assumed I would be starting a new life with my wife by my side). Yes, there was a bit of scrabbling at the last moment, but everything worked out in the end. Frankly, any move away from Amenia was one toward sanity and sense, even though my time with Jo-anna lasted only a bit over a month.

Moving to Fishkill shortly after - rushed by Jo-anna's family losing their ...

One Standard Amber.

We huddle against a wooden fence in Rhinebeck, clutching our paper sacks protectively. Given that the Sinterklaas parade is still twenty minutes from beginning, Amber and I begin to eat our feast of bagel sandwiches and tater tots, the quickest food we could rustle up among the frigid throng.

"You are warm. Very warm," she says, squeezing my arm as if to induce me to release more body heat ...

I am not certain what to expect from Kelley's memorial service. I assume it is not a funeral, that he will be there in spirit but not in body. I hope this is the case, at least, as his corpse is not an experience I feel I need. I am not sure of the etiquette of terms - funeral, wake, memorial service - because I have gone only to a couple of these. People online had been speaking of Kelley's Catholicism - that he was so devout that he refused to dress up as a zombie for a zombie Easter party (instead, he dressed as an ostensibly post-mortem Judas and told everyone that he was the reason they were all there) - but this was not a facet of his personality I was ever given occasion to encounter. The vast majority of my prior association with Kelley took place as we tried to terrify the paying public. Theology did not play much of a part in our discussions.

On ...

If you are anything like me - and why wouldn't you be? - the idea of publishing contracts fills you with a cold panic. While writing is an art for you, it is a business for your publisher. They would like to make money. As pro-writer, as friendly, as positive as the publisher may seem, you are well advised to assume that they are out to steal all your characters and give you no royalties ever. If this happens to not be the case in the end - as will almost definitely be true - you are welcome to be pleasantly surprised.

Here is my advice for any serious contract:

1. Follow Yog's Law: Money should flow toward the author. Any contract that wants money from you - upfront, in installments, whatever configuration - is a crock and you absolutely should not sign it. Frankly, you should not deal with any company that wants money from you because they are a scam vanity ...
   
   
   

His name was Kelley Doyle. I met and worked with him at the Haunted Mansion almost fifteen years ago. He was such a character that I wrote him into a one-act play I created in college, one that was never produced and which got a C from a professor because he could not believe in Kelley. Someone so foulmouthed could not possibly have wisdom to bestow, according to my teacher.

Kelley was just a kid when I met him, short and frenetic. You could not keep him still. He had an attitude that demanded attention. He could crash a funeral and somehow make the bereaved laugh.

We hadn't spent any real time together for years, since I could no longer offer my Octobers to the Haunted Mansion. We remained friendly, no doubt, but there did not seem a compelling reason to hang out unless by chance we ran into one another. Still, if ...

Xen was a man. Or at least a dragon man. Or maybe he was a dragon.

I am signing up for a discount card at a grocery store when I get the call, asking me if I would accept the job. I did not even manage to get home from the interview. I stammer that I accept, of course, trying to find a scrap of paper so I can write down what paperwork they need from me on Monday in order to move forward with my employment.

I call Amber and ask her for the most celebratory food she ...

A letter a day to Mariah Carey... for some reason.

Falling into the category of "so earnestly weird that it is endearing".

I'm sorry, but aren't there slightly more important issues we really ought to be focusing on? Dislike Obama all you'd like, but this bullshit should not be your priority.

I think someone below is forgetting that Snuffaluffagus originated at Big Birds imaginary friend, so it fits fairly well.

You do realize that both major teams - especially in politics - can be very wrong, I hope. And that one side being wrong does not mean your side is right and vice versa. Most politicians no matter affiliation do not have your best interests in mind.

Except he did not say this. Marianne Williamson did. I believe Nelson Mandela has genuinely done enough that we do not have to force other people's words into his mouth.

I like the concept, but the execution is clumsy.

Nothing I like better after writing for a long period of time than putting an exposed, slightly damp stick of candy in my pocket.

I am sad that I cannot look at art without contemplating what to caption the picture. Frickin' internet.

How is this steampunk? Goggles do not make something steampunk (and those would serve a legitimate purpose to Batman). When he is decked out in wood and copper wiring, possibly wearing a jaunty top hat, you will be reasonable to scorn the picture for being steampunk.