real vampires!

so my oldest daughter, who is the ripe-old-age of "loves twilight" (arg), asked me if i had any "real" vampire movies.
"Not 'The Lost Boys'," she says, "I've totally seen that one, like, a hundred times.
A bit disturbed at this (she is only twelve, after all), but pleased that she is ready to move on from edward and bella (have you seen that girl? she better work as much as she can now, she ain't getting any prettier...), i told her she could go look through my movies, just let me know before she watches anything. some of my movies are, shall we say, not for kids.

so not much progress on the writing since my last post. i've been sick, you see. i've been really busy. my sasquatch passed away. whatever excuse i can give, it seems to have actually happened. and this week, being spring break for the children, does not hold a lot of promise for progress either.

the first draft of the first story is almost done, still. hopefully by next weekend. thanks to everyone for their continued support through this trying time. it may seem like a small thing, but everyone who asks after the writing, or gives me their support or criticism, or puts up with my incessant ramblings pertaining to what i'm working on, well it gives me motivation to continue. and when all the stories are done, bound up in a book (whether by a publisher or self-published), i will have all of you to thank above everyone else...

until something changes, i remain grim.

the other man... ha!

so i promised stories. i know i did. so here we go. let me see if i can quote myself:

tune in next time for the story of the knife on the bus, the trip to the movies, the unexpected visitor and the new security guard. i'll give you a hint. all of these involve kage's father (did i mention i'm his step-dad?). and they are all highly amusing. wait. that's not what i meant to say. the man is dick. that's what i meant.

knife on the bus. i guess it was not on the bus, but at the bus stop. so the two oldest, kage and fox (not real names, remember), get off the bus. there's this troublemaker who rides the bus. supposedly, this boy has a broken knife, that they and all these other kids saw fall out of his pocket. i learn of this as i pull in my driveway, only to find their father, who shall be known as Reuben, waiting for me.

"obviously, you can't be gotten on the phone at work," he says to me.

"well, i do work in a secure environment," i say, "but i do actually carry a cell phone."

"funny, grim," he says. then he goes on to tell the story, as if he was there, and possibly wielding the knife himself. then he has to show it to me. its a broken knife. i get it. then he has to scrape it on his nail, to show me that it is sharp. i get it. then he has to tell me that we live in this small town, not "chicago", or "new york", emphasizing them, as if they are giant metropolises that i've never heard of before. he's going to the cops, he says. get this boy expelled, he says. drives away. as of the following week, he never made it to the police. said he reported it to the school.

my opinion, and my wife shares this: no one really saw it fall out of his coat. in fact my eldest says she found it on the ground. no one really knows what the truth is. its been reported to the school. good. they can keep an eye out. my kids are friends with this boy one week, enemies the next. they know to keep an eye out also.

next, the trip to the movies.

so my wife wants to take the kids to the movies. we make plans to pick the kids up at a specific time, take them to the theater. reuben does not specify, when he picks them up the day before, that he has moved to his new place. so in the morning, we end up taking a thirty-minute trip instead of a ten-minute trip to pick up the children. thank you, reuben. then, when we arrive, none of the children are dressed, in fact the oldest is actually in the shower. thanks reuben.

"i guess you should have planned better, grim." that was his response. are you fucking kidding me?

we made it to the movie, barely. it was alice in wonderland. the kids loved it. me, not so much. others agree with me.

the unexpected visitor: reuben showing up at my front door, after school one day, to let me know that he had been to the school, and reported this boy, hoping to ruin the lives of everyone involved. then he told kage to just keep his mouth shut from now on, and to just stay out of trouble. father of the year, this guy. i told him that wasn't really necessary. after he left, kage and i played xbox and ate snacks.

the new security guard, before he left, reuben offered to sit outside our house during the day (did i mention he doesn't work) to make sure that the kids don't screw around for the half-hour that they're home alone before my wife or i show up (did i mention he has no job?). i told him that wasn't necessary, and a bit creepy to boot. when i brought this up to all of the children, they heartily agreed.

i love my life. i love my family. all of this will be great in my autobiography.

until something changes, i remain grim.

on writing, reading, or the lack thereof

first, thanks to everyone who commented on my blog, either here or otherwise (some in person, some on my facebook page). i am glad that my little learning experiences can put a smile on your face. seriously, i am. that is what a blog is for, isn't it?

if you look to your left, you'll see a column consisting of a list of blogs that i follow. recently added to this list is a blog called sexygamer. the blog is video games and other geek staples from a female perspective. given, it is a super-hot female perspective, but that's not the only reason i follow it...

so i didn't get much writing done this week. all told, maybe a page? not a lot, even for short story standards. busy week, i guess. housework. cooking. laundry. again, how the hell does my wife do it? because she is fucking awesome, that is how.

i started reading joe hill's new book yesterday, Horns. grabbed me right away. i really enjoyed his first book, Heart Shaped Box, and i believe this one will treat me the same.

tune in next time for the story of the knife on the bus, the trip to the movies, the unexpected visitor and the new security guard. i'll give you a hint. all of these involve kage's father (did i mention i'm his step-dad?). and they are all highly amusing. wait. that's not what i meant to say. the man is dick. that's what i meant.

until something changes, i remain grim.

a man chooses. a slave obeys.

words to live by, courtesy of Andrew Ryan. sure, he's dead now, but he chose his death.
this quote has little or nothing to do with my post this evening.

being a father, i learn something new every day. some days (most days) i learn something new that i can get upset about, like who the hell is leaving chewed-up bubblegum in the shower, stuck to my soap? disgusting, i know. unbelievable, i know. but true. that's why gum is outlawed in the house. i've found it stuck to everything and in everything. one of the kids told the youngest to stick a chewed-up piece of gum behind her ear, to save it for later. she left it there so long it got stuck in her hair and we had to cut out a chunk of her hair. so she had a sideburn for a while. a good look, if you're name is elvis. or grim.
but i'm veering off-subject. i want to talk about what i learned yesterday. i learned humility ( i know, i should be well practiced in that by now...). here's how it all happened:


i get home from work, to find that my son kage (pronounced "cage") has made a fort with out youngest, mimsy (obviously, names are changed to protect any innocents; they chose their own names, by the way). this in and of itself is no big deal. they are in the basement, underneath a complicated network of blankets, chairs and pillows, all somehow connected to the entertainment center. like i said, this is nothing new. i ask them what it is they are watching under there.
"house on haunted hill," kage says.
"let me get this straight," i say, massaging my vocal chords for the inevitable screaming session that is about to start, "you're watching a Rated-R movie under there?"
"um," he says, "maybe..."
and the lecture ensues. how i don't care if he's seen it, his mother let him watch it, the older sister is also in there with them. "the problem," i tell him, "is not that you've seen it and have been allowed to by your mother. the problem is that you're showing said movie to a six-year-old."
so he turns it off. "i turned it off," he tells me.
"not the point," i tell him. "point is, you did it in the first place." and i'm not pleased. so the evening goes on. i get my wife on the phone, after dinner, and fill her in on the events that had transpired earlier.
"grim," she says to me, "they weren't watching a Rated-R movie in there."
"oh yes they were."
"don't be dim," she tells me. "they were watching the 1959 version starring Vincent Price." and once she said that, i felt like a jerk.
we'd seen that one together like a dozen times. a few skeletons dancing around. nothing like the 1999 version, starring geoffrey rush and famke janssen.
so the next day, i made it a point to apologize to kage, shake hands, and tell him that he did nothing wrong. he accepted my apology, and didn't even rub it in my face.

then i made him clean out the cat-box. just so he still knew who was boss.

so, like i said, i learn something new every day, being a father. just recently, i learned that it is ok to misstep, as long as you correct that misstep by taking two steps in the right direction.

so that was that, and now, a quick note about the title. man choosing, slave obeying. my wife, as i'm sure some of you know, has found herself in a very unique position to have a job that she enjoys and that can really pay off, and sooner rather than later.
in the short-run, it means long hours and the two of us maybe not seeing each other too often.
in the long-run, it means her doing something she has always enjoyed and being paid well to do it.
for me, it means stepping up to the plate and taking on some more household responsibility.
before it was work all day, come home, relax. maybe help out a bit here and there. don't get me wrong, i always did my fair share of the cooking, but laundry? fucking hate folding clothes. now, it is still work all day, but then it's come home, make dinner, clean up, do laundry, help with homework, do more laundry, clean up, put the kids to bed, etc. but i choose to do this. i am not forced to do this, nor would my wife ever force me to do this. i could leave the brunt of it for her to do, and she would find a way to do three loads of laundry a night after getting home at ten pm. but i know it's easier for everyone if both of the grownups in the house do some work around here. and really, how bad do i have it? i get paid to play video games all day. why shouldn't i do something to help out my wife, who has always worked so hard?
my wife sees it as an opportunity for me to be able to quit my job and become a "working writer". at this point, i would love nothing more. but you know the saying, "don't quit your day job". so until writing is my day job, i'll work where i work and do what i do. but i choose to do it. no one is making me do it. remember the title? a man chooses. a slave obeys.

well, maybe i obey a bit also (especially after the kids are in bed. grrrowlr).

until something changes, i remain grim.