Stuff I’m Doing Right Now: Update

So I recently made mention to all my FB friends how fall is my favorite time of year.  The summer releases its relentless grip on us and gently gives way to a comfortable season where I can get to where I’m going without breaking into a sweat.  In addition, fall is good for football season, all things pumpkin, primetime TV, beautiful changing colors of the natural world, and of course the holidays. What’s not to love about that?

I’ve been watching TV and trying to read books and other stuff.  I’m watching the Vampire Diaries, and the spin-off, the Originals.  Both are easily my favorite shows.  I don’t care much for the tired Vampire themes, but the characters keep me wanting more.  That goes to show how important good characters are in a story –just ask the Breakfast Club.  I’m also watching Revolution, but I’m barely hanging on.  The storyline is getting a bit sloppy.  Two Broke Girls are smoking hot, and the show is good too; Dads is sofa king funny; RHONJ is pretty good (don’t ask), and I’m still watching some of the old shows and a few other new ones that are not yet worth mentioning.

I’m also reading a few things.  I (virtually) bumped into Ernest Hogan at Labloga and I started reading High Aztech and his short story, the Frankenstein Penis.  I gave up, for the time being, on High Aztech, not because it wasn’t good, in fact, I’d like to see where the guy (protagonist) ends up, but I stopped because I didn’t have the vocabulary needed to get through it easily.  It was a bit hard to read because Ernest artistically chose to use a made up language, mixed with Spanish and Aztec.  I’m sure I’m fucking that explanation up, but that’s what I perceived it to be.  I have the Frankenstein Peen bookmarked, but I haven’t got around to it yet.  Either way, I’m glad Ernest is out there doing what he does, and from what I can tell, he is a pioneer in the Chicano Sci Fi genre.  ChiFi?  I don’t know what my obsession is with coming up with short cut phrases.

I’m also reading Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, a free promotional e-book from Marta Costa.  It’s ok so far.  I just started chapter 7, and it’s probably a bit too chick lit for me, but I feel vested at this point and I will probably finish it.  More to come on this one.  Uh, I also started reading a book on my iPhone called Shoe Strings, by Christy Hayes.  I found it because I was scoping competition in the “Pumps” category of stories, but this didn’t turn out to be that at all.  I read the first four chapters, and the story was taking too long to develop.  The writing was mechanically good, but the story lagged too much.  Sorry Christy, if you’re reading this, but not enough was happening.  I kept hoping that the lady (I forget the protagonist’s name) would do something, but she just kept hanging out with the old guy and giving the young guy the cold shoulder.  And why was she not working on her shoes?  She just ran away for no reason, which I’m sure Christy explains later…?

Lastly, I found a friend of mine online.  She is a poet out of North Carolina, just beginning to get her stuff out there.  Her name is Tye and this is her.  She is a very outspoken free thinker with a strong voice and mind.  Tye is definitely a strong woman, as is my wife, Allie.  Love the strong women out there standing on their own, representin’!  Tye has some very raw pieces out, and I love them.  Can’t wait to read more, Tye!

Lastly again, aside from all that, I’m working diligently on LA Ninja II: Rise of the Cartel.  Nobody will read it, as nobody read LA Ninja I: Fallen Love, but amazingly, it doesn’t stop me from the insanity –lol.  Anyways, I’m on chapter twelve, and even though I had the blueprint all set, the story has taken me in a different direction.  Surprise surprise, not.

I will say that writing LA Ninja II has made me feel a bit embarrassed for writing LA Ninja I.  It’s not that LA Ninja was bad; I still think it’s good, but the story was very singular and linear.  It was written more like a movie script, which at the time I had purposely set out to do.  But now, my writing is very different.  I have many plots going on in parallel, right from the start, in LA Ninja II.  It’s turning out pretty good, and Sergio Munoz, Gabe, and some others are doing some pretty interesting things.  I wonder how it will turn out?  Anyways, that one is almost to the halfway point, I'm guessin, so it’s gonna finish out at about 27 chapters or so.  That’s my life in books and TV at the moment.  And don’t you guys get any ideas about me not spending QT with my two girls –they wouldn’t let me have it!  I’m the quintessential NightWriter.  NightWriter, I love that!  It’s so me.

Taking on the Monsters

It was a cold winter evening, high in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, when Allie and Adrian decided to savor the last bit of the day’s sunlight by driving down a steep, single lane road to the edge of the lake.  This sounds like the beginning of one my bullshit short stories, but alas, my friends, it is not.  This is a true story about a night that my lovely wifey and I barely made it out of alive.

There we were, driving my fairly new car down a narrow path, snaking through a deep forest with a snow bank of at least three feet surrounding us.  We got to the bottom and the sun disappeared over the mountains as we looked over the peaceful tranquility of one of the most beautiful, clear and deep lakes that I have ever been to, Lake Tahoe.

As we look out over the calm glassy water, I am ever vigilant and on the lookout for Tahoe Tessie, the infamous water monster that fearlessly comes ashore to eat its victims if it so much as catches a whiff of them.  I do not mention this to Allie as we are there, so as not to jinx us, but as the cold increases with the dwindling light, I eventually urge her to get in the car so we can get the eff out of there.  Better to be safe than sorry and dead in the belly of a monster.

So we get in the car and blast the heater as we begin to make our climb back to the top.  It is only about a quarter of the way up that I notice that ice has formed on the road in the rapidly freezing temperature.  My car cannot get past the ice, and we slip to no end.  It is at this time that I realize that I was as dumb as I was adventurous on this decision to come down to the lake’s edge in a sporty rear-wheel drive car.  I struggle in numerous attempts to roll the car back and try to climb past the icy patches in the road, to no avail.  It is on my final attempt where my car careens into the snow bank when I decide that we need to go to plan b.  The infamous plan b haunts me to this day.  It is what almost got us killed. 

We can’t get a cellphone signal so deep in the woods.  The light is disappearing so fast that we know we only have minutes, possibly twenty at the most until we will be able to see nothing.  Literally nothing.  There are no lights.  No lamp posts, no stars under the forest canopy, and no moonlight.  We know our only chance is to walk up the hill and hope that we get enough phone signal on the main road to call for help.  Our friends are in the cabin only five or ten miles away –where we should be.

We begin our trek, walking quickly.  We have a long way to go.  It is getting so much colder than when the sun had been out.  Fear is setting in.  The road twists and winds like none that I’d seen before, and before we know it, my car is way out of sight.  I feel terrible leaving it behind, alone and stranded in the middle of a forest, but we had no choice.  She failed us.  She is great on the paved roads, but lousy on the dirt, and in this case, the ice.

My mind races with thoughts on how I will get the car out.  I think about tow trucks, wondering if they will come out at that time of night.  I wonder if my friend Brian, at the cabin, will have any ideas.  Can he tow me out with his minivan?  As my mind looks for solutions, we notice that something is terribly amiss.  We were not alone.

Three large white wolves came upon us suddenly, stopping directly in front of us.  We never saw them coming, and we froze in our tracks, horrified.  Allie came closer to me, and I tell her not to show fear, as I begin speaking forcefully and loudly, in an attempt to frighten the wolves and show no fear.  I ask her if she can see a stick or a rock.  I look too, subtly, but there is nothing as the snow is covering everything.  Seconds that felt like minutes pass, and we are at a face-off with the wild wolves.  I prepare to defend us to the death.  Two of the gigantic beasts, whose curiosity finally subside, decide to move along.

We were nothing to them.  They could have easily devoured us.  I am sure that the third wolf, the closest one to us, at only five or six feet away, thought about it.  He lingered a few seconds longer, staring at us, before he finally decided to move on too.  In retrospect, I am surprised that they didn’t kill us.  I can remember the lifeless look about their eyes, much like I know a shark’s to be.  I remember feeling that the wolves were living on instinct, and that was the look of their eyes -just stone cold.

As the beasts walked across our path and off into the snow, we walked too, slowly at first, then quickly, and when we knew were at a safe distance, we ran our asses off.  By the time we made it to the top of the hill, it was dark.  Pitch black dark.  Luckily, the road was busy.  We had a cell signal too, but the cops wouldn’t do anything.  They were not impressed by the wolf story.  We ended up finally getting a ride to the nearest store by a friendly passer-by, and Brian eventually came to pick us up.  We made it.

I think back about the wolves we saw.  They were huge, much bigger than I would have thought them to be.  I had previously imagined them to be something like a large German Sheppard, perhaps, but they were much bigger than that, both in height and in girth.  They would make a German Sheppard look like a Chihuahua.  The chances were slim that we would come across them like that in the wild, but this story goes to show that this kind of shit actually happens.  Why couldn’t we win the lottery?  Is that not just as rare?

Anyways, that is our wolf story.  I will dig up some pictures that we took of the area the next day, and post them, which reminds me of something that Allie will never let me live down.  There was a sign that said the road was closed.  Of course, the sign was blocked by the huge snow bank, so I never saw it until later.  In my defense, the road was gated and the gate was open.  So why would I think it was closed?  It’s easy to laugh about it now, but that was some real scary shit at the time.

Edit:  I went back and found some pictures of the location.

The "closed road" (pfff!)

Closed Road sign (shit!)

Pic taken at the bottom of the hill that night

Baby Update Aug2013

A quick few lines just to let y'all know that baby girl is growing well.  We have been having so much fun this summer, going to the beach and playing in the tiny play pool in the backyard.  She is really such a water baby, just like her sign (Pisces) says.  She loves reading books, and she's got like 100. Maybe 75. Thanks to wifey on that, she's bought like 90% of them used. She's become so thrifty.  I have to admit, I never saw that coming, but I digress... Baby girl loves spaghetti, beans, grapes, and quesadillas.  She loves Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and it seems like she's digging Despicable Me now too. Unfortunately, she likes Barney and Friends too.  Sorry Barney, wifey and I have issues with your happy ass!  Anyways, I thought I'd share this video of her playing with her new water table.  She's got quite a laugh!

Grocery Store Cheaters

Cheaters in parking lots at night.  Late in the evening is when you can find them, as easy to spot as two hobos at a Sotheby’s auction.  If they were a couple, they wouldn’t just be “hanging out” in different cars talking to each other.  So obvious.

So, every once in awhile, being the student of life that I try to be, I see things going on that seem amiss.  The particular thing I see is a man and a woman, in night of the primetime evening, talking in the parking lot of my neighborhood grocery store.  You may be thinking that it sounds pretty normal, which on the surface it does, however, upon closer inspection you can see that it is anything but.  They are very much out of place.

I typically find myself out on weeknight evenings filling up my water jugs or doing my grocery shopping.  I avoid the crowds that way, and most times I find it convenient because I’m getting off work late or coming from the gym.  I have seen, on many occasions, a man and a woman in separate cars, talking romantically to each other.  You know, it’s obvious, with the deep gazes and exaggerated laughing that there is something going on.  The body language speaks mountains of how close they are and want to be, and that’s when you know that these two lovebirds are in deep.

Maybe they are married, or boyfriend and girlfriend, many casual observers might think.  Maybe, but since I spotted my first case many years ago, I have come to look for certain signs, like wedding rings.  Sometimes one or both will be wearing wedding rings.  Now, what married couple would meet up in separate cars outside of Vons and carry on like teenage lovebirds?  Exactly. 

The second clue, often overlooked, is the fact that neither of them has any groceries, and what’s worse, I never have seen them actually come out of or go into the store.  It could be possible that two acquaintances happen to run into each other and carry on a conversation, which would explain the lack of groceries, but it doesn’t explain the body language and deep, longing gazes.  At this point, I’d say they were guilty as shit.  But…far be it for me to jump to conclusions.

Alas, there is one last clue that I look for.  They are always parked far from the store, but not far enough that they look out of place.  This one is pretty smart because they blend in much easier with the rest of the shoppers this way.  And don’t get me wrong, I don’t care enough to hang out in my car and watch, although I may from time to time stay just long enough to make a confirmation.  Usually, they are there when I arrive and still there when I leave.  Or, they are there while I fill up my water and I can actually observe them more closely. 

Anyhow, I think it’s funny to see such a thing in public.  They are obviously cheaters.  It goes to show that real life happens all around us.  Sinners are everywhere –I know, newsflash, right?  I have seen this probably five or six times in my life that I know of, and of course I assume they are cheating, but the chances are good.  Of course, too, I’m looking for it when I’m out and about.  Needless to say, it inspired my short story on the topic, which you can find here.  Hope you enjoy it!

The Spirit World According to Me

I wanted to talk about the spirit world, and ghosts in particular, a topic that is somewhat taboo, but certainly sensitive to me.  My family, growing up, was not particularly spiritual, other than they believe in God, and I suppose the devil, although we never really talked about any of it.  So growing up, for me, never involved any connections to the possibility of spiritual beings, ghosts, demons, or even spiritual energy.  Come to think of it, we never talked about much…but I digress.

I bring this up because it’s important to know that I never really had any exposure to anything remotely spiritual -unless you call loneliness spiritual, which I would consider very possible.  Essentially though, going into adulthood, and in the process of shaping the man that I would later become, I realized that I pretty much had to learn, and in many cases, re-learn, everything that I thought I knew about life.  That was a pretty long list of stuff, if you only really knew, and it included spirituality. 

In the process of just beginning to find myself, I was already coming into contact with more spiritual beliefs.  It began with learning about other religions and learning more about science and history.  Those two realms of thought were really the beginning for me, because they taught me to question.  Some questions arose in my head regarding other cultures and religions, such as Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and early polytheism.  I wondered why one single God would ever persecute peaceful Buddhists?  After all, the Buddhists believe in peace and harmony, and they respect all living things on earth.  The Native Americans, with their tremendous respect for mother earth, would be in the same boat.  The God that I grew to believe in would never persecute such peaceful people, and if He or She did, would I even want to follow such a god?

Based on the history of man, scientific empirical evidence, and theories on evolution, I was forced to throw the bible out too. And this was not just a single moment of time or some epiphany that led to these conclusions, but instead, the process of it that opened the door to other possibilities.  My mind was in essence, opening.  I think I should note, that even though I’m “throwing the Bible out”, that does not mean I don’t believe in God. 

Alas, this puff piece is not about God or religion –or is it?  When I grew closer to Allie, I came to learn that she believed in some interesting aspects of spirituality, which included evil spirits, bad energy, and even ghosts.  Needless to say, I was fascinated.  I won’t lie; it was a bit scary too.  The possibility that such a realm of existence was not only for Hollywood audiences was quite astonishing for me.

I feel at this point, it’s necessary to tell you that we aren’t freaks.  Not by a longshot.  And I don’t feel the need to try to prove it either, because I already know (haha).  After so many years though, to when I find myself now, there have certainly been “things” that have happened to support my new revelations of thought.  Notably the first time I think I felt a connection with a spirit.  It was our first apartment together, when during a night of sleeping, I dreamt of a young blond girl.  She was kind of just walking around in my apartment, as if somehow removed in the distance.  She wandered into the bathroom and then that was it.  I thought nothing of it.

A few days later, I saw her again in a dream, outside this time, just kind of lonely and keeping to herself.  This time, I told my wife about it.  To my surprise, she had had been dreaming of a similar girl during the same week.  She immediately declared the young girl a ghost, however, I was quick to dismiss that notion, although the odds of such a coincidence would not leave my mind. 

Nothing else ever happened, except that a few months later, my downstairs neighbors and I had a curious discussion.  We got to talking about the previous tenants of our flat, and they brought up the fact that there was a single mom with a young daughter.  She was often abused, and they often heard the mom yelling at the girl and locking her in the bathroom.  I asked for a description of the girl, and wouldn’t you know it?  They described the same girl.

Nothing else happened for me until probably 7 or 8 years later.  This was when I had the shit scared out of me.  I was living in my new house (newish in general, and new to me, and also my current house) and I was in the dining room working on my computer.  I got up after some time and walked to the kitchen, and as I walked I saw the apparition of a woman speeding across my path, at a distance of about 10 feet.  She then suddenly disappeared when arriving at the counter where the oven was.  I completely freaked out and ran upstairs to tell Allie.  As you can imagine, she was very surprised.  I shat my pants.

The next time something occurred was about a year later.  We were unaware of any presence this time, and instead, Allie was skyping with her friend who was in China at the time.  It was an uneventful night, and I was making food at the kitchen counter.  While Allie was carrying on, her friend could see me clearly in the background.  It was at least 20 minutes later that the friend finally asked who else was over.  Allie replied, “Nobody.  Why?” 

“Who is that with the red sweatshirt next to Adrian?” she asked.  Upon hearing this, I tried to play it cool and act like I wasn’t scared, but I really was freaked out.  We all were.  I mean, there was somebody next to me ‘helping’ me cook food?  Really?  Pretty freaky.

The last event was very recent, and it prompted me to write this piece in the first place.  Recently, we had another visitor that we could not see.  I assume this visitor to be a “he” although I could be mistaken, since all previous encounters had been female.  Anyways, this one crept up on us sort of stealth like.  It started with some occasional weird noises in the house.  Like when we were downstairs, we’d here the sound of a single crack upstairs.  Then a day later or so, we’d hear a noise, like something falling off the counter, coming from the closet.

This went on for a week or two, gradually intensifying in frequency.  My in-laws, who were at the house at the time watching the baby during the day, were scared to bits.  When we asked them if anything unusual was happening, they said that they could sometimes hear heavy footsteps walking upstairs.

It was around this time that I could feel a presence at times.  The feeling is just like someone is watching me.  It is scary and annoying.  We tried not to talk too much about it while in the house, as we did not want the spirit to hear us or know how scared we really were.  During the final week, things were worse.  Things were dropping constantly.  The TV turned off twice in one day by itself.  While on my iPad, the volume went up all the way on “its own”.  This was where we drew the line.

Allie, the baby, and I all sat in the den upstairs one evening in silence.  Allie and I knew that the spirit was present.  We could sense heaviness in the air, and negative energy.  It was then that Allie addressed the spirit directly by speaking to it.  It went something like, “Listen, whoever you are, you are beginning to scare us, and that is not right.  You are obviously stuck here, but you need to move on.  We did not do anything to you, so please move on.”

I also addressed the spirit, saying something like, “you are not wanted here.  Please move on and leave us alone.  You can see that we are good people,” etc… 

Without saying anything to each other about it, we noticed after a few days that the night we addressed the spirit directly was the last night we felt his presence.  About three days afterwards, I asked Allie if she felt the presence still.  She said no, thankfully.  I brought this story up once to an online message board/forum that I sometimes frequent.  I think they thought I was nuts, but they didn’t say so.  One of them actually chimed in with some comments about smudging my house with sage to rid it of bad energy.  I can recall my mother in-law burning dried laurel leaves, which smelled interesting, but left the house smoky.  Maybe this is similar to sage?  I don’t have a clue.

Additionally, some others suggested that big life events sometimes bring an influx of energy into the home.  That one was interesting to me.  The past year was very strange.  My dear dog died in August 2012, which left Allie and I completely destroyed and distraught.  I still have trouble with it, although it is getting a bit easier to manage.  There have been many nights where I cried deeply in the dark, in my house.  That has been a very strong emotion. 

The other event was the birth of our daughter.  That happened in March of 2012.  This has also been something that has invoked very strong emotions in both of us.  As with the feelings of my Phoebe passing away, the feelings of my baby girl’s entry into our lives continue on strong.  Could these events have triggered something in the spiritual realm that invoked external spirits?  My mind is open to that possibility.  I rule nothing out these days.

I suppose too, that it is possible, because of the location of my house, that spirits are naturally drawn to it.  Not quite as brutal as living on an old burial ground like the Poltergeist movie, but maybe some kind of busy intersection for the undead.  I guess time will tell.  Anyways, being the wannabe writer that I am, this has inspired me to write a book on the topic.  A fictional book about a guy that has some interesting dealings with ghosts.  I have not written it, but I have the whole story in my head just waiting to get penned.  Creepy post, huh? lol…

Cheers to Hunger Games/Movie Update

My wife and I managed to see Hunger Games recently, and we were definitely impressed.  There’d been much hype around it, which anyone even remotely clued into pop culture knows, so we were naturally curious.  We try not to fall for hype, but of course, far be it for us to neglect or completely ignore what stirs the public crazy without at least finding out what it is.  And yes, I know we were way late to the party, but we have a baby so it’s been hard to get out and watch movies.

Anyhow, I was honestly skeptical of the movie.  I had heard some negative things about it being a love story that doesn’t really happen and it being a bit over the top.  I didn’t find that to be true though.  As far as sci-fi goes, it was zeroed in pretty well to that theme with the costumes and technology, at least for the average informed citizen like myself. 

The story was good, which is most important.  The movie is an adaptation from a novel that I didn’t read.  I thought the style and costumes were pretty good.  I thought the story was good too.  I find that the whole Lord of the Flies mentality is always an accurate depiction of what happens to people in an isolated and desperate live or die situation.  The story covered that well.  I like that the hero was a female, too.  The actress was indeed tough, and she played the part well.

I could see what people probably meant when they said that the love story was weak.  I didn’t feel a love story.  I saw a guy and a girl fake a love relationship as a means of survival, which not only worked, but was also the key to their survival in the Hunger Games competition for life.  Maybe people didn’t get that?  Who knows.

Anyways, I thought it was worth mentioning, simply because I was impressed with the movie.  I will try to read the book to part II before the movie comes out.  Congrats to the writers and everyone else involved.  Good job!

Other recent movies of note:  We saw So This is the End, which was a surprisingly awesome movie out of the Judd Apatow clan via Seth Brogan.  We also saw Wanderlust, the Paul Rudd/Jennifer Aniston turn hippie movie.  It was ok.  We saw 10 Years, the Channing Tatum movie about a 10 year reunion.  It was pretty good.  That reminds me, I will probably be seeing a lot more Channing movies as the wifey is way sprung on that fool.  I don’t get it.  I don’t see anything special there, but whatevs. 

We also watched Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.  It was ok too.  Nothing great.  I thought the end of days would be a lot more chaotic and violent, but hey, it’s anybody’s guess.  I think Steve Carell is too nice in his movies, but hey, I guess that’s better than him being just another asshole.  Like we don’t got enough of those.  And lastly, I’ve seen Cinderella (the 1950 cartoon version) oh, I’d say about 90 times in the past two months.  What can I say, baby girl loves it.  It had her at hello.