Hollywood here I come!!!

Please view the linked video for a sample of my acting work.

Yes I am currently looking for representation.

Although I would love to do your little "indie" film, frankly they just don't make enough money. I have a reputation to build.

In other news...

The weather outside: Not as frightful.

Last night's pub night was especially exciting. As of Monday we have an artist for our webcomic (Matt Day) and Tyson brought by the rough script for our first post along with character sheets. Matt is hopefully working on the character designs as we speak.

Keep your fingers crossed. Our plot device has infinite possibilities. You guys will hopefully love it (or at least be mildly entertained by it). Our goal is to have some flyers and promotional material ready for this years Comic-Con.

I'm obviously really excited about a number of things this year and this project is quickly climbing that list, although everything else is going to be vastly overshadowed by Lola's arrival. She's kickin like a CHAMP. Maybe it's her mom's soccer skillz.

I also met a really interesting fella at the pub named John. He's from Australia and is a friend of a friend. Talking to him reminded me of how much I want to travel again.

If you're watching "Lost" at all this year, here is some food for thought courtesy of the wise Adam Gildner: Could Jacob and his well be a reference to the biblical "Jacob's well"? If so, what does this mean for Locke? Leave comments....

Talk to you soon.

Quick thoughts...

The weather outside: Frightful (in a good way).

Work is going well. It amazes me that my uncle was able to get this place up and running in such a short time considering the economic climate.

I am (not so) ashamed to admit that I've been really into American Idol this year thanks to Lucy. I didn't realize how emotional I'd get watching reality TV.

"Lost" is as exciting as I'd hoped it would be this season as well. Oh and Battlestar Geeklactica (as Lucy calls it) is equally intense. I've stopped being ashamed of my TV watching habits and my love for B-grade, mindless entertainment. There are gems here and there most definitely, and I figure if I try to look at all the crap I watch/read from the standpoint of a student, I actually can learn a great deal from it. By that I mean that sometimes watching/reading crap really teaches you how to tell a better story.

I wanted to talk a little bit about my growing love for comics as a medium. This will fall on mostly deaf ears I'm sure, but that's ok with me. The whole genre really fascinates me. I never really realized how much you can do in the medium that you can't do in others (like TV, Movies, or literature). I have Tyson to thank for that. He pointed me to "Watchmen" and Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" a couple years ago and they both really gave me a deeper appreciation. Sandman especially. I still haven't finished the series because there are just so many layers and literary references, you just want to savor every page.

I'm excited about writing our own for a number of reasons. 1.) It's forcing me to develop my dialogue. The creation process (as far as the writing is concerned) is very similar to the screen-writing process in that the focus is mostly on description and character voice. You're challenged to be as concise as possible in the dialogue (being limited by physical space in each panel) while still keeping each character's lines meaningful and unique. I sort of compare it to a cross between children's book writing and screen-writing. Incredibly fun and extremely difficult.

The best part of it (to me) is that you get to develop these really unique characters in these really exciting and action packed (sometimes off the wall) settings. Yeah the medium is cartoony and campy sometimes but often when you're reading comics you're sort of surprised by little gems of truth and brilliance. (There are also some that are achingly heartfelt).

Anyway, I'm rambling now which tends to happen a lot these days. If you're interested in some reading or viewing suggestions that you may not have considered before, let me know.

Look forward to hearing from you guys. Lucy and Lola (from the womb) say hello.

Addendum

To be fair (before Tyson points this out), I'm the only Attention Deficit writer that has lost steam. Tyson posts semi-frequently, as does Danny.

Hmm..

Ok so disregard my last post (obviously). We ran out of steam a lot quicker than we thought we would.

It's been a while since I posted because I am currently engaged and an expecting father and have had a lot on my plate dammit!

That and I haven't really been writing any prose to speak of. I'm working on a comic book (don't laugh) and it's going really well. I'm also brainstorming for a possible webcomic (exciting huh?).

Because of those last two sentences, this will probably be the last time Sherry checks my blog (unless my last post was the last time).

Anyway. I think I want to make this about my life because I so enjoy reading the updates on my friends blogs. It makes me feel involved in their lives. I hope that people will want to feel involved in mine as well. So I'm committing to at least three blog posts about my life and what I'm thinking/reading/watching/playing.

What do you think?

P.S. I miss all you guys.

Chickity Check This....

and keep checking it. Every day. For the rest of your life.

www.attentiondeficitfiction.com

This is the time to rethink your life...

Actually, that's every day for the past month. My decision? There's really nothing to rethink. I love where I live. I can tolerate what I do because of the free time it allows. I love who I love because she helps me look up instead of down and helps (forces) me to see the brightness of my future. I don't tell her that enough.

There's a sign in front of my desk that says "Every person is the architect of their own character." I always put it in the stupid office motivational blah blah booster category in my mind, but I can't escape the truth of the statement. I'm the architect of my entire life and, although it sometimes resembles a barrio rather than a basilica, there's beauty there too. Sometimes more.

So anyway, long story short (I spaced out for a while), life is good and I hope yours is too. To everyone who occasionally reads this: I miss you. Please write soon.

Oh and read a graphic novel sometime! That goes for you too Sherry. Sometime in the near future you might even see one on the shelf written by myself and my good friend Tyson and drawn by the creative talent of TBD.

Any further inquiries should be directed to my email. If you don't have it you will be kept in the dark (you can ask me for it if you want, but don't ask about the project because Tyson has put us on media blackout).

Sincerely,
Me

"The Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates is the cult of Asherah."

Fair warning: Don't mess with large Aleuts driving nuclear motorbikes and carrying glass knives.

Unless you have a very unique anti-rape device...

Creak

I wake to a thud. Something's fallen downstairs. Probably from an endtable. The wife's still asleep as are the kids down the hall. I'm pretty sure whatever made that noise is a biped, probably dressed in black, hopefully sans sharp objects.

I've only shot my revolver half a dozen times, but I keep it in a black plastic case under my bed. I bought it for a time like this, but keep it locked because of the kiddies. It's one of those cheap little suitcase locks with the three rolling wheels. I thought I'd be clever and keep it pretty much unlocked, only rolling one of the wheels one click so that, if someone broke in, it would be a simple matter of rolling that wheel, flipping the case open and blasting away.

The only problem is I've forgotten which wheel I rolled and that creaking floorboard I just heard is at the top of the stairs. At this point that biped knows someone has to be awake, but it's still coming.


Pretty quick little exercise. Thanks for the idea Tyson. It's not 101 words but the brevity thing is good practice.

sort of preview

He was pulled from the oily river by an old man, oddly familiar. Sputtering and sucking at the air he blinked through his wet hair as his feet found their grounding and he stood. The old man had him by his coat still and, when he was able to stand, released him and stepped back. Owen wiped the hair and the water from his face and gazed at his apparent savior.

The man was older than he'd realized, crouched over, his thin and crooked hands wringing the water from his pant legs. His hair was thin and grey and wispy, ruffled by the soft heavy breeze. Owen didn't think to thank the man. Only gazed around at the strange dusky sky.

The old man finally looked up and when he did something inexplicably clicked for Owen. He stared at him, bewildered.

"Grandpa?"

The old man chuckled and shook his head. "Not really. Not yours."

"What happened to me?"

"You fell into the river and I pulled you out."

"But I wasn't in a river." He looked around again. "Am I dead?" he shivered.

"Not quite, no."

"Am I dreaming?"

"Not quite that either." Grandpa smiled. "Follow me..."

Freedom?

I am an unholy mess of unholiness
And the stink of it is overwhelming
I am whelmed overly

I want to choke on every follicle
Of your glorious mane
And every inch of your pewter frame
Inch by inch
By inch.

I want to be your colonel mustard
And you be my miss peacock
Without the pea.

You told me inaudibly and unwritten
That you’d be my orgy
An orgasmic, triumphant cacophony
Of light and wet delight

I thought to myself that
If I were a tree
I would stick you with all my branches
And soak your blood through the earth
With my roots

Call me over these electric lines
So I can feel your electric delights
Even if it’s just with my wrinkled palm
And what’s left is a flushed face

That’s gross but it’s my mess
And I can’t clean it by myself.

I want to glue your clue
With my dice and my cardboard chart
Until the light in these five candles
Is a corkboard of all that is childish and wildly radiant

The way our dreams became a reality
But only in our minds
That’s how I think of you and about you
In fictional retelling of our facts
But in verse. And not paragraphed very well

Because I don’t know how.
I don’t know how to cross these borders
With their rebel machetes
And glassy eyes
Staring at my arms deals and my
Array of purple blood diamonds

I am the god of war in our melting world
And you are my liberating force.
Here in controversy and against popular opinion
So feed me a grain of rice
Which is all my swollen belly can take right now.
And I will cry out for more
More, though its taste will kill me.

You will kill me with two grains of rice
And the blinking gaze of your carbine
But it will be a slow and swelling death
And I’ll rejoice in its beauty
As my innards burst and the hole
In my chest bleeds slowly
Because my pulse is low and slow
Like the dying dog my mom hit with her car
As I watched from the backseat

Even if its not your rifle or your well-intentioned feeding,
Its you in the backseat watching
With a morbid curiosity and a touch of sorrow
Because I have curly hair and sad eyes
As I gaze at the fender and the parts of me
That are stuck to it still.

These are my inner feelings taking shape as I breath
and watch my fingers coming together.
Over me. Over me.
I roller coaster with an early warning
Even though I don’t know what that means.

I walk through a desert of clichés,
Searching for your drink of water
And its your puddle that leads me
To the darkly paved road where your mother
Where you are driving.

I’m trying to turn this spasm in two
Something beautiful but its just not coming to me
You are, though only halfway because your mind,
It’s else where. Where else?
But maybe its you bleeding into
The puddle.
And my tire tracks over your torso
Who knows but the owl watching from the gnarled
Spiny arms of that desert tree
With its biblical shape and its biblical name.
It’s violent shape and its violent name
But the beauty that sits amidst those spines
Is a beautiful cacophony
Of feathers and soft hooting.

I wish I could take its place
With the crows and the carrion
Birds that seek out
The smell
Of decay
Maybe it could be me that eats your carcass
Instead of the opposite.
Maybe your bones in my scat
Instead of the opposite.
And I could walk away full
With satiating death
In my gut
Instead of that grain of rice

So shake your head
Until it spins around
I’ll wave my arms
Until I float away.
Either way,
We’re both still stuck here
With each other’s blood mixing with
our roots and our rain water.

V...

Later on a Tuesday night all misty and cool we drove to Bible study and she sat beside me in the passenger seat, her feet up on the dash, toes pressed to the glass. Writing in a book and slouched in the seat, she would smile occasionally and I would glance at her from the corner of my eye or watch her reflected in the windshield like the specter I was afraid she was already becoming.

We stopped at the house and walked through the front door. She was greeted and touched by smiling sad faces and led to the living room. I felt her awkwardness, knowing she didn’t like being the center of anything, especially attention. We sat beside eachother, me in my best shirt and she gave me the lightest touch on the knee.

The room was dark and filled with more people than was usual on these nights. All here to pray for her as if we could raise our voices in unison so that God might hear our mutterings and cries more clearly. As if he had the weak hearing of the old man we all pictured him being in our youthful ignorance.

There was a reading from the Psalms. Then a song of petition and we led her to the floor where we gathered and our pastor washed her feet and she hid her face, so shy and serene. Then we laid our hands on her as she lay amidst us supplicatory and we prayed. Some aloud, most, like me, silently. I whispered to myself and stared at her feet all washed and white and hiding the decay beneath and I thought that when Christ called them white washed sepulchers, he really meant us all. That we all decay from the inside with the most lovely and loved of us doing so at a swifter pace. How I wished my own would quicken as well.

After, I drove her home to her father and she slept while I drove and blinked until the road blurred before us. Only the days ahead would show to me more clearly then ever that God is indeed hard of hearing.

IV.

In the evening we sat with coffee in her kitchen at either end of the rough wood table, our hands wrapped around our mugs and warm. Her father was asleep upstairs and she was tired but wouldn't sleep herself. There would be time enough to dream later she figured. So we sat and spoke. Of the past and our previous hopes for the future.

She recalled the time I wondered what she would look like older, as a mother or a grandmother. Later when we had both grown and moved on, together or not. The former had been our hope since we met in school. She figured that she had her mother's face. Her mother who had aged little physically and, if she had lived, would have still been youthful in her old age. These were her father's thoughts as well who spoke of his wife often in hopes that his daughter would grow up with the feeling of her presence if not the actuality.

I wished to change the subject, so she began to talk about her thoughts about God and eternity. How she was beginning to believe that all would reach heaven if they truly desired to please God during their life. She thought that truth was too far-removed from human understanding for God to hold man accountable for their ignorance. I don't see that as justice, she said.

I told her that I hoped she was right although I knew that there were many we knew who would disagree.

-I'll find out soon enough, she said, half smiling.

-We all will, I said, and she smiled again.

We both were quiet for a while after because each subject seemed a reminder somehwo of the short time she had left, but anything ordinary seemed inane and shallow. I was sad and picked a pomegranate from the bowl at the edge of the table. I sliced it in half with a knife, glad for the distraction and hoping that my sullenness wouldn't affect her. She reached for one of the halves and we sat for a while, silently picking out the red jeweled fruit. Stripping the soft flesh from the tiny seends and spitting them into a saucer.

There was something comforting about the shared repetition. I watched her pick a clump out of the shell and separate each seed before putting it in her mouth, one by one. Like the fruit, I felt that she too had jewels, waiting to be pried out and enjoyed. I wanted to be the one to taste them. I pushed my portion aside and watched her until she too stopped. She reached for a napkin and rubbed her stained fingers. Then she took my hand in hers from across the table and told me that things would be alright for me and not to dwell on her or the inevitable. I told her she should go to sleep because I didn't want what we had to be reduced to such cliches.

So we got up and she walked me to the door and out on the porch and we stood in the dark for a while, quiet. I felt that things were changing too fast for anybody to adjust so we could only think of gestures and words we had seen in movies. I would rather be still and silent than be dramatic even though I had no defense for this sort of thing, but before I left I kissed her on the mouth, knowing the complications it would bring.

III.

It was morning and i woke to the sound of turning pages. The shades of the window were drawn open and a hand's width of light was shining into the dark room. I lay twisted in blankets and pillows and it was still early but she was awake and sat reading in a chair by the window.

Her brown hair was pulled back and tied with a band but it was long and draped down over one soft shoulder. She wore sweatpants and a loose sweater, unzipped towards the neck and her feet were bare despite the cold.

I turned and watched her but she didn't look up. She was reading and the book was held in the path of light from the open drapes. It came through the pane and over the smooth bare skin of her shoulder where the sweater draped low and askew. From her shoulder it shone across the book and brightened the white pages, then trailed across the end of the bed.

She was reading Thomas Merton and I smiled as she frowned slightly and her brows knitted. I watched her ponder glory and love and the mysteries of contemplation, all thigns that seemed so fruitless considering that all her questions about things eternal would soon be answered in full.

II

II.

When her father called it was the first time I had spoken to him on the phone but despite our distance and differences, there was a fellowship of shared grief. He spoke to me of her doctor's visit. She had insisted on going alone. The news was bad and now she was home sleeping. Can I go see her? I asked. He said no, that tomorrow would be better and then his voice cracked and I was silent.

Finally I asked if he was alright and he said yes, that he was going to take a drive. Collect his thoughts. So I hung up and sat in my room next to my window. It was late but I couldn't sleep so I thought about the wedding and how nice she had looked. How soft the skin of her bare arms felt around my neck as we danced and watched the bride and groom. I wondered about marriage and about love and happines and all the things your hear in songs and see on screens.

There is value in fiction and if an artist can look at life and see the good that should have been and write it or paint it then perhaps one day our hopeful expressions will begin to look more like reality. Those were my hopes and I thought on them until the sun began to brighten my room and the dried flowers outside. Then I dressed and walked to her house.

She answered the door in her nightdress with her hair straight as if she hadn't moved once during her sleep. There was nothing in her face or her walk that suggested that she would be dead by spring. That deep in her bones something was spreading that even her smiles wouldn't be able to stop.

We need to find my dad, she said. So I followed her to her truck and sat behind the wheel. She sat next to me, still and quiet. The morning was gray but as we drove through the woods and over the bridge, we witnessed the rest of the world subtly awakening with short flights from limbs and shivering bushes along the road. We drove and drove. Through town and the industrial plants, until we came to the shipyard where he worked and there we found his car, parked at the end of the road, overlooking the water.

We stopped and got out. I stood by the truck and watched her walk slowly to the car, wondering what she was thinking. She tapped on the glass and I saw her dad sit up in the back seat. His thick black hair disheveled. She stepped back as he opened the door and I heard her ask what he was doing. Why he was out there. He said he had slept there. That he didn't know what else to do. She hugged him as she asked him why. He wrapped his thick arms around her and said, "because I'm so so sorry."

Fourteen Scenes About the Death of a Loved One

This is a story i've been working on based on a Sufjan Stevens song....As always, feedback will be appreciated.

I.

It was a cool fall evening, the sky gray and the air still. The goldenrod tied with a blue ribbon and held under my chin as i walked, wrapped in a coat and a scarf and just beginning to see my breath in the air. She lived six blocks away and was sleeping, but i wouldn't wait until morning. She needed something bright when she woke.

It was dark when i arrived and so was her house. I went to her window and her curtains were drawn so i laid the bright little bundle on the windowsill where it would draw all of the East's early light. The defiant yellow flowers, growing in the wild and the cold, seemed to speak good things about the end of a year when everything else was closing and falling.

I wanted to tap on the cool glass because i knew she was there, eyes closed and breathing, and i wanted to see her, but instead i pressed my palm against the pane as if i could feel the warmth of her heart or the lingering smile from her dream. Then i left.

I walked slowly for a while, in the middle of the street, following the reflectors and staring up at a sky framed by branches. I felt that, despite its infiniteness, there was a sort of intimacy to space and the heavens. That perhaps it was that feeling that caused things to grow upwards, like trees and men.

As i neared home i picked my own yellow flowers to put on my sill, hoping there was something symbolic in the same light warming different windows, but mostly i too wished to wake to something bright.

Untitled

A string of lights in the sky outside
this boy's window.
Some ordered migration to heaven.
Are you waiting
like I am?
or are you already there?
If so
what becomes of me?

I wished for a light at night,
a beacon
to where you laid your head.
I wished to follow its glow
no matter how far.

Sibelius said of his sixth,
"this reminds me of the smell
of winter,
the first snow."
How it glittered and shone
and chilled his nose but
awakened something as well,
when all else slept.
Something slumbering too most of the year
but
out of hibernation
spoke beautiful notes
and the harmony of the world
would flow through his creased fingers.

I wish you to be
the smell of the first snow
to me.
That light in the sky
that purposes my wanderings.

The Janitor... (working title)

He thought of his wife as he looked at the blood. It wasn't much blood and it wasn't his wife's. He didn't know why it made him think of her. Many strange things did lately and he thought it might have something to do with the holidays. He never remembered that he felt this same feeling every winter although, if it were pointed out to him, he certainly would be able to explain why.

Josh, the robust but slightly overweight wrestling coach opened the door as he was spraying disinfectant over the bloody spot on the mat.

"Hello Caleb, sorry about that. They got a little out of hand again."

"It's no problem," answered Caleb as he wiped the spot with paper towels and sprayed it again.

"Poor kid busted his nose pretty bad. Almost had the other guy pinned too," Josh said with a chuckle. "It's going to be a great season I think."

Caleb didn't know whether the blood was the indicator of a good season, or the other kid almost getting pinned. He didn't ask. He just smiled and nodded, his mind on other things.

"Anyway. I'll try and have 'em be more careful from now on. I'm sure you have a lot of work to do as it is," Josh said and stood awkwardly for a moment until he realized that Caleb wasn't going to reply. He turned and left the room, muttering to himself.

Caleb didn't try to make other people feel uncomfortable around him. He also didn't make much effort not to. His mind was simply on other things. For instance, why blood on a wrestling mat would make him think of his dead wife. As he pondered this, he went over the spot one more time with his mop. One thing the faculty of Brightwood Academy for Boys would always say about Caleb, long after he was gone, was that he was a careful worker.

Important question:

I've been suffering from writer's block for a while now. Obviously haven't posted anything on here for a while. Any ideas for me anyone?

The wind and her...

Something about wind and her hair makes her eyes that much sexier.

I was thinking about sand and an hourglass. That bird that carried those grains to a distant shore, one by one.

For eternity.

Alone but not lonely because of a purpose however mundane. He's changing the world with each piece of sand carried in his tiny beak. And it's changing slowly but surely. Improving. Changing into something more beautiful because he is beautiful.

Like her. Sweet and young and pure of soul. White and wonderful. And if you look beneath his wings you'll see her reflected there. You'll see the form of the world's beauty because it contains her and she contains it. Complet and sublime. He'll save the world and carry her with him, wrapped in soft feathers.

They may soar to new heights and new sights. A wind-washed cliff or white-capped waves. Because from the first moment he shook his wings, that wind was set in motion and formed the rocks and the waters of the earth with its soft fingers. He formed man from that same sand that he carries still. Sand and clay and the wind from his wings became man's breath.

And man's breath and his body became woman's and she was perfect in shape and spirit. Much like her who is another image of that first woman...