How Green is Your...

Chlorophyll...

Suck in some air around you. Go ahead, get a lungful or two.

Practically all of the oxygen you're breathing in has been created as a waste product by plants using chlorophyll in photosynthesis to create food. Chlorophyll is nature's own solar power collector.

So really, something so natural and necessary to your life, you wouldn't be surprised to find out it can do more amazing things, right?

During the fifties people discovered chorophyll's power to deoderize everything. From bad breath, to foot odor, even the rest of your body; there was a powder, soap or foam to make use of chlorophyll's amazing properties.

That is until "The Journal of the American Medical Association" made note of the fact that mountain goats lived excusively on a chlorophyll-rich diet.

You ever smell a goat? Ever get close enough for a whiff of billy-goat breath?

Needless to say, after that, the fad disappeared.

Or did it?

NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

What the...? "...chlorophyll is chemically similar in composition to that of human blood, except that the central atom in chlorophyll is magnesium,..."

Are they nuts? Chlorophyll is an electron donator; Hemoglobin is a oxygen transporter! They don't even work the same!

For crying out loud...

Woo-woo science - 1; my faith in humanity - 0

Later...

MiddleMan

Serial Sunday Part None...

I am sooooo sunbuuuuurned, and due to the wife's birthday I had no time to work on today's episode. I will make this up either during the week or double up next Sunday.

Sorry for the delay...

MiddleMan

WTF...?

Billy Mays - Dead?

Seriously, WTF?

Later...

MiddleMan

For the Cutems...

It's the Mid-Wife's Birthday!

I loves ya, Cutems!

Later...

MiddleMan

Ugly mutant babys...of LOVE!

Copied from a Skepchick post of mine -

This reminds me of the time I was still living with my parents and doing late night shifts at the restaurant where I worked at the time.

On my days off I would stay up late watching TV until I fell asleep in the living room. My mother, a notorious insomniac, would sometimes stay up watching TV with me. Usually we watched old movies, but occasionally a really bad horror film would come on. Usually, these movies would make her go to bed.

One night they had on It's Alive. If you haven't seen it, it's about mutant baby that goes around killing people when it gets frightened.

A fanged mutant baby with claws, that goes around killing. (Creepy old 70's commercial.)

Near the end of the movie, I realized my mother was still there sitting on the couch.

"Doesn't this bug you? All of the blood and gore?" I asked her.

"Usually it does," she replied.

"Then what's different about this movie?"

"That poor thing is adorable..."

It was then that realized why she kept me after I was born.

For Your Information...

Michael Jackson - Dead

Farrah Fawcet - Dead

Jeff Goldblum - NOT DEAD

Just in case you were wondering...

Later,

MiddleMan

Retro Monday...

Not really retro, but way too cool to be left out...

The Automa/Automation Blog

Lots of cool stuff about old school automa, plus new works done by masters of the art.

You know, maybe it's the geek in me, but I think there's not enough whimsical automations out there.

Not enough at all..

Later,

MiddleMan

Serial Sunday Part 3...

So sick today, but posting anyhow. Yeah, me. Sorry for the late posting...

---------------------------------------------------------

You Lost Me...

A serial story

By MiddleMan

Part Three

His reality coming back slowly in-between sharp stings of pain: Craig found himself echoing the same questions he heard before the attack.

"Do I know me?"

"Am I OK?

"How many fingers am I holding up?

Wait, those questions weren't what he heard before. He was also pretty sure the voice asking them had a different accent than his normal internal voice. He slowly focused his eyes, and asked, "Fingers?"

"Oh good, you're coming around," he heard the now human shape in front of him say, "We were worried you took a harder hit to the head." It was Jim's older brother, Kyle. He was part of the town's small paramedic force.

"I... what... head?" Craig tried to look around for a large pool of blood and brains that had to have leaked out of the hole in his head that was causing him such pain, but another set of hands held his head steady. "My bike! Linda! She's going to kill me!" He started to sit up way too quickly for his bruised cranium to tolerate.

"You're not going anywhere, Craig. We need to take you in to make sure that you're really OK," Kyle grabbed Craig's arm, "Someone will contact Linda and your family to let them know where you'll be."

Craig tried to argue, but a head full of sharp edged thoughts made this an exercise in futility. They carried him on a backboard to a waiting stretcher which was wheeled into an ambulance. As they took him to the local hospital, Craig struggled to think of what had happened and what he did to deserve this.

***************************

His mother's hand stroked his as they waited for the results of the examinations and tests that had filled Craig's last few hours. "You'll be fine," she repeated every few minutes. This seemed to be more of a mantra for her own self-reassurance than Craig's, but he knew she was only concerned and feeling helpless. It did make him feel better that he wasn't the only one.

His sister walked into the exam room with a bottle of soda for his mother, "Is he going to be OK? Or, am I getting his room?"

"Kelly, don't say things like that!" their mother admonished her. She stopped petting Craig's hand to grab the soda bottle with one hand while smacking his sister with the other.

The doctor walked in a that moment, saving Kelly from further scolding. A man in a dark suit jacket followed him in. "Craig, it looks like you suffered a nasty concussion and need stitches for that gash on your head. Thankfully, no fractures or any other injury, but we are going to need you to stay overnight of observation." His bald head looked as shiny as the glasses he wore in the lighting of the emergency room. He took off the glasses and pointed at the man behind him, "Detective Dakins would like to talk with you about the attack, if you feel up to it."

"Can it wait, Detective?" Craig's mother asked, "He's still feeling achy, and he needs to rest."

"Wait, Mom," Craig put his hand on her arm, "I want to ask him some stuff too."

"OK," she looked at the rest of the room, "Your sister and I will wait outside. Let us know when you're done," As they walked out the door, Detective Dakins told the doctor to stay, he wasn't going to ask many questions. He agreed and grabbed Craig's chart to make some notes.

"What do you remember about what happened?" He asked Craig in a surprisingly deep voice.

"Not much," Craig shrugged while responding. He related the glimpse of gray he saw and the qusetions he heard before he hit the ground and the world went black. "All the rest is coming to and ending up here."

"The person who attacked you was a Mr. Hugh Pearson. You have any issue with him?"

Craig was shocked. Mr. Pearson was an older man from the neighborhood; he had known him from his bike route when he was a paperboy. The worst problem he had with him was being late with the paper a couple of mornings. "No, I barely had any contact with him. He seemed OK. What else did he...?"

He was cut off in mid-sentence by some commotion out in the hallway. Not a few seconds later the noise made its way into his room: it was Linda, with his own father walking behind her saying, "See? He'll be OK. Just needed to be seen by the doctor." His mastery of understatement did little to make Linda stop crying.

"I'll talk with you later, when things calm down," Det. Dakins said as he walked back out the door, nodding at Craig's parent and the doctor.

It took another half hour before Linda was calm enough to talk about how he felt and how bad she was for being mad at him earlier. They talked a for a while before she left with his family when the nurse told them they were going to take him to an observation room and get him ready for bed. Craig was somewhat thankful for the silence.

****************************

Afterwards, that night, he could have sworn he saw a red-headed nurse move about in his room.

---------------------------------------------------

That's it for now...

Later,

MiddleMan

Almost Forgot...

Something I saw on one of the blogs I read. Gruesome...

From DenofGeek. Check out the whole list, if you DARE!

Sorry, had to share the pain...

MiddleMan

Felonious Friday...

Not Really. Just being lazy and copying a post I did on Skepchick... Hey, it took me most of my lunch hour to type, give me a break...

My story starts with my shitty luck with cars. I’m from a large family with not much money, so us kids either bought or inherited our cars from friends and family as we got our licenses. The first car I inherited was from my brother-in-law; was a Chevy Nova with bad mileage and constantly broken turn signals. I received more than a few tickets for a broken tail light, but I always had the situation taken care of by the next day. Or, so I thought.

A few years later, that car finally died and I got another Chevy POS from another family member. This one’s lights worked, but it would die at the drop of a hat.

One night I went out to the movies with my friends. As usual, we left the theater and decided to go to the diner. Me, my girlfriend at the time, and my friend Dave, got into my car and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main street. At that point the car decided to die on me. I let it roll it over to the side of the road to get it started again.

A few seconds later a cop car pulled up behind me. One cop gets out and walks right up to my car.

“What’s the problem, son? You know you can’t park here.”

“Sorry officer,” I pleaded, “My car’s just died again and I can’t get it started. I was just going to call my dad to come and tow me away.”

“Are you sure it won’t work? Try it again,” he said as he looked at the three of us sitting there.

“Ok, but it won’t -” As I said this, I turned the key and the car came back to life. Damn, now I look like a liar!

“Now that it’s running, how about you move on?” he sneered. He walked back to his car and waited for me to pull back onto the road.

I got back on and drove a few blocks with the cops following me all the way. I got to an intersection, put on my right turn signal, and made my turn as textbook perfect as I could.

That was when I heard the “whoop-whoop!”, and saw the flashing lights behind me.

I pulled over a quickly as I could without breaking any rule I could think of. I waited with my ID and information in hand as the cop took his time walking up to my window. “License and regisitration please!”

I handed it to him and he walked back to his car as his partner watched our car from the side walk.

At this point my friend Dave is joking and telling me, “That’s it! There taking you to jail now!” My girlfriend sat there worrying about me getting another ticket while I mentally went over what I did wrong. (The light worked BTW.)

A few minutes later he came back and asked me to “Please exit the vehicle.”

The charge? Driving with a suspended license.

The funny part? It was a clerical error from the DMV. Seems they didn’t get one of my broken tail light tickets cleared out of the system, and it flagged me.

To make a long story short (too late), I spent a night in jail, sitting there stewing and trying to figure out the best way to get out of this.

My father came to the precinct in the morning to pick me up and take me home to a mother who wanted to both hug and strangle me. He called around to get me a good lawyer and found a family friend who was one of the best around. He managed not only to get the charges dropped, but he worked it out so that my record was cleared. (Still have him as my personal lawyer.)

The really funny part of all this was the lawyer calling me a week before my trial to ask me for information and give me some good news.

“I got them to drop the ticket, too!”

“Ticket?” I asked, “What ticket?”

“Don’t worry about it. I covered it by pointing out that they never gave you a ticket, and we had witnesses that could attest to that.”

“Ok, but what was the ticket about?”

A broken right turn signal.

Needless to say, for now on, I always replace my lights when they die.

Later...

MiddleMan

Missing time...

Damn! Didn't post yesterday...

To make up for it: MST3K!

Yeah, I know. Laaaaaazzzy!

Later...

MiddleMan

Monday, Much todo...

Had a lot to do today, but I had some time to do some thinking about things...

The serial story is coming along OK. It's not my best stuff, but it could be a lot worse. And I'm having fun.

I was listening to a past Skeptiod episode that struck a cord with me about am essay regarding religion and modern science that has been rolling around in my head, but I want to put some more effort into it before I write on it.

I want to keep Mondays mostly retro tech (or as close as I can). Today's tech is something that made me go "Hunh?" on my daily commute here. This is something I hadn't seen in over twenty years!

Also, I need to take more time in planning these out, or do them in advance when the muse hits me. Work has been crazy, and as much as it's given me some good stories, it really saps my creativity.

That's about it, getting tired and I'm going to cut this short. More to come tomorrow.

Later...

MiddleMan

Serial Sunday Part 2...

I hate to say this, but I'm glad that the first part is over.

My biggest problem with writing has always been the beginning and the end. I have (what I believe) is a good story, but I'm always unsure of how to start, and how to finish. The Mid-wife even had to yell at me last week to, "Leave it alone!", and "Go to bed!" as I was sitting there, fretting over the keyboard. But, I did finally let it go and publish it as is.

I say this but I'll still check it over again after this post...

----------------------------------------------------------

You Lost Me...

A serial story

By MiddleMan

Part Two

Climbing out of the shower, Craig nearly found the floor the first time he stepped onto the tile. He grabbed a towel, and, as he dried himself off, he glanced around at the steamy bathroom, trying to remember something...

It was when he saw the now soggy and slightly-but-still-vomit-covered shoes that he remembered that he still had work to do. He grabbed the sneakers and a scrub brush and attempted to not let the smell make him spew again as he got them as clean as he could.

He was almost done when he was interrupted by his sister, banging on the door and asking him to, "Get his ass in gear!", again. Making sure that his towel was cinched up around his waist, he grabbed the sneakers then opened the door to see his sister about to scream again. At that point he caught her by surprise by shoving the now soaking sneakers right into her arms. She was so shocked, all she could squeak was, "Did you shower with these?"

"Yes, I thought it'd thrill you to imagine them near my nude body!" he said right before slamming the door in her face. That didn't help his headache, but he didn't care.

The stunned silence lasted less than he'd hoped. "C'mon and get out! I need to use the bathroom!" It was sure that she wasn't going to back down just because her shirt was now wet.

"Use the one downstairs," he answered.

"I can't, Mom's using it to develop film again!" her whining came through the door.

"All right, hold on," he groaned. He put himself together, quietly seething about his mother's new hobby. It had taken over a good part of the other bathroom, and, since it was only a month old, probably going to grow in coverage.

He opened the door, about to say something witty on the way out, but he suddenly found his head being used as a makeshift shoe rack. "You're not finished! Put them someplace sunny, so they air out!" she snickered as she ran past into the bathroom. The door slammed shut before he could put them where the sun didn't shine.

Walking back to his room, he realized that he was never going to win with his sister, as he dropped her sneakers near the cat's litterbox.

************************************

Later, he walked out of his door and regretted that he never bought a pair of cheap sunglasses. The day was bright and clear; the only storm was slowly abating in his head. He looked at his bike, which looked like he had just left it to its own means after he rode it home from Jim's house last night.

"That's it! This all Jim's fault!" he reasoned to himself, "If I hadn't gone to his party, none of this would have happened." Why Jim also invited that Bitch was another thing he couldn't fathom. He hopped on his bike and pumped as fast as he could deal with over to Linda's

He had spent most of the party trying not get in "glaring contests" with her, but had little luck. He was without Kelly, due to her parents dragging her away on a day trip, and the bitch seeming to be without the morbid little sycophant that usually clung to her leg like a greasy tick.

He remembered that the living room they sat in was suddenly empty of everyone else but himself and her. (Apparently, someone had mentioned something about dares and skinny-dipping, and that; along with the combination of too much alcohol; had caused a mass exodus out to the swimming pool.) Both of them tried to ignore the other's existence until the quiet made her speak.

"Soooo, where's Linda?"

"Out with her parents, looking at schools," he stated as coldly as he could, "Where's your extra appendage?"

"Asshole! His name is Jeffery, and he'd kick your ass if you said that to his face!" She sneered at him, then suddenly got almost sad, "I don't know where he is."

She got up and walked to the window. Craig thought he should leave the room and give her space, but he found himself walking towards her. It was only when he found his hand reaching up to touch her shoulder that he shocked himself with his actions. Why was he feeding her call for attention so blatently?

Before either of them could speak, he held her face and brought his head down into a kiss. He felt her lips part slowly as they merged with his, gradually starting follow each other's curve of the mouth. Her smell of lilacs and musk captivated his nose, as he flet her suddenly grab a hold of his bottom lip with her teeth. At this, she suddenly stopped and said...

"DO I KNOW YOU!?!" screamed the grey blur that tossed him from his bike and onto the grass, "AM I ME?"

Before he could answer he found his head assulted with the rear tire of his bike, then watched as the lights went out around him...

----------------------------------------------------------

More to come next week...

Later,

MiddleMan

Solidarity Saturday...

I promise that alliterations will not be a constant thing...

From a number of blogs I frequent; Skepchick, Pharyngula, Panda's Thumb, and a score of others I have forgotten, but are just as important.

It seems that Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute (of Creation Knowledge Specialists); hereafter known as DICKS: has been very, very bad. Not only does he lie to his followers on the Discovery Institutes's website, he lies on national TV, as shown in this video below by one of my favorite YouTubers, DonExodus2:

OK, you say, he lies, big deal. The only people harmed by this are the fools that follow him.

First off, those "fools" vote, and not in their own best interests at times. The school board issue now going on in Texas has been one of many proofs of concept that Creation Science is bad for science education and bad for political discourse.

But, I'm getting off topic: the problem is that Casey and DICKS have decided to do do something both bad and stupid (a dangerous combination) - file a FALSE DMCA.

This something which - at the least - is a distraction for YouTube. Unfortunately, if YouTube's former reactions to the filing of DMCAs (either true, false, or ambiguous), this can become very messy, very quickly.

So DonExodus2 has asked people to embed and mirror his videos all over, to show our solidarity against this kind of censorship. The video below explains further:

So here's my small part. I'm leaving both of these up as long as I can.

DonExodus2 is also considering legal action, which I hope ends up as a huge media event that makes DonExodus2 and the rest of the pro-scientific community very happy; has YouTube make changes in how it deals with DMCAs; and make DICKS look like a bunch of... uh, dicks.

Sadly, this has had precedence before. But, I think what Thunderf00t did to his menace has it's merits.

That last one still makes me giggle...

Later...

MiddleMan

And Now I Go Crazy...

Ahem...

IT'S BLUEBERRY SEASON!!!

Blueberries in my cereal! Blueberries in my salad! Blueberries in my dessert!

BLUEBERRY! BLUEBERRY! BLUEBERRY! KITTIES AND BLUEBERRY! BLUEBERRY?

Bluuuuuuuuuue-Berrrrrrrrrrrrrries!

If I'm lucky we'll pick fresh Blueberries near my in-law's upstate cabin!

Bilberry <-------Not a Blueberry.

Ahem...

That is all.

Until October, that is...

Later,

MiddleMan

Did you hear that...?

At work...

Patiently Zero'd neighbor comes to my doorway. "Was that you who coughed?" she asked.

"What?"

"I just heard a nasty cough. I was wondering if it was you."

"No," I replied, "You think it's the Swine Flu? You know that was probably just someone sick from this lousy weather." It's been crappy since last week.

"Oh, I know but it takes a couple of days for it to show," was the reply.

I have the feeling that this is going to happen a lot in the coming weeks. (Sigh)

More Later...

MiddleMan

Wedensday, woo-woo...?

Real quick post, the Mid-Wife is feelin' randy...

Just something I saw on Bad Astronomy that makes me giggle...

Chiropocalypse!

Later,

-MiddleMan

Oink, I think...?

I'm going to have to be careful about what I say in this next post, since it concerns work...

I was asked to assist someone yesterday who (we'll call him Patiently Zero'd) was having problems with using his company laptop from home. I checked it out and discovered the problem was that the applications he had on it were out of date with the system and wouldn't work remotely from the network. This meant that he needed to come in and connect directly with the network for me to get him working again. With that decided, I scheduled to have him come in really early the next day.

Not a half hour later, his manager came to my door, "You get that taken care of for Zero'd?"

"Unfortunately, no," I told him, "I can't fix it remotely, so he needs to come in."

"Are you Ok with that?"

"Ok with what?"

He got a very concerned look on his face, "He's been exposed to H1N1." (Like it was a type of report to fill out.)

I had to bite my tongue before I got myself fired for saying the following:

-"The Swine Flu? Are you out of your mind?"

-"Actually, I've gotten bored of life and figured, what the hell!"

-"That's the cool zombie virus, right?

-"You've to be f**kin' kiddin' me!"

I took it in stride and told him that I didn't think there was any issue, but I would take precautions.

"Ok, just make sure he doesn't go anywhere but his office," he said before leaving.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Today I was running late getting in, and I was hoping that I wouldn't be too late to meet with the leper... I mean, Patiently Zero'd, before anyone else saw him and made a fuss. I made it upstairs and ran from the elevator to my room, not noticing him walking out of his office.

"Ah, gah! I mean, good! You're here!" I said with complete surprise and not a bit of style.

"Hope I didn't scare you," he joked. I walked to my room with him following. "Just give me a minute," I said, "I just want to put my stuff down, and we'll get this done quickly." I looked at him and saw that he looked perfectly well; just the same as when I saw him last week. "You obviously aren't sick. Why are they making you the social pariah?"

"Well my girlfriend was exposed at work, so we got a checkup from the doctor," his smile shrunk two sizes as he said that, "Thankfully we both received a clean bill of health."

"That's good! But, why are you still working from home?"

He sighed and said, "Corporate policy." Those two words never go good with anything. Not even in the face of zombie apocalypse.

He explained that due to health department regulations they had to send a letter to his work informing that, "While he has not shown any signs of the Flu, he has had contact with someone who was." As per corporate overkill, this was something sent throughout the department and group, letting everyone know that he had been exposed and was persona non grata for the next week and a half.

I shook my head and promised to help with anything I could to help him out. I finished the updates on his laptop and asked him to email me if he had any problems. As I was walking out, he asked,"Why wasn't I worried about getting the Swine Flu?"

"My wife works as a nurse. And she tells me there are worse things out there that are more communicable, and tend to leave lasting damage if they don't kill you. I figure, what's a few aches, pains and high fever between friends in comparison?"

On that up note, I will take this time to say...

Later,

MiddleMan

What size sheet do you wear? A4, or Legal...?

A quick post today.

I was doing laundry yesterday before we went out and I got into a discussion with a couple of ladies in the building. One of them talked about how tried she was to do laundry, and she wished that they made clothes that you wear once, then throw them away.

Cue the all-knowing nerd-boy.

At that point I had to tell her about paper clothes.

Something from a much more innocent time, where the rampant consumerist culture wasn't something that would doom future generations. Where recycling was only for tin cans, and fashion changed a quickly as people changed their... Well, uh, clothing.

So something like this is a novelty and not something that we use today, right?

Well, ever been stuck in the hospital? Ever got those paper slippers in the appropriately-shaped Kleenex box? That's not the only thing hospitals use made to be cheap and disposable.

Later,

MiddleMan

Sunday, Sunday...

Had a good day with the Mid-Wife and her family. We went into Brooklyn for a family get-together and a side trip to a neighborhood street fair. I ate too much, spent too much, and had a great end to a damn-near perfect weekend.

So, where to go from here? Well, as I said before, I decided to start a blog for a number of reasons; the major one being that I wanted to work on my writing skills before going too public with any story or article. I have been told by more professional writers than I can shake a pencil at that the best way to get good at writing was to write every day.

So here we are at day two... and I've decided to try out something new for me. Two of my biggest problems in writing is how to start an article/story and when to end it. I always admired writers who could break things up into discrete chunks without losing the story for the reader. By that I mean, the serial story.

I know there are tons of serial story blogs out there, and I don't expect this to be the best of them, but I want to try this out and see what people think. I will be happy to hear what think.

So, I'll just start it off right here...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You Lost Me...

A serial story

By MiddleMan

Part One

He felt relieved to remember how to open his eyes, but disgusted that his current state made the need for remembering necessary and painfully unrewarding.

He glared about his room from his bed, but the no matter where he looked, everything seemed to packed in cotton and glass shards as far as his eyes were concerned. Even his normally sedate bookshelves screamed with every color that graced each spine.

"At least it's quiet," he told himself as quietly in his mind as he could muster. He was grateful for that, considering all of his senses were as sensitive as they were shredded.

What did he do last night? What was his crime? He scoured all of his most recent thoughts until he came up with two that seemed to make the most sense: he drank too much (no shit, Sherlock), and he kissed...

"That bitch!" he said more over than under his breath than intended. She was the reason he drank so much. That red-haired, eternally pissed-off... Wait... Did he kiss her while he was drunk, or before? He suddenly grew doubtful that he had done the former, and feared that he had done the second. That he had kissed her sober.

As this was doing cartwheels in his head, he found himself musing over what other stupid things he may have done...

His ears made sure that any more thoughts were long in coming when they painfully reported that someone was hammering on his door with sharp little knuckles. "Craig, get your ass up and get out here!" Crap, his sister, Kelly. What could she possibly want?

Jumping out of bed with more might than he thought he could muster, he lunged for the door, almost tripping over the pile of clothes that he could have sworn moved directly in his path as he dodged them. He opened the door, and just got out, "What's the matt...?" before a pair of sneaker were thrust into his arms. Recently vomited on sneakers. Sneakers which looked a lot like his sister's favorite pair - only now vomit colored in spots.

With a kick to his shin, she ended this conversation with, "Clean this up, jackass! If you ever do that again, I intend to kick higher next time!", and strode off into the hallway like she was going to find another target for her wrath. Craig felt he got off easy.

With one mystery solved that he really could have lived without; he limped down the hall to the bathroom to clean the sneakers, and his now matching vomit stained undershirt. He got about halfway before another voice broke his concentration. His mother's.

"Craig! Linda's on the phone!" she said in her way-too-matronly-nice voice she used when acting as the family answering machine.

Tossing the sneakers into what he hoped would be the direction of the tub, he made an attempt to collect the upstairs phone without breaking his stride. He picked up the phone and said as clearly as his tongue would let him, "Hi, Honey! How are you this morning?" His headache made this less sincere than he meant it to be.

"Don't 'Honey' me! Get your self together, and meet me NOW!" came the voice on the other line. This was followed next by the four words no man wants to hear: "We have to talk!"

He meekly agreed and hung up the phone to continue trudging to the bathroom. He had hoped that he wouldn't have heard from her until later in the day, but the grapevine worked so much quicker than drunken reflexes.

His only thought right before hitting the shower was, "Is it a bad thing to make something up about a bad thing? Especially when you can't remember what it was?"

This enigma was soon drowned in the sound and sensation of hot water cascading down his aching body.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry this post is long and late, but I wanted it to be just right before I posted it. I will pick up this story next Serial Sunday.

Until tomorrow...

MiddleMan

First Blog...

OK, I've been meaning to do this for awhile. and today my wife finally got tired of me griping and told me to, "Start the damn thing already!"

So here it is...

I like writing more and more as I grow older. When I was a kid, having to write, "What I did on my summer vacation", was a chore from Satan's armpit. I hated writing.

Don't get me wrong, I've always loved other people's stories and articles. I mean, I was the stereotypical "Book-worm-nerd". People would always find with my nose in a book, rather than out socializing with the other kids.

I even remember my favorite place to read as a kid - in my bedroom closet with an old desk lamp stretched to its cord's limit. Honestly, I hid there because I was the second youngest of six kids, and partial to the rare gems of privacy and quiet in my large family. I even remember how embarrassed my mother was that she had to yell at me to "get out of the closet" in front of her friends. (Nowadays I get the joke, thank you.)

But, I was aware of the power those pages held: from the Sci-Fi stories that fed my geeky imagination; to the hard science texts where I learned the facts about existence; to the myths and fantasy novels that I ran to to get away from those facts when they became too real. Reading was my gateway to other realms, and I loved them all.

It wasn't until my hatred of writing came to a head that I realized that it could utilize this power myself.

I was a young acne warrior in high school with no patience for others; much less teachers that taught subjects I didn't care about: like Creative Writing for English Class. My teacher at the time was losing her patience with me and told me that I was close to failing if I didn't shape up soon. I took this challenge and decided that if I was going to fail, I was going to fail on my own terms. I took two of her assignments and merged them together into a science-fiction story of mutants, misery and bloodshed that only comes out of sheer teen angst. I singed my name to it and handed it in, damn the consequences!

And she loved it.

She loved it enough that she gave it an A- (for not being what she asked for) and said I should add to it and get it published.

I thought she was crazy. It was like my anger was being flung back to me with a, "Good Job!", rather than a condemnation it was screaming for. I still think she said what she did because I did actually put some passion into what I was writing. I even have the old story saved somewhere (not publishing it here, sorry), and I still see the fury that made the story live for me.

It only dawned on me soon after that it was the fury that made the story something she wanted to read more of. That much of the power of writing is in the telling of the story.

So here I am now, after years of putting it off, I'm, going to start writing on a regular basis. Hopefully I can work it out so that if it starts to be a chore, I'll just challenge myself and see where it goes from there.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to try something I haven't done in awhile here. I hope I'm up to the challenge.

Later,

MiddleMan