In my 9+ years of kiting I have participated in a ton of events of all kinds, shapes and sizes and I went into it knowing that if billionare kiter/business man Richard Branson (Virgin Group) throws an event it is probably going to be quite special.

However my expectations were blown away. Helicopters, superyachts and Billabong. What can I say, kiteboarding has entered into a new level.

I think it really hit when the awesome journalist we were hanging with all week finally told me what magazine he is writing for. The Robb Report. Ok, kiting will never be the same.

After YEARS of pleading with people to pay attention to our silly awesome sport, it seems that thanks to Richard Branson’s star power, the world is starting to take notice. Awesome.   Finally!

The parties were incredible, Necker Island and Mosquito Island (Richard’s TWO private islands) were stunning, our Sunsail boats and in particular our captains were fantastic, but 2 main things really stood out to me during this event.

First was the amazing natural beauty of the BVIs (British Virgin Islands). It became very clear very quickly why everytime I asked people how long they had been living there they would causually reply, “oh 7 years”, or “10 years”. This place is a keeper. Big time. You all need to put it on your bucket list, and move it up towards the top.

Second was something I have known for a long time but was so obvious over the past week. Kiteboarding people are fabulous. You all are what keeps me stoked about kiteboarding after so many years. Thank you all, for being you, for being stoked on kiting, and for being AWESOME.

Ok a few personal highlights to share:

- Having a glass of wine with Richard and Denni the famous model from the “naked piggy-back” photo shoot on Necker Island

- Our insane 2 helicopter photo shoot with about 10 pro riders all excitingly close to conch covered mangrove islands and dueling helicopters buzzing

- Cocktail parties on M/Y Resolute and Richard’s S/Y Necker Belle, being in that environment with my original kiteboarding friends like Kristin, Susi, Jason Slezak, Aaron Sales and more was just the coolest feeling in the world

- Jumping into the sea just off Eustacia Island, bouncing off the water trampoline into crystal clear water

- Sunset from the bow of our yacht

- Being at the top of S/Y Necker Belle’s crows nest with Susi and Kristin

- Sharing that week with everyone but a very special thank you to my boat mates: Geza, Laurent, Derek, Captian Chris and our GloboTV film crew Christiana, Rafael and Cleber – you guys are just the best, really the best EVER.

To be really blunt and to the point: as soon as they announce registration for next year’s (BILLABONG) BVI KiteJam event, sponsored by legendary surf company Billabong, you would be insane not to register immediately.

Trip of a lifetime – thanks Scotty, Charlie, Abby and Jo – you guys are my heros.

One of the Crossfit Delray Beach guys just posted something on the Crossfit wall.  Apparently, there’s this 12-hour Run for Charity coming up in May, and he doesn’t want to do it alone.  He’s trying to find some other poor sucker to go out and do it with him.

This latest Extravaganza of Fun and Fitness starts at 7PM on a Saturday night and finishes at 7AM on a Sunday morning.  The trail -  which will only be partially lit, so don’t forget your headlamp! -  could possibly have some construction going on in the area, warns the online literature.

And it can be yours, all yours, for the rock-bottom bargain-basement price of $150!

Let me esplain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.  I fork over $150  for the privilege of running around a construction site all night long in the dark for 12 hours straight, and have to pay for my own flashlight batteries to boot?

Are they out of their minds?  I wouldn’t even do that if they paid ME $150.

I just don’t get charities at all.

If they were SERIOUS about raising money, why don’t they give us something fun to do?  Why does it always have to hurt?  Why does it always have to be something awful, like running a 5K as fast as I can?  I don’t want to run a 5K as fast as I can.  Running as fast as I can is NOT my idea of fun. Didn’t they ever hear the saying:  you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?  Although, why anyone would actually want to catch a bunch of flies has always been a mystery to me.  Who in his right mind wants to catch a bunch of flies, and MORE of them, at that?  Charities, apparently, by the looks of it.

All I’m saying is, why not let us sit around and eat pizza all day. Or chicken.  Whatever.  Drink margaritas by the pool.  Play Uno.  Ride around all day in the front seat of the Space Mountain ride at Disneyland, for example.  THAT would be fun.  Why does it always have to be something hard, unpleasant, and – frankly – dangerous, like running around a loop in the dark dodging heavy construction artillery for 12 hours straight? Why not a 12-hour sleep-athon, or a 12-hour movie-athon.  I just think a lot more people would be willing to raise money for charity if they got to do something fun at the end of all that canvassing and door-knocking, instead of  having to endure something painful and punishing. Isn’t having to beg for money punishment enough?

Sorry, Tom Sawyer.  You might have fooled me the first time around, making that fence look all fun to paint and everything, but I’m onto you now. This time, paint your own darn fence.

The only reason children whine is because they can get away with it. None of us ever whined around my dad.  He wouldn’t put up with it, so we just didn’t do it. We may have whined around other people, but not around my dad.

Therefore, I have little patience with children who whine, and for the parents who put up with their whining.  It is simply NOT NECCESSARY.

Therefore, when I’m sitting seven stories up, in the condo, with all the doors and windows shut, and I’m trying to concentrate on something important, if I can still hear your darn kid in the pool, whining continuously for half an hour … not splashing happily in the pool and making normal children’s pool noises (those would be fine) but out-and-out whining and crying for no reason whatsoever… I AM going to think evil thoughts about him.  And about you.

Evil thoughts like, “DRAT.  I just wish the patio weren’t screened in, because I’d really like to throw rocks down into the pool and shut that kid up.”

Not that I’d ever DO that. Not literally.  But in the imaginary cartoon world that exists in my mind, I’d definitely do that. I’ve DONE it. Toss some big rocks down into the pool, and BOOM! TAKE THAT, KID! Startle the kid into submission. WHUT? WHUT?  Yeah, you heard me, kid, and here comes another one, just like the other one.  Bombs away!

I don’t actually want to hurt anyone for real. I’d just like to wake everyone up and make them realize that they’re not the only ones in the world.  I don’t go around noise-polluting their environment.  In fact, in the span of their lives, they’ll never even know I existed, and I’d appreciate it if they paid me the same amount of consideration.

And, what are kids even doing in the pool anyway?  This is an old people’s condo.  No pets are allowed.  You’d think there’d be a rule about no kids being allowed either. Freaking snowbirds and their grandkids. I can’t wait ’til it melts back up north.

So, the very next day, after thinking such evil thoughts, one of my neighbors left me some oranges.  No note, no explanation, just an anonymous basket of oranges.  Just an anonymous basket or oranges, only hours after slaughtering their grandchildren in the pool.

Crap, did I think those thoughts aloud?  I don’t often think bad thoughts about their grandchildren.  And no one ever leaves fruit at my door.  It seemed like too much of a coincidence.

It didn’t help that they weren’t the prettiest oranges in the world. They looked like they were picked out of someone’s yard, instead of being mass-produced on an authentic sterile orange farm.  Anything could’ve been done to those oranges.

So, what do you do when someone leaves you an anonymous basket of oranges, only hours after you thought evil thoughts about their grandchildren.  Do you eat them?

Only one way to find out.  I put them into a pretty bowl, and took them into work, and when an unwitting coworker ate one and didn’t die, I knew the coast was clear.

They were very delicious. And I don’t even like oranges all that much.

Last week at the beach, I ran into my Fanbase of One.

According to my Fanbase, he knows more about me than he SHOULD know about me, which seemed to make him nervous, which almost made ME nervous, but then he asked how my dad was doing, what with the motorcycle accident and all, so I immediately didn’t mind so much that he knew too  much.  (And if he DID know too much, it was no one’s fault but my own; no one ever reads my blog, I always think, so I just say whatever I want to say, John Mayer.) And it was very nice that he asked about my dad.

“I can’t wait until you meet a guy at Crossfit,” he said, as I was leaving.  It was part of his “Keep blogging, I like reading it” little peptalk, which is always nice to hear, but did I say that?  NO.

Instead, I reacted in my usual way, whenever anyone tries to be supportive and encouraging in the “I hope you find a boyfriend” department:  badly.

“Yeah, not likely,” I – ever the people person – said with a sarcastic sneer.  Because, I’ve given up! ME, finding a boyfriend at Crossfit?  Finding a boyfriend anywhere? It’s all hopeless everywhere I go.  I don’t like anyone, no one likes me.  And my positive attitude and sparkling personality have NOTHING to do with it.

“Well, then,” he tried, undaunted by my sneery-ness, and still trying to be encouraging. “I can’t wait until you meet a girl!”

WHAT? A girl? A GIRL?  ME?

“Yeah, AGAIN, REALLY not likely,” I said with an even worse sneer.

“Well, I don’t know … I just want you to meet somebody … whatever you’re into …”

Do I really give off that vibe? For crying out loud. That is SO not my vibe!!!

I don’t even LIKE girls.  I hate everything about girls.  The screechiness, the cattiness, the bitchiness, the neediness, the use of feminine wiles to get ahead.  Ugg. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

This is exactly like the time during a family vacation in Ocean City, when my little sister and her husband sat me down for  an “intervention.”

“Stacey, we just want you to know: if you ARE gay, we will totally support you.”

Stunned by their “understanding” and “show of support,” I immediately burst into tears.

I’d had boyfriends … serious boyfriends … all my life, until … right about then.  Then all of a sudden, I happen to NOT have a boyfriend, and suddenly, everyone thinks I’m gay?

In between my sobs, I managed to ask, “WHY (sob sob) would you even (sob sob) THINK that?”

It turns out, in the span of one month, I’d given them three very big “clues.”

One: I mentioned that I thought Ellen DeGeneres was funny.  Well she IS.  Have you seen her show on Comedy Central, when she talks about how lazy we’ve become as a society that we can’t even chew our own mints, that we’ve become a society that needs meltable mint strips to place on our tongues that basically chew themselves? That cracked me up, especially because, during her monologue, she was sticking her tongue out and talking like you talk at the dentist when he has his hands in your mouth and asks you a complicated question involving more than a “yes” or “no” answer. It was very funny.

Two: I had recommended that they see the movie, Kissing Jessica Stein, which was about a girl who decided to start dating another girl.  It is an extremely intelligent movie with clever, witty dialogue. That’s IT; I was merely appreciating the clever, witty dialogue, and I wanted THEM to appreciate it too.   AND, she even gets back with her boyfriend at the end.  AND, I’d even seen the movie with Mark Roberts the love of my life, who also loved the movie, but did that matter?  No.  Did that make HIM gay?  NO. It just made ME gay, apparently.

And three, the creme de la creme of all the reasons: Mark, who had seemed to love me so much, whose adoration was obvious when they’d seen the two of us together over the past year, was suddenly gone. For the first time in a long time, I was single.  Mark – who actually completed me, Jerry Maguire, who knew EVERY thing about me yet still thought I was the most wonderful girl in the world (he was right!), whose existence and presence turned me into a person that I actually liked, that people actually liked  because of who I was when I was with him (all smiling and radiant! Yes, really! Truly! Me, smiling and radiant, can you believe it?) – and I were no longer together.  Something about an ex-wife, plus a second possible ex-wife, a boatload of children, and the guilt of living and dealing with such life choices were too much for him to handle, I guess. (That’s my take on it, at least, the only take there could possibly be.)

But my family probably didn’t know any of that then, so combine that with the reputation I had around home of being mean to guys, and it was obvious, in their minds, that there was a reason I was so mean to guys: because I hated them and loved girls instead!

A fact which, according to Jodi and Jamie, would not have gone over well with our conservative, Republican Christian family. “We won’t shun you like the rest of the family would,” they reassured me.

I continued to cry and cry all night, and my vacation in Ocean City was ruined.

—————

So anyway, that’s what it felt like, today at the beach. 

Ahh, good times, good times.

We’ve been trying to come up with a name for a new kite.  Everyone thinks this should be an easy thing for me to do, since I’m so good with words, but it’s not an easy thing for me to do at all.

Although I’m extremely good (on my own, without being asked) at coming up with names for random “jokey” things that will never go anywhere and will never make anyone any money (for example, a church based on the doctrine of cannibalism called “The Church of the Edible Christian”), I’m never good at coming up with names for anything real, when commerce and profit are on the line. As soon as reality and business enter the equation, I crack. As soon as equations enter the equation, I crack.  I’m terrible at math, so it’s a shame that my brilliance with words is so unprofitable.  Otherwise, I’d be rich by now.

And so it follows that when asked to come up with a name for a new kite, I completely blanked out. I spent hours trolling through various dictionaries and thesauruses, to absolutely no avail. I’m not even going to tell you what my best efforts were, because they were horrible. However, I’d recently been hearing that my sister’s two little boys were in the business of saying smart, funny and creative things, so I decided to employ myself some free child labor.  (”Out of the mouth of babes” and all …)

Their references were good, coming from good, upstanding believable people (my mom, my dad, the boys’ sister, etc.).  And their initial work sounded very promising: they go around saying things like, “I don’t believe so,” and using the word “shall,” and asking complicated philosophical questions, complete with matching philosophical hand-circling, while being tucked into bed at night, such as, “Will people ever stop having babies?” My sister, misunderstanding the question, explained how people won’t have babies in heaven, which was apparently not the answer that particular boy was looking for.  “No, that’s not what I MEAN,” he said passionately. “I mean … this THING we … call … life, will it ever end?”

See what I mean? Deep thoughts, Jack Handey.  Surely, between the two of them, they’d surely be able to come up with an award-winning name for our new kite, which I would then present to management, take all the credit for myself, never mention the boys once, and finally rise to the intercorporate stardom I deserve.

I immediately emailed my sister: “You wanna axe your little brain surgeons if they can come up with the name of a new kite?”  This was about nine days ago.  The new kite-name deadline was eight days ago.

Finally, yesterday, I get my reply. Apparently, you can’t ever rush the creative process, not when you’re dealing with geniuses. Apparently, when you’re as brilliant as they are, time is not of the essence.

Here’s the email:

“I asked the dudes if they had a name for a new kite. I don’t know why I bothered. Two kids that name their stuffed animals things like “Cutie,” “Milky” (a cow), and “Hoppers” are not the best ones to ask. They came up with things like “The Best” (”The company is called Best, you can’t name the kite that too” “Then maybe ‘The good.’”); “The Killer” (”Nobody would want to ride a dangerous kite named ‘The Killer’”); “The Beat” (”What? Like music?”  “No, like no one will beat them”). Sorry, Stace … you’re on your own.”

On my own? On my own? Are you kidding?  This stuff is gold, Jerry! GOLD!

A kite called “The Good”? When the company is named “Best”? That’s nothing short of genius!  There’s a whole market of underacheivers out there we’ve heretofore failed to consider.  Who wants the best of anything, when you can merely have the good?  Every single underacheiver in the world, that’s who. That market is huge, and we’re on the verge of capturing that entire segment!

And, “The Killer” … that’s great too! It would come supplied with several pre-existing leaks, guaranteed to deflate while riding in shark-infested waters, or somehow be programmed to fly (of its own accord) into hard, concrete buildings. We could market those to the suicidal, depressed market, which has GOT to be big, if “tv advertising dollars spent on anti-depression medicine” is any indicator. The psychiatric industry would love us!  All those guys do, week after week, is sit there and listen to the same people whining about their lives … don’t tell me they’re not sick and tired of doing THAT.  Enough is enough, people! Stop threatening and get on with it, and here! We’ve got just the kite for you! 

And for our competition riders, what other kite could they possibly ride but a kite that no one will beat them on, no matter what! Even if all they can throw is a backroll!  I want that kite!

Wow! Things are going to start happening to us now!

Ahhhh, but they’re not.

UNFORTUNATELY, I just learned that a name for the new kite has already been chosen … eight days ago. And it’s such a shame! It’s such a shame that those lazy bums (my nephews) couldn’t have been bothered to come up with these ideas EIGHT DAYS earlier!  Even though these are CLEARLY the better choices, we’re TOO LATE! We’ve been beaten to the punch by one of my co-workers, who is now enjoying meteoric rise to internal stardom and glory, while I sit rotting away in an office affectionately titled, “The Last Stop,” because all of how all the previous residents of the office are no longer with the company, so good luck to me.

Thanks, boys.  Thanks a lot.  Next year, for Christmas, if I still have a job (no thanks to you) and can afford it, you guys are getting cans of Sauerkraut.  Not Sour Patch, as in the yummy soft child-shaped candy with a coating of sour sugar that you guys love, but actual SauerKRAUT, the kind your mom makes you eat on New Year’s Day, with your hotdogs, which you hate!

How do you like me now????

The very first day I moved into my house in Connecticut, somebody knocked on my door.

I do not like unannounced drop-ins and normally wouldn’t have answered, but since it was my first day in the house, I thought it might be the Neighborhood Welcoming Committee, and I didn’t want to seem antisocial.

Plus, the movers were still there, moving stuff in.  It’s not like I could pretend I wasn’t home or anything.

Unfortunately, it was not a matronly band of smiling committee members, bearing delicious home-baked treats.  It was a down-and-out looking character in a camouflage jacket, who introduced himself as, “Ted LaCroix, also known as ‘the Dog Man.’  If you need any handiwork done around the house, I can do it for you, for cheap.”

I appreciated this, since I’d just moved from Los Angeles, and he was the only person I knew thus far who could do handiwork, and the “for cheap” part sounded especially good.

He also offered to resurface my sidewalk for me, for $2000, which was far less than anyone else would charge, he said.  “If someone trips on its cracks, and sues you,” he said, “it’ll cost far more than $2000 to pay them off,” a sentiment he followed up, a week later, with a well-written hand-delivered scare-tactic letter which testified to the importance of safe sidewalks, and included horror story after horror story about people who failed to fix their sidewalks and then ended up in the poor house.

He also tried to convince me to adopt some of his dogs, but I said I already had two cats and that was enough for me.  I actually needed a baseboard put into the bathroom (a great big section had been hacked out of it), which he said he’d do for the odd (but cheap) sum of $12.25.  He trampled sawdust all through the house, and didn’t clean up after himself, and when I asked him to please clean up his sawdusty mess, he said, “For $12.25, clean up the mess  yourself,” and huffed out in an angry storm, never to return again.  The only time I ever saw him after that was from behind the safety of my car while driving through the neighborhood, when I’d see him being pulled down the street in five different directions at breakneck speed by five dirty-looking dogs, which made me glad I had never adopted any of his dogs.

But it also made me feel guilty.  Perhaps if I hadn’t offended him about his mess, or if I’d hired him to fix my sidewalks, he’d now be living a normal life, walking one dog properly down the street, making eye contact with the neighbors.

——— 

About three years later, Ted made his final neighborhood appearance, as front page news in one of the Milford papers by committing suicide on a Friday night.  It didn’t say how he did it; it just said that he was found dead in his house by a neighbor, who had come over to borrow a tool.  Apparently, the neighbor had arranged a certain time to pick up the tool, and when Ted didn’t answer the door at the appointed time, the neighbor got suspicious, called the police, and that’s when they found the body.

According to the article, Ted’s house was in foreclosure, and he was facing a possible 3-year jail sentence for, back in 2000, having seven truckloads of trash in his backyard, which the police had to haul out with a warrant. Just recently, after the police finally decided to prosecute (hence the pending jail sentence), Ted walked into City Hall and flung a plaque into the judge’s office, along with a well-written thank-you note to the prosecuting lawyer who had gotten him the suspended sentence.  (The article didn’t say what was written on the plaque, but I would’ve loved to have known.)

To make it all worse, a few weeks earlier, the city had confiscated Ted’s twenty-two well-fed by not-well-maintained dogs that were living in (and contributing to) the filth of Ted’s house.  According to the article, he was the notorious Milford “Dog Man” … mentally unstable and alcoholic … and the neighbors, although sad that a human died, felt relieved for themselves that Ted’s “reign of terror” had finally come to an end.

It was reported that Ted, over the years, had wreaked much havoc among his neighbors, by way of financial damage to property, but the police would never prosecute, so with no incentive to stop, Ted simply continued along with his destructive behavior.

According to his senior yearbook of 1958, Ted was a handsome swimmer/football player, who said “not a word that wasn’t absolutely necessary.” Deep, creative and troubled, he’d now dug himself into a very deep ditch and had forgotten to take a ladder down with him.  Faced with the inevitability of losing his house, and knowing this meant he could never get his twenty-two dogs back again, he simply had no reason to go on.

———

When I read the article, I felt immediately better about myself. All those years, I’d been blaming myself for Ted’s problems … my refusal to adopt one of his dogs, my request to clean up a $12.25 mess, not hiring him to resurface my sidewalk.  I thought I was the one who’d thrown him into the depths of despair.

Yet, at the same time, I felt immediately insignificant.  How come he’d never come back to financially damage my property?  Was my contribution to his life really that insignificant that he couldn’t be bothered to come back and financially damage MY property?  Three years of racking myself with guilt, for the low cost of $12.25, for nothing??  It just wasn’t worth it.  I should’ve paid a legitimate contractor the going rate, who would have cleaned up his mess and spared me three years of beating myself up for ruining a man’s life when I hadn’t even made a dent.

For that much guilt, you need to pay way more than $12.25, otherwise, it’s simply a waste of time.

It was last June, and we were out in the Hamptons for the sales meeting.  A couple of us from the Florida office went up early, on a Thursday, to get everything ready for Sunday, when everyone else was due to show up.  Which meant that on Friday night, we couldn’t be out in the Hamptons with all the mansions and beautiful people and not at least give the infamous social scene a good old college try.

I’d have much rather stayed at home and watched the Hamptons on TV via “Something’s Got to Give” or “Royal Pains,” but everyone else was all dolled up and ready to go, so I kind of had to go, too.  What if the man of my dreams was there, and I wasn’t there to meet him?  So I put on a cute little black dress and some heels, and off we went on our merry way. 

For the record, there were NO BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE there, just a bunch of riffraff from god only knows what corner of the camaro-driving, goldchain-wearing universe. My dress and heels were a complete waste of time.  I would’ve been so much happier sitting in front of the TV.  This is EXACTLY why I never go out.

So. We drank.  And drank, and drank, and drank.  And then it hit me, all that drinking, and I did something I’m not proud about, which is actually kind of a really bad habit of mine.  I bolted.

See, sometimes, when I’m out, and I drink too much, I have to be home NOW.  I cannot wait one more minute; I have to be home NOW. So I leave.  I don’t say goodbye, I don’t waste time telling anyone that I’m going.  I just leave.  And the poor people I’m with are left stuck at the bar, wondering what happened to me.

I realize how incredibly rude this is to the people I’m with, because, they don’t know where I am, or that I’ve gone.  And what if THEY just leave?  How would that look if they left and I turned up dead out back behind the bar the next day?  They’d look like terrible people, especially if the story made it to the Entertainment Channel and they had to be interviewed about it on national television, so they have no choice but to sit around and wait for me and wonder where I am and what they should do about it.  So yes, I realize this is incredibly rude to the people I’m with, but does it stop me?  No. Of course it doesn’t stop me.

Except, there were a few problems for me when I bolted this time:

1. I didn’t know where I was, or how to get home.
2. I was wearing a dress and high heels, and
3. I decided to “run” home.

Turns out, it’s really hard to run home when you don’t know where home is, especially when you’re running in a dress and high heels.

What happens is this: you suddenly “come to” about 15 minutes into the run, and realize that absolutely nothing … especially not the very foggy and haunted-looking cemetary on your right … looks like “home.”  Your inner sense of direction suddenly wakes up, and you realize you’re nowhere near to being close, and in fact, you’ve probably gone south when you should’ve gone north.

Your thoughts go something like this: “Hunh! (as you look around in wonderment.)  A cemetary!  A very foggy cemetary!  I’m running by a cemetary, at night, and I have no idea where I am or where I’m going. I’m just running. Pretty fast. By a cemetary. For no reason.  Why am I running by a cemetary? Why am I running at all? ”

You then decide to cut your losses and head back in the direction from which you came, back to the bar, where you can at least start from scratch again, and try a new direction.  Eventually, one of the directions you pick is going to have to be right. Or else, you can just sleep in a bush somewhere, and everything will make sense in the morning.  Or, if you just get into a cab, and tell the cab driver the name of the house you’re staying in, he’ll just automatically know where the house is and take you there.

Fortunately for me, this time, when I get back to the bar, my friends are standing outside at the car, looking puzzledly up and down the street, wondering where I am.  And here I am, with perfect timing, magically appearing as if out of nowhere, running with my shoes in my hand. I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to admit I almost just rudely left them without an explanation, that they were almost the unfortunate victims of my terrible habit of bolting.   So … “Crossfit,” I say.  “I’m just doing my Crossfit!”

“The average American male. A novel. By chad kultgen.”  It may have been one of the raunchiest books I’ve ever read.

Not that I would recommend such a raunchy book, and not that I can relate to Chapter One or anything, because I like my Christmasses with my mom and dad, but I really liked the first chapter, which was simply this:

 ——————

Chapter One

Christmas with Mom and Dad

 Same old bullshit.

 —————–

  But what I really liked were the acknowledgements:

 Mom, thanks for always encouraging me to write and be creative. I’m sorry the end result of that encouragement is something you will not want to read.

 Dad, thanks for teaching me self-discipline and thanks for giving me a good education.  I know this isn’t the same as playing pro-baseball, but it’s still pretty cool.

 I love you guys and I hope this book doesn’t lose you any friends or anything.

I wish I’d have written an acknowledgment like that.  Especially since, if I had written it, it would mean that I’d have already written my book by now.  

If anyone has any ideas what my book should be about, please let me know.  I’m plum fresh out of ideas.

I just saw a funny commercial.  It’s probably not a very good commercial because I couldn’t remember what product it was selling the first time I watched it, but it really cracked me up, and isn’t that what’s most important?  (I’m linking the youtube video in at the bottom of the post, but I like the commercial so much I’ve typed out a transcript, just for my own personal enjoyment.)

————-

The scene: Two little girls sitting at a small child’s table, across from a man in a business suit.

Man in Suit to Girl #1: “Would you like a pony?”

Girl #1, who’s a serious-looking kind of girl: (excitedly) “Yeah!”

Man in Suit hands Girl #1 a tiny little model horse, which he pulls out of his pocket.

Girl #1: Happy.

Man in Suit to Girl #2, who is cuter and blonder than Girl #1: “Would YOU like a pony?”

Girl #2: (excitedly) “Yeah!”

Man in Suit, calling to something backstage: “Tchhhchn tchhh tchh tchh tchhhh!”

Out trots a REAL pony, which is EXACTLY the same color, wearing EXACTLY the same costume, as the little model pony given to Girl #1.

Girl #2: Smiles delightedly and says “Oh! …. WOW! That’s fun!” and pets the pony lovingly.

Girl #1 to man in suit, who can’t believe her bad luck: (politely yet accusatorilyy): “You didn’t say I could have a REAL one.”

Man in Suit: (condescendingly) “Well, you didn’t ask.”

————-

In addition to reminding me of the “Some versus None” game, the commercial also reminds me of the whole “Ye have not because ye ask not” scripture (James 4:2) my mom used to use on us all the time, when we’d complain about not having something or other.

Except, she used it selectively, on small things that were easily available in the kitchen, like Oreo Cookies or ice cream. Unfortunately, it did not apply to all things, for example, to important, larger things, such as ponies, because believe me, I didn’t “have not” a pony because I “asked not” for a pony. I asked plenty for a pony.  I guess my point is, if you’re going to quote scripture at your kids like that, or more precisely to ME SPECIFICALLY, you should automatically apply it to all things.  You just should.  It’s the right thing to do.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qb0vquRcys&feature=related

So, you all remember Tyler, the dude that was supposed to get me a book deal but didn’t because the “book deal” fell into a coma?

Well, one thing that I really liked about Tyler is that we both loved the movie Princess Bride and we’d quote it whenever we could.

Anyway, one time, Tyler’s riding around in an elevator in New York City, and who gets on the elevator but the actor Wallace Shawn, the guy who played Vezzini in Princess Bride … the “stop that rhyming now I mean it” guy, the guy who keeps using the word “inconceivable” which doesn’t mean what he thinks it means, the guy that CLEARLY can’t drink the wine in front of me, and CLEARLY can’t drink the wine in front of you.

So, the whole time, Tyler’s all excited, and he keeps whispering frantically to his friend, “That’s HIM! That’s HIM! That’s Vezzini!”  Tyler’s DYING to say something, but too nervous and afraid, but he can’t let the opportunity pass.

Just as Vezzini steps off the elevator, just as the door is about to close, separating Tyler from Vezzini forever, Tyler finally musters up his nerve and shouts out, in his best Vezzini accent, “IN-CON-CEIV-ABLE!”

Vezzini, or rather, Wallace Shawn, turns around and laughs.

I wish I could have been there.