Yes, this happened...

So, I leave work after a terrible day, one that solidified my vendetta against AT&T. Those bastards.

Anyway, I'm heading out to my car when I realize the unavoidable truth: I can't find my keys. I search on the car, around the car, me and Jared search from the car to the break room and back. Neither hide nor hair of them, not even a mechanical dropping.

Nothing.

What's a man to do? Call the wife and admit I failed completely? Not unless I can scrounge up a story about ninjas. Call AAA with the money I don't have? Not... well that sentence explains itself. Luckily for me, Jared's friend arrived with a trunk for of seemingly irrelevant items.

"Sorry Tom," Jared said, trying to contain his good humor, "Kevin's trunk is basically just filled with irrelevant items."

"Jared" I said to him, because it's his name, "items are only irrelevant to those that can't see the links between them."

Yeah, sometimes, this shit just comes out of me, I swear.

So, newfound determination in stock, I take what I'll need from this trunk: a plastic coat hanger, a Nerf gun bandoleer, and a flashlight. Then, like any true man, I start to hum the theme from McGuyver.

Five minutes later, with the adaptation of a hairtie, I've got a passable hook on a cord flat enough to make it through the slightly open sunroof. Let's kick this pig.

Sadly, it's impossible to see through the sunroof, except for a tiny spot where the flashlight shines, and then only when it's from the sides not the top... So I'm flying blind. The bandoleer also can only go in on one spot, which is about a foot from the cup holder where the keys are. Also, the sunroof has some give to it, but I can't hold it up evenly, and still use the hook... unless I had some seemingly irrelevant item that could do that...

... like a box of industrial paper cores, perfectly sized to fit there. Fuck yes, bacon for fucking all.

Ten minutes later, to the cheers of the two men next to me, I'm pulling up a set of keys to a car. To hell with AAA, to hell with calling the wife, to hell with things that were not exactly what we just did.

Moral of this story: nothing is impossible if you look deeper into it, to see that tiny things that connect to make a whole...

End Tally:
Man Card: +5
Nerd Card: +3 with permanent +3 to Dex rolls.

Tale of the Iron Rose

So, while part I of the Iron Rose has been shipped off to my friends and family for test reading, and I sit here eagerly (read: terrified) awaiting response... I've arrived at the thought that they may just have the slightest confusion as to how someone like me, ended up writing a coming of age story of a small feral girl in a post war fantasy world.

Here's how:

Originally, Rose wasn't Rose, she didn't have a name. The book was to go through the entire first part, never naming her, because at the end she died. She was not the feral race she is, in fact her race was never clearly defined. It was a book about the eventual outcome of racism (not color, but non-human) in fantasy worlds, that this girl would either end up someone's fetish in a brothel, or dead.

This all changed one day at the art museum.

I came across a sketch, one I've searched for during all the years since and have yet to find. It stood next to a large painting by the same artist. The painting, was a long mural of a dance hall, in it were dozens of girls around eleven years old, as well as their matron. All of them wore cat masks, and they prowled and played on a stage.

While this would have simply been a charming picture, there was one more thing, another girl. She looked older, possibly about thirteen or fourteen, more mature than the others. She wore a dress, and held her mask in her hand. She leaned against the pillar, and smiled at the viewer in a sort of shy and coy way.

It showed the tranisition from playful child, to young woman in a way that transfixed all who walked past. The girl was small, thin, but the way she held the mask, sort of like being stuck between two worlds, wild youngsters and mature adults, just clicked for me.

Then there was that sketch, like Esher had gotten drunk while watching anime. A world set in the sky, populated by beastial people (furry ears, eyes, tails) dancing wildly naked in the possible night. All of them looked feral and dangerous, yet they danced like children.

Seeing the two of them changed the way I wanted to portray my girl, I wanted some of that in her. That wild demure, crazy calm. I also liked the color of the girls hair in the painting, so Rose became a redhead, hence the name "Rose".

Even the name of her race changed, Cho'tahn, which is found out in another book "Joker and the Thief", which takes place in the same world, but two-hundred years earlier on the other continent (River's End, that place), to roughly translate to "Children of the Moon". Showing that in this book, her people are the children in the dance hall, and the creatures in the floating forest, and Rose is between the two.

The conflict was never Rose trying to fit in with her new people, but Rose trying to fit in with herself. If -anyone- figures out the secret behind the story... you literally win at everything.

But in order to do that, you'll have to think really hard about figuring it out.

Dear Grammar,

I know we've been together for a long time, but you need to realize that sometimes, I need my space. On occasion, I don't want to be confined to just "your needs." I'm a writer, I've got needs of my own.

I love your ways, your comma's and dear God I love the way I can make a sentence turn into a senseless ramble by simply placing things in their perfect order. Or not. It's beauty, it's fun, it's what I do.

But... sometimes I want to do things that don't always meld with you. Like maybe I want things to be awkward, maybe I want them to be short. Some days, I want to start a sentence with "and". And not have to care if it's correct.

So what if you take it out of context it makes no sense, just don't take it out of context. If you take it out, you lose context no matter what. A single sentence from the Iron Rose could be used to make it sound like erotica, or gore porn. Or incredibly boring.

Once in a blue moon, I want preposition for a sentence to end in. And I just can't take you getting all controlly on me. You have to live a little, get out there and let someone try something new, it's what made you the balance of words and dots you are today, up from cave paintings.

I still love you,

~Tom

P.S., spelling is still a given, unless I need to make a new word.

Now what...?

To start this one off, allow me to say this: I'm not a Democrat, haven't even been, doubt I'll ever be.

But in light of the events of the past four years, I doubt I'll ever vote Republican. Here's why:

Years ago, I was in school when Bush won the office, we were cool with that, the smear campaigns ended and we all went on with our lives. Remember you adults out there; I was a teen, TV and internet (new as it was) were my life. I saw every commercial, every add, every chain letter.

When things went down on 9/11, and the man stood up and took action the world would later give a resounding "Well... alright, not bad", we all stood behind him. Even the Democrats I knew. Did they like him? No. Did they devote their existence to hating him? Not remotely.

Then, we he proceeded to basically become what would be considered for my generation the embodiment of evil by: destroying out economy, crushing our standing in the world, revoking rights in a way not seen since Alan Moore penned "V for Vendetta", sending thousands of our friends to die in a war he couldn't give a straight answer as to why, we got a little pissed.

Then he was voted back in, we threw our arms up and collectively got angry. After another four years, we went out and voted and turned the wheel over to Obama. This is about when I lost faith in Republicans. Not for the actions of Bush, but their actions post-Bush.

They never stopped the anti-Obama war, like some sort of internet dick measuring contest, they kept going way past the point of everyone standing around awkwardly with their pants off.

To quote my mother during the Bush administration; "It doesn't matter who he is, what party he's from, you always support the man in charge. If you don't like what he's doing, vote him out later, but you don't disrespect him."

Same woman who now refers to him as "Nigger in Chief".

Then, they stonewalled him, refusing to let any of his ideas even see light until they had hacked them to bits, or refused them completely. They refused to report on anything he did that was positive.

In essence, they basically have had a four year streak of the worst bad sportsmanship in history.

Obama has not been the best president, obviously, but he's better than his predecessor... which isn't really a way we should be judging our president. "Not as bad as the guy we associate with Hitler and Trump." Yeah... not the best standard of measurement.

So, I'm not a Democrat, nor a Republican. I'm also not naive enough to ever believe we'll get in a third party candidate until the baby boomers die off. Basically, my choice is.... well non-existant.

My vote means little, considering that while I'm an educated, mildly level headed person who can go week to week without maxing six credit cards or setting my house on fire, there's someone out there, who's done all that, and is going to vote as well.

I have no say besides shouting as loud as I can along side the entire population of America as well... and neither do you. I could get a sign and protest, or to support a candidate, but that only converts the clergy as it were, I've never known anyone to drive by a bunch of supporters and go "Well, if those guys who have nothing better to do on a saturday than stand here shouting for a man they've never met, well damn I'll just have to vote for him!"

So now I stand, with my choices being somewhere between Anarchy and Apathy, and I wonder...

... now what?

You just made that up...

When you're a child, Adults are wingless gods here on earth to show you, the simpleminded knave, the true path to enlightenment. Your dads' job description is punching out Nazis and making pancakes for Batman. Your mother is at once a wisewoman and a damned shaman. She literally takes cans of things you can't even figure out how to open, and makes dinner out of them that's bigger than all the cans put together as one big "fuck you" to Science.

Your teachers are at once President and Budda, knowing everything and controlling your little life with a gesture of their hand.

A famous quote from the movie "The Crow", was "Childhood ends the day you know you're going to die." and that's true, you're no longer a child, the day you realize death for you isn't something so far away you can't even begin to believe it, but something just around the corner in the grand scheme of things. But after that, comes some really weird stuff.

Like the day you realize Adults are just phoning it in. Literally just making it up as they go along, hopping you won't notice that they don't actually have your nose, and the quarter was behind their fingers and not your ear.

If we all think back, just like fetishes and phobias, we can find the day it all started for us.
Mine's was in the second grade.

I was an early mental bloomer, reasoning and deductive skills were natural to me where math wasn't. This came to a head in the second grade, when we all were brought into another room to learn about dental health. As I held that tube of glittery toothpaste, I remember wondering "Wait a minute, they say -not- to eat glitter..." So, I asked the obvious doctor who had of course taken time out of his busy schedule of saving lives and using those paddly things George Clooney practically slept with, was it safe to swallow this stuff?

Not intentionally, mind you, but if I happen to swallow some while in use, would it be a problem? His answer: "Well... umm... you don't have teeth in your belly do you?"

Had I not been currently in a daze about what this meant, I'd of replied "Bitch, I'm eight not two, is this shit toxic?"

But I was far too busy having an epiphany, an adult didn't know the answer. Not just on a random subject, but on the exact subject he was supposed to be the expert on. This man just did some classic redirection and went on with his lesson. That day, I realized adults were not the gods I had worshiped in the past. Later I would learn to more effectively read the label on the toothpaste and learn for myself... which did little for my faith in that dentist/homeless guy the school paid to give the lesson.

To properly explain the feeling that left me with, I would go with relieved. TO know that in the future, I wouldn't be expected to literally be able to quote everything ever done, was a lot off my eight year old shoulders. I could get by in life by being mediocre, and since I had no plans to be anything but fantastic, well, life would be a better place.

That mans' unfortunate lack of improve skills may have helped shape my life.



On a side not, I managed to get through a whole thing on "glittery toothpaste" without a single Twilight semen joke!







Goddammit...

A World at War...

When I was a child growing up in the city of Nashua, I remember going to war...

To explain this event, you must first learn of the make up of my neighborhood and the surrounding territories. We'll start with the Center, a five way intersection in a residential area, where the main roads to each of the territories met. It was usually free of cars, but we rarely spent much time there... but it was the hub of our childhood world.

Little Florida, the outermost, a cul-de-sac of tenish streets, all named after Florida cities, with only one long winding road in. They were literally the Sweeden of our place, about a half a mile from the Center. They stuck with themselves, since they had a river behind them where someone had built a dirt bike track, so they were sort of the unexplored country for most of the different lands.

Aside from them was the Freemont st kids, who were a formidable lot because of the fact that they owned the only playground in the whole area. You had to live in a small condo to be able to use it, so being their ally gave you permission.

Just around the corner from Freemont, was a long dead end road named Paxton Terrace, which was sort of a super suburban road, nearly identical duplexes as far as you went. To this day I do not believe I went to the end of there... but there was a reason for that.

If you followed Freemont away from the main road, and did not take the road to the Center, you took around about way through a few back secluded houses, that lead to a mill/corperate building, this was sort of no mans' land, a free port if you would. there were a few, unallied people there, most of whom stayed away from us, and we them. But that road led down to the lower income places, some were right dangerous to the un-allied.

Sadly, the street that was the child hub of that area's name escapes me to this day, we simply called it "Where Aaron Lived," another kid lived there two, but he was un-allied.

Whichever road you took from there led you up a hill, the highest point in the area known as Beacon St, home to a large two apartment buildings, one a quadplex and the other a complex, but the street was just rise and a fall of the hill, at it's hight was a Court. Beacon Ct.

It was the highground, the safest and most defensible place in the whole of the neighborhood. With a terrain of cliffs and rock walls scalable only to those who knew them well, it was a fortress, with an unlimited hidden entrances and exits. A place where you could escape to, and no one dared follow.

This was my domain.

It is not pride that I remember it as that, but fact. I inherited it from Joseph, who had moved away a year after I moved there. I had taken the neighbors yard (they had no kids therefore it was unclaimed) from the kids across the street. I had defended it against the invading Frost family, through many a black eye and split lip. This was my castle on the hilltop.

It was in my third year of rule, that the great war started...

My friend, Eliot, a denizen of Freemont, informed me of a fight between a citizen of Freemont, and some rabble from Paxton. It started out like any fight, but nether would conceed defeat, so they left to gather allies. We at Beacon Ct, much like the Celts of old, took a break from fighting our long standing enemies, the kids from Beacon St. to help our combined ally.

Freemont was allied with us on the Beacon, not just for their covet playground or our hedge mazes, but also in a shared love of riding bikes across the big wooden bridge between Freemont and Little Florida.

Through us at Beacon, they were allied with "The place where Aaron lived", but not with the kids just past him, they were allied to none.

We grabbed a few allies from no mans' land, and a few from the road between Freemont and Beacon, where the old people lived. Also, we grabbed the kids who lived on the hidden U, which was "not a thru street" but held a strange lot of able solders ready to fight for Freemont. They were not allied with Beacon, but in this fight, we all were.

Paxton, however, had been busy. They held the largest free standing army, their road was bigger and prone to the same age bracket of children, they also held an Alliance with Little Florida, who despite their size, only a small portion of their army had ever surfaced. To this day, many theorize that should Little Florida ever risen up in force, none of us could have held them back. They all literally own ten speed mountain bikes.

Our battle field was the Ravine, the large grassy drain between Freemont and the house that was between Freemont and the Playground. I couldn't count the numbers of those that had shown up.

The rules of engagement were made clear, no projectiles of any kind unless magical. No melee weapons, unless otherwise allowed. No hitting Nichole, the latin vixen that lived in that separating house, we all owed allegiance to her. No one would cease fighting until one side was clearly the winner.

Also, we decided the theme should be Star Wars, since the remastered edition had just hit theaters.

I, to the eternal honor of my clan, was elected to be Boba Fett. With appropriate honor, I trounced IG38, and offered some help against Darth Vader. I believe Eliot may have been Chewbacca, we just chose characters, not sides. Leave the old war where it was, ours was about heroes.

It last two, grueling days.

At the end, someone won, I don't remember, the ice cream man had figured out there was a war going on and stopped by. I would have called my brethern back to combat, to finish what was started, but Goddamn I love Bottlerockets.

So, the war was ended, likely the two offenders were dead behind us, crying because they fell on something pointed. But we had won through the day, and Paxton retreated vowing revenge, and Little Florida retreated vowing... to one day figure out who any of us were.

To be sure, there were other wars, abductions, and one impressive siege where I put aside my differences with the Hongs; Paxton turncoats, and held off a fort we had build on a dirt hill from a group of Paxtons with a tree fashioned into a dirtbomb catapult.

But no war ever stands out as clearly as that one... there I nights I wake up in cold sweats... for completely different reasons, but there's definently some times I remember that war of the Ravine.

In that war, I was a general, I fought beside my allies with honor, I lead my people bravely and I was also Boba friggin' Fett, which was totally awesome.

Yonder bitches, they are most assuredly excriment.

Having seen the travesty that is Facebook grammar, I've had to explain grammar too many times, and had the reply be "we dont need grammer," or the best "no1 cares i wont eva no it so y tri"

If you cringed at those words, you cringe with the rest of us. I've tried to point out that without grammar, you lose context, and with out context things don't make sense. Or they do, but it's not the sense you meant.

Like the ever popular phrase; bitches ain't shit. If you think about it, it's a phrase fully depending on context. If the previous line is "bitches are amazing!" It is basically saying "Oh ho, my good man, these bitches are in fact, nothing of the sort! Quite the different, they are not even on par with droppings." Or something of the sort.

But, were you to say "These bitches be shit," why, it's a stalwart statement in defense of those poor women.

We all know the funny statements that mislead because of a lack of grammar, usually somehow proclaiming their fondness for sodomy. I don't make the unseen laws of the internet, but I'm held to them like the rest of you.