Strange Days

Yesterday was a strange and tiresome day, filled from morning yawn to evening snore with all manner of oddity and perversion. For starters, after setting a new alarm tone before going to sleep the previous night, I woke yesterday morning under the unconscious delusion that I was, in fact, defusing a bomb. It seems that, for whatever reason, the rhythmic chirping of the new alarm I’d set somehow registered as a timed explosive to my sleep-addled brain, and I truly felt that our lives depended upon my ability to shut the thing down before it went off and sent fleshy bits of newlywed flying all over the room, splattering the walls and staining the carpet. So, when the alarm went off, I went into action. In the haze of twilight sleep, my arms shot out from beside the bed and began flailing around the nightstand as my hands searched for the bomb. What they found, however, was nothing more explosive than Brittany’s iPod dock.

It was of sufficient heft and armed with enough buttons and gizmos to at least feel like an incendiary device, at any rate. I frantically began pushing buttons and sliding sliders, growing more agitated and angry with each new bleep and bloop of the recurring alarm, but nothing was working. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t shut off the bomb. It just continued its incessant chirping, over and over again. Thankfully, just when the slight edge of panic began to give way to unbridled rage as I sought to smash the thing into a billion pieces, the veil of sleep lifted and I realized what I was doing and what I was holding. I laughed at myself for a moment, then returned the iPod dock to the nightstand and shut off the alarm. I got out of bed, got dressed, and headed off to work. Then, things started to get weird.

After being at work for a quarter of an hour or so, I left my desk to go grab a soda from the vending machine. On my way back, I rounded a corner and proceeded to walk around two ladies who were talking in the hallway – or, at least, I attempted to walk around them. What I actually did, however, was step into an enormous puddle of water that had been generated from their dangling, rain-soaked umbrellas. I was wearing shoes with soles that transmogrify into non-stick cookware whenever they get wet, so as I stepped into the little pool of dribbled rainwater, I was given a severe and immediate education in the laws of lubricated friction. I fell. Hard.

I came down on my right knee, nearly tackling one of the women as I approached the floor and, perhaps seeking to save itself, the soda I was carrying leapt from my hands and began rolling away as fast as its little aluminum body could carry it. The women expressed immediate concern and helped me back to my feet. They peppered me with a quick barrage of questions regarding my status, to which I replied in the affirmative that I was fine and there was nothing to worry about, really. They made a bit of a fuss for a few moments and then resumed their previous tongue clucking with a tenacious exuberance that seemed to immediately negate their feints of concern. Their gossip exchange seemingly unaffected by my fall, I scooped up my soda and made my way back to my office. Then, things started to get weird.
A few hours later, I had to leave the office for a couple of appointments. First, the test. For reasons I’m not yet at liberty to disclose (but will hopefully be able to reveal very soon), I had to visit a nearby laboratory facility for a drug test. Keeping in mind that the last time I had a drug test Bill Clinton was in office, try to imagine what I was picturing before arriving. I didn’t know if the lab would want a urine sample, a blood sample, or a hair sample like we used to hear so much about on talk shows of the early ’90s. (Parents! Send in your child’s hair to see if your kid’s hopped up on the goofballs. Confidentiality guaranteed!”) It turns out that it was a urine test, for which I had amply prepared. Not wanting to come up short on the sample, I’d been…um, saving myself for the test all morning. In fact, by the time I walked into the facility’s lobby, I was around two minutes away from an involuntary release and a quick trip to the Depends aisle of the closest supermarket. Thankfully, they got me in right away and I was quickly whisked beyond the waiting room a few short moments after I’d arrived.
The protocol for a drug test is a bit strange. I can understand some things, such as emptying your pockets and removing coats and jackets and things, but some aspects of the procedure just didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. For starters, the technician opened a drawer to reveal stacks of small plastic kits labeled Single Sample. I was told to select one of these ‘single’ cups (presumably because there is either such a thing as a Double Sample, or perhaps something more along the lines of Couples Skate Only night down at the roller rink), and hand it to the technician. I did, and she opened it to reveal a small plastic vial along with various bits and bobs of the sort of frippery that comes bundled in your average drug test kit, I suppose. Then, she told me to wash my hands, but not to use soap. I don’t know why it was important that I wash my hands before peeing into a cup, or the reasons behind prohibiting the use of soap, but I did as I was told and stuck my hands under the running faucet for a few moments. After that, she escorted me to the toilet.
I thought she might stand in the room and watch me (which is another reason I’d saved up a small ocean’s worth of urine, figuring that an urgent need to go would trump any pee-shyness that might result from watching someone watching me as I handled my naughty parts and tried to pee), but instead she told me to simply fill the cup to a designated mark and to not flush the toilet when I was done. The mark was terribly low on the cup, which indicated that I’d stored up vast reserves for nothing. I quickly filled the cup to the designated line, then proceeded to deposit into the blue water of the toilet the remainder of the small yellow ocean that had been resting inside my bladder all morning, turning the contents of the bowl a nice shade of green. This, naturally, took some time. So much time, in fact, that the technician eventually began knocking on the door, instructing me that I had to come out. This was not possible, at least not immediately. She knocked again. I hurried up.
Eventually, I finished my business and returned the filled cup to the technician, who dumped its contents into a plastic vial before telling me to discard the excess into the toilet, which I was now suddenly authorized to flush. I did, and was then instructed to wash my hands, this time making full use of the available soap. I guess they reason that providing urine samples is a dirty and tricky sort of affair, and so they want to encourage you to wash your hands before touching other surfaces in the laboratory. It makes sense, I suppose. I still don’t know why they want your hands dirty before the test, though. The remaining bits of the procedure were all bureaucratic: sign a few forms, verify some facts, and get my stuff back. Finally, after finishing up my business with the drug test, I headed over to the dentist’s office for my final visit. Then, things started to get weird. Or, more accurately, painful.
For this last appointment, my dentist rebuilt a tooth I’d previously had a root canal performed upon, but for which I never got a permanent crown. This process proved to take longer than I expected, and was far more uncomfortable than all of my previous sessions under the drill. To my dentist’s everlasting credit, his practice is about 99.86% painless – but yesterday, I experienced the full force of the remaining fourteen percent that is…not painless. It wasn’t torturous by any means, but it was a slow process that had recurring periods of brief but powerful discomfort that I don’t wish to repeat any time soon. The tooth kept me awake most of the night and is still very painful today, but I’ll live. I’m just glad that he chose to fix this tooth last rather than first, else I might never have gone back!

Finally, the last bit of annoying weirdness from yesterday took place when I finally arrived back home in the evening. I’d been contacted some time ago by a media company wanting me to examine a screener and some press materials for a television program on TNT called Southland, then provide my thoughts here on the blog. I agreed, and they sent a parcel to my house that apparently shipped by carrier pigeon and mule, because it didn’t arrive until yesterday. I like working with this particular company because, unlike almost every other PR outfit seeking to exploit social media and viral marketing, these guys don’t tell you what to say. They don’t even hint at it. They simply ask if you’re interested, then send you the goods if you confirm that you will give them a look. I haven’t had the opportunity to watch the screener yet, however, as it did just arrive yesterday – and the show airs tonight. I don’t see myself as having any time to view the screener today before it airs later in the evening, so I’ll have to provide my thoughts after the fact, in Thursday’s entry. I guess it will be more of a review than a preview at that point, but it should be interesting. I do, after all, hate procedural police dramas with an unholy passion, and watching this new show with Brittany is liable to result in her finding a new passion to which I will be subjected to suffering through on a weekly basis. Sounds fun!



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NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.


Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
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This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.