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Don’t think I’ve forgotten about quitting smoking. I haven’t. The quit date is coming up rapidly, August 15. When I first mentioned that Britt and I were gonna quit smoking a few weeks back, I had quite a few of you say that you’re interested in joining us. The goal is this: quit smoking at midnight on Friday, August 15, wherever you are. I kind of wish I was in Hawaii now so I could quit a few hours later, but oh well. What’s done is done. For now, I’m chain smoking like a motherfucker.
If you’re interested in quitting smoking with us, I’ve made a little button banner thingie for you to use on your site. Here ya go.
Put it on your blog’s sidebar and if you use it, please link to the following page: http://secondhandkarl.com/2008/07/i-quit/
Don’t say I never gave you nuthin’.
Well, we’re down to the final two days of Karlifornia. It’s been a blast this year visiting with Hilly and TONS of other blog friends, and even some offline friends who I hadn’t seen in many years. But everything must come to an end at some point. By now, Hilary is likely sick of me taking up space in Hillywood and I’m looking forward to heading home, too. Funny, at home I’m nearly hermit-like, but when I come out to California each year, I’m forced out of my turtle shell and have to be somewhat “on” for a few weeks.
Not ALL the way “on,” of course. Hilly and I are very much like brother and sister so we really can let it all (mostly) hang out when it’s just the two of us. But I do appreciate my alone time and I know she does, too. That’s human nature.
I purposefully set my flight up on Wednesday for a stopover in Las Vegas because I’ve never been there before. And really, hanging out in the Vegas airport isn’t the same as getting out INTO Vegas, but it’s still better than nothing. And I’m sure they have slot machines in the airport, so I’ll be sure to bring a few dollars in quarters so I can watch them vanish into the ether. If I, however, happen to hit it big then I’ll be flying home first class. And buying a purple velvet fedora so I can be all rich and tacky and shit. Maybe a few thick gold chains, too, so I can wear my shirt buttoned open to my belly. That’s what they do in Vegas, isn’t it?
Saturday Hilly graciously took me to Hollywood - about an hour away with traffic - so I could meet up with two friends of mine from high school. I hadn’t seen Michael or Chris in over 20 years, and was really jazzed to hook up with them after all that time.
I first met Michael when I was in 10th grade. I had just moved from New York to Alamogordo, New Mexico, a tiny little shithole of a town located in the southeast corner of NM, 83 miles from El Paso, Texas. My family moved down there over Christmas break in my 10th grade year. I hated that, moving, leaving my friends behind. Plus, I was really allergic to change of any kind at that time.
Residents of Alamogordo call it Alamoghetto, and not with any sense of affection, either. It’s a military town, located not far from Holloman Air Force Base, and is comprised of around 35,000 people. And it’s smack dab in the middle of a bunch of mountains. The Tularosa Basin is pure desert. It gets hot, but it’s about as dry a heat as you can get without hopping into a ceramics kiln.
So I knew absolutely NO ONE in this new town, a place where I was surprised to find they actually had indoor plumbing. Not everyone listened to Kenny Rogers, either. In fact, the very first song I heard upon my arrival in Alamo was “Shake it Up” by The Cars. I love The Cars, and I can’t help but think of Alamo whenever I hear that song.
And I dreaded going to school that first day. I was (am) a major nerd, socially awkward (inept), a fashion nightmare, and I signed up for your typical high school courses. Geometry, Algebra II, English, History, and some electives, including art class.
That’s where I met Michael, in art. He sat across from me at our table. He reminded me of this during our visit the other day…I was drawing a polar bear and he was drawing Gandalf the wizard. You know, before Gandalf was cool thanks to Peter Jackson’s trilogy of “Lord of the Rings.” I mean, yeah, he was cool to US, but then so were comic books and 20-sided dice.
He was a year behind me in school and this was back when Alamogordo had a Mid High (9th and 10th grades) and a Senior High (11th and 12th grades). They’ve since conglomerated. But we hit it off fairly quickly, cracking smartass jokes to each other while working on assorted art projects. And the moment I found out he played Dungeons and Dragons, I knew I had made a friend. My brother and I had started playing in New York, but we really had very little idea what we were doing. That was about to change.
Mike introduced me to Rob, another D&D player and another goofus like us. We were all smart kids, and none of us were in the “in crowd” by any stretch of the imagination. We weren’t exactly outcasts or anything, but none of the cool kids were asking us to sit at their lunch table, that’s for sure. Nerds, the lot of us. And that suited me just fine. We were social commentators, mocking those around us in the quad, all the while secretly wishing that we knew why WE weren’t the cool ones.
And we played Dungeons & Dragons. Oh Lord, did we play! Countless hours after school, even more time on weekends, it was pretty much all we did during our waking hours. That, and playing our Atari 2600s. More fun has never been had with a joystick and one red button. The games nowadays are way too complicated for me, unless we’re talking about the Nintendo Wii. But I digress. In case you haven’t already figured it out, I’m quite good at the digression game.
At any rate, Mike eventually introduced my brother and I to Chris. (That also happens to be my brother’s name so I won’t be confusing you by bringing TWO Chrises into the equation.) Chris was a very peculiar chap who was quite particular about who he let into his D&D sessions. It took some time for Mike to properly work Chris over to the point where he’d agree to meet us.
“His mother owns the Travelodge,” Mike told me.
“He lives in a motel?” I asked.
“Yes, and that’s where we play D&D.”
“Woooooow.” That’s so fucking cool! Living in a motel?!
We finally got to meet Chris, walking behind the motel’s front desk into the living area, and then back into Chris’ secret lair, a room lined with dark wood paneling and lots of D&D gear (including the lead figuringes that some people collected).
Fortunately, we passed whatever criteria Chris had for gaming buddies and from there on out, we were inseparable on occasion for a good four years. Once in a great while, Chris’ mom would let us take over a vacant motel room on weekends. It’d be Chris, Mike, my brother, Rob, *another* Rob, and me at a small card table loaded with character sheets and lots of different colored dice of all varieties…armed with chips and pizza and lots and lots of soda and we’d play all freaking night long. It was divine. You know, for a bunch of guys who hadn’t been laid yet, anyway.
I got a job at the radio station when I was 16 and that cut into my playing time a little. And when I graduated high school, I started working there full-time, and that was kind of the end of my D&D career for the most part. But we had a great run. These guys were like more brothers for me. We talked about anything and everything, provided it involved science fiction, comic books, music, or D&D. We even attended a city council meeting once, when there was this nationwide scare about D&D being satanic and the schools were talking about banning D&D materials from the school grounds.
When I started dating, I lost even more touch with the guys. I don’t really remember the last time I saw either of them specifically, but we certainly lost touch until relatively recently. I’ve been in touch with Mike off and on over the years, thanks to the Internet. But Saturday was the first time I’d seen either of them since I left Alamoghetto.
That’s Mike on the left, me in the middle (of course), and Chris on the right…outside the Grauman Chinese Theater. I took a bunch of photos outside the theater…footprints of Douglas Fairbanks, Gregory Peck, and the like (you can find them on my Flickr).
Then we went to the California Pizza Kitchen for lunch, since we were all eyeing each other hungrily, thinking of maybe seeing if each other’s arms tasted like chicken. We caught up and laughed about old times. Michael is a graphic artist nowadays and has done a lot of comic book work. Even worked on “The Tick” for a while, the TV show! Chris is a television writer, working mostly on animated shows such as “Jimmy Neutron” and “Squirrel Boy,” among others.
And what the fuck is KARL doing? Um. Nothing. It was a little humbling to see my friends who have made their dreams come true, while I am sitting on my ass with several manuscripts in various stages of completion. Yeah, gotta work on that.
Anyway, after lunch, we set out on a quest to find a pack of Chesterfields for Chris to bring to Las Vegas. We went to a few smoke shops but found nothing, though we did find one smoke shop/sex toy shop. No shit.
Best of all? I found something I’ve been waiting to see my entire life:
Yep, it was a great day on Saturday. It won’t be nearly as long before I see Mike and Chris again, I assure you. They may not get the whole blogging thing, but I plan on emailing the hell out of them until they at LEAST join Twitter.
So Chris? Mike? Had a blast.
Thanks again to Sandra and Marty for their guest posts this week during the 2HT Summer of Love. Tomorrow, it’s Carly Milne, acclaimed author and sexologist. Woo hoo!
So the other night, the Gay Mafia (and Jerry) came over to Hillywood and Winter and Motley joined us, too. Played some Scene It movie trivia and then Rock Band until Hilly decided it was too loud for her pantywaste neighbors. More pics on Flickr, of course, but here are just a few.
Uncle Monkey Boy before the drunken revelry began.
Rock Band, baby! That’s Othurme, Hilly, Motley, UMB, and Winter.
Attack of the Killer Cat! Michael wouldn’t leave FC alone and FC let him have it a few times. So you heard a lot of giggling mixed with “Ow! OWCH!” every few seconds or so. FC, by the way, is Hilly’s infamous cat. The initials stand for Fucking Cat (no surprise there). This cat is so spoiled, he drinks out of a fucking water glass. I shit you not.
On Tuesday, the day of the big earthquake here in southern California, I met up with my friend, Deana, who I haven’t seen in many years. We used to hang out a lot in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where I lived in my teens up until I got married and went off into the Air Force.
Deana and my bestest buddy, Penny (who was best “man” at my wedding), would hang out all the time, drinking coffee and chatting about anything and everything. It was very cool to see Deana again and we got right back into our conversational groove as if we’d never been apart.
About 20 minutes after she got to Hillywood, the earthquake hit. We rolled through the quake (it was NOT a jolt, by the way) and laughed about it as we watched the news and waited for our cells to come back online.
We caught up - she’s got another child now and is with a new dude I haven’t met, and is now training dogs for a living and has a few celebrity clients - and then talked politics for a while. Yeah, she’s on the left, and I’m on the - hmm, not left. Britt swears I’m a Democrat and I don’t know it, but Deana understands my stance completely. We’ve always been able to share differing views with very little drama or argument. That hasn’t changed.
Apparently, I’m over my bandwidth quota here at 2HT, so I’m just linking that photo of Deana and I from Flickr. Think I need to do more of that. Or upgrade my account. Or something.
Thank GOD I get paid today. Right, on to the meme.
Snatched from the blog jaws of SJ:
I want to:
get my shit together
meet up with more friends while I’m in California
finish writing any of the books I’m in the middle of
find some writing gigs
get an iPhone
I want to think:
that people actually like my snarky ass
that people are generally good creatures
that mean people are hurting
that I’m funny
that there’s a heaven
I want to learn:
CSS
how to better utilize Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro
how to paint better
to stop letting asshats/trolls bother the fuck out of me
how to fly
I want to see:
The Dark Knight
People stop killing each other over religion (or any other reason)
An end to blogiverse drama
My daughters
The inside of my eyelids
I want to try:
Exercise. I really need to lose 15 pounds.
staying out of the drama
bungee jumping
scuba diving
making a podcast
I want to tell:
some people off
people to mellow out
Alanis Morrisette to get pissed and make angry music again
Mountain Dew how much I love Diet Mountain Dew (wish they’d make more diet flavors)
Jerry that it IS “I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair”
I want to touch:
the small of a woman’s back
a new furry kitten
myself
those magnet rocks that Jester has at his house
clean sheets on a memory foam mattress
I want to smell:
freshly cut grass
toll house cookies baking in the oven
Vulva
new Play-Do
rain on a hot summer’s day
I want to feel:
happy
like I matter
the rumbling of the house in a thunderstorm
unafraid
love again
I want to stop:
the self sabotage thing that I’ve come to excel at
smoking
taking people for granted
giving candy to little girls - what? Where’d that come from?
making wisecracks every time I feel a little serious coming on
I want to let go of:
Self-loathing (yeah, SJ, I can relate)
resentment
my heart
Jack’s World
my fear to move on
What do you want?
Oh, and here’s a fake blog post from the Lazy Bloggers Post Generator.
Holy Blog Of Doom, Batman! I just got slapped with a wet salmon - really - I have not updated this since people stopped clapping and Tinkerbell died… You would not believe that my hands were chopped off and I was waiting for bionic ones. Apologies to my regular readers! Even the little blue ones!.
I am overwhelmed with sleeping my way to the top, planning my wedding, just generally being a nuisance to society in general, my day is a magical flight from 8am to I run out of alcohol. I am not being a whinging Pom or anything. I wish you could be here to share it.
I swear on the bones of my ancestors I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. Promise! What do you mean you don’t believe me?
And another one.
Today my parents were reading a book about ingratitude of the European lowlands. They were a little intrigued by that stuff, so they began explaining my friend Julio about it, and he started bitching:
“Dude!.. Get out! Don’t tell me you’re into the European lowlands too!”
But then when my parents got to the part about the ingratitude, Julio suddenly got this dangerous look in his eyes. Then later, Julio’s brother told me that the reason Julio was so freaked out was because he was watching about ingratitude on TV. At times Julio can be really strange like that, but he kinda loves me…
And finally, thanks very much to Dawg for the teddy bear award he gave me the other day. He recently went to the Vermont Teddy Bear factory and their philosophy is “if you care, send a bear.” So here I am, sending a bear.
I’m choosing just a relative handful of people here, of course. I mean, you ALL mean something to me, but I’m not about to list my whole freaking blogroll.
- Hilly
- Dawg
- Poppy
- Miss Britt
- Avitable
- Jester
- Othurme
- UMB (still no blog? REALLY?)
- SJ
- Winter
- Karen
- Becky
- Lisa
- Vahid
- Dave2
First of all, a BIG Happy Birthday to Monty over at The Daily Bitch. She hits a milestone today…the big 4-0. Still hot as ever, though. Go to her blog right now and wish her a happy birthday. I’ll wait.
I’m hoping that next month I’ll get to visit with her when I make my way to Dallas.
That’s right, I’m hitting Dallas for a week just a few days after I get back from TequilaCon. Going to stay with Absurdist, thanks to her generosity. I’ll be visiting lots of friends (yeah, I lived there for 10 years), both those I’ve hung out with in person and some I’ve met online. If you’re in the DFW area, let me know. We’ll have to have a get-together. And naturally, I’ll be visiting with my daughters, too, just before school lets out for the summer.
The only other for-sure trip I’m making this year will be my annual Hillython visit in California. I’m hoping to make it to BlogHer, but obviously finances are key.
CONTEST: Right, so we have two winners for the 2HT t-shirt giveaway. There were 39 entries eligible. Taking a clue from Avitable, I used Random.org to generate two random numbers between 1 and 39 (inclusive, of course).
Thanks to everyone who entered. You rock. Course, only two of you rock so hard that you won, but still.
The winners:
- Dan of All That Comes With It
- Kevin of Kev’s Useless Bollocks
Congratulations, guys. Seems like somehow this thing was rigged, since you’re both Brits, but a deal is a deal. Thankfully, I think Kevin lives here in the States, so I only have to pay for ONE overseas shipping.
Please e-mail me (karl at secondhandkarl dot com) and let me know what color shirt you’d like, and what size. I’ll get them out as soon as I can. Depends on how long it takes Zazzle to get the order.
While I recommend either the Navy (pictured) or the Brown, there are other colors available: Maroon, Dark Grey, and Deep Forest. Oh, and black. Sizes: Small, Medium, Large, XL, 2XL, 3XL.
Anyone else can order one of the shirts here.
Also, I promised you some photos of the Wii party Adam held the other night at his place. It was a blast. We had pizza and pasta for dinner, surprisingly GOOD pasta from Pizza Hut. We ooh’d and ahh’d over the tiny stack of gum that Adam got for $200. And the Strawberry Milkshake Whoppers.
We played Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Lego Star Wars, Super Smash Bros, some Golf, and Bowling. Naturally, I totally kicked ass on the bowling. Got five strikes in a row and then Carolina said, “Ooh, I want to see what it says when you make SIX in a row!” She jinxed me and I got a split in the next frame, only to be followed by another strike.
Adam was so confident that he played half the game sitting down. Finally, he announced, “That’s it, I’m playing for real now” and actually stood up. But no, I cannot be beaten in bowling. Sure, he kicked my butt all over the place in Super Smash Bros, but I don’t count that. *cough*
Here’s a picture of Jerome, Carolina, and James, deeply feeling the groove of the Wiimotes.
And here’s the gracious host. Thanks, Adam. Had fun.
