A shorthand brand name for “globally recognized avatar”, it’s a nice (and simple) way to spice up blog comments with personal thumbnail images on the many different web platforms that support the concept. In October last year, Automattic, the parent company of Wordpress, acquired Gravatar and began working the concept into the Wordpress core. But don’t be fooled by that relationship — Gravatars can be used nearly anywhere on the web that chooses to support them.

A nice thing about Gravatar support is also the inclusion of identicons. In the event that one of your commentators doesn’t have a Gravatar when they leave a comment, instead of your blog displaying a whoppin’ blank space (or worse, a default graphic that doesn’t aesthetically mesh with your site’s theme), a graphical hash is instead displayed in its place. The pattern and color are calculated from the IP address of the comment author, so it remains as unique as your fans.

Visit here to see what my personal Gravatar looks like on one of my more-recent comments. And here are the Gravatars/identicons for the top three commentators on my blog:

• Wordgirl
• The Bloggess
• Margo

If you haven’t already, sign up for your own Gravatar account, then leave a comment below to see how it looks.

The younger officer who issued my mother’s citation said to her, “Now, ma’am, you can pay the fine. Or…” And at this point, his voice gained a nudge-nudge/wink-wink as he spoke, “…you can take your neighbor to small claims court.”

My mother is as sharp as a knife, and the officer’s emphasis was not lost on her. They both knew that the courts don’t like dealing with bullshit — if she went to court, it was likely that her neighbor’s complaint would be dealt with in my mother’s favor or dismissed. The next day, mom drove to the city courthouse and spoke with the attending clerk, who asked her, “OK, ma’am, did you want to pay this citation or take it to court?”

“Court, please.”

“OK, then–”

She quickly interrupted, “When can we get a jury together?”

The clerk was surprised. “Jury?!”

“Yeah,” said my mom. “I want the biggest fucking trail I can get for my tax dollars!”

I love my mother.

Her most-recent entries contained three specific things she was thankful for that particular day. Reading each of those reminded me that I used to also maintain such lists myself, in a journal that I handmade from raw materials.

Although we had recently moved and many of my older things were still in boxes. I knew exactly where that journal was. So before I headed outside for my morning run, I dug it out of the closet and inadvertently journeyed eight years back in time.

The first entries were in 2000, inspired by my friend Ellen and her suggestion that tough times are easier to navigate when we remember what’s most important. In fact, she wrote the first entry, listing her five “thankfuls” that particular day:

May 1, 2000:

1) Brown eyes
2) D Milk
3) Horns
4) No fear of dog spit
5) My health

The next day, I started writing entires on a regular basis, each day trying to list five things that I hadn’t previously recorded. Some of my specific “thankfuls” require little explanation, and they all apply today:

“Poptarts and coffee — the breakfast of champions”

“A nice set of boobs”

“Being a Skeeball wizard”

“Knowing it’s not always my fault”

However, the context for others have faded with the passage of time. I once wrote “That Zoe has such good friends.” I have no idea who Zoe was, but I hope she’s doing alright. And I can only imagine the fun I had the night before I wrote “Not knowing where I was when I woke up!”

For a good stretch, I was dedicated enough to write five “thankfuls” per day. However, the entries began to peter out around July of that year. That was the month before I relocated to Austin — perhaps I had packed the book away in preparation for the move? If that was the case, it was eventually unpacked, as entries resumed again around October.

However, the last entry was dated October, right before I returned to Denton for my college’s homecoming:

October 4, 2000:

1) Hope that I’ll find love again
2) Pajamas
3) Big baby eyes
4) Celis White
5) Historical perspective

No more entries after that. It was during the following weekend I found out that Rebecca was engaged to marry someone else, as big of a kick to my spiritual nuts as could ever be given. I imagine that’s why I stopped writing altogether.

Yet as I reread that distant final entry, I winced at the thought that I had lost the ability to count my blessings. Obviously since then, I’ve rediscovered this resource, and nary a day goes by where I’ve not motivated by how incredibly freakin’ lucky I am. My homemade journal was so beautiful. Handbound with needle and thread, with a cover of delicate rice paper and rose petals, it would be a shame for this piece of art to continue gathering dust. That just wouldn’t do.

So I pulled out my pen and wrote the first of hopefully many new daily “thankfuls”:

May 21, 2008:

1) My home
2) My health
3) My wife

I thought it would be nice to share Nilla’s cuteness with you and the world. So when you get a chance, please visit the memorial page I put together, featuring some her “greatest hits” from the photo and video world. Under each photo and video, you can leave a comment, which I know my wife will love. Thanks, and I hope to get back to writing less-heavy stuff soon.

One of the first things I implemented was the Subscribe to Comments plugin by Mark Jaquith. On posts where comments are enabled — such as this one — you’ll see a checkbox below the main comment field:

By marking this field before submitting your comment, you will be notified of all future comments through messages sent to your email address.

Once subscribed, you can manage your settings in one of two places:

• Navigate to any post to which you have subscribed, then click the “Manage Subscriptions” link
• Or, click the Manage link in any of the notification emails you receive

Thanks to this plugin, you can easily keep up with activity on my website. I hope it proves to be a useful feature.

Zoom ahead to 27:22 in the video to catch me — but do watch the whole thing, as it was an inspiring presentation. It helped to get me get out of the creative ruts I was in just prior to WordCamp.

Thanks to John Pozadzides for documenting this event.

Casey disregarded her owner and ran over to our property to bark at our horses and spread chaos. Ed clambered over the fence to retrieve his dog. He’d chase after the disobedient hound, but every time he came close to rounding her up my mother would pilot her riding mower between the two of them. Ed would get held up in traffic, Casey would pull farther away, and mom would reward herself with a chug.

This spectacle went on for nearly half an hour before Susan felt the need to help. She walked to the fence and prepared to climb it over to our side. Mother cranked the steering wheel, sped towards the fence, parked on the other side from Susan, stood high in the saddle, and sternly said, “Don’t you dare set foot on my property!”

Susan blanched and began, “How dare you take that tone with–”

Mother cut her off. “Don’t you lecture me! I’m a realtor and I know my rights. Set one foot over that fence and I’m calling the cops.” With great timing, my father stepped outside. Although he was some distance away, he witnessed these two women staring down one another. Susan turned to gaze towards my father, who returned the gesture by grinning, then demonstratively dialing the police on his cell phone. She climbed down from the fence and walked back to her house, and not for one second did she take her angry glare off my mother.

Somewhere down the line, my parents became visionaries by embracing Texas Hold ‘Em and hosting gambling night every Friday evening. All of our close friends would come over to play, drink, and smoke the night away. One night, a police cruiser drove up to the house. Two officers, a younger patrolman and his older partner, asked to speak to my mother.

Since our town was small enough that everyone knew just about everyone, we recognized the two. The younger cop also knew my mother and said to her in a friendly country drawl, “We’re reeeeeally sorry that we have to be here tonight, ma’am.” The officers were there because of the goat. It seems that Susan and Ed had grown tired of the goat trespassing upon their green pastures, and they had called the cops on us! Before the night was through, my mother was issued a citation for “animal at large,” one of the more obscure laws on the books.

And so began…The Goat Wars.

A petty cash box purchased from Office Depot, I had spent the past several years collecting the flotsam I intended to bury the day I finally moved out of Bruce Hall for good. Each item represented both my current time and place in the world:

• One of my laminated ID cards from the North Texas Premiere Soccer League, within which my team The Mama’s Boys competed
• The operating manual to my first computer, a Intel 386SX with added math co-processor
• Various photographs of family and friends, all of which I hoped I would remember
• A VHS video cassette featuring a Kenmore advertising campaign, a separate contribution from my ex-girlfriend and fellow creative Margo
• Tassles from both my high school and college graduation mortarboards
• A small tin of Spam, my calling card
• A black spiral-bound journal filled with sentiments from cover-to-cover

One by one, I added the items to the box, never pausing to consider their symbolism. After all, I had stared at these trinkets for over a thousand days, ever since I decided to create a time capsule on April 9, 1997, the day that the population of Bruce Hall buried a time capsule in commemoration of its 50th anniversary. With so much time cohabitating with such trinkets, they held no more intrigue. However, the last item in the list forced me to pause and ponder its contents.

In my hands was the black journal, whose insides I never once saw. For the past three years, I carried the journal everywhere I went, asking everyone I met to write whatever they wanted inside. I promised them I would not read the journal until I opened my time capsule a quarter of a century later. Contributors were not bound by my self-imposed trust, and in fact I encouraged them to read it. Sometimes, the journal would disappear for days, as my friends took the time to read it cover-to-cover. On occasion, I would hear a report that some daring things had been written inside. I know that some of the authors were girls I liked at the time, and for years I wondered if they used my journal to confess any romantic sentiments.

My mind returned to the present and the journal before me. Right before I was to hide the book for decades, I was tempted one final time to sneak a peek. Doing so would spoil the wonderful treasure I created and the joy I would feel when rediscovering it,. This chance to preserve a slice of my youth was too precious. With a grin, inside the box went the book. I gently closed the lid, turned the lock, and slipped the tiny key into my pocket, where it sits to this day mingling with my other keys.

Nearby was a stack of white vinyl stickers, each adorned with the green University of North Texas logo. Leftover as spirit giveaways from years of attending student housing conferences, I peeled the backing off each and adhered them to the outside of the time capsule, layering them like shingles on a roof. Soon enough, the entire box was uniform in outward appearance and quite well-sealed against the elements. The only feature exposed was the clear plastic window behind which I slipped the following note:

Ahoy, fellow spelunker!

This is my time capsule that was buried during the ancient 20th century. It is intended to remain closed until April 9, 2022, twenty-file years after I first began to amass its contents. Please do not remove or open this time capsule, as I plan to return that Spring day to retrieve my belongings. So if you are reading this, please put it back where you found it — and consider yourself invited to that day’s opening festivities. I look forward to meeting you then.

As ever,

Matthew

My time capsule was complete. Now came time to secret it deep within the bowels of Bruce.

Because I had already turned in the master key, the prime regalia of my recently-vacated job as hall director, I orrowed the submaster key from the key box downstairs. It would prove good enough to get me where I needed to go. Soon enough, I was on my hands and knees, crawling in dark passages, hiding my treasure in a dark, dank location known only to myself and Jim, in case I am personally unable to return 22 years from now.

I emerged from the expedition with caked dust on my shoulders and the musty smell lingering within my nostrils. It was a melancholy scent, as the fact I could smell it meant all of my work, my purpose, at Bruce Hall was now complete. It was time to leave Denton behind, and along with it the bittersweet memories of the past year spent trying to ride things out.

I returned to the key box both the submaster and my apartment key. Then I headed out the back door, hopped in Kilgore, and drove away to my new life.

Each page or post in Wordpress can be tied to one re more custom fields, where numbers, strings, or booleans can be tied to that one specific post. Such fields are made unique by the combination of post ID, custom field ID, and custom value.

This particular website depends heavily on custom fields to create the relationships (e.g. links) between the main story pages and the individual story parts. In turn, those story parts use custom fields to define which characters and locations appear in the tale. For example, on a story part featuring two characters, the custom fields would appear like this, with the custom values representing the ID of the page for that character/location.

Generating relationships in this manner was required in my early days of Wordpress, as I was unfamiliar with the application and it appeared to follow the path of least resistance to a quick go-live. Along the way came a new version of WordPress, and with it the concept of tagging. Tags are terms associated with or assigned to a piece of information. Both Flickr and del.icio.us users are already well-acquainted with this concept.

After his keynote speech, Matt Mullenweg was gracious enough to spend a few minutes with me, patiently listening to how I used WordPress to create the mixes of short story and book found on this site. He found the concept quite interesting, which is encouraging to someone looking for any support he can find in the blogosphere.

However, when he heard how I was using the custom fields to link posts, he blanched and wondered why I wasn’t using tags instead. For example, he said, I could tag a post with the names of the people and places involved. Then in turn, those tags could be used to generate a variety of cross-post links across my site, either to tag-specific archive pages or a list of related content displayed alongside each post. And as illustrated in later WordCamp sessions that day, search engines love tags.

Believe me, I was far from resistant to using tags. However, there were enough posts on this blog that it would require some work to migrate off my system of using custom fields. So for the rest of Saturday afternoon, while I listened to more sessions, I went about writing the scripts necessary to move data from the wp_postmeta table to the new taxonomy table structures (wp_terms, wp_term_relationships, and wp_term_taxonomy).

The work was done swiftly, and the migration worked like a charm. As of now, if you’re reading a story on this website, the character and location links you see in the sidebar are now powered by tags instead of custom fields.

Custom fields are still being used for other purposes that tagging doesn’t logically replace, such as linking story parts to their main story page. Otherwise, the switchover has been clean and refreshing. I’ve noticed that writing posts is easier now that I don’t have to dig through the admin panels for post IDs. My next steps are to modify my site theme to display the tags alongside their posts, followed by display of other posts using those tags.

I wanted to thank Matt for taking the time to speak with me. His suggestion, however brief and obvious, is much appreciated and should help make my website more functional in the future.

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

This now allows for your picture to appear alongside your comments, and I hope it goes a long way towards developing a stronger sense of community.  For your image to appear, you need to register your Gravatar here.

No, the timestamp does not lie. I really am up at 2:45am.

WordCamp 2008 has come and gone. The next one can’t get here soon enough, as I had a productive experience (even though I was only able to attend Saturday’s sessions) and would like to attend more events such as this.

I was surprised at how much I got out of it, not only on the subject of technology but also overall experience. And the size was just right, with an diverse audience that offered some excellent networking opportunities, my top goal of the weekend.

AB wondered what I had learned, and I think it’s important to share. Here are some brief notes of each session I attended and how I might apply it to my blog and/or life:

• WordPress 2.5 and Beyond: Matt Mullenweg, one of the creators of Wordpress, the software that powers my blog, kicked things off with this keynote celebrating the latest release and its new features, including the cleaner administrative interface and the Gallery functionality. Matt was gracious enough to spend a few minutes with me one-on-one afterwards, and his suggestions on how to reorganize some of my site structure were very helpful (more on that subject in a later post).
• 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog: John Pozadzides of Layered Technologies had a two-part presentation, where he fired off numerous improvements that he believes enhance the visibility to search engines of one’s website. Most of these I was already doing (using ALT and TITLE attributes in my <img> and <a> tags), some I will start doing (hosting images locally instead of on Flickr), and some just won’t fly (using “English titles” to my posts). He capped things off with a demonstration of Woopra, real-time web statistics analyzer with an impressive user interface. Lorelle VanFossen has posted the best review of the Woopra experience on her website.
• How to Prevent, Detect and Stop Content Theft: Jonathan Bailey operates Plagarism Today, a resource to help content owners protect their online work. Because I invest as much creative energy into my work as a traditional author does into a published book, this subject was of prime interest to me. Jonathan laid out a good list of resources, including Wordpress plugins, which will help any user minimize the possibilities and fallout from theft of their content.
• Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell: Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell need no introduction, but they do need thanks. Their presentation was the most-inspirational of the day, at least in terms of sparking initiative and creativity. Their best advice was “Just start!”, as in get out there and write, podcast, draw, or code — but don’t just sit there planning what to do or it may never happen. This and the rest of the afternoon’s presentations were a welcome respite from a day filled with technical presentations up to this point.
• C’mon, Let’s Talk! Building Influence and Interaction with Blogging: Liz Strauss runs Successful Blog, where the title sums up her passion. She made an excellent point that readers sometimes don’t leave comments on posts because they may be so complete that the reader cannot contribute anything besides a flat, “Good job.” I tend to overwork my words, especially when it comes to the Stories on my site, so taking action on that advice should prove an interesting challenge.
• WordPress Power Tips: Lorelle VanFossen rounded out the day with tough talk on what’s good and bad about Wordpress. She’s a well-spoken woman, and her presentation was frank about how one tool — or piece of software such as Wordpress — can’t solve all of her productivity needs. As I told her afterwards, it was a good contrast to the rest of the day, which leaned towards more of a love-in for the software (after all, those attending a WordCamp are likely there because of a disposition towards Wordpress).

So, who’s going with me next year?

Just a quick note to mention that this weekend I’ll be attending WordCamp 2008, the annual gathering of Wordpress Kool-Aid drinkers such as myself. This will be the first conference of this type that I’ve attended; as a result, I am simultaneously intrigued and nervous.

I’m especially excited about the opportunity to meet new people and expand my network. It’s been one of my goals for awhile to better know the blogging community in which I participate. Garnering familiarity with those sharing the same interests as myself should improve not only the quality of what I publish but also my skillsets — after all, I did my best with this site’s code, but I’m sure it’s paper mache compared to the beauty of other’s work.

There will be a number of interesting speakers, including the dude that begat Wordpress. I plan to only attend Saturday (as my garden beckons to me on Sunday). If you’ve got anything that you want me to ask or find out, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to bring it up.

If you’re reading this post at my actual site (versus my RSS feed), you can plainly see that I’ve been quite busy. One of my new year’s resolutions was acknowledging that my own web design skills are a little outdated. So instead of trying to wrestle my own theme together, I co-opted a wonderful Rob Goodlatte theme and adapted it to my own needs. Thanks a million times to Rob for putting his Abstractia theme into the public domain.

For the nerds out there, my Wordpress installation is finally up-to-date, allowing me to take advantage of some nifty new features — along with some swell security updates. Because I was so behind on version numbers, a significant rework of my site’s custom code was needed. Waddling, spit, and twine were exchanged for proper PHP classes and methods, allowing my code to be future-proof and portable. This means if anyone wants to publish their own online book like I’m doing here, let me know and I can get you setup, as my custom code is now encapsulated within a custom Wordpress plugin. And just in time for the upcoming Wordcamp conference, where I hope the people I meet will help me learn more about this wonderful technology.

“Matthew,” called a muffled voice, “time to wake up.”

My surroundings, although fuzzy, would come into slow, painstaking focus as the voice gently called to me.

“Matthew, how do you feel?”

I was cold, despite the thick blanket draped over my listless body. I was sitting in a dentist’s chair and was awake. I guess that my oral surgery must be over.

Buzzing around me was my surgeon, whose name I did not remember, and a couple of comely assistants, whose names I wish I did. They kept asking me questions, attempting to discern if my anesthesia had worn off enough to permit discharge.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, “I am ready to leave.” Each of the assistants took hold of my hands and helped me out of the chair. When I seemed properly set on my feet, they asked if I was doing alright. I nodded. They gently released their hold, and down to the floor I fell like a wet noodle.
They tried to help me up, but I would have none of it — I slapped their hands away, frustrated at the unwanted attention. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I barked. But instead of standing up, I started to crawl towards the exit. The doctor, embarrassed by my display, barked at me to get up. “No!” I yelled. I reached up, turned the doorknob, and continued slithering into the lobby.

My mother was at the receptionist’s counter, in the middle of writing a check for the procedure. When the door popped open, she stood stunned at the site of her youngest, doped-up and army-crawling into the room. Other parents in the room emulated my mother’s reaction, while their kids giggled in highest of amusement. I reached my mom, wrapped my arms around both her legs, and settled down for a well-earned nap.

My brother Michael was in the audience, sitting on a nearby couch and enjoying every minute of my show. Mom bent down to wrench herself free from my grasp, and Michael popped over to rib me in the process. I don’t remember much of what he said, but the words “Spaz!” and “Idiot!” come to mind. At the very least, he prevented me from starting my nap, and for that I hated him. If I wasn’t so doped up, I might have been able to fire back a witty retort about the patch he was forced to wear for his lazy eye.

Mom was terribly embarrassed and you could hear it in her voice. “Matthew, get up!” she snapped. Grabbing my wrist, she forcefully directed me out of the office, into the elevator, and beyond to our waiting car. Dad was inside, and any happiness at seeing his family was muted upon catching my mother’s sour expression. Not needing to ask what happened, he flatly declared, “Alright, Maffers, let’s get you home.”

“No!” I retorted.

Dad was taken aback. “What do you mean, ‘No’?!”

“I wanna go t’ Simon David,” I slurred.

Simon David was Dallas’s oldest gourmet grocer. Earlier in the day, I read they had just opened a small handful of supermarket-sized venues. Somehow in my drug-induced state, this sounded interesting to a ten-year old child.

“No, we need to get you home,” Dad said.

I screamed, “No! I wanna go t’ Simon David!”

As Mom and Dad still needed to buy groceries that night’s dinner, they relented.

When the four of us arrived, I assumed my usual position as cart handler. My parents walked at the helm, excepting me to take up the rear as usual. A minute later, they turned around to check on me, but I wasn’t there. I had disappeared along with the cart.

I could be found on the opposite end of the store, briskly navigating each aisle and filling the cart with every bright color or shiny sheen that industrial packaging could provide. Soon it was overflowing with various sundries, a super-majority of which did not need.

My family eventually discovered me. Mom would later tell me that she was more embarrassed at that moment than at the doctor’s office. Dad assigned Michael to keep an eye on me while the two of them went through the laborious task of putting back the sundried tomatoes, Black Sea caviar, and fizzy French water that wasn’t on our grocery list. Then we checked out and drove home.

When we returned home, my brother and I discharged our official shopping duties: he unloaded dry goods into pantry, while I filled the refrigerator. I opened the door and bent over to transfer vegetables into the lower-level crisper bins.

Unbeknownst to me, the gravitational pull of the planet earth was beginning to exert a stronger pull, but only on myself. In one slow motion, I was brought down to one knee while continuing to unload groceries. Then came both knees. Soon enough, I sat on the floor in a side-saddle fashion. After the final item was inside the ice box, I closed its door and sat with my back against the cold, steely metal. My eyes felt heavy, and a shit-eating grin emerged on my face.

The air was then pierced by a determined squeak. I looked down, and there was our oldest Siamese cat Martha Mitchell. Three years older than me and already ancient by this time, with her trademark blue eyes now a steeled grey, she was frail but still full of vigor. Time had turned her purring meow into a single note of a screech that sounded like a rusty screen door. She sashayed up to my side and began to purr.

I looked outside and caught glimpse of our swimming pool. Then I looked back at her, and an idea came to mind that seemed just as logical as visiting a grocery store half-drunk.

“Hey, Martha! Wanna go schwimmin’!?”, I asked.

The last thing I remember is my dad yelling, “Goddamnit!” as he snatched me by the shirt collar, then tossed me into bed, where I immediately passed out.

I didn’t wake up for two days.

She explained it was TiVo, a brand-new product called a digital video recorder (DVR) that recorded live television for later pausing, skipping, and sorting. I wasn’t too familiar with the technology, so Micha demonstrated its features. I witnessed responsive menus, heard addicting pings whenever options were selected, and I came away fairly unimpressed.

“You know,” I sighed, “that’s neat and all, but I already watch too much television as it is. A TiVo is the last thing I want or need.”

However, Micha’s life had changed as a result of TiVo, so she continued her effort to win me over. She told me how she doesn’t watch more television, but more shows, as she wastes less time by skipping through commercials. Everytime I rejected one of the DVR’s benefits, she fired back with a new feature I should consider. This tit-for-tat continued throughout the weekend.

Sunday came around, and along with it came the Super Bowl. That afternoon we drove to the home of Jay’s boss Eric for a watching party.

Eric’s sprawling home stood high in the hills west of town. When we arrived, our host took us on a tour. Composed of Tuscan marble, Spanish tile, and Austin rock, the abode screamed Central Texas Mediterranean. The living room featured large bay glass windows, affording grand views of the little people dwelling in the foothills slums below. A never-ending staircase took up to the upper floors, and as we rose I caught glimpse of a side room downstairs. Inside I could see a young boy with a mop of blonde hair. Eric explained that was his son. The child was being supervised by a nanny who appeared to hail from the Pacific. If I didn’t already have money on the game, I would have bet she didn’t speak any English.

Upstairs, we were led into The Media Room, worthy of proper nounification because of its sheer manliness. The chamber was high and deep. Stadium seating on one side stood opposite of a bare white wall that begged to be bathed in the candy-color glow belched from the overhead projector. When informed this is where we would watch the game, all of us scrambled to call dibs on the best seats. I staked claim on the dead-middle seat and found out it was already occupied: sitting on the cushion was a wireless keyboard, or something akin to it.

It wasn’t quite your standard 101-keyboard: although it had a full QUERTY keyboard, an array of function keys and an elaborate tracking device took the place of the 10-digit pad. Eric took notice of my examination and slid over to explain the device. Taking it from my hand, he demonstrated its use. After some quick finger strokes, the lights dimmed, the projector burst alive, and surround sound echoed. Eric explained that each key had its own special function: one would churn through the 100-disc DVD changer, another would raise and lower the window blinds.

“And the coolest part,” he said, “is that you can use this thing to control the DVR, just like TiVo!” Those nearby in earshot snapped to attention at that part, their imaginations drooling in curiousity.

Eric’s wife called for him from downstairs. He handed me back the keyboard and excused himself.

Micha slid over with the shit grin that can only come from vindication. “See, even Eric has a TiVo!” she said, “All the cool kids have one. Don’t you want to be cool, too?”

I parried Micha’s blow. “As I said earlier, I don’t need a DVR.”

She chipped away further at my defenses. “Dude, no one needs a DVR. It’s all about ‘want’. TiVo wants you…don’t you want it?”

The crowd around us begged me to listen to reason. “Once you go DVR, you never go back,” they yearned. But their Jedi Mind Tricks wouldn’t work on me, not this time!

Mercifully, the game started, and all attention was on the Panthers and Patriots instead of me. The first half passed quickly, with more action occurring during the commercial breaks than on the field. The headliners were Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, a pairing that had enough musical potential that we all felt possessed to watch. The two sang Janet’s current single “All for You”. This bled into a medley as “Rhythm Nation” started. The duet was then capped by the more-contemporary Timberlake single “Rock Your Body”.

The two strutted and posed alongside one another. And as the show came to an end, Justin foreshadowed the outcome with the lyric, “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song.” He reached out with his left hand and tore off part of Janet’s black leather bustier, revealing a patch of color that looked just like the rest of Janet’s skin. Then before anyone could process what just happened, CBS changed the view, first to display an aerial shot of the stadium, then to an immediate commercial break.

The room erupted into chaos. Shouts of “Dude!” and “Holy shit!” mixed with the occasional “No way!” filled the air. Suddenly, their screams were directed at me. “Dude! Dude! Rewind!” they pleaed. Suddenly it dawned on me. On my lap was the DVR-controlling keyboard. Everyone had to know if they just saw 38-year-old black boobie. I would be their savior.

I snapped to attention and scrambled to understand the controls. Eric had shown me everything but how to operate the DVR. So I pressed button after button until something happened. All of the other men in the room, who like me hadn’t read the instructions, offered their unsolicited advice on how to run the complicated machinery.

Finally, I discovered the right combination of keystokes, and before us was an echo of the recent past: the latter half of the concert was once again being broadcast. I tweaked the controls further, getting us near to “the moment”. Precise control was difficult, as I was just guessing how to run the DVR.

Finally, we got the image paused correctly, and a two-foot tit was frozen on the wall.

Then the room became quiet as we became aware of a foreign presence in the room.

Standing in the doorway was Eric’s son. He was rubbing his sleepy moist eyes, as he had just woken up in the middle of the night and was looking for mommy. As he blinked through the grogginess, he was attempting to focus on the weird image on the wall.

The silence was swiftly broken. “Out! Out!” bellowed everyone, as the child’s presence was impacting our participation in Boobgate. Eric leapt up, shuttled his boy out of the room, and slammed the door shut. We continued rewatching the image over and over. And as everyone giddily enjoyed their unity with 200 million other people in having witnessed a nanosecond of unintentional porn, I stood up, raised my finger, and announced, “I’m getting a TiVo!”

I was sold.

And everyone cheered in support.

Presented in full, read how I had discovered something I had in common with most anyone in northern Louisiana. That is, how I almost became a crime statistic due to a late-night gas station encounter.

After that, I’m not sure what’s next on the horizon. It could be my close encounter with drinking breast milk that wasn’t my mother’s. Or my marathon 13-hour session of vomiting 35,000 feet above sea level. Maybe even my brush with the famous Yard o’ Beef.

If you’ve got a suggestion, let me know.

In doing so, I finally paid attention to Kilgore’s fuel gauge and discovered we were drops away from empty. Shreveport was the last major outpost before entering the no-man’s-land that is an East Texas winter night. I pulled off the highway and stopped at the nearest gas station.

After filling the tank, I waited for the gas pump to provide a receipt. Such lingering proved futile, as the printer revealed itself to be out of paper. “No problem,” I thought. Since I was feeling a bit puckish, I trudged into the station’s mini-mart to stock up on some man-fuel and get a duplicate receipt.

I cruised through the aisles and grabbed my dietary staples: Red Bull, sunflower seeds, and Chewy Sprees. I then hopped in line. Ahead of me was one person who eclipsed my view anything ahead of me, including the station attendant behind the counter. When their purchase was complete and they moved aside, I was frozen by what I now saw.

Neither male nor female, a most-sexually ambiguous human being stood behind the counter. They were tall and wide with gray hair bundled into a ratty ponytail. Clad in a red uniform tailored to no specific gender, my only clues to this person’s “down-there” identity were some pink earrings. “It” rang up my purchases and said, “$4.76, sir.”

I had a 50/50 chance, so I went female with my response. “Here you go, ma’am,” I said with emphasis on the polite address, all the while holding forth a Lincoln. She didn’t react negatively to my choice, so I must be on the right path, I thought.

When she reached for my bill, I gathered another clue to her identity. On the inside of her lower arm was a fuzzy, thick blue tattoo spelling the word “JESUS”. The letter strokes were long and sharply-angled, resembling Celtic runes in their lack of curves. The technique was so crude that it looked like a flathead screwdriver was used for lack of a needle. I knew that tattoos such as this were often the product of an extended stay in prison, and I began to feel uneasy.

As she fished my change from the cash drawer, I tried to discreetly scan her body for additional sexual characteristics. I lingered on her upper torso, attempting to observe some evidence of breasts. On the skin of her chest, peeking out from under her shirt, were additional carvings: five roughly-hewn, upside-down pentagrams in row as if she were a five-star general…of Satan! I stared at the designs, pondering their meanings and momentarily calculating the amount of danger I was in.

“Sir,” the attendant said coolly.

My attention returned to something besides the boob hunt. I caught her eyes, which communicated that she was quite aware I was looking where I shouldn’t. Her stare chastised me, and I blushed.

I collected my change and attempted to slink away with the few shreds of my remaining dignity. I turned around, and immediately I was face-to-face with a man. The man.

He was a tall black man, slender and aged in quite a fine fashion. Sharply dressed in a camel-skin jacket over a goldenrod turtleneck, he was also adorned with a well-manicured, peppery-gray moustache that seemingly floated above his upper lip. His whole visage stood in the shadow of his felt fedora, complete with the bushy feather of some probably-exotic bird.

His calm, dark eyes bored holes into me, as if he was curling up with my soul and reading it like a book. He likely observed everything that just transpired between me and the station attendant, and I quickly grew afraid.

This man slowly measured me with up and down looks. He then broke the silence with a deep baritone and a cadence usually reserved for stern fathers, federal judges, and Darth Vader.

“Why aren’t you watchin’ the game, boy?” he purred menacingly.

His question was so seemingly random that I thought, “Surely he must be talking to someone else!” I looked to my left and right, yet I was the only person he could have possibly been addressing.

Something rose up within me, a reaction that meant I was through being harassed by citizens of the good state of Louisiana.

I narrowed my eyes and obstinately replied to his question with one of my own. “Why aren’t you?!”

The man’s eyes shifted just a millimeter off-center, evidence that he was seriously pondering an answer. After an eternal moment had passed, he looked off into the distance and drawled a resigned, “Yep.” He then turned away and disappeared, seemingly bested by my answer.

I took a moment to pull her around the back of a horse trailer for a private moment. Pressing her back against the trailer wall, I leaned forward and gave her a deep kiss. Then I whispered, “I love you.”

Pam smiled back at me, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until the next semester that I realized why.

Her trademark smile faded as she registered the confused looks of those in observance. She looked down. Written in frosting across the cake she was giving me were the curious words, “Happy Birthday Micha!”

Somehow, someway, Micha had baked her own birthday cake.

Micha quickly glared at Nancy, who was doing her best to not furiously crack up. It turns out that earlier, Micha had used Nancy’s kitchen to start baking the cake, but she trusted Nancy to finish decorating the cake while she rushed to work. That is when Nancy took advantage of the opportunity to pull the prank currently in progress.

That so makes up for being the older one.

Born just five days after me, Micha made it hard for me to forget this calendric coincidence. After all, she had spent the better part of the past week delightfully reminding me that I was the “older one”. This was a healthy break from her other persistent cue: because I was the one of us with facial hair, I would also be able to grow a goatee, thus solidifying my secondary role as the “evil one”.

So when we were gathered together, out came presents for both of us. I was apparently the easy one to shop for, as everyone gave me comic books. Titles like “Justice League” and “Green Lantern” helped solidify the survive-the-holiday-weekend arsenal I had purchased earlier that day.
Unbeknownst to me, unfolding nearby was the curious saga of Micha and her three birthday gifts from the boys.

The wrapper came off the first present, revealing a plastic dog dish. Quite a curious gift, as she didn’t own a pet of any kind. The box in came in contained no note, no card, and no explanation. She looked at Matt, Dan, and Todd, who were all equally unforthcoming.

Micha ripped open the second present, which contained a can opener. Her eyebrows arched as she sensed the brewing diss. I was on the receiving end of an evil glare that silently said, “Alright, you’re part of this. What the hell’s going on here?” I shrugged helplessly, as I was not included in their evil plan.

It didn’t take long for the last vestiges of Micha’s good humor to dissolve when the third present turned out to be a can of Alpo. Matt, Todd, and Dan were highly amused at this point. Despite—or because us—this, Matt and Micha would hook up just a few months later. It’s my assumption that the highly inane chain of gifts was the horsemeat equivalent of a guy letting a girl know of his crush by being mean to her.

In addition, I searched long and hard to find an image of my high-school bedroom, which was covered in Pink Floyd, Rush, and Eagles posters. I finally found it, and it’s been included in “The Surprise(s), Part 3“.

Finally, a photo of me was substituted in “Dead Man Walking, Epilogue“. It’s actually the same image that appeared there before (i.e. Skinny Spamboy), but rescanned to fix graininess.

When tempers finally cooled and notes were compared, it turned out there was an amazing orchestration of people and food that was thrown into chaos when I vanished earlier that afternoon.

It turns out that Pam and my friends had been secretly waiting for hours at a nearby pizza joint, so that my parents could bring me over for my surprise 18th birthday party — a surprise party which I had failed to show up for, because nobody bothered to me about it!

The whole gang was there: Pam, Micha, Matthew, Katie, Todd, Dan, George, Scott, Bill, and Nancy. And since they were tired of waiting for me to show up, they decided to bring the party to my place.

We had a silly time, goofing off within the house, outside on the volleyball court, and inside the barn.

It’s worth noting that up to this day, there had been a hard-fought détente between me and my friends regarding my girlfriend. Out of 136 other members of our senior class, I was seemingly the only person who got along with her. My friends tolerated her presence only because of how I felt about her, but such peace was tenuous at best.

While out in the barn, Pam had found one of my mother’s horsewhips, an artificial riding aid that my mother used sparingly to gentle coax her Tennessee Walking horses into proper form. Pam brought it into my group of friends and jokingly announced, “Oh, cool! S&M!” Everyone that laughed did so politely and without sincerity.

Pam then gave the whip a mild crack, inadvertently sending its tail straight into George’s face.

George’s cat-like reflexes saved his face just in time, but they weren’t quick enough to completely avoid the attack. The tip of the whip flicked him hard just below the eye as he fell back. Then in an explosion of anger, he flew forward and lunged at Pam, screaming at her, “What the fuck!?”

Her eyes grew into saucers as she realized the enormity of her mistake. All of us were aware that George had a fiery temper, but even I was surprised at how honestly scared I was for Pam. I jumped in between them to prevent the unfortunate scene of one of my best buddies beating the shit out of my girlfriend in my house on my birthday before all my friends.

It wasn’t until after Pam broke up with me months later that I realized that this was the moment in time when everyone stopped assuaging their intense dislike for her. Through their actions tonight and onward, my friends let me know that if I wanted to hang out with them, I sure as hell better not think of inviting her along.

It took me awhile to write this story, as I kept realizing what a pivotal point in my life it turned out to be. In short, the story kept getting longer and longer as the number of closely-packed milestones kept coming to light. For those of you reading the story, thanks for staying with it.

A week had passed since Amy had broken up with me. Perhaps not coincidentally, I had begun to recover physically in those same seven days.

I got up out of bed and opened the blinds. As the slats snapped open, clouds of dislodged dust billowed forth. Sunlight visited my room for the first time in days. I held my arms within the beams and examined my skin. Despite being dry and peeling in some places, the majority of its irritation had passed. I was on the road to recovery.

Tired of being cooped up in my dorm room, I cleaned up, slipped on some clothes and went to rejoin civilization.

I trekked down to the Bruce Lobby, where I was always sure to bump into someone I knew. People murmured in amazement when they realized what a rarity it was to see me alive.

After chatting with a few friends, I looked out the window into the courtyard. Outside, an exciting game of sand volleyball was heating up. A couple of semesters ago, I had gotten hooked onto the sport and spent at least one hour each day digging and spiking.

Despite a complete loss of conditioning the past four weeks, I hopped outside to join the game currently in progress. And instead of my usual hour of participation, I played for several, using my trademark wicked serve to make up for my lack of blocking talent.

It was the first warm day of spring, hot enough to encourage most of the guys to remove their shirts, including me. My pale skin exposed, it soaked up solar radiation as if it had gone forty days in the desert. So intense of a sensation, it was as if I could feel the Vitamin D pour into my veins. The brilliant light reflected harshly off my pasty flesh, so much so that it hard even for me to look at myself without squinting.

Someone there had a camera, and I was one of their many subjects.

When I later saw the photos, I didn’t recognize myself.

I was gaunt, having lost a significant amount of weight, and my untrimmed hair had grown quite shaggy. Clothes hung off of me like sails on a ship. “Not a big deal,” I thought. After all, it was visual evidence of something that I had grown truly worried wouldn’t be the case: I was alive.

After the volleyball game ended, I put on my shirt and headed back to my room. It was time to return to what help keep me alive in the first place. I began work on my next painting.

But they were aware that I regularly drove south to get comic books each and every week. And even in the past when I’d fallen off the grid like this, they hadn’t reacted so sternly as they were now doing. I mouthed back defensively and very much like an obnoxious teenager, “I went to the comic book store to get my comics before Thanksgiving!” I punctuated my exasperation with a breathy, woe-is-me, get-off-my-back-man, “Shhhhhit!”

The two of them said that was fine, but they berated me for not calling or leaving a note. I had little fight in me, so I let them finish their lecture. I then shut myself in my bedroom at the front of the house to read my comics.

I lay on my bed, underneath a sea of posters and pictures dedicated to my favorite fictional heroes. I digested book after book, absorbing tales of earth-born mutants, Kryptonian-born saviors, and all-too-human everyday heroes.

Midway through my weekly ritual, a string of lights began to shine through the blinds. One after one, the sweeping beams of headlights swung left to right as a series of cars came up the curvy road leading to our house. Multiple vehicles were descending upon our farm. Yet since I was self-centered enough to not care unless I knew they had something to do with me, I ignored the event and resumed reading.

Through the thin walls, I could hear the doorbell, and Gos, Tyson, and Murphy barked in excitement at the prospect of visitors. I could hear the murmur of voices as several people entered the house and were greeted by my parents.

Moments later, the sound of shuffling footsteps came closer, capped with swift raps on my bedroom door.

Before I could say come it, open flew the door and standing in my room was every single one of my friends, with my girlfriend Pam forming the point of a visibly-annoyed phalanx of high-schoolers.

They barked in unison, “Where the hell have you been?”

Apparently déjà vu was also one of my friends.

The nearest ice machine was two floors up and two wings over, a considerable distance in my current condition. But I couldn’t just sit in my room and think about being dumped.

I threw on some clothes, then swaddled myself with a blanket, draping it over my head and shoulders like a cloak and tunic. Pprotected from any unexpected chills, I ventured out of my room and into the “Bowling Alley”, the crowded, main throughfare of Bruce Hall’s ground floor, so named after the blonde hardwood flooring spanning its length.

I strolled south towards the main stairwell, wheezing quite audibly from the intense labor. With all of my energy focused on surviving, my shoulders slowly drooped over the course of my journey. My hood drooped low, obscuring my face. When combined with my degrading posture, I looked like one of the hunchbacks from days of yore.

When they became aware of my presence, people quickly snapped to attention and made way for the leper passing by. A huddled mass of cloth, with little exposed except for arms caked in red, scaly blights, was an odd sight. In this pitiful soul’s outstretched hand was an empty ice cup, held forth as if soliciting alms for the poor.

It was one of the few times in my life that I cared nothing for what others thought of me. I was on a quest for icy manna to fill my grail. I sauntered past the spectators, got my cold cubes, and returned to the comfort of my dark cave.

Right before turning onto the highway heading home, I spied Best Buy and recalled that I hadn’t rewarded myself with a new CD in quite some time. I steered into the parking lot and spent an hour browsing the stacks. Eventually I settled on some discs and attempted to get back to Southlake.

While fumbling around with my in-dash CD player, I passed North Halls Mall on my left. The video arcade inside called to my soul, and I felt the irresistible urge to play some pinball and Galaga. Soon enough, a slowly depleting fistful of quarter-dollars filled my pocket, and somewhere video game designers were already cashing their holiday bonuses.

Finally, long after the sun had set, I made my way back to Southlake.

Moments after walking in the door, I was accosted by my parents. Both were sitting in the living room, sternly staring at me as I walked in, arms laden with plastic bags of pop culture goods. My mother barked, “Where the hell have you been?”

She had two unmistakable looks on her face: one that wondered how I was feeling, and another that silently said, “We need to talk.”

For several weeks, I had anticipated this moment, as my attempts to get closer to Amy had been met by her further emotional withdrawal. I desperately wanted to be close to someone, but my overeagerness in pursuing Amy only steeled her resolve to be with anyone else but me.

I could sense Amy was getting closer to our mutual friend Rolly. I thought if I just tried that much harder, it would persuade her I was the better man. I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to understand how that led to the opposite intended effect.

I sat up in bed, and Amy situated herself on its opposite corner. The only light came from a nearby desk lamp, which cast Caravaggian shadows across each of our faces.

For several minutes we sat in silence. Intermittently between looking around the room, we stared at one another, attempt to kill the clock until the inevitable moment when Amy would say her peace.

Yet when she finally spoke, there wasn’t much to say. Amy told me that she didn’t want to date me. I didn’t ask why — although she didn’t mention Rolly, I knew her reasons. Besides, I was tired…tired of fighting disease, tired of trying to stay in school, and especially tired of trying to force someone to love me.

Sometimes when you break up with someone, there’s a relaxation that comes from knowing you’re doing the right thing, even if the act of dumping itself is hard to get through. After Amy said her peace, this was one of those moments.

Everything in my room was an art supply of some sort. Once the weight of what just occurred had left the room, we grabbed whatever was nearby. Like little kids drawing on walls with crayons, the two of us reached out to color each other with scores and marks of ink and paint. Soon enough, I was drenched in red ink, as Amy drew targets and bull’s-eyes all over my chest. Her arms were adorned with unicorns and corny tattoo phrases.

At some point, my camera came out, and some of the silliest photos I own were soon produced.

In every one of them, Amy was smiling, and I realized that she didn’t do that often enough in our short relationship.

When the evening was over, Amy stood up, gave me a hug, and threw me one final glance. Then she left — in more ways than one.

Within moments, the system was up. A few swift keyboard commands fired up the internal modem. And chirps and clicks of static noise confirmed a successful connection to one of the many bulletin board systems I perused each and every day.

While browsing around some message threads, the screen suddenly went haywire with bursts of random, ASCII characters. My session locked up, and I was unable to enter any commands. I cursed in frustration, causing my dog to pop up in excitement at the noise.

Looking at the clock, it was 4:00pm, the time my mother regularly called to ensure I was safely home from school. Many times I had asked my mom not to do this, as her incoming calls always knocked me off of my modem connections, and getting reconnected to bulletin boards wasn’t the easiest of prospects. But since she refused to let me disable call waiting while I lived under her roof, we played this cat-and-mouse game each and every day. I picked up the phone, and indeed it was mom.

After chatting for a few minutes about the school day, mom asked, “Will you be there when we get home from work?”

I thought for a second. It was the day before Thanksgiving, so all of my friends were busy doing their own thing. I said, “As far as I know, sure.”

“OK, sweetie. Love you,” she said.

“Love you, too.” I hung up.

Moments after placing down the receiver, I realized what day it was. Sure, it was Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. But more importantly, it was Wednesday, as in “the day before Thursday”, as in “the normal day of the week when my favorite comic book shop received their new shipment of comics but instead got them one day earlier because of the holiday.” The shop would be open today but closed through the weekend. If I wanted new comics, I had to go…now!