Mikel Andrews's Blog, page 7

passenger indefinitely

My girlfriend is driving because I just hit a deer. If you saw me you’d assume the mocha spattered up and down my favorite white shirt was from the collision, but it was actually from about 5 minutes prior. I didn’t want to go to Duluth today. Short on funds, weather is shit, and, frankly, I had better things to do….but I needed a haircut.

Obviously I didn’t get the haircut.

I did get a pizza from Pizza Hut which I haven’t done in about a zillion years. Spent the last of my cash. We can only assume it’s mush sprayed across the interior of the trunk at this point. I suppose I could get out of the car and smear what’s left of it all over my Jackson Pollack canvas shirt, but I’m too afraid of deer now.

I won’t be driving again. So that saves on gas.

My book. Yeah, it’s pretty good. Oh, right, you’re sick of me talking about it. Sorry. I was pretty excited about it at one point but I’ve been told to shut the fuck up about it so often I’m afraid to even say the title out loud. In my mind, it’s become synonymous with an eyeroll.

Did you know that the only thing I had left to brag about was my driving? How I’d never hit a deer living up here?

I guess I should be glad nobody reads my blog anymore, now I can write freely here without writing what people think. I missed that. It’s actually pretty tough thinking people give a shit about what I write.

I can’t afford my tuition for my writing workshop this summer. Everybody already assumed that was going to happen, I’m sure, but now I can officially confirm it.

I wonder if I have to quit my job if I can’t drive anymore?

I’m going to stand up one of my best friends for about the billionth time this weekend. It’s only his golden birthday.

My girlfriend confirmed that I ruined her fucking day.

We were going to see a movie. It was a tradeoff for her moving to the middle of fucking nowhere for me.

We didn’t see a movie. It was going to be “GI Joe” though. Just fyi.

Bad day? Shit, man, I’d be lucky if it was just confined to one day.

moving on up

I survived April Fools Day.

Possibly my most dreaded day of the year, AFD is a day invented by jerks and celebrated by assholes.  Thus, I refuse to check social networks and media sources of any kind.  When our journalism isn’t even safe–what kind of world do we live in?!

One of my friends even announced her real pregnancy that day–who does that?!  I don’t know what to believe anymore!

Fortunately, I was pretty occupied all day, moving and such.  And that’s not an April Fools Day prank.  (It’d be a pretty lame one, I guess.)

Yes, it was a whirlwind move from my little condo out east of town.  Long story short:  the landlord was giving the apartment to her niece, so we weren’t allowed to renew our lease.  Shit happens.  We found a nice place right in town but we had to move in ASAP to get it.  So what do you do?

Throw all your stuff haphazardly in boxes and move.  Duh.

Unfortunately all that stuff has remained haphazardly in said boxes.  Not just because of my normal level of laziness, but because painters need to get at the walls.  They’re a little choppy.  Apparently the previous tenants were big fans of those inspirational phrase stickers.  You know, like, Home is Where the Heart is in fancy lettering, or Laughter is Sunshine for the Soul.  Shit like that.

Of course, they weren’t as dainty and elegant when they moved out because now I have all these torn-away half-phrases and chunks of my wall missing.

Smile, it     Stars   now   happy!

Thus all our stuff will stay in boxes until the paint is done spattering.  It’s not all bad.  Not bad at all really.  It’s a little disorienting, sure, but I can’t argue with a couple nights in a hotel room, an excuse to eat pizza and beer–it’s easier! No cleanup! Gimme a break!–and the promise of a fresh coat of paint.  Plus, it gives me ample time to decide where I want to put the TV and the lamp.

I guess the only con–besides the various expenses that come with moving–is that it puts a hiccup in my writing stuff.  It’s more a mental hiccup than a physical one.  When your living situation is disorganized, so are your thoughts.  Not ideal for a writer.

My book is just two short months away from being released.  I know I’m behind on things–I just don’t know what those things are.  I know it needs a cover.  The jury is still out on that.  There’s been so much arguing and back-and-forth and hurt feelings on the matter, I’m almost at the point where the cover could be a piece of a cereal box just so long as it holds the pages in place.

It’s out of my hands.  It’s just that cliche artist thing where eventually you have to let your baby go.  I suppose I’m lucky that I didn’t really have to sacrifice any of the story.  If the cover art is the battle I lose in all this, then I’m getting off pretty light.

But summer is right around the corner.  I’m sure once the real weather becomes more like the weather in Mage, I will become more excited about the marketing/PR stuff.  Everyone loves a good summer story–and that’s exactly what I wrote.

Just a quick update today before I head out to clean up my old place.  All in all, it’s going to be nice to be in town again. Plugged right into the hub of summer activity is not a bad place for an author of a summer book.

What are you guys looking forward to this summer?  Come on, send me some warm thoughts up here–it’s still freezing!

part three: elise

Part 1: Natalie — The Bookworm

Part 2: Danica — The Party Girl

Written by Mikel Andrews

17 Years Ago

Almonds and syrup.

That’s what the wildflowers in the woods behind the park smelled like, Elise decided. She plucked one of the milky white blossoms just below its base and tucked the ragged stem behind her ear, pinning back a lock of her summer-platinum hair. A giant grin split beneath her reddened nose, and she wiggled her loose front tooth.

It was the perfect weekend. Yesterday, she’d turned eight. And today her best friend was getting married.

Not for reals, Elise knew. Jess was just pretending. They both were. But was it pretending or practice? Someday she was going to be in Jess’s wedding for reals and Elise knew, even at eight, it had to be perfect. After all, Jess was Elise’s best friend and always would be. So if anything went wrong at Jess’s for reals wedding, Elise would just die.

She knew it.

So this was practice, Elise discovered. Practice makes perfect.

“It’s almost time.”

Elise stood up from the ground and scowled at the mud left on her bare knees. She rubbed away at the splotches but only succeeded in smearing them. This would not do. If this were for reals, the stains would have been on her bridesmaid dress.

Hoping Jess wouldn’t notice, Elise whirled around and found Jess grinning proudly, cheeks dimpled. The bride-to-be wore a white t-shirt tinged pink at the bottom, but you couldn’t see the pink anymore because Elise had wrapped her in two rolls of paper towels in order to make an elegant wedding dress.

“You look beautiful,” Elise told Jess. That’s what you were supposed to say to brides. “But you need flowers.”

“Flowers?” Jess whistled through the gap in her smile.

Nodding, Elise approached her with the handful of honeysuckles and pinned a couple in Jess’s hair just like hers. “Just a couple. We need to save the rest for your bouquet.”

Jess squealed and nodded in agreement.

Elise frowned. “Where’s the groom?”

“Elise!” Jess cried. “You can’t see the groom before the wedding!”

“Oh. Right,” Elise agreed hesitantly. She frowned again. “But how do you meet him then?”

This one stumped Jess too. She chewed on her lip a bit and then shook her head. “Never mind that part.”

Elise shrugged it off and tidied up the wildflower bouquet. “This is going to be the best wedding ever.”

“Can I be in it?” a quiet voice, cold as a gravestone, asked from behind the two girls. The whisper was all gravel and smoke and gave Elise the creeps. Jess gave a shriek as they both turned around to see who had snuck up on them.

“Oh,” Jess groaned. “It’s you.”

Elise didn’t recognize the girl at first, with only tiny tufts of her telltale red hair sticking out from beneath the hood of her faded black sweatshirt. The girl tugged up and down on the shirt’s zipper, pointing her eyes anywhere but at Elise and Jess.

“Hi,” Elise said quietly, ashamed. Just because they weren’t supposed to like the new girl in the neighborhood, didn’t mean Elise had to be rude. “You’re Mary, right?”

“Yeah.” Mary’s eyes met hers for just a second. “Hi.”

“What do you want, Mary? We’re busy,” Jess lisped hotly, crossing her arms. Elise cringed as a couple of the white flowers fell from the cluster in Jess’s grip.

“Just to play,” Mary answered innocently, scratching the back of her leg with the opposite shoe. “My dad says I should meet some kids my own age. Some girls.”

Elise looked up from the fallen petals to stare at Mary. It seemed like the girl’s face was set in a perpetual frown, and Elise suddenly felt sorry for the frail girl, realizing she could never be pretty.

How sad that Mary would grow up plain.

With a hmph, Jess unclenched her arms, only slightly, and turned to Elise as the loose strands of paper toweling flowed around her like tendrils of a tornado. “Elise,” she said, but it came out like Eleeth because of her missing tooth, “I think I’d like my wedding someplace perfecter.”

Elise nodded. Of course. “Like where?”

Jess feigned thinking about it, although it was clear that she’d already decided. “Down by the creek, I think.”

“My dad says I can’t go down there,” Mary added quietly. “It’s dangerous.”

Jess’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Even perfecter.”

So they left Mary there. Jess, stalking away like a fairytale queen that had just ordered a beheading, and Elise, daintily but desperately trying to keep the bride’s dress intact. She looked back only once to watch Mary retreat into the shadows of the forest. There were no tears on the girl’s face as Elise had feared, but her dry eyes turned out to be even sadder.

As if Mary expected it. As if it had all gone exactly as it was supposed to.

Deeper into the woods, a creek babbled over stones. It was the first sunny day after many rainy ones, and the usually quiet creek whispered loudly to anyone listening.

The wedding went on as planned. Elise played all the roles—bridesmaid, pastor, photographer—while Jess only played the bride. At some point, Elise hoped she and Jess would switch, but Jess was always the bride and Elise didn’t argue.

“Get a picture of me, photographer,” Jess ordered. “I want the creek behind me. Make it look like the ocean.”

Like her words were a magic spell, Jess slipped on a wet stone and disappeared. The creek took her with barely a shriek. Elise screamed—she was pretty sure she screamed—as the bouquet came apart in the air like down from a dandelion. She watched, frozen, as Jess flailed about in the water, the paper towel dress unraveling and slicking against her arms and face like paper mache.

Elise did nothing.

In fact, the only thing she could do was think, Jess is dead.

My best friend is gone.

And just as a spasm quivered in her knee, telling her it was okay to step forward, Elise looked upstream and saw a hand shoot out of the bramble and grasp Jess’s frantic fluttering paw.

Jess cried and pleaded and begged for Mary not to let go, even though the strain on the redhead’s face showed that she had no intention of losing her grip.

“Barbie Doll!” Mary screamed, and it took Elise too long to realize the girl was talking to her. “A little help, please!”

Elise woke up. Sounds and scents and time itself rushed over her like a tidal wave and a sense of urgency finally spurred her in the side. In an instant, she was at Mary’s side, grabbing for Jess’s arm, although Mary had done most of the work already. As though the creek had decided it didn’t want Jess after all, the pull of the water finally gave the girl up and Jess and Mary fell to the ground, a thicket of arms, legs, and tissue, sloppy and wet.

Elise just stood there, mouth hanging open, knees trembling.

The new girl had just saved her best friend.

“You came back for me,” Jess kept saying. “She came back for me.”

“Are you okay?” Mary said quietly, helping Jess to her feet.

Jess found her balance, pulling away the suckling strands of paper. “I think so.”

“Okay,” Mary replied. She lingered another second, glanced at Elise, then turned and walked back up the slope away from the creek.

“Hey,” Jess shouted after her.

Mary turned back. “Yeah?”

Jess chewed on her lip like usual. “You want to be in my wedding?”

Mary mustered a sort-of grin. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Jess replied, grinning widely as the little redhead returned to make them a trio. “You can be my bridesmaid. This wedding is just for pretend—but you can be in my real one someday, okay?”

Mary looked shocked, like she’d discovered a new taste and didn’t know what to make of it quite yet. “You mean it?”

“Yeah I mean it,” Jess said warmly. “I swear it.”

“Okay, then,” Mary agreed. She let Jess take her arm and the two started up the slope without Elise.

“Jess,” Elise called. “We have to find you a new dress!”

Jess turned on her, lips taut, humorless. A look burned in her eyes. Elise wasn’t sure what it meant, but she knew it wasn’t good.

“Mary is my bridesmaid,” Jess told her coldly. “You can just be the photographer now.”

Now

It was a dumb thought to come upon. Not even a thought, just wisps of a memory from ages ago. Silly, in fact, given the circumstances. And yet Elise couldn’t think of anything but.

Her head throbbed. Cool tiles behind her head leeched the dull ache from her skull, but it still felt cracked. Damaged.

Her eyes shot open. Where am I?

The last thing she remembered was being pinned down behind some stool legs where what seemed like thousands of guys—no, not human, no way—were trying to claw their way to her. And before that—

“Oh, God,” she muttered.

“Elise?” a soft voice asked. “Are you okay?”

Natalie, Jess’s future sister-in-law was sitting across from her in a bathroom—a bathroom?—watching her with squinting, barely focused eyes. Where were her glasses?

“Yeah, Nat,” Elise replied. “How’d I get here?”

Where is here?

“We’re in the bathroom of The Attic,” Natalie explained. “Mary brought you. Then she went back for Jess.”

Back for Jess. Something about that rang in her head too. Just a wisp like before. “What—”

“They’re vampires,” Natalie said flatly, almost as though she was exhausted of the answer. “Mary thinks it’s her fault.”

Natalie was pointing to Elise’s left. She followed the accusatory finger across the bathroom to the sinks, where Danica held herself up to a long mirror riddled with phone numbers and obscenities. A long cascade of blood ran from a gash in the girl’s throat. Tears pooled and fell from Elise’s eyes as she stared at the wound on her friend’s once-perfect neck. Though the wound didn’t appear too deep and most of the blood there was dried, not fresh, Elise could tell it was going to leave a scar.

“No,” Elise cried, fighting vertigo to stand. She hobbled to Danica’s side, her bare feet cold against the ceramic floor. “Oh, sweetie, no.”

She reached Danica, placing a hand on her friend’s bare arm. Danica went rigid, pulling her arm away from Elise’s grip. Elise caught Danica’s burning glare in the mirror. The spiky-haired girl didn’t need words to send the message—if Elise wanted to keep her hand, it better stay off Danica.

“She can’t talk,” Natalie said, crossing her arms hotly. “But Mary is going to have a few questions for her when she gets back.”

In the mirror, Danica rolled her eyes and let go a breathy sigh. Even that made her wince, and her hand went to her throat.

Elise whirled on Natalie. “It’s not her fault!”

“No?” Natalie replied acidly. “Whose was it? Yours?”

“No,” Elise answered reflexively. “Why does it have to be somebody’s fault? They’re vampires—you said it yourself.”

“Yeah,” Natalie said, squinting—although this time Elise felt it wasn’t because of her missing lenses. “And somebody made them real mad.”

No matter how she’d pushed the memory down until then, what happened in that alley came rocketing back to Elise in an instant. A big-screen TV that she couldn’t look away from—and the movie was real bad.

As much as she tried, Elise couldn’t put her finger on why she’d done it. Was it the drinks? Was it some sort of supernaturally sexy vampire charm? She prayed it was a love spell, or a drug. Yeah, she’d even take being drugged over the thought that this might have been her doing. Her choosing.

The idea that she was of sound mind and body when she’d jumped all over that guy in the alley and cheated on Mark without so much as a second guess was almost scarier than what followed.

Almost.

That was the one she couldn’t tell. And even though she hated herself a little more for it, she was actually relieved that Danica couldn’t say a word. Danica probably didn’t know the whole truth anyway. True, Elise’s memory was a little spotty, but she was pretty sure Danica had been occupied in the alley when that guy—Jesus, she didn’t even get his name—had swept her away into that building. She thought it might’ve been another bar, maybe a hallway, or just the entrance, but it was quieter. No lights, no music—no people. Just her and him and too many buttons to be undone.

Elise shivered as she remembered ravaging him, putting her mouth on any spot of bared flesh. He smelled so sickly sweet. Clean and pure.

When are you getting married? he asked her.

Between mouthfuls she’d answered him. I’m not.

You’re not the bride?

No.

That’s a shame, he gasped. Guess I’ll have to go back for another drink after you.

It didn’t mean too much in the moment. Just typical frat boy arrogance. She’d been a leggy blonde in college once—nothing she hadn’t heard before. But it was enough to make her skin crawl. And that crawling reminded her where she was. Who she was.

Elise was the good girl. The saint. She was not Danica.

Stop, she whispered.

So she pulled away from him. Or tried to—he wasn’t giving up an inch. His hand climbed higher on her thigh. Clenched tighter. Angered, she channeled some of that old volleyball strength, the kind that used to level girls at the net, and sent him reeling backwards, colliding against a wall.

He hissed at her. Hissed. Like an animal.

For a second, he didn’t understand what she’d done. Maybe he wasn’t used to girls saying no. The look of disbelief on his face was sickening. He actually smirked as he started for her again. Slowly, as if having her was so inevitable that he didn’t need to rush.

So Elise rushed. Feeling some kind of countertop behind her, she braced herself, rearing up both her coiled viper legs and planting her heels square in his chest. He flew backwards, harder than before.

One of Elise’s stilettos went with him.

Both of them looked just as surprised as they stared down at the shiny black shoe sticking out from his chest, peeking from beneath his blazer like a shadowy figure behind a stage curtain.

Their eyes met, but his turned blaze white. Elise thought maybe his eyes were rolling back in his head, but in hindsight, the pupils had just disappeared, burned away by luminescence. A similar light appeared in the back of his throat as his mouth dropped open impossibly far.

And then he collapsed.

And Elise ran.

“Elise,” Natalie was saying. “Elise, are you still with us?”

Elise shook away the thought. Trembled it away. “Yeah.”

“Then answer me,” Natalie continued. “Did you see Jess?”

Jess. Elise’s breath caught in her throat, jagged. No.

She couldn’t remember where Jess was. Not really. She had caught a glimpse of the head bachelorette as she sought refuge behind the bar stools, but, no, she didn’t remember what had become of her. She only really remembered Mary clearing away the savage boys clawing at her.

Mary. She’d cut through them like a knife, cleaving an escape route. She’d splintered a leg at the knee with the ease of taking a step, and put a wooden table leg through another guy’s temple. So effortless. So precise.

Too precise.

Elise had just enough time to think, What happened to Mary?

Then Mary had offered her a hand. Time to go, Legs.

And that’s when things went real fuzzy.

“Elise!” Natalie jarred her again.

Elise shook her head. “No. No, I didn’t see Jess. Not after they swarmed me.”

Natalie’s face turned positively green. Elise’s words had poisoned her, and the infection spread quickly to Elise. A mixture of guilt and arsenic swam through her veins.

It was me.

I caused this.

And Mary saved me.

Before Jess.

But Mary was always going back for Jess. From that day at the creek right up until now. Even with what Mary had done, she was still the better friend. The real saint.

Thank God Jess had invited her.

“Mary will bring her back,” Elise promised Natalie. “She always does.”

Natalie’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Even Danica’s bowed head picked up, her ears pricked. Elise knew that, despite everything that had happened, the redhead was the real mystery to Danica. She’d treated Mary as her nemesis since the night began—since Jess had first mentioned Mary’s name to her, actually—but Elise knew why Mary was there. It wasn’t just because of an eight-year-old’s promise either. Mary was meant to be here.

To clean up after Elise’s mess. To save Jess.

“Nothing,” Elise finally answered. She turned to Danica. “Dani, please, I’m so sorry. Let me have a look at that.”

Danica regarded her with a sneer. She sucked in a painful breath and expunged it hotly through her nose. Finally, she shut her sparkly eyelids and the harsh angle of her shoulders drooped tiredly. Elise took it as a safe sign and wrapped her arms gently around her friend. Danica didn’t return the hug, but didn’t pull away either.

It was a start.

“I’m sorry, Dani,” Elise sobbed quietly into her ear. “It was me. I know it was me.”

Elise felt a warm hand at the small of her back and the slight clench of Danica’s arm. A dam broke behind her eyes and her tears gushed hotly onto Danica’s shoulder.

Like an eerily warm fog, Elise felt Danica’s strained whisper on her ear. “You sure ’bout Mary?”

Elise shivered. She could almost feel the pain that Danica had stifled to speak. Still, she managed a smile. “She’ll bring her back, I know it. Now let’s get you cleaned up.”

Using a paper towel from the dispenser and some pink hand soap, Elise made a crude swab with which she gently swiped away the blood at Danica’s neck.

“What do you think is happening out there?” Natalie asked, returning to her vigil of the badly-chipped bathroom door. Judging from the thickness of her lost glasses, Elise assumed the young girl could barely make out the door inches from her face, but it didn’t matter. Natalie was staring at passed it. Beyond it.

Elise didn’t have a clue what was happening on the other side of that door. Her entire reality had been upended in the last few minutes. She thought she’d known the guy in the alley–or at least the type. She thought she knew who Mary was.

Thought she knew herself.

Yeah, that was it.  The thing that kept gnawing at her.  Mary was different and, apparently, so was Elise. Something had changed since they last met.

Or rather, since they’d all parted ways.

7 Years Ago

Senior year couldn’t have lasted any longer if time was moving backward. Elise was so, so, so ready to graduate it was killing her. Granted she loved high school, but didn’t most popular girls?

Yeah, that’s right: Elise was popular. She knew it. She wasn’t going to pretend the cliques didn’t exist. And she, along with Jess and Mary, had garnered a certain fame from their four epic seasons of volleyball. They were the Holy Trinity. Unstoppable. A nearly perfect record of wins, championship trophies, newspaper stories—the three of them even ate free at most restaurants along the strip in downtown Irvine. As long as she lived, she’d never forget the crowd chanting.

Legs!

Legs!

Legs!

It was a nickname from Mary that had turned into a legacy as she stuffed girls at the net. She was a monolith of intimidation on that front line.

But Elise was ready to move on to bigger and better things. College was right around the corner. She could taste it.

In fact, she was holding the acceptance letter from Macalester and subsequent paperwork in her hands as she waited for Jess and Mary at the local coffee house, Perks. The three of them were meeting to fill out the forms together—it was only fitting since they’d accepted the full-ride volleyball scholarship together.

They were a team. Nobody broke up the Holy Trinity—not even a prestigious college like Macalester.

Elise’s eyes shot to the door of the shop as the tinkling of entrance bells was followed by Jess’s signature squeal. The caramel-haired girl strode towards Elise’s table, a beacon of gold-and-red pride in her varsity letterman jacket.

“This is it,” Jess said, the same Macalester paperwork trembling in her hand. “This is really it.”

Elise smiled. She was pumped about the scholarship, no doubt, but not as much as Jess. With Elise’s family funds, she could go anywhere she wanted for college, grades or not. But Jess was a different story. Macalester was so far out of her price range, it had taken a miracle for her to be offered enrollment.

Sometimes Elise wondered if that wasn’t Jess’s plan all along. That girl always played her heart out.  Took the losses the hardest. Maybe every bump, set, and spike really was her future at stake.

Either way, it had paid off. Big time.

“Are you psyched or what?” Jess asked Elise as the server brought her her favorite smoothie. On the house, of course. “I couldn’t even sleep last night.”

“You better have,” Elise scolded her playfully. “Season’s not over yet.”

Jess held up the acceptance letter and winked. “Might as well be.”

Elise rolled her eyes. “So now you’re just gonna phone it in, huh?”

Jess grew serious. “Never. Is Mary here yet?”

Elise shook her head. “Not yet.”

Just as Jess was craning her neck to double check, the bells tinkled again and Mary was walking towards them. She didn’t carry herself with the same confidence as Jess, and her letterman jacket seemed more like a heavy cloak than a coat. It hung from her frame, baggy, weighing her down.

Although she was hunched more than normal, Elise noticed. And her face looked tired. Her eyes red.

Jess sprang from her chair and flung her arms around the redhead. “There she is!”

“Hi, Jess,” Mary said in that quiet voice of hers. “Legs.”

“Hey, Mar,” Elise shot back. She held up the paperwork. “Ready to hash this out?”

“Yeah, here’s the thing,” Mary said, pulling away from Jess. “I’m not going.”

Jess half-laughed. “What?”

Elise felt a tingling in her stomach. A queasiness, but not hers. Like she was feeling Jess’s reaction in her gut. “What do you mean?”

Tiny pearls of water gathered in the corners of Mary’s eyes and Elise realized where the redness came from.

“I’m sorry,” Mary sobbed, just a whisper. “I’m going post-secondary. Out of state.”

“Post-secondary,” Elise mimicked. The implications swam in her head.

“You’re joking, right?” Jess asked, but she was already crying too. The hand that clutched her acceptance letter had started to ball into a fist. “I mean, you’re kidding. Tell me you’re fucking kidding, Mary.”

Elise wasn’t sure if Jess got it fully.  That going post-secondary meant Mary wasn’t just out after graduation–she was out now.  Before the season was over.

Mary’s eyes pressed shut and she shook her head. “I got a better offer, Jess. An academic one. I have to take it.”

“But, but,” Jess stuttered, wiping her nose. “The deal is for all three of us. The Holy Trinity, remember?”

Mary’s lip quivered. “I can’t go to college for fucking volleyball, Jessica. Okay? I’m sorry, but—”

“Fuck you, Mary!” Jess screamed wetly. “You’re a selfish bitch, you know that? A selfish fucking bitch!”

Jess stormed away, making for the door. Mary reached for her once, but Jess swatted her hand away. Just plowed right through her.

“Jess!”

Jess spun around.  ”You better listen, Mary, because this is the last time you and I will ever speak:  I hope you burn for this.  I hope your precious academic career goes straight to hell–your whole fucking life, in fact.”

Mary sniffed.  ”You don’t mean that.”

“I mean it all right.  I swear by it,” Jess hissed.  ”You’re dead to me, Mary.  Dead!“

The door clattered behind her, the bells erupting into a cacophony.  Elise watched Jess through the windows as Jess got in her car, slammed her palms on the steering wheel, and drove off.

Mary sniffled. “I’m sorry, Legs. I really am.”

Elise was crying now too. Not because she’d lost out on the scholarship—those were a dime a dozen to her—but because she was losing Mary. She was losing the trio they’d built over a decade.  The Holy Trinity.  Broken.

“Aren’t you going after her?” Elise sobbed. “You always go after her.”

“Not this time,” Mary sighed, shaking her head. “She’s on her own.”

to be concluded

a pirate story

Your ship left port a few weeks ago, fresh off the line.  The crew, including you, is pretty green as crews go, but you’re more than willing to do your share.  More than your share, even, if it keeps the ship afloat.  You believe in your tiny ship and its place in the fleet.  You like your new mates.  You trust them.

You feel a sense of pride as you learn new skills.  Your knots are tight and there’s talk that you might make a fine First Mate someday.  The ins and outs of seafaring don’t seem so foreign to you anymore; even the waves seem normal.  Natural.  Sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever be able to sleep without them.

Every ship has its problems, and yours is no different.  A few knots come loose here and there (not your knots, of course) and the masthead isn’t as polished as it once was, but even the greatest ships weather with time.

Your ship loses sight of the rest of the fleet.  Initially, you aren’t worried, but then word trickles down that the admiral has been beheaded in a mutiny.  Your captain throws himself overboard.

At first, the ship keeps sailing.  The wind is enough to keep the momentum going.  You and a couple other promising mates fill in where the wind fails.

It is exhausting, of course.  Fights break out as they do.  A blast from a musket puts a hole in the deck.  Water filters in.  Nearly imperceptibly, the ship is sinking.

Then, without warning, the captain returns.

It seems he has been rescued by pirates.

Rescued.  

By pirates.  

To show his appreciation, the captain allows the pirates to join your crew.  While the pirates are no strangers to the sea, they know almost nothing about how to operate a proper ship of the line.  There are channels, processes, and systems that must be adhered to.

The pirates ignore these.  They are no strangers to the sea, after all.  They know how to make a ship work.  They whisper in the captain’s ear over barrels of rum.  You try to ignore the whispers and tie your knots as you always have.  You steer clear of the pirates.  You’ve heard stories of pirates and they are not to be trusted.  You will never be a pirate, you tell yourself.

One morning you are woken by shackles being clasped around your wrists and ankles.  You and your best mates are escorted to the brig.  The captain has decided you are a danger to the crew.

When you are willing to obey our new allies, the captain tells you, you will be free to rejoin the crew.

You tell yourself you will never trust a pirate, let alone work for one.

But the crew gets to eat, and eventually your hunger wins out.  You beg to rejoin the crew.  Anything is better than starving in the brig.

You still have to wear the shackles.

You used to tie knots, you tell the pirates.  Tight knots that never fail.

They ask if you’ll man the Crow’s nest.  You don’t need to tie knots anymore.  They have someone to tie the knots now.

The Crow’s nest is a boring post.  And you are not very good at it.  Poor eyesight.  You are blamed for every scrape on the hull.  But you get to eat.  Isn’t that what matters?

You forget how to tie a knot.  You forget the name of your fleet.  You forget the name of your ship.

You even forget that the ship is sinking.

“directionless” or “why i put a rock down my pants”

Update:  it’s cold again.  So much so that I took a stone that had been sitting on the heater (in a decorative manner) and shoved down my pants.

Not the front of my pants, freako.  The rear.  Where it’s more normal.

Before you go getting any disturbing visuals, I simply placed the heated rock in a snug position at the small of my back, held in place by my belt.  Let me say this:  it was, like, instant warmth.  Like your first shot of whiskey–without your douchebag friend slapping you on the back.  Perhaps it has something to do with that cluster of nerves at the base of your spine that I learned about on LOST, or the fact that it was really freaking chilly in my living room, but that rock felt amazing in my pants!

Well, this has been my day so far.  To be fair, you’re the one reading my blog.

Even though I really think I’m onto something with this hot-rock-pants thing, I’m willing to move on.  I have the day off and the afternoon entirely to myself.  So obviously I have no direction whatsoever.

Do I write?  Do I read?  Do I edit?  Do I blog?  How much coffee do I drink?

Lot of questions.

Well, of course, I should write.  I should do that everyday.  I’m writing right now.  So there’s that.  But I also really, really need to edit the second run-through ofCOMING OF MAGE.  But (of course) my brain is pulsing with a new idea that I want to explore.  Or rather, an old idea I want to revisit.  A college writing venture that never got the treatment I thought it deserved.

About ghosts.

But there’s about a billion other things on my plate.  I need to put the proverbial clamps (is it ‘proverbial’ if it’s from Futurama?) to all my pals helping me with MAGE.  Concept art, trailers, soundtracks, cover designs–I got a lot of favors to call in.  My publisher–God, I love how that sounds!–says it’s time to start doing some “pre-release legwork.”

And it is.  There’s only three full months and some change until Release Day.  That’s hardly enough time to generate a proper buzz.  I usually spend six months just hyping my birthday party.  Maybe that was my problem.  Curse you, birthday buzz!

Step 1:  Create an Internet Presence.

Here I am, Internet!  I’m present!

Easy.  What’s Step 2?

Seriously, though, I realize how silly a dilemma this is to have.  Brand new piece or the book getting published?  Work on something that will probably end up as an unfinished word document on my flashdrive or get my ass in gear polishing my surefire gemstone?

Surefire gemstone?  That sounds awesome!  I wonder if I can use that in something?

See?  See how easy it is to get distracted by some other idea?  It’s cruel!  Put it this way:  this is the literary equivalent of that night in college where you had to choose between a party and a term paper.

Yeah, don’t act like you picked the term paper.

So which way do I go?  What page do I flip to in this Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book?  Come on, people, I’m sitting here at this coffee shop and I’m almost out of coffee and I’ve only accomplished one mediocre blog post with no pictures!  WWJD?!

I could just work on all the projects a little bit……

Oh lord.  Maybe I should’ve just stayed home with a warm surefire gemstone down my pants.

The back of them, you sicko!

Okay, one picture.

seriously trivial III

As fast as it came, it went.

Trivia Weekend crept up on me faster than ever before.  It was like all this hype, planning, and waiting and then all of a sudden I was running late, pulling underwear right out of the dryer to pack in my overnight bag.

It was a long (and somewhat icy, and at times, blizzardy) drive from the North Shore to Brooklyn Park.  And as white-knuckled as I was, I’m relieved that I didn’t skip this year’s 50-Hour Caffeine-and-Shots-Mixed-with-Pure-Google Useless Information Contest-O-Rama, because it was truly one for the memory books.

This year was all about traditions.  Whether it was adhering to old ones or creating new ones, our trusty team (Enjoy the Man Explosion!) was all in, even as the calendar struck one decade.

That’s correct, ETME! celebrated its 10th year doing Trivia Weekend this year.  And it was glorious.

All the classic elements were there.  Last minute booze runs to cobble together the components of the Team Drink, Super Lion Bombs.  Buying action figures that you’ll never touch again.  Stockpiling snacks even though Alison probably made more  delicious food than you could ever eat in one weekend.

And then there were the new elements:  new faces, [relatively] healthier food choices, and a much classier dress code.

The team classed it up with dress shirts, dresses, and ties–or in some cases that shall remain nameless–a borrowed tie zipped around the neck of your hoodie.  The team looked ravishing and thus the weekend could only be captured in classy black-and-white by our fearless leader.

So after a second last-minute liquor store/Transformer  run, I loaded up my energy drink with rum and slid into my designated spot just in time to snag a pic of my favorite TW tradition:

And then Hour 1 started with a bang.  Off and running.  Sort of.  We had a little internet incident:  we didn’t have any.  Yet another tradition:  the Ol’ Start Trivia With a Dramatic Technical Issue thing.

Last year, it only affected me.  I couldn’t get my brand new laptop to connect to the network, which led me to having a classic “Mikel First Night Freak-out” which, in turn, led my teammates to calling me a big babby [sic] and even making up memes for the incident.

So, this year, it was just sweet, sweet justice as I watched my team struggle for answers on their smartphones.  (Ain’t technology great?)  Still, we survived.  Perseverance is not something ETME! lacks.  Obviously–I mean, we’ve been doing a 50-hour trivia contest for a decade with no chance in hell of winning for crying out loud!

Other than the expected Great Internet Blackout, the other greatest predator of ETME is the human body’s need for sleep.  AKA “the first night drop-off.”  Usually we are all so gung-ho about Trivia–and who wouldn’t be?!–that everyone tries to stay up all night and then, inevitably, we all end up crashing at the same time, leaving some sleepy-eyed sucker to try and carry the weight.

Now we try to sleep in shifts.  And it only took us 10 years to figure it out!

But it’s tough.  I personally hate sleeping at all during Trivia.  Every hour you’re in Slumber Mode is an hour you weren’t spending quality time with your best buds.  It’s actually painful to think about.  But people gotta sleep.

Unless you’re Dunkel.  That guy’s a machine.

I actually did pretty well sleep-wise.  I survived off two hours the first night and four hours the second.  It’s all about strategic cat naps!  Efficient!

And, for me, this year was all about efficiency.  Let me tell you how the first night usually goes:  I answer maybe one question, drink myself into a coma, wake up Saturday morning at 10 going “What the hell happened?”

Not this year, folks.  Old Mikel stayed fast.  Just suckin’ down enough of my upper-downer cocktail to stay focused.  When it came to answers, I scored a personal best (approx. 45).

Of course, it certainly helped that this year’s theme lent itself quite well to my expertise.

This is literally what I’ve been waiting for my entire life.  A Trivia theme tailor-fit for my couch-lovin’ ass!  I mean, I guess it could have been, like, real science instead of sci-fi and I would’ve been just as screwed.  But fortunately, a good chunk of the questions had to with fictional spaceships, species, and robots.

In fact, there was an entire Audio Speed Round made just for me.  Usually when the words “Audio Speed Round” leave the KVSC DJ’s mouth, it’s like a magic spell that puts me to sleep…or at least conjures me into watching YouTube videos for an hour.  But this particular Speed Round was solely about TV/Movie robots.

Are you kidding me?  I almost threw my laptop out the window in an act of defiance!  Can you say “cakewalk” in a fluty, sing-song voice?  I was like 4 credits away from majoring in Fictional Robots in college before I realized it wasn’t a real major!  Come on!

It was glorious.  I was like a multitasking machine during that round.  Searching for the answer to one question while mindlessly barking out the answer to another.  It’s like I blacked out for an hour and when I came to, the scoresheet looked like this:

Paradise.  Absolute Nerdvana.  I was home.

The rest of the weekend went by the book.  Fingers flashing along keyboards like pale, pasty daggers, clacking away to the tune of a thousand crustacean claws.  Fine-tuned minds programmed for the most precise possible way to phrase our Google searches.  This has been the greatest gift of my time with ETME!  My researching speed has increased exponentially.  It helped me in college, it helped me last week.  You don’t even realized how super-charged your post-Trivia searching becomes until you’re casually hunting down a factoid with coworkers and suddenly you’re telling them the answer off your smoking smartphone while they’re still reaching for their holsters.

Heart rates fluttered as we waited to see if we’d get through to the phone bank, then to see if our answer was correct, incomplete, or wrong altogether.  If it was right, we were awarded with not only points, but the iconic Dunkel thumbs-up.  Much like the gladiators of old, for 50 hours, we live and die by that thumb.

And then, of course, the cathartic laugh at the phone bank volunteer’s clever moniker.  ”Thanks, Steaming Pile.”

The food was exquisite and plentiful.  Too plentiful.  And the exotic, 24-hour buffet of snacks are always there, begging to be eaten.  Strange cravings and a surreal sense of time passing mingle with the usual munchies that accompany drinking–and the end product is as shocking as it is beautiful.

It’s not rock bottom if you’re eating a barbacoa-beef-and-provolone sandwich made out of French Toast at 3 a.m….

It’s just Trivia Weekend!

Right, guys?  That’s normal, right?

Super Lion Bombs flowed like neon waterfalls.  It gets harder and harder to find the ingredients.  But it’s not about what’s in the cup(s), it’s what it symbolizes.

I could tell you about the specific questions and answers, or list all the goofy team names.  I could even link you to YouTube version of Bicentennial Man I watched all weekend in 10-minute increments as an end-of-the-round treat to myself.  But that’s not what Trivia is.

This is my third Trivia Weekend recap and, truthfully, I struggle to write them every time.  In my opinion, no words will capture the stupid shit we find ourselves laughing at until we’re in tears, the squint of our eyes as we try to read the poster in the background of a grainy YouTube video, or the bliss of chasing the world’s worst schnapps with the world’s worst (and probably nuclear) energy drink.

Luckily, I don’t have only words at my disposal.  In honor of the team’s 10th year anniversary, I’ve set some of my favorite Trivia Weekend moments in that classy black-and-white.  So queue up “Time of Your Life” or something equally cliche and enjoy.

From our early days, when our HQ was the dorms and some Mountain Dew to the strategically-placed stronghold we’ve developed, Enjoy the Man Explosion! packs a punch, intellectually-speaking.  Every year could be our last, and every moment is a missed opportunity for a photo in my opinion.

We’re a different breed, man.  Always have been, always will be.  I love you all, guys, and here’s to Year XI.

Cheers.

original photos: kell sanders

i still function

Where have I been?  That’s a good question.  I’ve been busy with a multitude of things–but nothing more prominent than relaxing.  Or decompressing, maybe.  Re-energizing, for sure.

I hate to admit it, but every once in awhile I get to the point where putting another word on paper becomes a chore.   Status updates, Twitter tweets, blog after blog after blog.  I mean, I wrote a book, people, don’t I deserve a goddamn break?!

Clearly.

So I took a conscious step back from the proverbial page and focused on the things that bring me great pleasure:  food, drink, and Transformers.

I also threw in some Tae-Bo for good measure and work is always busy–even at its slowest–so it wasn’t all fun and games.

But mostly fun and games, yes.

I visited some old friends, and family.  I read books that weren’t my own, which was nice.  You’d be surprised how sick of your own book you get when you’re going over it, day after day, combing it for errors and changes.

Don’t get me wrong, guys, it’s good.  Really good.  Hella good, even.  Let’s not go cancelling any orders here, right?  Buddy?

I met a new friend.  He’s from Chile, a country which I knew almost nothing about except that one time my ex-girlfriend studied there and when she came back she dumped me.  So, I guess I had kind of an aversion to Chile.  It steals girlfriends, obviously.  But Nico (said Chilean) is pretty cool.  And his English is so good that I’m actually learning some Espanol, rather than just regurgitating it like a handsome parrot.  Anyway, he’s in law school and I taught him how to tend bar and now he doesn’t want to go back.  Whoops.

Perhaps my greatest accomplishment is getting my girlfriend (the current, non-evil one) to actually enjoy Transformers.  Not just enjoy, but actually choose to watch seasons of it on DVD.  I don’t know how long I can run with this, but I’m running with it.  Far and wide.

I just needed to get out a little.

You know, get some perspective.

Bumpy as it was, it was a good break.  And while I think I deserved it, I also think it’s time to get my head back in the game.  The Writing Game, that is.  My literary tendons have atrophied and there seems to be some blockage in the ideas pipe these days.   Writing is truly a skill that must be exercised daily.  Unlike Tae-Bo, which hurts my groin if I do it daily.

So it is back to you, Blog, you cold bitch.  And back to you, Twitter, you savage fuck.  And Facebook, don’t even get me started.  But it is with you three I will reclaim the gladiatorial arena that is the Internet.  I will create a presence.  I will be my own hype boy.

Coming of Mage is, well, coming.  Soon.

Sssh, you didn’t see this.

And while I should probably get crackin’ on that whole sequel thing, I can’t help but want to explore some other ideas.  Other styles of writing.  I’ve been reading 1984, okay, people?  That is literature, man.  I want to write that.  Literature, I mean–not 1984.  That’s been done.  Although, is there a sequel?  A 1985, as it were?  Now that’s a franchise!

Kidding.

But fear not, fans of old, I’m not switching over to fine literature entirely.  (Probably impossible.)  I’ve still got plenty of quirk up my sleeve.  And by quirk, I mean dragons, robots, and a slew of other hard-to-believe shit that I’m going to make you like.  And I haven’t given up on Vampires Not Allowed.

But first…TRIVIA WEEKEND 2013!  STAY TUNED!

sequelitis strikes again!

A new, more potent strain of Sequelitis has been discovered.

While mixing Tweeting with 2Gingers Whiskey–something I don’t condone, by the way–I stumbled across a Tweet between a couple authors:  CJ Redwine and Shannon Messenger.

 

Of course I did what I do best:  bust up what is clearly a sentimental Tweet between two old friends by putting the spotlight on myself:

 

I know what you’re thinking:  #WhatAJerk

Fair enough.  But it was a knee-jerk reaction (emphasis on jerk) to seeing myself struggling with the same stuff as real, published authors.

Which reminded me:  I am a real, published author.  Or will be in June.  But in the midst of planning all the release day stuff, I am supposed to be writing the sequel.  There are worse things than being greenlit for sequels, right?  Still, it does tend to weigh on you.

Before, the tension came from wondering if what I was writing would ever get picked up.  Now, I have to worry about getting it done on time!

Still, “Sequelitis” is a very serious thing.

As I previously defined it, Sequelitis is that gnawing, scratching drive at the back of a writer’s head that turns a perfectly good stand-alone story into a series.  That obsession to find out what your beloved characters are up to lately the only way you know how:  by writing a new story.

However, this new strain is induced.  An obligation more than a drive.  Who knows what might happen?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty I can do with a Mage sequel.  Quinn, Tristan–and even Selia–have plenty more quests ahead of them.  The stakes are higher.

Deadlines, man.  I tell ya.  It’s college all over again.

But I loved college, so bring it on!  I already got my trendy hoodies out of storage and a mini-fridge stocked with PBR!  And, fortunately, the sequel is set in college–so I have an excuse to channel College Mikel.  And guess what?  My girlfriend can’t say boo about it because it’s my career lifelong dream!

Much like a cold, you can feel Sequelitis creeping in.  Today I realized my To Read List is all sequels.  The Wise Man’s Fear, Goliath, Caine Black Knife.  Even when I deviated with Riordan’s The Red Pyramid, I was still more worried about the sequel!

(Although, truthfully, I don’t think I’ll get there–Riordan kind of phoned it in on Pyramid, in my opinion.)

This symptom of Sequelitis doesn’t end with books either.  My desire to watch movie sequels has grown too.  Secret of the Ooze, Hellboy II, Ghostbusters 2, MIIIB, The Two Towers (arguably the best of the LOTR film trilogy).

And Empire Strikes Back.  The greatest of sequel of all-time, right?

Sequels themselves fall victim to Sequelitis.  An inflammation of the sequel.  The key to a good followup book or film is tough to place.  I’ve often tried to analyze what makes a sequel a success.

For starters, you need to have a story to tell.  It can’t feel forced.  Even if Book 1 was driven by fame and fortune, Book 2 better be about integrity.  If a writer doesn’t care about his/her characters, it’s going to show.  Like Mario 2.  Fun game, but everyone knew something was a little…off.  And sure enough, it turned out Mario 2 was a completely different game with familiar faces slapped on the characters in order to make deadline.

Secondly, a sequel should take what you know about the original and expand on it–not turn it on its ear.  Like if your magic character from the first story turns out to be an alien and needs to get back to his home planet.  Movies fall victim to these devices, because occasionally an actor needs a fast exit from the project, but in a novel–I think it just comes off as sloppy.

Thirdly, don’t get bogged down by action.  Just because you have the origin story out of the way, doesn’t mean you can just steamroll through details.  I’ve said it before:  planning the party is usually more fun than the actual party.  I can’t stand stories where Part I is about a guy getting super powers, and then Part II is just said super guy showing off said powers.  Lame.

Look at me, talking like an authority on the subject.  I realize this is my first book and I shouldn’t be teaching a writing class anytime soon–but I’ve read/watched plenty of sequels.

They are an art form all their own.

Okay, so indulge my fever:  What’s your favorite sequel(s)?  Book or Movie?  How about the truly terrible sequels?  What made them so forgettable?

Follow CJ Redwine

Follow Shannon Messenger

we were all too old for this: a documentary about Pokemon and life

Let me tell you all a story about the summer of 2008.

I was living in St. Cloud, down on my luck, low on funds.  I had just accepted a unique employment opportunity at Spencer’s Gifts in the local mall.

Life wasn’t exactly pouring sunshine down my throat.

My college friends had all moved away, onto bigger and better things.  We still talked and got together occasionally, but mostly I was in a socioeconomic class all on my own.

Well, not entirely.

Meet Glen David.

Exactly as I did.

Glen loved Star Wars, tigers, Mountain Dew, staying up late, sugar, and doing things on an extreme budget.  He instantly became my new best friend.  Never have I met somebody so full of life–even at his drowsiest.  You bounce an idea off Glen David, he’ll at least give it a try.  And he’s as loyal as a bodyguard.

Glen and I had spent a lot of days together, throwing disc and chatting Star Wars.  But I’ll never forget that fateful day I was strolling though Target, saw a pack of Pokemon cards, and made a call to Glen David.

REWIND:  When I was in middle school, my cousin and his girlfriend got me a deck of Pokemon cards.  We sat down and tried to play that day.  I think we got through a single match although, for the life of me, I could not grasp the concept.  There were little glass beads and attacks and coins to flip and poison and burning and multicolored creatures that induced seizures!  I knew I liked something about it, but I never thought I’d play again.  For one thing, I was an only child with not many friends.  For another, I did NOT have the patience to learn the Machiavellian intricacies of Pokemon.  I left the cards–along with my hopes and dreams–at the bottom of my closet.

Summer 2008:  Something was triggered inside me that day in the Target store.  Some nostalgic/arrested development/pre-midlife crisis desire to buy those Pokemon cards, learn to play (for real this time), and settle a score with a younger version of myself.

So I made a call.

                                                                   Glen:  Hello?

              Mikel:  Glen, have you ever played

          the Pokemon card game before?

I don’t remember hearing the ethereal thunderclap–thundershock?–of fate that day, but I have to assume that someone, somewhere winced at the sonic boom of destiny changing forever.

It started with me buying the deck–Diamond and Pearl: Majestic Dawn: Polar Frost–a guy never forgets the first Pokemon deck he chooses.  Next, Glen brought over a shoe box filled with retro cards.  A little dog-eared and battle ravaged, but still a great collection.

Then he designed a deck.

Hold it!  WHAT?!  You can MAKE YOUR OWN DECK?!

My mind was blown.  As pathetic as it sounds now, the idea of using anything but the factory-sealed pre-made theme deck was earth-shattering.  New doors opened!  Glen was a genius!  No way could I ever stop a strategically-designed Glen David original deck.

First time out the gate, I trounced him.  Hard.  We both just sat there, jaws open, ears still ringing from the blast.

What happened?  I had only a casual, passing knowledge of this game and Glen had once been a master.

We quickly realized the problem:  Glen’s cards were too old to compete with my fancy new cards.  With their higher HP (hit points) and stronger attacks, there was no way that the original generation of cards could stand up to the new league.

The solution was simple:  Glen had to get a new, up-t0-date deck pronto.  And I checked online to see what cards I would need to build my ulitmate deck–A Grass-, Water-, Electric-type.

A new addiction was born.

It started quietly enough:  late night runs to Walmart for booster packs.  Battles at the kitchen table when my roommates were asleep.  We weren’t so rich that we could just go out and buy, buy, buy.   There was wanting and wishing.  Talking about pay days weeks away that maybe, just maybe after bills were paid, we could buy that deck.  Get that card.  Win that match.

It gave us purpose.  Gave me purpose.

In the meantime, I was falling in love with the idea of Pokemon.  I’ve said it before–and I know it sounds silly–but there is really something magical about the concept of Pokemon.  The idea of setting out in this world of creatures, making a name for yourself, choosing a “type” that represents you and running with it.  I found I had an affinity for Grass Pokemon–they way they could poison the offending Pokemon, doing damage even after they were Knocked Out, or heal themselves or other Pokemon, prolonging their life.

This will shock none of my friends:  I went beyond a game and took it to the next level.  In hindsight, I may have gotten too into the concept of Pokemon…

I got obsessed with adding Pokemon into pictures of my friends.

Facebook profile pics were never the same again.

I started to think that maybe Pokemon was the key to advertising to an untapped market.

And in the meantime of that meantime, Glen and Mikel’s little hobby was gaining a following.  We found others like us:  Twenty-somethings that were more than a little nostalgic for a game from their past and had way too much free time.  Word got out that the little table in my living room had become a stadium.  The hidden compartments in the benches made for a perfect spot to stash all our decks, damage counters, rulebooks, etc.

Our friends knew we were into something–and they wanted in.

So we rallied the troops.

Jordan was a natural.

He thought of single-card strategies that defied physics.

He dominated with Psychic-types, earning him the nickname…

“Tom Bomb” was a purist.

One type to rule them, one type to catch them all.

His signature attack always hit in the high hundreds.

And we hated him for it.

I personally trained Amber.  She played just this one time.

Justin got to the party a little late, but still caught the tail end of the craze.

He mastered Dialga and his “Time Bellow” attack.

Retroactively earning him the nickname “Justin Time.”

I hadn’t seen Justin since 10th grade at this point.

I don’t want to say it was Pokemon that reunited us, but it certainly helped.

And definitely got us through some rough times.

So along with these characters, their girlfriends, and a few more Poke-fans, we had a little bit of a league going on.  Summer days would be wasted indoors playing this game.  Mass texts would go out near midnight:  BATTLE?  We knew we were ridiculous and way too old for this…but it didn’t matter.  Just for a few t00-brief months, we were The Outsiders of trading card games.  The Brat Pack of classic card nights.  St. Elmo’s Fire with Japanese cartoon characters.

And the next step was obvious to me:  I had to host a tournament.  At the very least, it was an excuse for me to make a graphic.

We gathered in my apartment, with the promise of snacks and prizes.

We brought our best decks.

We had an intricate scoring system.

The scoreboard helped us keep track of said system…

…and also allowed for semi-anonymous trash-talking.

Tensions ran high.

A lot was at stake.

People got emotional.

Queue up this song for the finale.

The tournament lasted a few hours.  Tom Bomb won the whole thing (shocker).  Prizes were doled out.  Booster packs and card-holders.  Goofy little gag gifts that nobody probably has anymore.  Everyone got a copy of the Official Tournament Soundtrack made by me.

It was the peak of our Pokemon battling days.

After that, the craze kind of fizzled out.  Couples broke up.  Moved away.  It got harder and harder to get people together.  The booster packs seemed to be getting more expensive.  I sold my cards at a garage sale.  A collection of cards I probably put hundreds of dollars into went to a kid that happened to be walking by and had $5 in his pocket.

I did keep a few decks, but with no new cards to supplement them, the game grew somewhat stale.  I moved north and taught my cousin’s daughter to play, even MacGyvered her a deck out of some of my spare cards.  But eventually that deck ended up where my very first Pokemon deck ended up:  scattered and tattered.

The other night I was going through a closet and found my decks.  Just had a hankering to play, I guess.  I asked my girlfriend to play, just for old time’s sake.  She had a gently-used deck from when she thought she might get into the game–but she’d given up after a few hands.  I pleaded my case and she sighed and agreed to battle me.

I barely remembered how to play.  Do you start with 6 or 7 cards?  Do Prize Cards get dealt out before or after your hand?  Can you use a Poke-Power from the Bench?  Embarrassingly, I had to consult her copy of the rules–I’d thrown all mine out, obviously.

We played a few rounds.  For her, it cemented that she didn’t really care for the game.

For me, it filled my lungs with a fresh blast of air, sweetly spiced with the fragrances of the past.  Memories erupted with every card I played.  Pangs of guilt that I hadn’t seen Glen or Jordan or Justin in years gnawed at me with every attack I announced.

It reminded me that I survived then with so little.  And now wouldn’t be any different.

So you can roll your eyes at me when I talk about Pokemon.  You can get that glaze of disinterest when I mention a sweet hand I played.    You can make fun of me and tell me to grow up.

But you can never, ever take away what that game meant to me:  a feeling of camaraderie, a sense of belonging, and a group of friends I might’ve never met otherwise.

And on Monday, when I hit up the big city of Duluth to catch up on some supplies and errands, I might just have to stop by the trading card section and check out the latest decks.  Maybe just pick up a booster pack.

One booster pack.

For old times’ sake.

the truth about my old neighbor, my book, and my beer boot

Where to begin, man.  Really.  The last few weeks of my life have been a whirlwind.  And I don’t mean that in the girly, dramatic way I usually do.

I took a much needed vacation back to my hometown and stayed [relatively] at my grandmother’s house and hung out with my dad.  It was sort of like running and jumping into a river that you realize is moving much slower than you are.  It was relaxing when I finally got used to it.

But there were times when I just couldn’t grasp the concept of “chilling out.”

I’m supposed to be doing something!  I realized my job has left me with this million-mile-an-hour setting that I can’t combat even on vacation.

Fortunately, there were plenty of things to keep me distracted.

For one thing, I saw some friends that I hadn’t in quite awhile.  This little sabbatical I take every year is always filled with mini-reunions.  But this reunion was no “mini.”

If any of you knew me growing up, you know how epic this picture is:

Stop rubbing your eyes, all my high school friends, it’s real–that’s me and Lance.  If you’ve asked me about my childhood–or read my final essay for Nature Writing in college–you’d know that this guy is quite nearly the sole reason I survived.  I was an overweight, overprotected only child in a small town in a neighborhood that lacked any other kids.

I was doomed.

Lance was my hero, man.  My neighbor.  My big brother.  Sure, he picked on me.  Yes, I was afraid of his dog.  Did he constantly remind me I was a virgin?  Absolutely!  But he also watched out for me.  Knowing this guy opened doors for me in the cutthroat social hierarchy of high school–but it also taught me about loyalty.  This guy never gave up on me–about writing, about staying active, about doing rather than hiding.

Even though we lived in a small town, I lost track of Lance in high school.  I mean, I saw him in the hallway, or at sporting events.  Every once in awhile we got together for a movie or video games, but his path through high school was a little different than mine.  And after high school, well, our paths deviated completely.

I lost track of Shoe.  For roughly 10 years.

Every once in awhile I’d check Facebook to see if he’d finally signed up.  Or I’d run into him in the middle of a night out on the town, and the whole thing came back to me hazy, like a dream.

But a couple weeks ago, Lance’s sister–and mine, in a way–Ashley, brought us all together.  We met at Lance’s house; me from the North Shore and her from North Dakota.  Lance had ended up living across the street from my grandma.

In a way, we were neighbors again.

The years apart shaved away with a couple beers, a few shots, some Drinking Shuffleboard, and a little help from a Blow Gun and a Dart Board–don’t ask.

And as much as we’d grown up, Lance was still giving me pointers on how to hit the bull’s-eye.  Once a big brother, always a big brother.

The night ran well into the next morning and let me tell you something:  there’s no Walk of Shame that compares to stumbling into your grandma’s kitchen at 7:30 a.m. still drunk from Drinking Shuffleboard.

I didn’t see Lance the rest of my vacation–like I said, whirlwind–but I hope to again.  Soon.  Sooner than 10 years, at least.

Next on my list of events, was seeing my other “brother” Kell and his wife for a Post-Halloween Halloween Party.  As usual, I didn’t go in costume…but ended the night in one.

Kell went as popular SNL character, “Stefan.  I went as Kell.  My costume was so accurate that I was able to hook up with his wife!

Ugh, I’m kidding.  Grow up.

No, our posse saw a very subdued Mikel this year in that I was still partied out from the night before.  I wasn’t endlessly pouring shots and making bracelets out of empties and calling you a douche bag as per the norm.

It was a refreshing treat.

I guess that’s about it for the highlights of my vacation.  Besides my book deal.

WHAAAAAT??!?!?!11!!?!

Oh, yeah, hey–I guess there’s that.

As most of you know, I was in talks for a publishing deal for Coming of Mage, the manuscript I started last summer.  I’ve been surprisingly glib about it, though, since nothing was official and I’m terribly superstitious.

So consider this my official press release on the matter:

Not the actual cover. Maybe. But probably not. But could be, definitely. Not really. But, without a doubt: Possibly.

Coming of Mage.  June 2013.  North Star Press.  Real deal.

Actually, technically, THIS was my first press release:

Never has one of my statuses been so well-received.

But, yeah, it’s true.  I’m going to be a published author.  It’s awesome.  It’s an honor and it really doesn’t seem real yet.  When I signed the contract, it was like I was watching myself sign it from overhead, like a med student studying a live procedure.  It’s strange.  One second, you’re not an author…and the next–you are.

Coming of Mage isn’t the story I thought would be my first book–but I’m proud that it is.  That little story metamorphosed so many times in its short life and grew into something that I never thought it could be.  The story of Quinn, Emma, Tristan–and Ethan, I guess–started as a campy entry in a short story contest that I never actually submitted.  I couldn’t–I fell way too in love with the characters.  And the plot just took on a life of its own.  It’s really true what they say about characters in books–they are real, and the author is just reporting on their life.

Even when they’re all struggling wizards in the 80s.

I’m sure it’ll feel more real when my book is all bound and shiny and resting in my palm.  But for now, there’s still something surreal about it.  And I’m going to ride that feeling for awhile.

Even though I need to put together a Kickstarter to raise some start-up capital.  And I’m desperately trying to commission art, music, and film versions.  And I’m already behind on the sequel.

Which will happen.  Coming of Mage II [working title] will come to pass.  Mark my words.

I guess there’s worse problems to have, right?

What else, what else….oh right, I turned 29.

So I guess there’s that, then.

No, no, I mean as far as turning “Almost 30″ goes, it was a lot of fun.  I rallied a small pack of troops and got royally buzzed at a Space Aliens family restaurant.  Won an orange shark.  Pretty successful considering it was a Wednesday night.

My girlfriend says I should stop making such a big deal out of my birthday, but I say, “If you plan it, they will come.”

And they will drink.  And they will order Space Onion Blossoms.  And they will win tickets by bopping automated creatures on the head.

And if I ever stop making an over-the-top big deal about myself, well, I just won’t be Mikel.

Other than that, I celebrated with all my usual staples:

Also, there may or may not have been a boot full of beer involved.

That’s the equivalent of 4 pints of Great Lakes Brewing’s Edmund Fitzgerald Porter–consumed by me on the 36th anniversary of that famous ship’s sinking. Let’s just say there was another shipwreck that night. #toosoon

Look, I know what you’re all thinking:  INTERVENTION!  INTERVENTION!  But, relax, it’s not like I’m pouring boxed wine into empty soda cans.

That was my 26th b-day.

All in all, it was a pretty good little vacation.

I saw movies [Wreck-it Ralph and Pitch Perfect] but not enough.  I ate at restaurants that I normally can’t, but not enough.  Saw a lot of friends, but not enough.  Devoured Grandma’s lasagna, but not enough.  Also, Brett and I invented a new card game called “Random Hookups” but I can’t really explain you the intricacies right now.  Not with the patent pending.

Oh, and Barack Obama is president.  I don’t know if you guys heard.