bjciii: My twisted thoughts

I remember growing up in Colonial Heights with my little sister and my parents. I remember knowing almost everyone in that neighborhood and I remember being able to tell my mom and dad who I ran into on the way to the neighborhood market (yes… we had one. It was called “Angelo’s”, but we all called it “Tony’s”. Maybe I’ll write a BLOG about it in the future…). Now, I live in the city of Wilmington, a mere mile or so from the house I was born in, and I haven’t really met all of my neighbors yet. I’ve been here for a decade, people… 10 years.

You wanna know when the neighbors get together and chat?

Snowstorms and accidents.

See, we live on a main street in the city; we see our fair share of police lights and firefighters streaking down the road. Any time the lights linger (read that: stop in front of someone’s house), we all sort of congregate and speculate. All we need is an elderly black woman hanging out of a window, and it would be 227!! So, now that we’re in Blizzard ’10 (Part 2 of 3), I’ve met a lot of my neighbors because we’re all commiserating about the snow, the parking, the plows, and the snow. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of my neighbors? Actually really cool. They’re really friendly people, actually! Even the guy down the street who rants and raves and screams when he’s drank too much is a nice guy when he’s sober!

It could definitely be worse.

Let this little winter setback make you learn about the people who live around you; take advantage of the captive audiences and introduce yourself around. Maybe those parking spaces that you complain about losing won’t be lost anymore! Maybe when you need a stick of butter, instead of speeding to an overpriced convenience store, you can walk next door. A lot of doors open up when the hearts open up.

Shut up… I know it was sappy, but I was on a roll.

Honestly, though… before the big snow storms this year, I talked at some of my neighbors and knew 1 pretty well. Now? I can say hi to everyone. It’s kinda nice.

Yes, I understand that I don’t have it ANY worse than anyone else, but this is my little corner of the cyberworld, so I’m not forcing you to read it if you would rather not.

S’alright? S’alright.

I know I’m lucky enough to have a house and all the responsibilities that come with it. I know I’m lucky enough to live on a “snow route” in Wilmington where the city has to make sure it is plowed because it’s an evacuation / major through-way, BUT why in God’s name must the plows continuously plow to the RIGHT?

Okay… logically, I know that, when operating a plow on a two-way street (which my street is not), the snow must be shunted to the outside of the street and not the middle, hence the angle of the plow. I get it… I do. Only, my neighbors and I just dug out of the last plowed snow only about 36 hours ago; our backs and spirits were just healing!!

There’s no real chance anything will change, so this is a bitch-session. I get it… I do. One side of my street has cars with the normal amount of snow to dig out; my side has twice that… AND it’s compacted by the plows. I just kinda wish the city could maybe, just maybe, angle those plows in the other direction once in a while. This shoveling shit is getting kind of old…

Enough! Thank you for allowing me a little venting action. I now return you to your reguarly-scheduled broadcast.

I went to bed last night feeling that horrible feeling that I swallowed a ball of sandpaper… scratchy-side out. I took some Tylenol PM, had a big glass of water, but I woke up almost every hour.

Shit. I’m getting sick.

Most likely it’s a common, garden-variety cold, but if it’s not, remember me fondly.

No, seriously… it’s just a normal “sick” thing. I am glad I have some cold meds in the house AND that my sink should be operational tonight so I can start making tea and such. And, really… there’s nothing better than tea when you’re sick.

In case you’re wondering about the title? Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (my best guess as to the pronunciation? New-mo-null-tra-mike-row-skop-ik-silly-co-vol-kay-know-co-knee-o-sis) is the longest word in the English dictionary and it’s a pulmonary issue brought upon by inhaling volcano particles. Since Delaware doesn’t quite have an active volcano, I am pretty sure I can cross that off the list…

I have a lot to say. You know it. I know it… my students sure as hell know it. Unfortunately, working on the idea of consistent updates without overlap AND trying to maintain some sort of level of quality, well… I got burned out. The funny part is that I got burned out last Friday (which was just hellacious all around) AND it happened to snow from Friday night into Saturday night, so I was snowed in with not much else going on.

You’d think that would be a perfect recipe for unmitigated BLOGging supremacy, but it wasn’t. I was stifled and bored and all that.

So here I am, back on the horse after taking 4 days off. I’ve already surpassed my entire 2009′s entry numbers, so, any way you cut it, I’m ahead of the game. I think the idea of forcing something when there is nothing there is where blocks come from. I know that I’ve been developing a lot of ideas for stories and such, so that actually has me excited, but I am more of an organic writer than a directed one; I can’t say “I’m going to write for 2 hours every day” because, if I don’t have anything to say, well… I don’t have anything to say.

I did figure out a killer opening line for my next story though… I’m rather jazzed about it.

Keep an eye out… gonna try to get back on a regular schedule of updates now.

Yup. Over it. Seriously now, Jack Frost… stick it up your ass!

When I was a kid, I prayed for snow days; hell, any day that I could stay home and play with my Transformers or G.I. Joes and watch cartoons? Awesome. I didn’t care about mom & dad having “child-care issues” or whatever… all I knew was that I wasn’t forced to go to school and I could play all day. If I was lucky, I’d sled or suicide-drag (you remember that: we as brilliant kids would hide in the bushes, wait for a car to stop at a red-light / stop sign, and then grab on to the bumper, letting it drag us along the ice and snow? It’s a fucking wonder we’re not all dead) or have snowball fights so epic that roving musicians wrote ballads about them.

Yes, as a child, it was a blast to have a snow day. Eventually (read that: AFTER COLLEGE) snow days became “Oh, shit… you mean I still have to go to work?” Yes, folks… at that point, it was no fun to have snow because A) you had to dig out your car; and, B) you had to drive your ass to work across ice, black ice, snow, and idiot drivers. Not a fun time, people.

Of course, now that I’m a teacher, I sort of hope for snow days, but only when it doesn’t screw up my schedule. Yup… I’m anal. Since I teach 2 different classes on 2 different days, I want even-handed instruction! There can’t be one class ahead of the other or else I get pissy. Not a good idea in my life! So, what is there to do? Well… it sucks to say it, but the best snow days are the ones that happen on Thursday night into Saturday night – Monday is all cleared up with no missed class-time.

Yes, I’m that guy.

So what do we do tomorrow? The snow will start at noon (approximately) and last through Saturday afternoon, possibly dumping almost 2 feet in my area. That means a lot of digging and grunting, BUT I have already taken steps to ensure a fun weekend with The Super Bowl coming up and possible beer plans in place for the weekend otherwise.

That’s right, people: Alcohol for the win.

So maybe snow ISN’T so bad… but if it snows and I can’t get anywhere… AND I’m snowed in alone? Okay… that sucks hardcore.

If you’re not from around Delaware, I don’t think you get the half-joking / half-serious animosity we have towards our neighbors from “The Garden State.” To be fair, I’m pretty sure they feel the same way about us… but I know Pennsylvania people hate Jersey too, so I think we’re on the winning side here.

I’ve dated girls from New Jersey and I’ve had friends from New Jersey, so I know that there are exceptions to the rule, but the stereotypes are being blown up into the biggest damned media events ever: Jersey Shore on MTV.

I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t watch MTV anymore… like, at all. I was bored one night when the MTV Music Awards were on, so I logged into Twitter and saw everyone railing on Kanye West for something he did. I flipped it on, found out what happened, watched Pink dangle from the ceiling, and then switched on a movie. Seriously… I don’t watch MTV since the “M” went from “music” to “mindless” about 15 years ago.

If I were to ever turn that channel on again, it would be to see what this Jersey Shore show is all about. I mean, I can’t escape these walking stereotypes of Italian douchebags who hang out at “tha shoah” (and, for the record, “Italian” in this sense is merely an adjective modifying the noun “douchebag”; “Italian” is not part of a compound word dictating that anyone Italian is a douchebag. Just wanted to clear that up…). Growing up in Delaware, I’ve been to The Jersey Shore a bunch of times and I have encountered many of these people (although, if I ever met anyone with the name of “The Situation,” I think I’d laugh so hard, I’d break a blood-vessel), but why in God’s name would you show off your douchebaggery for the world? There’s no surprise that the Italian-American Defamation League (or some similarly-named organization) is freaking out about the way these idiots are behaving. It’s not bad enough they have to deal with people who watch The Sopranos so much they feel that Italian automatically means you’re “in the family”, but now Italians have to put up with these idiots too?

Wow. Talk about your all-time sucks.

In any case, it really makes you wonder why America is embracing this trainwreck as much as they are. And, yes, folks… I haven’t heard one positive thing ABOUT this show; it sounds like everyone is watching it as an unintentional comedy! Maybe that’s it… maybe the viewers think that Dago/Guido/Wop stereotypes are the new blackface? I don’t know, but it should tell you something about the idiots who are in the show. Either they are fully taking control and saying “Yeah, we’re jokes, but we’re getting our 15 minutes” or they are blissfully ignorant and they think people actually look up to them; no matter what, the zeitgeist is all about them right now.

Hell… even Jay Leno is going to welcome them to his old/new Tonight Show on his first night back. It’s old home week for douchebags, I guess! Unreal. I think I’m gonna ignore the TV for a while and just read a book.

I remember that my mom wanted to call me “Tray” or some other play on being the third, but I remember that my father basically shot that down and also “Willy”. Dad was adamant that I would be “Bill” or “Billy” and I can live with that. I know a few guys named “Will” and they’re all great guys, but if you call me by that nickname, I get a little crawly feeling up my back: it just doesn’t fit me.

On my mom’s side of the family, I have an uncle who is a mere 14 years older than me, so we sorta grew up together. I remember he used to call me “Weird Willard” as I was young; hell, I didn’t know what it meant and I didn’t care: I got to hang out with him and his delinquent (but incredibly big-hearted) friends. They treated me like gold, so they could have called me “shithead” and I would have followed them around. On occasion, he still breaks out the “Willard” nickname, but I think he dumped the “weird” part years ago. It took me many years to figure out where he got this from, but then I stumbled upon a movie from 1971 called Willard which featured Bruce Davison as a, yes, weird guy who controlled rats. In case you were wondering, it was remade in 2003 and starred Crispin Glover.

After that, I was basically “Billy” or “Bill” to everyone. At this point in my life, scant few people call me “Billy”. To me, if you’re adding the “-y” ending, you’ve either known me for my entire life or you’re very close to me. If you’re just going to randomly call me “Billy” and you don’t fit in those categories, I will correct you.

There was, however, a dark period for about a year when I worked at a gas station that some guy from Virginia moved up and started to call me “Bucky.” God… I hated that damned nickname. It came from him calling me “Young Buck” and one of the mechanics started clucking like a chicken (“Buck-buck-buck… buck-EE!!! buck-EE!!”). Unfortunately, it stuck. I really fucking hated that nickname!

So, share… anyone have any good or bad nicknames? I spilled… it’s your turn.

Upon further reflection, I don’t think I’m going to have the time to do a movie a day over the 28 days of February, but I’ll do my best to get it done! I think I have 8 unwatched flicks in my collection, so I promise to get to them all this month (including the one I’m most scared to watch as I’ve never heard anything good about it: The Godfather, Part III). If you’re fuzzy on my rules, I ask you to read my previous opener on the whole idea of “a movie-a-day”.

In any case, I’m gonna remind you that these entries won’t be reviews of the movie, necessarily… they’ll actually be more to the point of jumping off points. Maybe, in the case of Godfather III, I’ll talk about trilogies as a whole or something equally as germane. I dunno… we’ll see when it gets there.

So, the first movie is actually a TV movie originally shown on SyFy, but with added footage: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. Hey… like I said, it’s any DVD that I’ve got that I haven’t seen the movie for yet. Sweat not… I’ll get to theatrical releases soon enough. I figure, if I have 7 or 8, you should expect a new one every 4 days or so.

Deal?