I saw Star Wars:  A New Hope at the drive-in theater when I was four.  I remember sitting on a tailgate of a pickup truck and staring at the screen.  I can't tell you if it was the vehicle I came in or just a random place to sit.  Things were simpler then.

I saw The Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi in the theater when they came out, as every good, little nerd boy did.  It was actually a requirement stated on the back of my nerd boy membership card.  Some time after the word "geek" was stolen from the circus and used to describe fans, but I've always stuck with "nerd."
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​When The Phantom Menace came out I was so excited I played sick at work and left early to "go home and sleep this off" but instead went to the theater and saw it on the big screen.  It was a thrill, but all for all of the subsequent movies I waited until they came out on disc.  It wasn't that I didn't like them, it was just that my days of having to see things in the theater, paying high ticket costs and ludicrous food costs, were effectively cut short by my limited budget.

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I could do this in a narrative, but that would be painstakingly reliving the whole thing, so it's time to resort to bullet points.
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1. ​I went online to buy a ticket before going in but upon realizing they charge an extra buck and a half on top of the ticket price to save you the trouble of human interaction I decided to suck it up and buy one at the theater.
2. On getting to the theater, there was a line at the ticket counter, but then I realized all of the people in line were waiting to pull up their pre-paid tickets on the single kiosk so I was able to skip ahead and buy a ticket, briefly paranoid that the movie would be sold out and all of those smug bastards in line would laugh at me as I had to decide whether to leave or go see Jumanji or something.
3. Jumanji, it turned out, was sold out, but Star Wars was not.  Ticket in hand, I skipped past the long line at the concession stand and proceeded to the theater.  Trouble was, the person who sold me the ticket didn't say which of the three the movie was in and went ahead and tore my ticket.  Since the theater was under construction, nothing was clearly marked.  I went against my nature (not by asking anyone, that would be silly) and followed the crowd, guessing that the Star Wars showtime of 3:30 made this theater more likely than the Jumanji showtime of 3:45, it being around 3:20 at this point.
4. I found a row with seven seats, in which the two on the aisle were occupied.  Making my way awkwardly past those two (who were oddly clueless about how to get out of the way in this situation) I took the seat one away from the wall.  This left a comfortable cushion of three seats between me and the immovable couple and one from the wall so people might thing I'm expecting someone.
5. A couple came in and, despite clearly knowing the couple on the end, sat in the two seats next to me.  The woman, whom I had the joy of sitting next to, thwapped me with her coat sleeve about seven times before finally managing to take it off.  Then the chatter began.
6. I sat through the entire theater entertainment-while-you-wait section and the opening previews still unsure if I was in the right theater.  Then, I saw the Lucasfilm logo appear and I breathed a sigh of relief.
7. Thankfully, the chatterboxes in my armpit stopped talking during the movie.  Mostly.  At one point, the woman guessed out loud who a masked character really was and I shot her such a look and shifted one seat over to be next to the wall that any future guesses were unheard by me.  I can only hope she was properly mortified but my guess is she was just happy for more elbow room.
8. I got lost in the film.  Things got emotional.  I mean, I didn't cry or anything, but I was moved more than once nearly to that point.  I saw Carrie Fisher on screen and I was simultaneously overjoyed and heartbroken.  (I hear you, Chewie).  The fight scenes were intense, the drama was well done.  The climax was satisfying.  There was none of that lame, whiny, Young-Anakin-in-Love shit that made the prequel so hard to get through.  I loved it.  It was a beautiful ending.
9. I sat through the credits, hoping pointlessly for an after-credits thing but also giving the theater time to clear out so I didn't have to do that weird cattle-walk that people do when they leave a crowded place.  I watched through to the very end and then I left.

All things considered I had a good time.  I got to see the final film on the big screen, and that made all the irksome things worth it.  And now I have a gauge to use to judge the next time this situation comes up.  It had better be a damn good movie to make me want to go out again.

I work in three buildings, with three different sets of staff, and three distinct sets of residents, all of which I will be abandoning for a full eight days so I can celebrate the holidays with my family.  (This year Hanukkah and Christmas overlap, so there will be logistical issues at the best of times.  Best to be focused.)

Today I finished up with one of my locations for the year, and tomorrow it's another and then Monday, the last.  Sure I'm only off for eight days, but I've been pretty much full-on in these places for the past six months so it feels weird to step back and take a breath.  It's a different feeling, though, than it used to be with the old company, where being away for too long carried with it the threat that someone may decide you weren't needed after all.  Now I feel confident that I'm needed, and while I don't foresee riots if I was dropped, I can imagine a couple of sternly-worded letters going to the appropriate desks.

But there's no need to talk like that.  I'm kicking ass at this job.

Soon I will step away and take a few breaths, then return to help all of the elderly residents come to terms with the new tech they will be given over the holidays.  Way back when I told people what my job was going to change into and almost everyone commented that they would be driven mad by having to help the elderly with computers, and at the time I mostly agreed.  Now I'm of a different mind.  I enjoy it.  The genuine gratitude that people show when you help them understand something that seems so foreign to them is beautiful.  Some of the younger people I work with could take some notes there.

I just have two more work days and then it's Jingle Bells and Dreidel.  

I wonder if I'll get any writing done?

Some twenty years ago or so I was having a conversation with Paul in which something resembling the following exchange took place:

Me:  I've been playing that Chumbawamba album pretty much non-stop.
Paul:  Which one?
Me:  What do you mean, "Which one?"  The one that song is on.
Paul:  Tubthumping?
Me:  That's the one.  Love that album.
Paul:  You do realize they have more albums, right?
Me:  What's that now?

Cut to two decades later where the Chumbawamba discography has pretty much been the soundtrack for my life, and you'll understand why this story is so amazing to me (and also why I owe Paul a debt I can never repay, for this and for bullying me into writing down the stories in my head and ultimately leading us all here).

Track 12 on their tenth studio album ends with a girl singing a rhyme detailing the jobs children had during the Victorian era.  It always stuck with me, both for it's catchiness and the haunting nature of the child singing the lines:

That first line bounced around in my head for a long time, and there was a part of me that knew one day I would have to write a story with that as the title, but it wasn't obvious to me what the story was about yet.  I didn't want to be literal and write a story about a Victorian child.  I'm no Dickens, nor do I want to be.  I needed the story to be its own thing.

Edit:  I've just realized that my signature file in my email has this web address, and I've written Boff back, thereby giving him that information, thereby creating a minute possibility that he may be reading this post.  If so, Hi Boff!  I swear I'm not a nutcase.  Honest.

If you're expecting "Jingle Bells" or "The Little Drummer Boy", if you're ready to applaud "O Come All Ye Faithful" or "What Child Is This?", or if you're guessing that disturbing song about a grandmother dying or that emotionally manipulative tune about the shoes, then you're about to be disappointed.

If I was forced, at gunpoint (which seems very much against the spirit of the season, but there you have it), to choose the best Christmas song ever, I would have to risk the bullet and declare that the following two are equally perfect:

Slade - "Merry Christmas Everybody" - what better way to celebrate Christmas than with this epic tune that came out the year I was born.  The hair, the polyester, and the crowd dancing right up with the band - it's visual perfection.  The lyrics have it all, from fairy-enforced sobriety, rock and roll grannies, and pun-laden death by concussion.  And on top of all that, nothing brings in the season like Noddy Holder screaming, "It's Christmaaaaaaaaaaaas!"

Meco - "What Can You Get a Wookie for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)?" - What kind of Star Wars geek kid would I have been if I didn't have this record, where the quandary of what to get a Wookie for Christmas is dwelled upon on the opposite side of a record where children sing to R2-D2 how much they love him.  I was always more drawn to the Wookie song.  Can't imagine why.

Everyone was sick for Thanksgiving, and now that we're pulling out of that pool of ick and gross it's time to decorate for Christmas.  Fast.  The damn holiday is almost here already.

This year Hanukkah overlaps with Christmas, and since we celebrate both in my house it will be a tricky venture, but the decorating couldn't be more different.  With Christmas it's the tree (lights, meticulously placed, ornaments, etc), garlands, wreaths, stockings, festively dressed figures, and of course the inappropriate dancing Santa.

With Hanukkah, it's pulling the menorah out of the box and setting it on the counter.  (After last years debacle of no one in my area selling Hanukkah candles, we stocked up, and now can keep the menorah lit for a full year if we want).

So today it's the great cleanup, where the big chair gets pulled out of the corner to make room for the tree and gets stored somewhere else for the month (this year it's the Sun Room, because why not?) and everything needs to be dusted and vacuumed, so of course my lungs are now full of dust and I'm coughing like an asthmatic octogenarian as the warren of dust bunnies band together like a weird high school production of Watership Down and attack me at every turn.  Vicious little buggers.

'Tis the season.

Once it's all done it will be worth it, as long as I live long enough to see it.  For now it's dust mask on, vacuum at the ready, an onward to battle.

​Ho Ho <cough> <hack> <curse> Ho!

A few years ago I went to a writing conference, and in one of the classes which was specifically relating to submitting to publications the instructor made an offhand remark that a person should "try for 100 rejections a year," the idea being to not let fear of rejection keep you from trying, but to embrace the possibility as a necessary evil in the effort to get published.

I took that as a challenge.

I started on April 6, 2017 and as of this very moment I have accumulated 300 rejections, which means I am well ahead of schedule.

It's worth noting that along with those 300 rejections I have also been published nine times with a tenth coming up sometime soon.  You can take a glance over at my Publications page if you're curious.

Each of those ten Acceptances have been a thrill ride, from the very first on October 2, 2017, nearly six months after I started submitting, to the last one on June 29 of this year, nearly six months ago.

And now thanks to NaNoWriMo I have eighteen new shorts to polish up and send out into the world.  Who knows, maybe some of those beauties will get snatched up as well.  Only time will tell.

Okay, here's the scenario:  It's twenty years ago, and I wake up at my girlfriend's house and look out the front window to see the street filled with people.  Not just any people, though.

Movie people.

Somehow we missed the letter they sent out saying that the street would be shut down due to filming.  Luckily, she had already gone to work.  Even more luckily, I had the day off.  Even more luckily than that, my buddy Paul was a PA on the set.

The big names starring in this little movie (that went straight to dvd) were Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper!), Tobyn Bell (Jigsaw, but not yet), and my man Billy Dee.
Getting a chance to meet any of them was a longshot, especially since I didn't want to overplay my Paul hand and get him in trouble with the powers-that-were.  But Pauli came through and before I knew it I was standing in a lot waiting for the chance to meet Lando Freaking Calrissian.

He was very kind, and warm, and friendly.  He posed for the above shot and signed a press photo for me, and in the short time we were able to talk, the following exchange happened (by the way, this meeting happened just before The Phantom Menace hit theaters):

Me:  So will Lando be making a comeback in the new Star Wars movie?
BD:  What do you mean?  I'm not making a comeback.  I've been working this whole time!
Me:  No, I mean...what I meant was...Lando...I...<crawls in hole and dies>

This has all come back to me because I just watched the trailer for the Episode IX of Star Wars and was happy to see Lando on the screen.

Just as I predicted.

Only twenty years too early.