To describe the 24th of November as a day just like any other is to rob history of a most momentous date - not to mention belittle the significance of every other day leading up to it, and every day that followed.

At a most cursory glance, one can forgive the perception that this frosty late-November day was just like any other in the relatively young life of Myron T. Criswell. The alarm on his nightstand awoke him not once, but four times - the last proving to be the one that stuck, as Myron clambered out of bed, eyes half-stuck and mouth full of paste, and made a beeline directly to the bathroom, accompanied by the urgent “Breakfast!” calls of his mother.

Relieved, washed, brushed, combed, and clothed, Myron proceeded downstairs. So routine was his routine, so mechanical in its familiarity, that you’d almost forgive him for missing the intense hatred that burned in the eyes of his cat, Mr. Whiskers, who stood gazing upon the clueless teen’s frenetic form as Myron made his way down the hall and towards the kitchen, walking right past the seemingly unassuming feline.

You’d almost forgive him for such a monumental oversight.

Almost.

Unfortunately for Myron, it was the first of many unintentional actions that would change his life - and the universe - forever…

And it all happened on a day just like any other.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Long-eared Larry, the leaping lepus, leapt from log to log along the length of Livermore Lake. Though a learned lad amongst his lepus clan, Larry longed to learn how to make lofty longings more literal, looking to laboring less on locating longshot love, and ensure that labor’s not lost on lesser leaps.

Barry Boffin often thought of things you often think
are the things that others think about whenever they should think
of things that are thought to be the things that others think
when thinking of the certain things that everybody thinks
are very seldom in the minds whenever one should think
of every single little thing that you would ever think
would cross the mind of someone who sits alone and thinks
and contemplates the many thoughts that everyone who thinks
of thoughts about the foolish things that crowd a mind that thinks
and wonders if those things to think are keeping him from sleep.

“Myron” was his mother’s idea.

A loving mother in all other regards she surely was, but when it came to the naming of poor Myron, she inflicted a curse of a thousand schoolyard cuts and a dim future in bookkeeping, accountancy, insurance, or possibly even the exciting world of library science (far be it from me to ever denigrate the positive aspects of a career in library science, but for poor Myron, it was a nightmare scenario matched only by the thought of living with a name like Myron, a curse which he already bore).

A slight lad of shallow chest, weak eyesight, and the knobbiest of knees, he was an ambulatory example of the word “akimbo.” Not even significant enough a presence to be the object of his peers’ jokes, Myron made little impression upon anyone who crossed his path - encounters that generally passed without young Myron’s notice, as his nose (and the rest of his face) was generally planted firmly within the pages of a book. These books could be on topics ranging from Physics to Poe, Philosophy to Spider-Man - it mattered not to Myron, who devoured them all with equal enthusiasm.

Still, being a wraithlike presence in the world of baseball and soccer and school dances gnawed at Myron and his desire to belong - a desire shared by all children the world over, especially the ones saddled with a name like Myron by mothers who claimed to love them.

What Myron could not imagine, though, was that FATE had a far different plan in store for young Myron T. Criswell, which did not have anything to do with insurance, or accountancy, or even library science. Myron was duly slated to become something far more than that, and it all started the day an alien killed his cat.

To Be Continued ?????

Yeah, so, I’m still up.

I really should get to bed. In my mind - the rational part - I know I should be asleep. Sadly, the rational part of my brain is subservient to the much larger, much more influential “idiot” part of my brain.

Right now, this is how I feel…

Sad, isn’t it?

And so very, very stupid.

I’m up again, staring down that bastard Dawn, and ruminating on a fantastic book I’m reading on the life and comedy of Michael O’Donoghue titled, appropriately enough, Mr. Mike.

I can only hope that anyone reading this late night drone is familiar with the work of O’Donoghue, whether it be for his tenure at The National Lampoon or his even more visible time as a writer and performer during the first 3 years of Saturday Night Live (it was O’Donoghue that wrote and co-starred in the very first SNL cold open, wherein an English instructor, played by O’Donoghue, taught his student, played by John Belushi, such helpful phrases as “I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines”).

O’Donoghue was an intense, troubled genius that left a sharp, incisive, and bloody mark on comedy, and the book is well worth a read.

And now, I succumb to Morn, the malevolent god of burning sunlight, who punishes those who attempt to traverse the night and greet Him without having girded themselves in the land of Nod. Fools!

Hello blog. Long time no see.

Have you missed me?

It’s been a another long night of work, and rather than going to bed and getting the sleep my body so desperately craves after weeks of “drama” and more IVs than I care to remember (a tale left untold, for now), I do what only the truly sad do to pass the pre-dawn hours as they decompress…

I googled myself.

In doing so, I found the usual complement of links to the many interviews and articles I’ve done over the years. I’m endlessly fascinated by the comments that other people have for work I still largely feel was done in a vacuum. I’ve always been pretty critical of the interviews I’ve done, always worrying that they were largely mediocre affairs that could have been handled much better by someone more talented (I’m still grateful to my old friend Mark, who would always claim - and I really hoped he was being sincere - that I was a far better interviewer than I gave myself credit for).

I ran across a few links to my tribute to Muppet writer Jerry Juhl, a wonderful man whose presence in the world I miss greatly.

I also found out that I died in January of this year. Well, someone named “Kenneth Plume” did, anyway - but seeing as how it’s not a terribly common name, it’s a genuinely odd feeling to run across something like that, particularly when you’re overtired and feeling all melancholic.

But anyhoo, I do promise to get in the swing of posting here at my own little corner of cyberspace, even though I’ve told no one about its existence, and this is largely an exercise in personal decompression. But you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that.