Zel-kun’s Words

Well, its Valentine’s Day, that special day where red hearts and pink cards can be seen everywhere you go (even in Warcraft), where everyone is encourages to exchange gifts with the love of their lives.  A great day if you’re currently involved with someone, to be sure.

I remember a time, not so long ago, when Valentine’s Day wasn’t exactly the happiest time of the year for me.  The first couple of decades in my life weren’t exactly filled with amore… no no no, quite the contrary.  Those are stories for a later date, very likely chapters of the Legend.

During that time, I would lament my loneliness, wondering why my prize was loneliness while some pretty lousy people I knew had girlfriends.  Pretty much your basic overdramatic angsty stuff.  I had a Valentine ritual during that time, enacted for two or three years.

I used to live by a large plot of undeveloped land, covered in trees and tall grass.  And not too far in was a little clearing, where I would sometimes go at night when I needed to think or brainstorm ideas.  Occasionally, I would also carry one of my swords out there (concealed neatly under my long coat) and practice with it, oftentimes getting a brilliant new idea for a story in the process.  That clearing was a wellspring for my creativity.

On Valentine’s Day, usually just before midnight, I would go to this clearing to think.  I would walk about in the chill February air, thinking of stories to write or practicing, whatever I could to get my mind off the fact that it was Valentine’s Day again.  After than I’d drink whatever form of alchohol I had in the house and watch some anime, usually something violent.

I’m sure part of my depression in that part of my life wasn’t just the state of my love life, but a combination of that and my professional and personal lives.  I lived at home, had a job I hated, with no chance of moving upward, and a father whom I couldn’t go more than a couple minutes without angering.  This was usually my fault for not getting chores done in a timely manner.  This is very likely why the Valentine’s Day after I landed the job at ADC (after breaking into IT, before dating Zai) I didn’t even think about it.

Well, that about wraps it up.  And trying not to sound sappy (and likely failing utterly), happy Valentine’s Day, Zai.

Zel-kun out.

Beyond the mere images and the slightly more clear events, there exist memories.  Not only a situation, but a context.  A cause and effect, a reason for the event to occur.  Following is the earliest memory I can recall, which has likely influenced who I am today.

The first friend I ever had was a boy by the name or Ryan.  He lived on the other side of the block, so I didn’t have to cross any roads to get to his house, being only three… maybe four years old, this was a good thing.

I remember several images of playing with Ryan.  A toy firetruck, a scooter, generally running around and being kids.  I don’t remember how I met Ryan, it was in a time before memories.  So in the times I remember playing with him, I knew not where he came from, only that he had always been there.  Like the road, like the trees, concrete objects of the world that just were.

I used to ride my big-wheel everywhere, and even in my childish mind wondering why it wasn’t designed better, with more weight on the front, or a wheel that actually had traction (of course, this was not the vocabulary my mind knew).  I can remember the ride, I turned right from my driveway, right down the corner (across the street from a building I think was a catholic school or something), and right down to Ryan’s house, a red brick building with a raised first floor.  I remember there were five or six stairs leading up to the door.

I remember one day, I turned that corner, and saw Ryan sitting on those steps with a group of people around him.  I remember them to be a bit older, and with an air of familiarity.  Where I knew them from at the time I haven’t a clue.  He looked at me, and said the first thing I can rememeber hearing clearly.

“Hey Jon, guess what?  I’m not your friend anymore!”  The group of people around him then joined in laughter.

I rode home as fast as I could in tears, and that was the end of it, I never saw Ryan again.  The words are clear in my mind, and I’m sure I carried them close to me for a number of years.

I’ve always been distrustful of people, since that day.  Its hard not to when your earliest memory is one of betrayal.  To this day, I still look at people who smile to my face and always wonder, “what are you really thinking?”

Maybe I should thank Ryan.  Perhaps suspicion is a good thing to have in life.  Maybe I’ll let my readers be the judge of that as the story continues…

Last night, I went up to the north side, to see Animation Show 3, which is a compilation of animated shorts picked out by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeld.   It was zero degrees out and crowded up on the north side, but we braved it nonetheless.  It has been awhile since I’ve watched some animated shorts.  I used to be able to see some on MTV, USA, and even occasionally TNT late at night, but not anymore.  If there is anything on late night, its either some bad anime, or dull American animation whose sole purpose seems to be to show scantily clad women (I’m looking at YOU, Tripping the Rift).

Animation Show 3 took place in the Music Box Theatre, a building that has obviously been there about a hundred years.  The architecture and ambience was simply astounding.  As we made our way to our seats, a man was up front playing some jovial organ music that could only be described as ‘cartoony.’   With the ornate overhangs and crevices and sculptures, it was almost like taking a trip into the past.

There was a pre-show with some shorts created by some students at the Art Institute of Chicago, which were very impressive.  In my opinion, the preshow beat out the main show.  There were three shorts, each fairly well-done.

“What Hit The Moon” - a surreal little piece about a woman looking at the moon.  It ended up not really making a whole lot of sense, but the simple line drawings had a certain charm.  The short flowed together well.

“Duct Tape and Cover” - a political short based on the Department of Homeland Security telling us to buy lots of duct tape in case of a biological attack.  The spoof was done with voice overs from actual safety documentaries from the 50’s, during that whole atomic bomb era when students routinely hid under their desks.  It was very funny.

Because obviously the desk could protect you.

Can’t remember the name of the third, but it was another surreal piece (most of the shorts from the night were, which may have clouded my judgment towards the end, I was surreal’ed out) about the musings of a goldfish, followed by the musings of the cat which it envied.  I really enjoyed this one.

Then the main show started.  Many of them just kinda blended together, not really being anything other than weird.  I’ll recap what stood out.

“City Paradise” - An interesting piece blending live action with 3d and 2d animation.  It had potential, but ended up just being strange, it was like watching the acid trip of a very boring individual.

“Guide Dog” - This one was by Bill Plympton, an animator I really enjoy.  Basically this goofy little dog trying to be a seeing eye dog, and failing horribly.  It was very funny and the animation was very unique.

“Blue vs. Red” - Among all the surreal stuff lays this straightforward piece about two samurai palaces fighting over this tiny island between them.  It was a CGI piece filled with lots of slapstick and pratfalling, I don’t think I stopped laughing once it started.  It reminded me of what might happen if the game ‘Worms’ had a capture the flag mode.

“Bill” - I’m not sure if that was the title, but it was a Don Hertzfeld (of ‘Rejected’ fame, if you’ve seen it) film about a man named Bill.  It was done with animated stick figures, and started off very strong and funny.  It died out towards the end though, decending into a type of documentary on crumbling reality.  Overall is was decent.

“Davey & The Son of Goliath” - Spoofing that old Christian show about the boy and dog, its basically Davey being a serial killer a la ‘Son of Sam.’  I’ve seen this one before on Mad TV, entertaining, but nothing spectacular.

“9″ - The best piece in the whole show.  Its a CGI work depicting this little impish fellow trying to survive in a post-apocolyptic world.  Its was surreal (in a good way) to see him climbing over tiny gears and books that had been shattered in whatever conflict that destroyed our society.  It was backed up by a nice little plot too.

“Idol” - Again, not sure if that’s the title.  Its shot as though the pages of one of those old ‘Dick and Jane’ children’s books came to life.   It had some very funny moments and even had a bit of a moral (albeit a disgusting one) to it.  I think it ran longer than it needed to, though.  Other than that, not too bad.

“British Wedding” - Now I KNOW this isn’t the title, but its basically this old british woman who films a wedding.  Its animated by the same lady who did all those ‘Charmin’ commercials with the bears, so you can picture the style of animation.  It didn’t end up being particularly entertaining.

All in all, it was okay, except I had the man with the world’s largest head sitting in front of me, and he did not mind sitting up straight as an arrow.  He also didn’t mind tilting that head to the left and right to whisper to the people next to him, making for a nice rousing game of ‘Look Around the Giant Moving Head’ throughout the show.   He also wore the same horizontal-striped shirt as his girlfriend.  If I EVER do that, I give anyone reading this permission to shoot me.

Think I’m going to see if I can find “9″ anywhere on this ol’ internet.

Zel-kun out.

This is the first time I’ve actually sat down in front of my computer without a mind clouded by exhaustion since about Tuesday.  Even more projects were given to my team by the powerful silhouettes overhead, so now everyone is scrambling to meet the insane deadlines that have been placed before us.  I don’t have a hand in most of these projects, which means I’m the one making sure that queue stays down, the ONLY one.

This leads to missed lunches and late hours, but unlike some other jobs I could name, I can expect a VERY nice paycheck next week with all the overtime, so its worth it.  Sure as hell wouldn’t want to do it every week, though.

Thursday I was given the task of recording every computer name and model on the twelfth floor, which isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but far from the most difficult.  The twelfth floor is the call center, there’s nearly three hundred computers there.  I know, I counted them, and replaced nearly three hundred CRT (the heavy kind) monitors up there a few weeks ago.

Stepping onto the twelfth floor is like stepping into another building entirely.  The quiet, clean, dignified atmosphere is gone, replaced by the noise, the filth, and the mingled smell of whatever nearly three hundred people decided to cook for lunch.  You may have guessed it, but I don’t really like going to the twelfth floor.

There seems to be a contest going on, an odd sort of competition to see who can put the most crap on their desks.  From piles of stuffed animals to piles of candy wrappers to magazine cutouts and photos EVERYWHERE, trying to get to the computer can be an adventure in and of itself.  Bonus points if you spill something under your computer and don’t clean it up.  Computers work better when you do that.

Last week I moved a computer to reveal a computer-shaped mess of dried hot chocolate.  That’s right, spilled it, and cleaned it without actually moving the computer.  I deliberately put it in a slightly different spot so the slob could see the mess.  Yesterday she sat at her computer, giant square of dried chocolate in front of her.  So… yeah, enough about the twelfth floor.

I took the information I gathered, created a little excel sheet (took me until 8:30 on Thursday), and gave it to Kim, who was impressed that I actually finished in one day.  She put me in charge of the next little step in that project, memory upgrades.  About two hundred computers on the twelfth floor were to have their memory increased, and that was no small task.  I spent the entirety of yesterday doing that, working until about 8:00.

But I’m done now, and with a little luck, next week will be a little slower, at least so that I can post a bit more here on Zelkun.

But if not, you’ll know why.

Zel-kun out.

This morning brought with it some warmer temperatures to the frozen Chicago landscape.  No more are the sub-zero temperatures that have been the norm these last couple weeks.  Today, it was nine degrees.

Nine degrees.

Think about that a moment, twenty-two degrees below the freezing point of water.

And I walked out of my house and said, “Hey!  It warmed up!”  No one should ever encounter a temperature of nine degrees and consider it warm.

Zel-kun out.

Well, Winter has hit Chicago, there’s no doubt about it.  With temperature’s well below zero, it has not been a pleasant week to be outside.

Its snowing now, preventing me from seeing beyond a foot or so out the window.  Its so cold that the snow won’t stick to anything, so the wind keeps it in the air.  I’m sure the late morning commuters are pretty miserable right about now.

Still hooked on Oblivion, I found out I could buy a house in that game, so I spent pretty much the whole night messing around with it.  Oblivion uses a pretty rich system where everything that’s not bolted down can be moved around and thrown around, which APPARENTLY, can keep me entertained for hours on end when it comes to making my house just right.

Its like Animal Crossing, the RPG.

Except there’s no fishing.

And I could theoretically kill the shopkeeper and take all his stuff.

Because we all wanted to kill that damn shopkeeper.

Zel-kun out.

Well its official, I’m addicted to Oblivion.  I spent most of the day yesterday playing it, and I fully intend to play some more when I get home.  I also intend to play a bit of WoW.  After all, without my help, Azeroth will slowly become more and more of a hellhole… wait…

*ahem*

Anyway.

After lunch, I decided to run down eleven flights of stairs and then climb back up them.  Doing this, I can see that I’m in a little bit better shape than I was in college, when climbing three flights of stairs would leave me a bit winded and leaning up against a wall for a few moments.  I climbed four flights before I started breathing faster.

At six flights I wondered why the hell I decided to do such a horrible thing to myself.

At eight flights I was practically lurching up the stairs.

At nine I had to take a break, I could go no further, gasping in air that seemed too cold, too hot, and too thin all at the same time.  The ninth floor is one of mine, and I could have ended it there, but I committed myself to eleven, so I hauled myself up, and climbed those last two flights.

In a nutshell, it sucked.  But I fully intend to do it again tomorrow.  Hopefully it’ll suck just a tiny bit less.

Zel-kun out.

I actually went out and bought a new chair today.  My old chair was scavenged from my old office when it closed.  It was faux leather and high-backed, and for a number of years it served me well.  But sadly the air pressure chamber that keeps it nice and high for me broke, along with the pin that keeps the chair upright.  It has effectively become an uncomfortable death trap.

So I bought a large and soft microfibre-covered chair which wasn’t very cheap, but is extremely comfortable.  I imagine I’ll be sitting at my computer at home even more often now.  If that were possible.

Zel-kun out.

My earliest of the earliest memories are not truly memories, but images.  An assembly of light and color burned into my brain as though their significance should never be forgotten.  Unfortunately whatever important bit of information those images were supposed to relay is long gone, leaving only a curious picture in my mind to be looked at questioningly like a misunderstood piece of modern art at a gallery.

A white ceiling, some black tile, a little white piano, a blackboard, a white robe, a black bird, a pink sky.  I’m sure that at the time these were the most fascinating things I had seen.

As time passes, the images slowly become wider and longer, expanding past a single moment in time and becoming an event, a memory encompassing several moments.  Like the images, these events are disjointed and sporadic, and I could not say which order they happened in chronologically.  I can say that these events helped shape who I am to some primal degree, that they stand out as beacons to be seen within the darkness of my early childhood.

I was in the park that was across the street from my house, and it had rained recently.  I stood atop the slide I remember to be fifty feet tall, which was likely only six or seven feet.  I was eating crackers, those tasteless saltine crackers, and my grip on one of them slipped.  I dove after it, which of course led to me tumbling over the edge and splashing into the mud.  I distinctly remember the mud-splattered crackers.

I remember that I awoke one night and saw a pair of glowing red eyes on the metal rotor of the ceiling fan.  I was terrified and entranced at the same time, and I stared at it all night.  I remember thinking that I was cursed because of it in the subsequent years of my childhood.  What were the eyes?  Hell if I know, I was just a kid.  Could have been any of a thousand rational explanations.

I was riding my big-wheel in a tennis court around sunset, and another kid asked if he could ride it.  I remember being very scared that if I let him ride it, he’d run me over.  But being the naive, trusting person I was, I let him.  And being the unlucky person I was, I was then run over.  I recall my father bursting out of the house and chasing the kid off.

I remember my parents yelling and me hiding in the darkness of my bedroom.

I remember sitting in the bar my mother was a waitress at.

I remember taking a sip of of beer that I thought was apple juice that was sitting on the kitchen table.

I remember seeing my little brother stumble down the hallway out of his room as he took his first steps.

Beyond that, the events become slightly more clear, and the circumstances of those events begin to reveal themselves, but that is a story for another day… another chapter.

Inspired somewhat by Burgundy’s posts over at the ecclectic land of Perrero, I have decided to chronicle some of my life here on this little site.   It will be a story with some sad bits, I’m sure, but nothing too major, I don’t think.  It is not a story of angst and regret, nor is it a story of childhood innocence lost.  It is merely the story of my memories, be they good or bad.

I’ll take this chance to make a mention of the ‘My Life (or something like it)’ series on Perrero one more time.  It is a story of family and betrayal, of losing oneself, and maybe one day finding oneself.  It is a story that if it happened to me, I’m not entirely sure I’d be able to tell it to others.

So, with that in mind, I feel it appropriate to leave you with what is, my my mind, one of the greatest intro sentences in the history of literature.  Penned by one Charles Dickens, in a little known novel called “David Copperfield.”

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

Zel-kun out.