BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

THE PUF REPORT: Part 2 of 5

You know, this whole being an author gig is kind of interesting, in a psychological mindf*ck sort of way, if you get my meaning.

Now, if you don’t get my meaning, I hope you will by the end of this blog entry. But – and this is a big but (stop snickering) – before I go any further, I want to point out an important bit of info: I write because I enjoy writing. I sought publication because I enjoy sharing stories, and I’ll admit that it’s nice to get paid to do something you enjoy. (Not that the paycheck is all that big, mind you.) So, writing was pretty much my only choice in the  “professions I truly enjoy” category because I don’t have the necessary endowments to make it big in the adult film industry.

But, be that as it may, what I’m driving at here is the fact that I did NOT go into this profession seeking fame. Really and truly, I didn’t. With fame comes all sorts of responsibility that I really don’t want. Unfortunately, by definition, the whole “branding” and “marketing” thing does tend to make your name known to readers of a particular genre and that sort of thing.  Ergo, while not necessarily what you would call “fame”, there is a certain level of “recognition” that is achieved. It’s actually even somewhat necessary – as I said, “marketing” – in order to have any kind of success in this field.  Yeah, it just sorta comes with the territory, like it or not.

Fortunately for me, I’m a ham and I don’t mind a little bit of attention every now and then. Unfortunately, however, I am afraid I might have become a bit used to it.

Okay, before anyone says anything about that statement above, no, the author thing hasn’t gone to my head. Dorothy Morrison would probably tell you otherwise and that I have to use a pair of scissors to get out of a pullover shirt, but that’s simply not true. (I’ve had all of them altered to include a Velcro quick release a the shoulder seams.) That, and she lies on me all the time. It’s how she is.

Still, with all that said, I have become somewhat used to arriving at an event and having people recognize who I am and be happy to see me.

This is where we segue to Lasagna.

Okay, I’ll sit back for a second and wait for everyone to slip into their neck braces, what with that sudden case of whiplash coming out of nowhere… Everybody ready? Good… Here we go…

At PUF (Pagan Unity Festival) there is a community feast on Saturday night. Everyone brings a dish to share and the event usually preps a major entree like ham and chicken or something of that sort. There’s food for miles, but we are actually going to get to that in a later blog, so I won’t give you all the food details right now. The point behind me telling you this is that some years back everyone donated frozen lasagna. Yeah…everyone… Their dish to share was the old standby, family-sized pan of frozen, layered, Italian-American pasta. PUF literally received something like 40 pans of it. In the wake of this glut of pasta the fest has requested that no one donate lasagna ever again under pain of horrible and terrible, prolonged, agonizing death. Thank you, and go about enjoying yourselves now. Etc.

Well… you know me… I take that as a challenge… Yeah, you guessed it. Every year it is a moral imperative that I and my crew donate a frozen lasagna, if for no other reason than to get a decent laugh. Now, since we do this primarily as a joke, we buy cheap lasagna. And, since it is frozen, we tend to buy it when we get close to the event – as in just a few miles away. The past few years it has been obtained from the Kroger in Dickson, TN since that is right near the park where PUF is held.

So, by now I am sure you are all wondering just exactly what Kroger Frozen Lasagna has to do with this whole authoring thing, fame, and even more so, why this post is titled “Where’s Kat?”. Well, believe it or not, it all fits together.

Seriously. Would I lie about that? (Okay, don’t answer that.)

Ahem… Koff… Koff… Well, let me see if I can tie it all together for you. Obviously, “Kat” is none other than E K. If that wasn’t obvious, it should be now that I have told you (wink wink, nudge nudge). At any rate, after she was through torturing Johnathan… Well… Actually she’s never truly finished torturing anyone… But, moving on… After she was finished torturing Johnathan for the time being, we finally rolled into Montgomery Bell State Park where PUF is held each year. We checked in at the gate, did our annual “Royal Wave” as Johnathan and I rode down to the cabin on the back of the van, and then started to unload. (Note: The only reason E K doesn’t make us ride on the outside of the van during the rest of the trip is because it is illegal on the highway. Although, on numerous occasions she has been known to tie someone up and put them in the car top luggage carrier, but that’s another story.)

As we were unloading the van, I noticed that the Frozen Lasagna was  well on its way to getting melty, so I grabbed it up and headed down the hill to the main hall where the kitchen and fridges are located. It was nice to finally be off the road after a long drive, and I was excited to see all the folks I call my friends, but who I only get to visit with about once per year.

When I reached the bottom of the hill I walked into the dining hall, then through the doors and into the kitchen. There was bustling activity among the crew as they prepared the evening meal. I grinned and tossed the lasagna on the counter as I always do. It felt like I was coming home again. For a brief few seconds, anyway…

You see, usually I am greeted with something along the line of, “Murv’s here!” being shouted with much excitement. This year, however, instead of anything involving my name and happiness over my arrival, what met my ears was, “Where’s Kat?”

Initially I figured this was just an odd anomaly. A one-time occurrence. Nothing that should raise any sort of concern. But then someone came out of the back, rounded the corner, saw me, then smiled and asked, “Where’s Kat?” Then, someone came in through the doors behind me, noticed I was standing there and said, “Oh hi, Murv. Where’s Kat?”

I answered the question two dozen times before I made it out of the dining hall, only to be bombarded with it all the way back up the hill to our cabin. I  finally lost count of how many more times it was asked of me over the weekend. Suffice it to say, it became painfully clear that I had been unceremoniously and completely usurped by the Evil Redhead.  Murv was nobody. All hail E K.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, she’s far prettier than I’ll ever be, and then there’s that whole “hot, sexy, evil without boundaries” thing she has going for her. I suppose it was only a matter of time…

But, you know, that’s not the most troublesome development out of all this… As always, the planning for the following year’s PUF begins approximately 24 hours after the end of the current year’s PUF, so all of that is already in full swing. Not unusual, except that I’ve already been hearing rumors that we author types are being completely cut from the program.

Apparently E K is going to be the 2010 Guest of Honor.

More to come…

Murv

The next installment in THE PUF REPORT: Part 3 of 5 – Dingle? What’s A Dingle?

So, I’m pretty sure it’s no secret that I was in Nebraska last month for WillyCon XI, so I won’t bore you with those particular details…

I will, however, bore you with some other stuff. Hey, it’s my job, correct?

You see, WillyCon was one of those 3-5 day jaunts. I left on a Thursday morning, and returned Monday afternoon. Normally, I would have returned sometime Sunday, but as I noted in the previous WillyCon specific blogs, you couldn’t get there from here. My choices were pretty much St. Louis to Minneapolis to Sioux City or St. Louis to Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago to Sioux City. Thursday – Monday. Take it or leave it. So, obviously I took it. But, I digress.

The thing here is that these days my daughter really is all about the 3-5 day jaunts I take to do book signings. You see, they seem to be just about the right amount of time. Anything past 5 days and she starts missing me too much. The 3 dayers are pretty much her favorite, 4 is pretty good, 5 is pushing it, but not quite over the line just yet.

I think what she really likes most about me being gone for these events is that when I am only disappearing for a few days I don’t do the whole cooking and freezing dinner thing. I make sure there are nukeable foods in the fridge and freezer, plus plenty of canned goodies, but they are almost always right where I left them when I return. Why? because since E K doesn’t cook, and I haven’t done the prep for her, they tend to eat fast to semi-fast food the entire time. Quizno’s, Pizza, etc…

So, what’s not to like about this for a kid? The parental unit isn’t gone too long, and they get fast food. It’s kind of like a Pinnochio Nirvana sans strings and donkey ears.

But, let’s get back around to the whole gist of this blog entry. The kid actually does start to miss me, especially around day 4 or 5. This happened, like clockwork, on my trip to Nebraska.

Long about the evening of day 4 my cell phone rang. When I answered it, instead of being E K or my publicist as I would have suspected, it turned out to be the offspring. She wanted to hear my voice and tell me about her day. It was obvious that she was starting down that “I miss you, daddy” road when she just kept talking and talking. You see, for the first three days I usually get, “I’m busy playing googly-monster-barbie-fun-petz on the computer. Can I go now?”

That whole bit used to hurt my feelings, but just like kids grow and evolve, so should parents. I think maybe I’ve managed that, because I understand that it takes some time for my absence to have a direct affect upon her 9 year old world.

But, back to the story…

We were at that stage of me being missed enough to warrant a long conversation, which of course, made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because I have like the coolest kid in the world and stuff. (But, I won’t digress into bragging… for the moment, anyway.)

After several minutes of chatting, the offspring tells me that she and E K had gone for a hike in one of the local parks. In the process they came across a Calico cat. Well, E K being a cat-fanatic, (probably because in some kind of freak accident her DNA was fused with that of an actual feline – that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it), plus the kid being a kid, they oohed, ahhed, and spoke to said cat. The offspring told me that even though they had informed the Kitteh that they meant it no harm and weren’t going to bother it, that the animal still watched them suspiciously.

Well, what do you say to something like that? Especially if you are me and you are generally warped and working hard at warping your child… Glad you asked…

When the offspring told me this, I replied, “Well honey, maybe the cat doesn’t understand English. Maybe it’s a foreign cat and it only speaks French or Spanish, or some other language like that.”

Without missing a beat the kid said, “Pssshaw! Daddddeeeee! Cats don’t speak French or Spanish.”

“Okay, so what do they speak?” I asked.

“I dunno,” she replied with a healthy shrug audible in her voice. “Probably Catnamese or something like that.”

Yes… I almost dropped my cell phone I was laughing so hard.

It’s true. My kid is definitely just as warped as I am. I’m so proud I think there might even be tears involved…

More to come…

Murv