Christmas has meant many different things to me over the years as my beliefs and worldview have changed. Yet there has been one constant which has always stayed with me ever since the age of nine: My contempt for Santa Claus. If I were a comic book super villain, my origin story would probably begin…
Year: 2010
The B-Day Supreme
Friday the 10th was Joie’s birthday. She asked all of her friends not to buy any gifts for her this year. She did, however, encourage us to put forth some creative effort and to make something for her if we truly felt compelled to give her a present. On Friday night, two hours before I…
Inside Thoughts
Raise your hand high if you’re like me, and you suffer from an excess of irrepressible “inside thoughts”. I’m not talking about your usual stream of consciousness, the standard train of thought that never seems to disembark. Thinking is what the brain does, and it is either unable or unwilling to cease its idle thinking…
KZ Gets Physical
I caught a terrible cold over the Thanksgiving weekend. My shoulders and back muscles are suffering through a familiar soreness, the kind of pain you would normally feel the day after a hard workout at the gym. Sometimes I’ll feel cold, and sometimes I’ll need to open all of the windows in the apartment in…
Once I’ve Finished
Have you ever had one of those dry spells as a blogger where you lose your creative will for half a month because you’re coming home exhausted from work every night, too tired and depressed to write anything worthwhile? Yeah, me neither. On a completely unrelated note, I haven’t written anything new over the past…
“For a Saint” – Part IV
Their machinery was too much for you, oh fallen saint oh living Dream, oh healing life a love denied through faceless, insidious plague Yet in lack of limbs and human warmth in lack of breath and mortal sense though rooms may stand in lonesome depth and though sin may stand to dwell again in absence…
Winning Without Trying
Recently one weekend, while Diana and I were driving home after running some errands, we got into the usual argument over which radio station we were going to listen to. At some point, I relented and let Diana choose the music. Even though Diana eventually got her way, I’d still like to think I came…
Sarcasm and Sincerity Preceding Halloween
Here we have it, friends. This is my Halloween tribute to my dearly departed grandfather. I call it, “The Most Sarcastic Jack-O-Lantern of 2010”. “But KZ,” some of you are probably thinking, “that pumpkin doesn’t look very sarcastic to me.” For those of you not in the know, the name of my pumpkin is a…
Messages from the Dark
Inexplicably, I woke up this morning with a large scratch running lengthwise down my chest and stomach. It wasn’t there before I went to bed last night. My friends, if you didn’t believe me before about the authenticity of my previous ghost wound, then get a load of this. Yeah, yeah, I know — I’m…
Lessons Learned from a Broken Blog
I broke my blog late last week while attempting to enhance the layout template. At the lowest point, my homepage was taking twelve agonizing seconds to load, and the comment box would send you to a blank error page when you clicked the submit button. The worst of it, though, came when I rushed through…