Jul 21, 1999, 2:00pm

Well, that last rant was pretty depressing, wasn't it?

Let me try to move on to better things. About a year ago, I wrote a 4 part serial in this here section - 4 rants taken up with part rant, part story. I'd just read the adventures of Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, and it had an effect on me. I wrote my own "Catcher" story, and serialized it here for the few people who dropped by to read. Most folks liked the story, a few didn't, but hey, that's okay.

Anyway, I promised at the end of the "raw" story (I typed it in once, gave it a quick looksee, and "published it" without much editing) that I would revise it, add to it, and then put it up on this site as a new story, something I haven't done for quite some time.

Well, it's been a year in the making, but I finally got around to it. That serious design block I had a few days ago was taken over by me reading the story over again, and doing some serious editing to it. The story's done, and all I have to do is prep the html pages for it, and possibly scan a few pictures out of my yearbooks from high school.

In the meantime, here's an excerpt from "My Personal Rye Catcher":

Now note takin' is something I rarely did in school. I was one of those fake note takers, y'see. I used to pretend for the teacher's benefit that I was writin' stuff down like a madman, when in actual fact I was doodlin' here and there, writin' notes to the girls in class, or writin' notes to pass to Elyned in between classes. I did a lot of that, you know. I was the note writing king when it came to these little love notes passed in the hallway. I was famous for them. I'd write little bits of poetry to impress the chicks, or when the mood struck, I'd write down some funny little joke I invented or I'd write a story.

Yep, I'd write stories in note form. Kinda serialized, if you must know. I'd start the story in the morning, and usually finish it by late afternoon. My fave character was Bob the Eunuch. Poor Bob had his penis cut off when he was about my age because he was sorta destined to be part of Cleopatra's guard, but government cutbacks eliminated his position just as he finished his training for it. Man, was Bob a pissed off Eunuch, lemme tell you.

I'd write about Bob and his adventures all over Egypt and Greece and Mesopotamia and even Rome. Bob fightin' the Duke of such and such, and Bob getting' drunk with a buncha Jews just of the rowing detail, and Bob goin' to a party at some Greek atrium and getting' hit on by some chick, but havin' to tell her he had no dick, and stuff. Poor Bob.

So I was really famous for these things. One of the yearbook geeks heard about my Bob the Eunuch series and wanted to put them in the yearbook, but there was two problems with that. Old man Turner, the teacher advisor for the yearbook, felt that Bob was a bit too racy for the yearbook. And besides, I didn't want to be in the stinkin' yearbook. Only the geeks and stuff wrote for that thing.

Well that's it for that for now. I hope (I won't promise) to have the fully revised story, in little mini chapters, up within a week or less, and I'll let you know when I do.

I do want to speak on that a bit though... the story. I was pretty depressed the last time around, as you could probably tell, and that story, most of which is true (I ain't telling the made up parts!) really did lift my spirits. That girl I used to date - Elyned. She was pretty special to me - you know, that "first love" thing and all that. And I credit her (and another woman - a platonic friend, Heather) as being two of the biggest influences in my life outside of family. Len and I broke up under pretty bad circumstances, with me going through that whole "guy in denial for six months or longer" thing (I didn't think it was the case back then, but looking back today, yeah, it was), but I have a lot to thank Elyned for.

I don't really use my University degrees (History and PoliSci from Carleton, and I was in the Masters program of Anthropology at UBC) in any official way - I'm not a History teacher, or a political analyst, or an archaeologist, or an antrhopologist, but my schooling has helped me in so many ways. It's helped me to use proper research skills and means (trust me - you apply these learned skills in more ways than you can imagine), and my Anthropology schooling has really, really helped me in my current occupation as a self employed web developer - As I wrote in my last rant, those learned skills have aided me immensely in locating my clients' target markets, research them, and recognize what will work (sell) and what won't. I feel I am better at my current job because of the skills I learned in school. (note, I also took design courses at Carleton, and those help of course!).

And I really do have Elyned to thank for a lot of this. In my Catcher story, I end it by saying something to the effect that "I'm the one responsible for this success" yada yada, but maybe I don't give enough credit to Elyned... well, I do give her tons of credit in the story, but never really directly. In the end, it was what I had inside of me that made me succeed, but the truth is, if it wasn't for Len, I wouldn't have even tried.

Kinda cool to have those memories. I do have some regrets about that time in my life (sidenote - anyone who makes the statement "I have no regrets" is a fool - everyone has at least one thing they've done in their life that they would change if they could), but I sure don't regret meeting and going out with Elyned (and falling in love with her).

Well, that's about it for now.

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Mixelania

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