I'm Absolutely Full (From Gladly Eating All My Words)

There I was, minding my own business, being a goofball with the family (if you can believe it) when I flippantly called out, "That's it! I'll never write again!" 

Emily, Jake's girlfriend and the newest member of the blog reading community, blurts out, "You're going to eat those words." I could have thought: What did she mean by that? or, That's an interesting thing to say. or even, Does she have a relative who's in the publishing business who wants to offer me the standard "Rich and Famous" contract? Like I said, I could have thought any or all of those things, instead I probably thought: 'I wonder if pigs know that they are one of the few animals that can get sunburned?' or something equally ridiculous. 

By not thinking anything even close to logical I set myself up to be completely gob smacked! That is what happened! I'm not exactly sure where my gob is precisely, but I do know that it has been thoroughly and completely smacked! 

I'm not sure how long ago, but certainly before last August, I mentioned to Emily that I had written in a blog in the past. I was telling her a story and teased her with something like, "You'd know all this if you read my blog." She genuinely wanted to read it and I gave her the address. A few days later she told me that she enjoyed my little corner of the internet and that she liked my writing style. (10 points for Emilydor!) I enjoyed the compliment and moved on with my life.

Jump rapidly ahead to just before my birthday last month. Emily brought over a uniquely wrapped present and set it over in the slowly growing wrapped Christmas present staging area. This gift had all sorts of folds and pockets and a card with a little sprig of decoration tucked in and she showed me that it had my name on it written in very fancy writing. Nothing unusual. Emily is quite artistic. Moving on.

The night of my birthday we ate dinner, they sang to me (I'm not sure which song...in my head the family all perfectly performed a rendition of "The Lonely Goatherd" from the Sound of Music...but I may be mistaken), and then they brought me my presents. I noticed two things. My family has completely embraced and enabled my Dr Pepper addiction, and I am a clueless human being. After opening an unplanned and uncoordinated string of Dr Pepper related products Emily handed me her nicely wrapped gift. It was a parallelepiped which, of course, is a 6 faced polyhedron all of whose faces are parallelograms lying in pairs of parallel planes (in other words, a box)...but I digress. So, this box was about the size of a large book and I read the nice card while taking note that Jacob was setting his camera on a tripod. 

Confession time. I saw the size of her present and added that together with my many hints about how cool it would be to have one of those very fancy and highly professional knife sharpening systems they've been advertising online for a few months I thought I had guessed it. I'm not a snooper and I am perfectly happy being surprised, so I never went over and picked up the fancy gift to see if it weighed about what I thought a knife sharpener would weigh. Had I picked it up, heard little stainless steel bars clank together inside of a fairly lightweight box I would have spoiled the surprise! Little did I know that they do not make those knife sharpeners with Dr Pepper logos on them so it was never going to happen anyway. 

Jake started recording. I opened the box. I saw a familiar picture emblazoned on the cover of a very large book! A picture of the family! My Family! From my Facebook page! 

I know words. I like to think I can string them together into meaningful sentences. I try to be precise in my language and with my speaking or writing. I choose to use certain words because of the connotations associated with them and I choose not to say other words because they just don't have the correct feelings I'm going for. I have even been known to interpret others' miscommunications at times and create understanding where there was none. I'm not bragging, just explaining. I know words.

And then I saw the picture...read the title:

Do I  Really Live In This Sitcom? 

Volume 1, 

Jeff Garrett, 

An Autobiography

...slowly realized what the heck was going on...and I gathered all of my word-working skills together and started speaking as eloquently as I could:

"Wha...."  "Wha...."  "How...."  "Wha...."  "WHA....!"  "HUH!?!"  "WHAT? HOW?! THIS...! WHAT!"

It's not Shakespeare but it's all I could muster. I could have been knocked over by a slight breeze, I was so surprised and then I opened the very stylish cover....and I got a second shock! It turns out that Emily had not only gathered all of my ramblings into an edited collection, painted the art for the cover and designed the title typeface from distinctive sitcom shows' lettering, ordered it to be published into book form, but then she told a lot of the family so they could write thoughtful little notes to me about the book! Do you realize what that means!?! Everybody knew about it! THE FINKS! 

Nobody even gave me a clue that I should wear my gob protector. (You know, because it was about to be smacked) It was quite honestly one of the most humbling moments of my life as I realized what Emily had undertaken. She started this project in August and was able to complete it in enough time to have family sign it for me before she wrapped it! I would love to say that I was moved to tears because that is the most common question I get whenever I tell someone about the gift. Alas, I am not really a crier...to my eternal shame...but that is not a comment on how much I appreciate the gift.

So here we are. I am now a published author. Emily has told me that she was ready to order more for anyone who wants one. I'm not sure of all of the particulars but I think it will be in the $50 range since, apparently, I have written A LOT! I suppose if you'd like to have a physical representation of my little corner of the internet, you could let me know.

Pay attention and I will let you know who they choose to play me in the movie they make from my book...I'm thinking that Kurt Russell is a good choice. ;-)

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go buy myself a knife sharpening kit...while drinking a Dr Pepper!

 Truly, Thank you again Emily, Unbelievably Awesome!

Late Bloomer?

I've got a serious question for everyone. 

Well, maybe not everyone. If I had to wait until the "everyone" responded the question would be moot. (yes, that's how you spell that. I looked it up.) Also, "serious" sounds very important and weighty and that's definitely not the vibe I'm going for. Vibe? Really Jeff...vibe? I don't think I've ever actually said the word vibe in my life before this. It's just not something I'd do. These 4 times notwithstanding. 

Let me start again. 

I've got a moderately weighty question that I'd like to ask a handful of people. Although, come to think of it, a handful of people might not be a large enough sample size. I mean if my parents and my sister chime in that would really sque, scew, scue, change the data. 

Third time's a charm! 

Well, possibly not if I say it that way. I'm a big movie buff. I almost said Take Three! but I wasn't sure enough of the people I wanted to answer this question would understand the reference since it may be an outdated way for movie companies to identify how many times they've tried to get the scene correct. I mean they probably don't have someone stand in front of the camera with that black and white board with the hinged paint-stick looking thing slapping down while they shout, "Take seventeen...Take 42...Take 153...." I'm sure it's all done on computers now. HEY! Did I mention that we got a new computer last night!? Yeah, I thought I'd come out and take it for a test drive to ask everyone a question....oh, oops.

Take Four!

Time for the really real question. I've got a birthday coming up and I would love to know people's opinions. How old do you have to be before it becomes really impressive to start something? For instance, Grandma Moses was in her 70's before she started painting. Nice. I'm pretty sure some other people started things later in life. Let me Google something really quick. Hang on.

OK, I'm back.

Apparently Ray Kroc  was 53 when he started McDonald's. Susan Boyle was 47 when she wowed the internet with her singing. Alan Rickman was 42 when he terrorized Nakatomi Tower. But honestly, I don't think I want to start a restaurant, subject anyone to my singing, or act like a terrorist. Besides, I am already older than all of these people were.

I want to be an author. Let me look up authors who are considered late bloomers. Here's one, J.K. Rowling, when she published Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone...um hmm. Ok, well crap. It says she was 32.

So much for that. New plan.

I'd like someone to put me in touch with David from My Lottery Dream Home from HGTV. If you are unfamiliar with the show, David takes lottery winners to the places that they've always wanted to live to make sure they get the perfect house of their dreams. Sylvia and I have been watching a lot of his shows recently and think it would be exciting to have him find us a home! Of course, before we contact him, it would probably be wise to have someone put me in touch with a winning lottery ticket. Another thing to add to my list. Great.

Right now the only houses we might be able to afford would be a run down fixer-upper in Arkansas...but that wouldn't be a problem as long as someone could put me in touch with Dave and Jenny Marrs, also from HGTV and a show called Fixer to Fabulous. They do a spectacular job fixing up older houses and making them into dream homes-minus the lottery pre-requisite. Come to think of it though, those home buyers do give Dave and Jenny a substantial budget in order to make those fixer uppers into fixed ups. I'm afraid the only way we could give them a budget is if they let me pay with my good looks. Honestly though, with that size of a budget I could maybe get Dave to wipe the dust off the front door knob while Jenny sprayed water on my glasses so I wouldn't notice that nothing had changed on the house. (and then Dave would sprinkle dust back onto the door knob)

I suppose that's not the best way to meet our new best friends, Dave and Jenny. Sylvia and I have already decided that they will love us when we have them fix our house up in the future. Nothing against Lottery David. He seems like a hoot! It's just that he is always jet setting around the country and we need a little more geographical stability in people who are considering vying for the position of best friends. As for our current best friends, no offense, but you haven't steered us toward any HGTV personalities...or winning lottery tickets...so let's work on that.

But I digress....

The other night I woke up with a book idea clearly defined in my head. I jumped out of bed, grabbed a notebook, and scribbled and scratched for three hours, and got the outline down. It'll take some time before I get all of it worked out but it's exciting nonetheless. Thanks for listening. Also, I think I may have asked this 'How old...' question before, but I'm getting so old that I've forgotten. Now, if you'll excuse me I need to let David, Dave and Jenny know that I'll be needing a writing room in our new house.