Why I’m NOT Cool With The End of The World
Early last year I wrote a piece titled “Why I’m Cool With the End of the World.” Back then I was ready - things were routine, I was treading water with everything in my life - basically, an apocalypse would have shaken things up and made things interesting again. Why the hell not.
The things I was cool with still hold true - except Obama DID win, and I am a little interested in how his second term rolls out, especially since he’s finally showing a little backbone against Boehnhead and the Republican House.
Truth is, though, in these final hours I’m not so sure about it all. You see, 2013 looks very promising for me, and it’d be a fucking shame if we blinked out of existence just as I was hitting my stride and getting off this Godforsaken plateau I’ve been on.
For your edification (and end of the world enjoyment) here’s a quick pictorial of some of the things I might miss out on if Planet Nibiru is for real:
These three stacks are novels. Over the last 12 years, I’ve written all three of them. The one on the left has moments of brilliance, but needs a major rewrite that I’m not sure I can give it. It was my first - call it an exercise in learning how to write a book. The middle one, The Survivor of San Guillermo, is going to get published in 2013. And the one on the right - The Talented Boys - is better than either of the other two.
Twelve years, I’m finally getting a book published. End of the world. Fuck.
This is an intricate, yet highly enjoyable and immersive board game I designed, which is based on a millions-dollar intellectual property that I can’t disclose until the property rights owner agrees to license it. If it gets licensed I’ll be ecstatic, because the IP is one I love, that my friends love, and that I believe is worthy of as much respect as Star Wars and Lord of The Rings. Even if we don’t get the license, I can adapt the game to a different IP and still have a great and highly publishable game.
Unless the world ends.
This is the back of my house. About five years ago, I added a new sun room to the back, with a little help from my dad. It was a project several years in the making, because I had to work on it in the nooks and crannies between doing all the other things I do. But it’s a great room - and it adds thousands of dollars of value to my home, as well as several hundred square feet. I’m almost finished with it, and then Aida (my wife) and I can start seriously looking into selling our house and upgrading to something even bigger. I’ll probably have it done by spring, weather permitting.
Apocalypse permitting.
Finally, there’s these two little ones. As sure as I am that they’d get a free trip to Heaven should the apocalypse prove real, and thus avoid the horrors of teenage-dom and adulthood, it’d be a travesty of Earth-shattering proportions. I’ve invested most of my heart and a lot of effort in making certain these two are happy and wholesome. Having that job cut off before I finished it MIGHT piss me off more than all the other stuff combined.
So yeah. I take back what I said earlier this year. The end of the world can wait.
2011 Holiday Postcard
We get a lot of holiday cards every year, and we mostly suck at reciprocating. But I’ve found that doing THIS - using my site to give you guys a shitty snapshot of my kids framed in a holiday theme - suffices for a lot of people, and HA! It saves paper. And postage. And you can look at it in June and still feel the holiday spirit. Unlike all those holiday cards that get tossed, eh?
Anyway - I’ll save you the ALL the awful details of how scary this holiday season has been for my family. (You’re still gonna get some for context.) Suffice it to say that my wife’s grandmother died peacefully in her sleep last week, and while it was expected and anticipated, that hardly softens the blow. Granna was adored by everyone in the family, and she’s left a big hole.
Meanwhile, following shortly on the heels of all that, my mother got put in the hospital for pneumonia. Considering her cigarette habit and her poor respiratory health (she’s gone through bouts of emphysema, bronchitis, and pluerisy), and given the taste of death that Granna’s passing left us with, we’ve been a bit edgy these past few days.
But alas, Christmas Day is nigh, we’re otherwise if great spirits and reasonable health, and I can hear sleigh bells ringing even now.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays Again!!!
Alas. The holiday season is here again. You know, I read somewhere that when the powers that be were trying to decide WHEN to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, they decided to schedule it when they did so that Christian people would have something to look forward to. Because otherwise (in the Northern Hemisphere at least) all we have to look forward to this time of year is a bunch of cold weather, gray skies, snow and sleet and ice. I don’t know if what I read is true or not, but I will tell you this much - if it weren’t for the holidays, I’d be fairly dour and grumpy right now. I hate winter. And once the holidays are over - first week of January or so - I may become dour and grumpy after all. I did last year. Maybe it’s middle age creeping up on me. Maybe it’s because we had an abysmally long winter last year. And yeah, I know I live in Georgia and I have it relatively easy - but there’s a reason I don’t live further north.
Wow. What a tangent. Sorry about that.
Back to the point: Happy Holidays, everybody! I don’t know what you’re doing for the holidays, but I hope it’s fun, or exciting, or life-affirming, or important. Or all of the above.
Me? I’m going to play some of this wealth of new games that I’ve bought (I MAY even tell you about them next year). I’m going to drink all this great-tasting beer available now in the United States. And - guilty pleasure here - I’m going to play the hell out of some Rock Band.
Here’s the kids in a Christmas card for you. Thanks to picnik.com for the help making a kind of crappy picture into something passable and fun (check ‘em out - they’re a really cool online photo editing tool).
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Willkenyon.com!
For several years, my wife and I managed - just like many of you - to send out a whole host of Christmas cards (as well as generic Happy Holiday cards for our many Jewish, Muslim, and atheist friends). For a couple of years though, we’ve kinda NOT done it. I mean, there’s a whole lotta you guys out there that we love (especially you of course!) and time goes by really quickly and by the time we think of it, it’s too late.
But this time! This time, I thought, why not? I’ve got a forum that many, many, many of our friends pay some moderate attention to at least, so why not send a sort of holiday greeting to you via it?
So here it is. And yeah, it’s a Merry Christmas for us and from us, but here’s hoping you non-Christmas celebrators had a great Hannukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever you atheist folks celebrate.
It’s a picture of Madeleine and Eli. We’ve received a lot of kiddie pics from a lot of you guys, so we’ll join the bandwagon. You really don’t want to see my ugly mug anyway.
Happy Holidays, all. We love you.
