They Say It's Your Birthday, Well It's My Birthday Too, Yeah.

Here's a fun idea: go to Wikipedia (one of the seven wonders of the world, in my opinion) and punch in your birthday (the month and day, not the year). In my case: March 17. There you will find a long list of things that happened on your birthday. World events, birthdays, and deaths, that sort of thing. Me? I share my birthday with Shemp Howard, the inferior "Three Stooges" stooge, Nat King Cole, John Wayne Gacy, Patrick Duffy, Kurt Russell, Gary Sinise, Rob Lowe, Billy Corgan, Mia Hamm, and the girl that played Veruca Salt on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Funny thing, apparently Saint Patrick died on Saint Patrick's day. Bummer.

12 months of the Bratch

I always feel the need to preface surveys with a statement that leads you to believe that I do not do these ad nauseam. This one is so different than the others that I'll suspend my disbelief that no one will read this.

! JANUARY !

1. Who kissed you on new years?
no one.

2. Did you have a new year's resolution this year?
I always thought these were trite, no one keeps them.

3. Does it snow where you live?
Yes. Well, it did a lot when I was a kid. Now it's not that often. All that time spent on my patio spraying 80's-era hair spray cans into the sky finally paid off.

4. Do you like hot chocolate?
Only when it's made with three to five time the normal chocolate, otherwise it tastes like hot chocolate water, which at that point it might as well be hot ham water.

5. Have you ever been to Times Square to watch the ball drop?
I've been to Times Square, and I've seen the ball drop, but never at the same time.

♥ FEBRUARY ♥

1. Who was your Valentine?
I had one in ninth grade. . . that was my last one.

2. When you were little did you buy Valentine's for the whole class?
I had to. Those were the rules (implemented so kids like me didn't feel bad that all the cool kids got all the cards and I only got one from the teacher and the weird girl that sat in the corner eating glue [how is it that there were cool kids in elementary school? We were barely out of diapers, none of us deserved to be top of any social caste] ).

3. Do you care if the groundhog sees its shadow or not?
Only if it's in the context of the movie Groundhog Day, which is on the list of "movies that I do not own but wish I did, but don't remember when I do finally decide to buy a DVD."

! MARCH !

1. Are you Irish?
Yes. 1/4, along with 1/4 Norwegian, 1/2 German, and 1/8 Native American (wait a second...)

2. Do you wear green every year on St.Patrick's day?
I tried to get out of it as a kid because I assumed there were specials rules if it was your birthday, but I always got pinched anyway.

3. What did you do for St. Patty's Day in 2007?
returned to KC for my birthday.

4. Are you happy when winter is pretty much over?
Yes, it is the best thing ever ( reference ).

! APRIL !

1. Do you like the rain?
When sitting outside, reading a book: yes
When driving: no

2. Did you play an April fool's joke on anyone this year?
No. I did pull a "Surprise! I'm quitting!" about the same time.

3. Do you get tons of candy on Easter?
I've gotten an Easter basket mostly every year. This year I bought my own (to the tune of a pack of kitkats and a pack of reese's with a cadbury egg for good measure).

4. Do you celebrate 4/20?
no.

5. Do you love the month of april?
Not really. Am I supposed to?

! MAY !

1. What is your favorite flower?
Pansies, because the yellow ones look like nuclear warning signs (this was my answer as I child, and I've never really seen fit to change it)

2. Do you celebrate cinco de mayo?
no

3. Finish the phrase "April showers..."
Bring may flowers, may flowers bring pilgrims. Perhaps the first joke I ever remembered

4. Do you celebrate May 16th: National Piercing Day?
Not aware of this

5. Is May anything special to you?
No more than any other given month.

! JUNE !

1. What year did/will you graduate from high school?
2001

2. Did you do anything fun during this month?
Not really, I bummed around the house all months (which, I suppose, was fun)

3. Have a favorite baseball team?
being from KC, my default team is the Royals, though they don't really warrant fandom.

! JULY !

1. What did you do on the Fourth of July?
Shot off all of the fireworks I've amassed over the past three years with my dad and brother.

2. Did you go on any vacations during this month?
Phoenix, AZ; Springfield, MO; Knoxville, TN

! AUGUST !

1. Are you doing anything special at the end of your summer?
Arranging the move to TN

3. Did you have a sunburn?
No. I'm the proverbial geek with no tan. When I do tan, I get pretty dark.

4. Did you go to the pool a lot?
No.

! SEPTEMBER !

1. Will you be attending college/school?
Maybe. If I'm down there by then, I'll start Real Estate school, if I don't, I'll just be working and helping take care of my grandma

2. Who was/is your favorite teacher?
teachers are all a blur.

3. Do you like fall better than summer?
I think so.

! OCTOBER !

1. What was your last Halloween costume?
Broke Bible College Student (worn during a Halloween party a few years ago)

2. What is your favorite candy?
reese's peanut butter cups. This answer has stayed constant my whole life.

3. Who's birthday is this Month?
Matt Maddux.

4. What was your favorite thing about this month?
The smell.

! NOVEMBER !

1. Whose house do you go to for Thanksgiving?
Usually a grandparent, whether it's mom's side or dad's.

2. Whats best about this month?
The start of Christmas Season.

3. What are you thankful for?
A lot. (what a cookie cutter answer).

4. Do you love stuffing?
Definitely. It's my favorite Thanksgiving-only foodstuff. My mom doesn't like it so when I came came from college she'd never make it, though I asked if she would. Over the course of the year she'd forget and I'd forget to remind her.

! DECEMBER !

1. Do you celebrate Christmas?
Sure do.

2. What is December 1st, 2007?
Is there a specific answer to this?

3. Have you ever been kissed under the mistletoe?
No

4. Get anything special last year?
It was mostly a no-nonsense cash Christmas.

5. What do you want this year?
Not sure. Haven't thought about it.

6. Do you like cold weather?
Yes. But I don't like driving in snow or ice, so it's a little bittersweet.

7. HAVE YOU EVER LICKED A FROSTED POLE AND GOT STUCK???
There are things that I've been warned not to do and I took heed. This is one of them.

Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Bratcher Lev. A year ago I birthed you so that I may have an e-presence beyond the myspaces and facebooks of the world. I had also started a youth pastor job and thought this a good way to keep up with my young sheepies. The address was printed on the bottom of my card, which I gave out liberally at the beginning of my career. If I were given a business card by my spiritual shepherd that had the ever-enigmatic "thebratch.blogspot.com" printed at the bottom I would have immediately visited as soon as I could. If it were as well written and dynamic as you are, I would have been a regular visitor. This never happened, however. Thanks to a google program, I know when and from where people visit my page (this I check almost never . . . as I know where the two hits may be from). It never read IL except for when I knew I was there (for some reason, it didn't tell the difference between me and everyone else).

And so it goes.

I have left the occupation for which you were created, yet I continue nurturing you. What started as a professional venture quickly became a personal project.

Bratcher Lev, we salute you.

And yes, we know what your name is.

It's About Time.

I just read that the world's oldest person, Yone Minagawa, just died. She was a spry 114 years old. This is a bit funny because she's no longer the world's oldest person. Now, she's dead, just like everybody else her age.

You can't really be sad at her passing. She lived a long, long life. A life, surely, filled with rice, fish heads, and manual labor. Her death is probably everything she's hoped and dreamed about for the past 20 years.

A part of me wants to think that there is some sort of system that balances out life on earth. For every death, a birth. For every birth, a death. If this is the case, Yone was a very selfish person.

C'mon lady, give somebody else a chance.

I only lied about being a thief.

There's a look that all kids get on their face when they're working up a tall tale. Usually it's in response to questions like "How did this get on the floor?" or "Why is my couch cut up into little pieces?". Sometimes the look happens when they decide that the current moment needs a little magic, so they tell a story that can't even remotely be possible. These usually start off with "This one time..." and proceed to tell a story about how they walked on the moon, or saw Bigfoot, or obtained world peace.

I did my fair share of lying as a kid. I was a bit of a pyromaniac, as well. My brother moved in with us for a while and he smoked. This meant that there were lighters laying around here and there. When my parents made a trip to the store (or some other mundane errand) I found the need to light toilet paper on fire in the sink. With a light sitting right next to me and the parents gone, what was I supposed to do? Do the dishes? So I crumpled a bit of toilet paper in the sink, lit it, and turned the sink on just as it was about to go out. For some reason, I had the divinely given knowledge that if it were to sit and go out, it would start to smoke. And smell. Maybe I got distracted by the awesomeness of the fire, but the last bit of paper I forgot to wet. It went out and began smoldering. Unfortunately, I was totally right about the smoking thing.

The whole house smelled like smoke.

My parents came home. They freaked out because they thought the house was on fire. Mom and Dad searched and searched for something that shorted out. The whole time I'm squawking "It's okay. I don't think anything's wrong. It's probably nothing. We should probably go. It's nothing to worry about." I let them search frantically for twenty minutes or so before conceding "I, uh, may have lit some toilet paper on fire."

This was the only time I've ever been slapped.

I guess I kinda deserved it.

I was pretty good at lying. I lied to a friend of mine about getting a drum set in the sixth grade. Why? I dunno, I guess I was bored. When I really did get a drum set, I had to explain to this same friend how my old drum set broke with the tom drum fell off and broke through the bass drum, which was apparently cracked the whole time. I don't think he bought it. I wouldn't have either.

The funny thing is, writers lie every day. It's their job. They're paid to make up grandiose stories. When a kid makes up a ridiculous story, I always think how good they'd probably be at writing.

This is a much better thing to say to their parents than "Your son is a dirty, dirty liar."

Edit:

Just read through Adam's Song and fixed several errors: grammar, verb tense, muddy language, etc.

I have this strange habit of writing and throwing my work into the great abyss without first proofreading it. Maybe this is an attempt at keeping a fresh, existential feel to my work, but the truth is I need to stop it. It's more "lazy" than "stream of consciousness" and the truth is I'm lucky I haven't made any glaring Freudian slips and unknowingly cast them upon the eyes of the world.

Adam's Song

Let me tell you a story. Our hero's name is Adam. Adam went to a church camp year after year because he thought the girls were pretty. Oh, so very pretty. The camp he attended had separated the boys and girls (it was a church camp, after all) on two sides of a rather large lake and split them further up into separate cabins of a dozen or so kids, give or take a camper. Each cabin had two leaders to make sure the campers didn't dispose of each other in any brutal ways. One of these cabin leaders brought an item to the camp central to our story.

Mouth wash. It was named "Dr. Something or Other" and it was 70% alcohol. It appeared normal, but to this day Adam can't find the mouth wash in any store. It's almost as if it was deposited there from the very gates of Hell.

The other boys in his cabin took turns swishing said mouth wash. Most of them only endured a few moments of burning, searing pain before spitting. One boy, probably named Magnus, kept the concoction in his mouth a full minute before triumphantly spewing it. Since everyone succumbed so quickly (except Magnus, of course), Adam politely declined when offered the communal bottle. After all, he was trying his best to look cool in front of all his cabin mates, who were quite impressionable.

The next day, however, Adam did try a shot in the comfort of the solitary company of his cabin leader. He gathered his wits, gave the vile liquid a sniff, said a little prayer (something along the lines of "Dear God, don't let my mouth fall off"), and threw back a cap full of ginger colored fluid.

Adam would be lying if he said it didn't burn something fierce. He would also be lying if he said it didn't bring tears instantly to his eyes. But, honestly, it wasn't as bad as he had expected. In fact, he spit it out two minutes later out of boredom. His apparent natural tolerance for the effects of nearly pure alcohol gave him an idea.

This idea would be one he regretted for a long time (though he would relish any opportunity to tell the story). If he were so inclined, he probably would have stolen the mouth wash and taken advantage of its high content of alcohol. He wasn't inclined, though, so he did the next best thing: he challenged Magnus to a gargle-off.

The setup: the two contestants would face off in the downstairs area of the cabin. In one corner was Magnus, the champion whose mouth wash powers everyone had witnessed. In the other corner was Adam, the challenger and underdog, whom the gathered crowd may not have been able to name. A pile of loose change, a few stray dollar bills, and a warm coke soon appeared on the floor. This was the fight purse; everyone in the crowd threw in something. They were not old enough tp understand the basics of gambling, so they threw their money into the pot to go to the winner, not expecting any payout should their fighter win.

Without a bell or any official signal, the contest began. Both combatants threw back a full mouth load of the concentrated evil. The manic crowd heaved and threw themselves on every agonized tear that rolled down Magnus and Adam's cheek. After a few minutes the tears stopped forming and the faces locked in grimacing stares soon turned to looks of boredom. The audience quieted as the contestants encountered a factor they had not expected:

Numbness.

The pain seared and blew all the pain receptors in their mouths. This added a measure of danger that, in all honestly, the cabin leaders should have recognized, addressed, and used as the reason to shut down the competition ( though you could argue the leaders probably shouldn't have let it be held in the first place). After the pain left, the waiting game began. Everything shifted gears from judging who could withstand the pain the longest to deciding who could withstand the boredom of long minutes passing while a liquid festers in your mouth.

Adam previously held the record for mouthwash gargling at nearly three minutes (this was unofficial because the only available witness was the cabin leader). The stopwatch was pushing 25 minutes when they both conceded to spit at the same time, declaring the match a draw. The pot was split up (not more than 3 dollars each, though well-earned) and the warm coke was given to Adam as Magnus was more of a Pepsi man.

There were three immediate results of the face-off. One, all of the guys in his cabin could mostly remember his name (it was something like Adam). Two, the sheer amount of time spent with 140 proof alcohol in his mouth lead to a decent amount of alcohol seeping into his cheeks. Though certainly not drunk, this was as affected as he had ever been by alcohol (not counting NyQuil). Luckily, the face-off had been at night and Adam went straight to bed. If his genius plan had unraveled during the day, he would have risked walking tipsy around the Christian camp. This would have inevitably lead to a phone call to his parents saying "Come pick up your wino son."

The third immediate effect was his mouth looked funny when he looked in the mirror. The next morning Adam checked the mirror again and his gums were angry. It hurt to eat the cereal from the cafeteria and rubbing his tongue on the roof of his mouth uncovered large blisters there. They were roughly the shape of his tongue, which had been plastered against the roof the night before. By the end of the day all of the skin had turned white. His taste buds, normally only seen as small uniform bumps on his tongue, were raised and looked like white, fleshy half-opened umbrellas.

The mere thought of eating food made his mouth hurt and he didn't dare put anything to his lips besides water. The white skin was the top layer of skin which Adam had managed to completely burn off thanks to a chemical burn from the mouth wash. Soon the white skin peeled away and revealed long strips of raw gum underneath.

Adam tried to make the best of nearly becoming the only 14 year old he knew with dentures. There was a girl named Patricia at the camp he had talked to all week and had developed a crush on. She didn't throw pine cones at his eyes when he approached her, so he assumed she felt the same way. Adam decided to turn his experience of pain into an experience of manliness. When the time was right, he told her this story. When our hero got to the part where the dead skin peels off in long white strips, he pulled open his lips to show her that it was no mere story. This act, which should have said, "This is how stupid I am." was meant to be interpreted as "This is how awesome I am." Undoubtedly, Patricia did her best to hide her horror at the gaping maw before her. They quickly went back to whatever it was they were doing and she no longer spent time with him after that.

One of the worst things about this ordeal was Adam's inability to eat. The show-down took place in the middle of the week and the parents didn't come to pick up their kids until the weekend. By the time Adam's dad picked him up on Saturday morning Adam hadn't eaten for days. As this wasn't his first year at camp, previous rides home had been spent excitedly talking about adventures had while inwardly pining for the girls he had crushed on and knew would never see again. This trip, however, was different. Answers to questions like "How was your week?" and "Did you have any fun?" were answered at best with monosyllabic grunts. The dad noticed something amiss and called Adam out on it. So far on the trip home, Adam could only think of the throbbing in his mouth and the gnawing in his stomach. When his dad keyed into something being wrong, Adam told him everything. Needless to say, his dad was irate. Furious, even. I won't go into details, but you can imagine the one-sided conversation that lasted the rest of the hour long car ride.

Adam's dad thought maybe soup would be good for him and made him a bowl if chicken noodle goodness, but one sip made Adam's raw meat mouth scream in every molecule. It was still too acidic to eat. After some other experiments they settled on strawberry flavored Ensure, which to Adam tastes like liquid awesomeness in a bottle. If this old people drink hadn't been developed, our hero may not be alive today (don't worry about IV's and all the other medical things that could have been done; after all, this is a story).

Adam was, despite everything, very lucky. First, his mom wasn't there to pick him up and receive his news firsthand. Being a nurse, she didn't think of self-inflicted chemical burns as something her son should do to himself. He was lucky, too, so much of his gums didn't die that his teeth became loose or even become independent of his mouth. Also, Adam had a genetically high gumline that made many of his teeth look shorter than they were. His parents had considered an operation that would rectify this, but it would not have been covered under their insurance. Turns out, Adam saved his parents a bunch of money, not by switching to Geico, but rather by burning off the top layer of his gums, with the same result as the operation.

Probably the biggest thing about this story, mind you, is that Adam's name wasn't Adam at all.

It was Aaron.

It was me.

Thank You Puberty

It seems like everyone has a tale to tell about that moment. That moment when a younger version of yourself realizes for the first time that you are changing. You are well on your way to manhood/womanhood (please choose one only).

This is not that story.

Did you know that Mariah Carey used to not be astronaut diapers crazy? Believe it or not, there was a time when her music videos showed a rather normal Mariah, one without hair weaves or unnaturally curvy curves. She had crinkly curly hair and wore blue flannel and sang her songs in a field. This is the Mariah that I will be talking about.

The elementary school that I went to felt it necessary that every grade put on some form of musical program. Perhaps they thought this would be fun for the kids, or maybe they wanted to give all of the teachers a chance to open all the classroom windows and chain smoke for an hour a week. I'm not sure what the teachers did once we left because I had the misfortune of being one of the students.

In fifth grade, our pageant had something to do with heroes. I'm thinking that there was some sort of montage dedicated to firemen/police officers/soldiers/janitors/bag ladies/jurors/professional plasma sellers/ eagles/ mad scientists/ and maybe teachers, but only if there was time. Our big finale, though, is the central figure in our story.

Mr. Cook was our principal. After three long years at our school (the school was newly built) dealing with us holy terrors, he decided to throw in the towel occupationally. It was the year I was in fifth grade, so everyone was making a big to-do about how he was "graduating" with us. This was a funny term for this because neither one of us were doing this. He was retiring and we were getting ready to face the dark horrors of sixth grade and junior high.

The last song was dedicated to him. While we sang it, pictures of Mr. Cook were projected onto the back wall in some sort of "this makes it look like he died but he's only really retiring" fashion. The song, though, this is the important part.

For a few weeks previous, whatever we'd be working on would be stopped once or twice a week so that we could shuffle to the gym (and try to get away with yelling in the hall) to practice the fifth-graders program. We'd be told to sit on the floor and be quiet (we were only capable of one of these) and everyone would do so. Most people would sit with their friends and I would sit by myself, which was common. I wasn't the weirdo who talked to his self at recess while simultaneously picking stucco off the walls and boogers out of his nose. No, I just didn't have many friends.

There we'd be, sitting on the floor in a loose group of friends or not-friends, and whoever was in charge of the program would explain what we would do today. The thing that we did every time, though, was work on the last song. It was the finale, and it was about Mr. Cook, so it must be flawless. The song, you may be guessing, is Hero by Mariah Carey. It goes something like this "And then a hero comes along/With the strength to carry on/And you cast your fears aside/And you know you will survive." Apparently Mr. Cook was this type of hero, which was news to me. I though this type of reverence was reserved for the likes of firefighters/police officers/septic tank cleaners (see previous list), etc.

I didn't really care though, because it gave me a chance to sing.

I didn't wear pink, nothing in my life was "faaaaabulous", and none of the boys in my class made me feel funny, but I liked to sing. I liked to sing a lot.

I read somewhere that Mariah Carey has a vocal range of some 2 million octaves (or somewhere around there [just go with me on this] ). Her higher registers border on the silent dog whistles that you see in movies and TV shows but never encounter in real life (this is, at least, my experience). She hits all of these high notes in the song "Hero."

And so did I.

In hindsight, it was probably good that I was sitting alone in the gym. When Mariah would hit a note that peeled the paint from the gym walls, so would I. I matched her note for note. These days I have a smoky rich (ahem) baritone voice, but in 1995, well, my voice did not match the wispy mustache that had already started growing beneath my nose. The fact that I could hit these notes was very pleasing to my fifth-grade self, as I still entertained the idea of being a professional singer. The coming years would effectively lower my range, and I would no longer have the castrato tones.

It's not that big of a deal because I couldn't pull off the "man singing like a woman" music niche quite Freddy Mercury or Mika.

That's probably because I don't like boys.

Just checking in from Tempe, AZ

So, turns out I'm in the hometown of the band Jimmy Eat World. If you are not familiar, they are most well known for their song "the middle" which was more or less of constant rotation in radio stations across this great land in the years 01-02. In fact, I'm pretty sure it won some sort of award for its ability to be the song that no matter what is playing somewhere on the dial. Anyhoo, I did some research (because we passed a sign reading "Sky Harbor Airport" and I remember that the have a song called "Goodbye Sky Harbor," so I fired up wikipedia the next chance I got) and turns out I am in their home town. This is probably not nearly as exciting as it would seem, but these guys were my favorite band for many years (and still hold top billing for "favorite bands") and it's a nice thing for me.

I got another story idea this morning. I worte it down as quickly as I could before forgetting it. As I was writing down the details, I realized that it wasn't a new story, in fact, it was the hook to another story that I had thought up a coupla years ago. One that, though it had a nice basic premise, it had no real plot or conflict. But, ah yes, this is no longer the case. It is well on its way to being a fully excavated story project. I'm a bit excited.

Now all I have to do is take all these ideas and make them into actual stories.