Money. It’s a gas!

I’ll be brief today, but not out of some kind of misguided sense of loyalty to the unwritten Internet law that says anything longer than two paragraphs will be ignored by 98% of waterheaded netizens. Instead, it all comes down to time and money, and the lack thereof. It’s no great secret that the slow decay of my strange and lunatic first marriage left my personal finances in a state not altogether different from the emotional scarring one might associate with prison rape, and I’m still recovering from the fiscal damage almost a decade after having said “I do” rather than “Oh, hell no!” And, after the unfortunate experience I recently endured at the merciless hands of Beaumont ISD’s mystical payroll voodoo magic that exploited my good nature to rob me of two week’s pay, things are looking pretty grim on the money side of my pursuit of happiness. It has been, after all, a month and a half since I last saw a full paycheck bounce gleefully into the plus column of my bank account, while the minus side has been sitting there growing ever fatter on a high interest diet of endless withdrawals, all the while smiling at me in the same sinister way a spider might look at a fly before offering it a nice (if sticky) bed for the night. From within you, it devours…

All is not lost, of course. Sure, bills are being moved around and money is being juggled, but I simply have to power through these final days of poverty and make my way towards the sweet elysian fields of a financial stability restored through the simple and awesome power of a steady paycheck. It’s been rough, but we’ll survive through the sweat of my brow and the ingenuity of the human spirit, which seems to come mostly in the form of destroying piggy banks. For example, just before I sat down to write this entry, I discovered that Bank of America decided to conveniently schedule certain slow-to-process debits in the most fee-happy way possible and, not having any other quick access to a few dollars, I sliced off the head of my childhood piggy bank to get at the glimmering horde of pennies buried deep within Spider-Man’s braincase. It was a collectible bank of the sort that geeks and fanboys across the globe will mourn its passing, but I’ve spent decades saving those pennies for a rainy day to come along – and brother, it’s Raining. We’re talking an up the Biblical flood without a paddle kind of deluge, so it was with little hesitation that I sliced the plastic Webhead open to get at the shimmering stash of Lincolns resting in his noggin.

Of course, the downside to any large penny investment is the fact that you’ve invested in pennies, the most worthless of all the coins. Still, like the Tea Party movement, even in impotence there is strength in numbers. Collect enough of the monetarily anemic little copper bastards together and you have a force to be reckoned with, even if the logistics of converting 6,420 pennies into real money is somewhat troublesome. Fortunately, God invented the Coinstar machine – a great contraption that is available at most 24-hour grocery stores to process all of your last-minute coin-to-cash transactions by sucking ten cents out of every dollar like a greedy little vampiric banker. Still, since the Bank of America ATM doesn’t seem equipped to handle twelve metric tons of pennies when I need it to, the Coinstar machine is a nice option to have in a pinch. However, it should be noted here that gravity needs to be taken into account when handling a large amount of pennies. There’s a reason all those old bank robber movies featured guys in black masks running away holding canvas sacks with dollar signs printed on: gravity is a bitch. Even a quadruple-layered assemblage of plastic shopping bags is no match for an assload of pennies, so canvas must be employed. Trust me on this.

With the Coinstar transaction completed, I ran to the bank to deposit my new liquid cash assets into the gaping maw of the ATM’s ominous cash drawer. I hate doing this, because I sense its automatic door suffers from an insatiable bloodlust that can only be eased by way of chopping off my hand. It always starts closing while my hand is still inside its terrible maw, and I have to summon the bravery of Tyr just to keep from prematurely yanking my precious hand from its terrifying jaws. I’ve managed to escape unscathed thus far, but every time I’m forced to make a cash deposit at that evil little machine, I can’t help but get the feeling that it’s a little too happy to see me again and is thinking somewhere deep inside its whirring electric brain that this time, things will be different. This time, it will bite.

This time, it was wrong. I managed to keep my hand once more, which somehow resulted in a sudden and unexpected malfunctioning of the dread machine. For whatever reason, immediately after I withdrew my receipt and debit card, the disappointed ATM suddenly flashed a red screen that told me just how much it no longer wished to be of any service, and suggested instead that I try any number of alternate ATMs, perhaps out of some sort of synthetic need to spread its own despair evenly amongst its little ATM friends. I don’t know why the machine suddenly broke right after I used it, and I’d probably be a little curious about the whole thing if I wasn’t so paralyzed by not caring. My transaction processed successfully, and that was enough for me. My balance is back in the black, I have my first full paycheck coming at the end of the week, and things will soon get back to normal. That’s the most anyone can ask for in this crazed and confusing economic climate, and I’m learning to count my blessings where I find them. For example, holding a dollar bill right now has become a sort of orgasmic moment for me, like a kid opening a money-filled card on his birthday, or an overweight basement dweller on his first trip to the strip club. It’s real. Tangible. I can touch it, hold it in my hands and take comfort in knowing that I’m not out of the race just yet, not as long as I still have at least one hundred pennies to my name. I’d buy that for a dollar!

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
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This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.