Monday, February 02, 2004

front page story Ever since I was a little kid, I always daydreamed about being famous.  I remember running around my playground in nursery school and thinking that me and my friends were really cool.  I imagined a newspaper front page with our pictures on it, telling about what exciting adventures we had. I'm not really sure what the angle of the story would have been.  I guess it would have been about how I got tagged by the swing set and now I was it.  But then I ran really fast through the tunnel and tagged Bart and now he was it.  Honestly, it didn't really matter what the details of the story was, as long as me and my nursery school friends had our pictures on the front page. 11:03:42 PM    comment []

life isn't very funny When I was a junior at Lakewood Highschool, my friend Matt was the editor of the comics page.  This was the first (and maybe only) time in my life where I had a special connection that got me some preferential treatment. I had been drawing silly cartoons for the last couple of years when I was supposed to be paying attention in class, and now I finally had a chance to showcase my cartooning "genius." But there was only one cartoon that I did for our high school paper that I was really proud of.  I thought it was the ultimate ironic statement for a cartoon.  There was just this depressed looking stick figure with his hands in his pockets doing nothing.  Beneath him there was a caption that said, "life isn't very funny." Ha-ha. I just couldn't seem to top that one, even though I did cartoons for the paper for the next two years. In fact, when Matt graduated from Lakewood he handed the honor of comics page editor down to me.  Now it was in my hands:  the power to make or break the careers of young upstart cartoonists. But the problem was, I had such terrible people skills that I never really recruited anyone to draw comics.  The comics that got submitted I thought were really lame.  So I ended up just doing all the comic strips myself. 8:34:36 PM    comment []

she didn't want to break a twenty One of the worst feelings I used to have as a kid was when I forgot my lunch money and I had nothing to eat while everyone else was enjoying delicious tasty food.  Sometimes I was able to borrow money from other kids, but I was really timid about this and felt really bad imposing on others.  One time when I was a freshman in highschool, I asked my mom for lunch money and she said my sister had money for both of us. "Okay," I said. I got kind of anxious as my lunch period drew near because I hadn't been able to find my sister and I was really really hungry.  Finally I saw her across the crowded lunch room and I went up and asked her for my share of the lunch money. "All I've got is this twenty," my sister said, "and I don't want to break it." "What do you mean you don't want to break it?" I said.  "Mom said she gave money to you to give to me." "She did," my sister said.  "But all I've got is this twenty and I don't want to break it." I implored my sister to give me my half of the lunch money but she wouldn't do it.  She just didn't want to break the twenty she said again and again.  Finally I just gave up. The food in the cafeteria that day looked and smelled more delicious than it ever had.  People were enjoying pizzas and hamburgers and turkey sandwiches and eating french fries and cakes.  Then they were washing it down with sodas and juices. I went out into the courtyard and sat on a cold bench until the lunch period was over. When I got home that night I told my mom about how my sister wouldn't give me any lunch money and I had nothing to eat that day. When my mom asked my sister about this she repeated her thing about not wanting to break the twenty. "That's ridiculous!" my mom said. "But mom!  I didn't have any lunch either," my sister said. 5:07:44 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Mark Michaels. Last update: 3/1/2004; 8:15:45 AM.