Wednesday, June 17, 2009

By-Products of an Overactive Imagination #1

Turning back the clock until the minute hand breaks lands us in 1990. 1st Grade. I lived in a house with at least three cats, one of whom we called "Daniel Stri-ped Tiger", or just plain Daniel for short. So it makes sense that as part of an in-class assignment, I wrote a little story about a brown-striped tabby kitten named Teasy.

...Actually, this is where it's supposed to quit making sense.

As the months went by I wrote more about him and drew pictures of him, either on paper or on my family's Tandy 1000; I made him capable of talking like a human, giving them two-legged appearances. Over time I expanded on his family, providing the names of his parents (Aby-Dubious and Pumkin, which were the names of the other two cats we had at the time) and siblings, both older and younger. There was Bernard, a motorcycle-loving cat that was later killed by a drunk driver; Alice, an outgoing Siamese; Chico, rarely seen without Teasy; Daniel, the runt of the family; Runner, a color-shifter; and Silky (later Sylvia), a beautiful white Persian.

Around this time, two sources of entertainment started influencing how I wrote about my creations. One was a cartoon called "The Adventures of T-Rex", dealing with a team of vaudeville-performing dinosaurs who could transform into crimefighting superheroes. My childish mind liked the concept, so I turned Teasy, Chico, Daniel, and Runner into a similar team; this was closely followed by a team of villains, as well.

The other source was Sonic the Hedgehog, which one of my brother's friends occasionally left at the house for me to play. I liked the fast-paced flow of the game and the idea of animals running really quick. Put two and two together, people, and I hope you didn't come up with five.

In the meantime I continued coming up with designs for new characters, making up stories about them and giving them weird abilities; one cat carried a scorepad (as opposed to a scorecard) with him that would change what superpower he had depending on the score that was listed. A new world started settling into place without me being aware of it, one where these characters lived their daily lives before spilling onto Earth. It wasn't until much later that I gave the world a name, but at that point the world of Kittenoa was firmly entrenched in my brain.

And to think that it all started with a childish infatuation with cats. Go figure.

In Part #2 of this series, to be posted at an undetermined date, I continue rambling more about the characters' evolutionary processes and talk about how my friends at elementary school contributed to this.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Oh, Give Me A Home...

Up until a few years ago and discounting my first few months of existence, I'd lived in Michigan all my life. I grew up thinking that Dearborn Heights, having roughly 60,000 people or so, was small (especially compared to the nearby city of Detroit, which still has hundreds of thousands of people despite all those who choose crime or auto-making as a career).

Then my dad loses his job, and after 5-6 months of job-seeking, we wind up here in south-central Kansas.

Kansas. The geographic center of the continental United States. Home of wind farms, farmland, tornadoes, Jayhawks, Wildcats, and that lovely smell that cows give off when they're driven through town. The same smell that makes you wonder if Pepe le Pew decided to take an overseas vacation.

It's different here, and I'm not just talking about the weather. There's around 6,500 people here in town at last check, and at times you start to feel like everyone here knows everyone here. You have people waving at you from their cars, greeting you as you walk past them on the sidewalks, inquiring as to how you're doing, and generally being right friendly. Even to complete strangers. If you tried that in the more populated areas of the country, the reaction you're likely to get is: "Um...yeah. Great. Could you leave me alone now?", or worse, you'd get a recommendation to the police department.

I'm of mixed opinions regarding my current home. On the one hand, I was able to get a job here and work on getting rid of the student loans that I've accumulated. I can easily walk to work (and to almost everywhere else I need to go, such as Pizza Hut ^_^ ), and learning how to drive has become much less of a priority. My work doesn't pay much compared to others, but then I'd never know what to do with a $2K paycheck anyway. We don't get much snow here, which means a lot less shoveling (although that ice storm a few years ago was pretty nasty).

On the other hand, I miss everyone I knew back home. Religious associates, friends, former classmates (note that the last two weren't lumped together, for the most part), family (especially my grandma, who is in her late 90s and doesn't get out of the house much nowadays). I miss being able to play Star Wars Miniatures against my older brother (and subsequently losing). And, as those who know me can testify, I'm leery of anything in springtime weather that resembles a funnel (but we won't go into that right now).

But I'm here, for better or for worse, until death do I part, for as long as I live, to honor, cherish, and deeply respect...whoops, wrong terminology. Excuse me a second.

...

...Okay, here I go. I'm here, in Kansas, in a city surrounded by farmland where the buffalo once roamed, and where deer and antelope play, breed, and jump headlong into highway traffic. I may as well make the most of it until I can get my loans paid off and until my obligations to my parents are complete, at the very least.

...So, I guess it's only fair that I play the part of a typical Kansas resident, someone who really knows what they're doing and doesn't mind it at all.

Mooooo.