The Hungry Hungry Writer

I was sick in bed 51 weeks ago. Yes, exactly 51 weeks ago, during my Christmas vacation, I was in bed and absolutely miserable. And for the past 3 days I’ve been sick in bed and absolutely miserable with the same exact thing. A stomach virus that had my toilet running over time! The kids had something called the “rotavirus” last year as well and I believe they got the same thing again this week. Donna, who was complaining of stomach pains yesterday didn’t get it full on… yet. I hope she doesn’t. She took care of us for two days, and started feeling sick yesterday so she had to call out of work.

Wait, that’s not about Liza’s 20th annual Christmas Party! But it could be a result as there were some sick people there. Her kids just got over the rota virus and who knows who else was carrying a virus around during the party! We also could have gotten it from someone at Dim Sum on Sunday or from someone at the Galleria on Saturday.

But this is about a Christmas party – and it gets better every year.

The party has been going on since I was in College. A lot of friends have come and go, new faces have joined but there is that core group that never misses since the year it started. My sister, Dale, Dasie, Chip and Me!

This is how the party works. A couple of weeks before the party there is a name draw – a Christmas gift exchange thing - a Kris Kringle or Secret Santa - I believe that’s what you call it.

Then on the night of the party we eat good food! Like Turkey! Yum. Again, Liza made great food. Turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and cranberries… it was awesome!

Then we do the gift exchange where a $20 gift card is at stake. Whoever guesses the most Secret Santa’s wins. I usually win this game and nobody has yet to figure out my strategy. If you can get enough evidence from people and can nail at least three solid choices, the rest is easy. Get four and you have a good chance of winning. That takes a really good guess. Get five and you are pretty much guaranteed a win. Several get four. I usually get five. And that’s just strategy. Oh, and usually you get a great present that’s on your Christmas list. The budget is around $100! Twenty years ago the budget was like $20 so we’ve come a long way since then.

This year I was my own Secret Santa! Yeah, pretty funny. So instead of just getting myself something, which I had to do (a 50 degree Cleveland CG12 sand wedge), I got all the kids something. Avery, Bells, Jake, Colby, Kenna and Kaden. It was cool to get myself. Oh, and of course I won the gift card for getting 5 right! Three I had nailed of course, Me, Donna’s, Hugo’s and one solid guess, Tom got Reba, and whoever got Hugo because I, well, it’s called strategy!

We open the gifts, take pictures and we move on to the dice game!

Usually this is a highlight to the night. A wild and crazy dice game that is as ruthless as ruthless can be.

$20 gift cards are thrown into a pile by every one who attends. You can break even, you can double up or you can go home a loser. Teamwork is usually shared by couples and your goal is to get two gift cards in your hand before the music stops. I call the game, “Oh Craps!” It’s a musical chairs type game except your rolling dice and grabbing gift cards from: Nordstrom, Target, Barnes and Noble, and places like that. I usually escape with one or two. The music starts and you start rollin’ the dice. If you roll a 7 or 11 you get to grab a gift certificate from the center or from somebody. If you roll a 2 or 12 you have to give your gift certificate (if you have one) to the person to your right. You can only have 2 gift certificates maximum so if you roll a 7 or 11 and you want someone else’s, you have to switch - one for one. And at the end of the song the die roll is stopped and you get what you have! It gets loud, crazy, kids cry, dogs bark, the police comes… it’s all good.

Thanks Little Sister! You’re awesome! The 2007 Christmas Party was another success.

Except two days later I’m sick in bed, out from work but still getting calls from my boss for an analysis he needs. So despite me, weak, on the toilet, unable to eat, I was thinking and doing work from bed.

Next week – vacation with no guilt: My annual Christmas week vacation. Jessica arrives on Saturday. There might be snow boarding involved. New Xbox 360 games to master. Golf could be fit in several times, and we still have Christmas and New Year’s Eve to look forward to! What a week!

I just hope I’m not sick like I was 51 weeks ago.

I just watched the movie, Freedom Writers. It’s a really good movie. And it motivated me to write. So here it is.

Off the top of my head and to the tips of my fingers, here’s a story that I am working on. Forgive the errors - It’s some free form story stuff with no thought except for some ideas that I have yet to get on paper… You’ll get what you get… And you’ll be the first to read an excerpt of, “Culture Shock” the first draft, and as Anne Lamott calls it, ‘the shitty first draft’.

Culture Shock – by Glenn Magas.

Dennis slammed the shot glass on the table. Two down, three to go. He always had three shots of Grey Goose Vodka before venturing out into the jungle of forty-somethings on the dance floor. It was a West Los Angeles hot spot and if you were a single man, you were pretty much guaranteed a hook-up. At least for the night.

Match dot com never amounted to anything except a fling or two but his insecurities after meeting face to face overwhelmed him. The girls would see right through him he thought. Emails were different. You could be who you wanted to be. But up front and personal, you were who you were. After disastrous ‘meets’, he decided that three shots of vodka and a singles bar were his drug, and dating scene, of choice.

Thursday nights were big: Mini skirt night. Wear a mini and you get in for free. That led to a ton of long legged beauties showing off their ‘goods’ to those willing to buy. The only problem was, would they accept his offer?

The last shot went down easier than the first. The heart pounding music drowned his insecurities a bit, it loosened inhibitions, and he went into the fray, dancing with everyone and anyone. It was a wild party of shared perspiration and throbbing ‘hormones.’

The inner torment he dragged around with him from day to day started ten years ago when, as he would call himself, he was just a boy. Thirty years was far from being a boy, but to him, his naïve view of the world and the shelter he built around himself kept him from being the street-wise ‘man’ he is now. If you’d ask, he’d simply say, “I’ve come a long way since then.”

In his late twenties, he, stuck in front of his computer, would buy and sell stock. The market was perfect for day trading and he grabbed on and tried his hand. It was a way to make money, stay away from socialization, and soon became an addiction.

He didn’t like addictions. But as the money filled his pockets, he decided one addiction wasn’t bad. Two would be hard to manage. Three addictions would ruin your life. But one? It was just a means to an end and he’d turn it at will. He was proud of his self-control.

He watched his daily income grow from a few measly bucks to literally, thousands a day. He spent every waking moment guessing and second-guessing each fund, each stock and each potential earning, that he didn’t have time for the outside world. He ate, drank, slept the stock market. His best investment, he would tell his online friend, “Squigly Lines”, was investing in a three month DVD course on how to beat the stock market. It was the ‘sure thing’. Little did he know, the ‘sure thing’ would net him more sleepless nights and more time in front of his computer.

It finally paid off. His investments, his diversification of each and every penny worked itself into a bountiful basket of financial security. For years he put it away and let each dollar grow on itself, like weeds spreading, his money filled bank accounts, savings, certificate of deposits, money markets and his wealth created more wealth.

He didn’t have hobbies to splurge on. He didn’t eat the finer things. He didn’t even live in a mansion but in the same old beat up apartment with paint peeling off the ceiling and walls so thin you could hear the neighbor’s annoying, yet tantalizing moans and groans.

Sometimes at night he would lay awake and envy the young Cuban couple across the paper thin wall. The moans, the groans and the seductive noises of ecstasy were like late night entertainment to him. He came to the conclusion that Cuban’s must be wild in bed. On occasion he’d catch a glimpse of the Cuban girl outside his window. She was petite with bright red hair and long, painted finger nails.

She was probably a secretary of some sort. A construction company probably hired her to work in their trailer by the construction site. He didn’t know for sure, but that’s what he imagined. He’d create the person’s life in his head as he was more prone to create someone’s life instead of finding out for himself. He’d lay in bed thinking of the red headed Cuban girl as he heard her scream for ‘more’.

But by 4AM all those thoughts would be forgotten because he was ready at his computer, waiting for the stock market to open in New York. He was always an hour early, with a coffee at his side - reading the trades, Money Magazine, Fortune and other journals to relieve his insecurities on making the right choice or not.

By thirty years of age he was a self-made millionaire with a poor man’s shirt on his back and a 1980 hand me down Toyota Celica. It was the only thing left to him by his mom. It was her only possession. And it was in her will.

One night the screams of ecstasy finally got him. It stirred his need for love. Or lust. And although adult websites on the internet satisfied immediate needs, he needed something long term. And that’s when he found a website that would match you with the perfect woman. A woman, for the very cheap price of $5,000, would marry you. All you had to do was fly to the Philippines, meet the woman, get married and take her back with you.

And these weren’t just run-of-the mill, homely looking women from the farms lands of the Philippines - they were model types. Beautiful Filipinas with successful familes. They just couldn’t find, ‘the right man.’

It was here, online, where he met Menchie, ‘the love of his life.’

Menchie thought he was ‘the right man.’

She would send him pictures of herself on every Tuesday and Friday. She’d write to him about dreams and ambition. The only thing missing was the perfect man, and Dennis was that man.

He couldn’t wait to meet her.

He booked a flight, wired over a $1,000 deposit to the ‘agency’, and dragged his old, worn out Samsonite with a broken lock along with him.

It was hot, humid and midnight when he got off the plane. It seemed that every other minute of the trip he was practically running to the lavatory throwing up. He couldn’t keep the food down, he couldn’t sleep, he was sick. Several rum and coke mixes later in the trip and he was able to doze off in a drunken stupor. But when he woke up an hour before landing, he was sicker than before he got drunk.

The hot, humid Philippine weather didn’t help his fever and he decided to rest on a bench in the airport for a while. How could ‘they’ live in a place like this he thought. It was too damn hot and too damn, well, dirty. But then again, he never ventured outside his home much. With Vons delivering food why would he need to leave?

It wasn’t long before Loaken Airport security ushered him out the doors. He was not prepared for the language barrier. Menchie told him, ‘oh everyone here talks English.’ Well, as he found out, not everyone.

The airlines lost his luggage and all he had was the clothes on his back and a wallet with a couple of thousand dollars in it. He got in the cab and told the driver to take him to Baguio City.