Zack Attack in Book One: The Not So Daily Briefs 2014

Yes… the title is a Saved by the Bell reference… I originally thought of going with “Friends Forever” (that song is still so easily stuck in my head) but I decided to go for the less ambiguous/more referential title.

Oh my… have you ever been thinking about an entry for a while; and the more you think about it, the more ways to begin jump into your head? I’ve got that going on right now. Different pathways to the same goal but… as some of my long-time readers may have deciphered…even if all paths lead to the same destination, I always want to check out each path. RANDOM INSERT I am writing this at work and I keep getting distracted by the shitty shitty tailoring on my suit’s sleeves. The tailor always says “You’re asking the sleeves be too long, the proper look is much shorter” but seriously? With my arms bent into typing position right now, the jacket sleeves are mid forearm… I feel like I’m wearing a Capri-Based Suit Jacket!

As far as entries themselves go… as much as I like writing; I admit sometimes I wish I could just open up my head, scoop out the story/memory/moment I want to discuss and simply put it on display. Partly because I do get too scattered sometimes. This entry is a perfect example. My intended topic (that I should get to eventually) is friendship and some wonderful examples and reactions. But… right now, I have a whole lot of other stuff vying for space. For instance, there is construction outside of my office and one of the machines sounds faintly like my alarm clock buzzing in the distance… so it leads me to consider the nature of reality and how we determine whether something is real or dream. My back and legs are absolutely killing me… so I think about Fibromyalgia and would love to share some stories that lead up to that. So then I think about stories and how I would love to really share the story where I made a stupid improv choice in a show that happened over 16 years ago, but the memory still comes up sometimes and I get so upset that I have a physical reaction. This thought, mixed with Facebook, makes me think of all the beautiful people in my life- a rich tapestry of various incredibly attractive men and women; and how I feel like I don’t measure up, how I understand that my wife doesn’t feel like she measures up; yet how her reaction to that feeling inevitably makes me wonder about the possibilities of being with some of my attractive friends. Of course, another reason I wish I could just scoop stuff out of my head to put on display is that the viewer/reader would also get a much more accurate concept. The thing(s) I want to express wouldn’t be filtered through my brain and then filtered again by my ability to use words to explain and describe… it would just be out there for people to see and experience.

However, getting back on track to what I wanted to share… if I can stay awake long enough. It is dark and still SUPER foggy outside right now, I’m on the 5th floor of the Criminal Justice Center and still haven’t been sleeping well, so I am very tired. So tired in fact that I am fighting the urge to take a nap at the desk… unfortunately, as can often happen during bouts of sleepiness like this, I have somehow begun an erection… which would be VERY awkward were I to need to get out of my chair in the near future for some reason. hashtag ExternalReproductiveOrganProblems.

ANYway, back to what I originally wanted to write about. While I was in Law School, making friends was an interesting process. I had met a few guys during Accepted Students Day, but they didn’t really pan out as friends for various reasons. It was ONE person on the first day of orientation, turning around and introducing himself to me. This man would become my partner in every Legal Work project we had in Law School and directly led to my introduction to every one of my friends from law school. But it is funny… even though he introduced me to people, it was still to me to become friends with them. One of the people I was introduced to… he and I are now absolutely best friends. In fact, he’s the reason I got back into Anime the way I have. See- this is where the scattered brain issue comes up… I would like to veer off and tell the long and involved story of how Ki was an avid Anime fan and after the nightmare of that relationship, I almost completely walked away from all anime (with the exception of Ghost in the Shell and InuYasha)… but I won’t go into the story more than that. Want to stay at least somewhat on track. So… this friend of mine in law school… got me back into anime… he also is one of the few people I’ve ever met who knows more about Batman than I do and is as engaged (or more) in comic books than I am!

This excellent and awesome friend of mine is also the only one in my Law School Friends group to pass the Bar Exam on his first try. However, because the job market sucks, he moved back to East Iowa. Funny story- I hadn’t met the young man until Law School, but he lives near my In Laws and the families know each other! Thing of it is… I’m very particular about friend “labels” in the real world. I’ll call a lot of people friends, I’ll be loyal and friendly and a good guy to everybody. But there are a handful of friends that reach a different level of friendship. There are less than 4 people that I can think of that would qualify for this level. It’s beyond that point of “such good friends that they become family”… I am lucky enough to have a number of people in that category. No… this category is tied in with honor and sacrifice… which is why… there is someone on this list that I haven’t talked to or been friends with for over a decade and a half… but loyalty, honor, and oath still bind- if he needed me to die for him, I’d do it. It all relates back to my favorite Memorized Bible Verse. Of course every Christian Child first learns John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Yeah… we all get that one. But it is the Patriarch Deity. The “God Father” watching over his children. I really like the idea of the “God Friend” sacrificing for those he loves… which is found best in John 15:13! “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Even as a boy, that passage moved me and helped me fully understand the Crucifixion. It removes the “distance concept” in John 3:16… the idea of GOD loved MAN so SON died… and brings it to GOD/FRIEND loves you, so GOD/FRIEND gave up his life for you.

Okay, clearly my Bachelor’s Degree is in Religious Studies, lol. Moving on though, the reason I share it is… I realized recently that my Comic Book Loving Friend has totally gotten onto that list for me. And it has been so long since anyone made that list… so long since anyone has spontaneously made me think of John 15:13… that I thought it cool, impressive, amazing, and worth writing about.