Text: My youth

I was writing some of the details of my life for Rachel, who barely knows me yet. I know it isn't really anything new, but I thought I would share since it is the only thing I've written lately.

-----------------------------------

(I wanted to get you caught up and make sure we are on the same page. I wrote about my school years. I have a ton of additional information, obviously, but I just wanted to give the skeleton of my life before I fleshed it out--pointing out key figures and a brief timeline of my school years. There is a conclusion note at the end of the email telling you what I will talk about next).


What’s funny is that I don’t really know the details surrounding the union of my parents. I know little about what was good in their life and more about what was bad. All that I know for certain is they divorced within years of being marriage and it happened around the time of my arrival into this world.

My youth was pretty normal. If you consider being raised in bars by a bartending mother, and receiving annual care packages filled with toys amassed by my father as a normal childhood. I spent most of my early days with my Dad’s parents Joyce and Chuck. My grandfather was thin, clean shaven and curly-haired in his youth. Some early pictures of him would suggest that we have similar styles as we aged. The time that I knew him though, he believed he ailed from a lot of different diseases, which he popped pill after pill until he eventually had a cardiac arrest in his sleep, next to my grandmother. He became bigger from his medicine it seemed, and he had a bushy beard and balding hair in his elder years.

Despite his tragic end, he left the tools for me to grow with a passion for learning. He taught me to read, remember phone numbers, and to talk within two years of my existence. My grandmother still tells me today, “Your grandfather really wanted to watch you become a doctor someday.” Little to his disappointment my path is much different.

My grandmother’s parents died before she was 14 and she spent a majority of her childhood raised by her aunts. She became a beautician and owned her own shop at one point. My grandfather worked his way up to a senior position at the Bar-S meat company. He did a lot of public relations work for them. I have a few pictures of him awarding luxury vehicles to people per Bar-S raffle auctions or customer giveaways.

My grandparents were always well-liked. I feel like I am constantly reminded by people I’ve hardly met that “Your grandfather was a great man. He loved you very much.”

I have a lot of family on my Dad’s side that I don’t really know all that well. Many of them are bible carrying Republicans that believe everything is a satanic or Democratic conspiracy to take the control of America out of their hands. My grandpa’s brother is still telling me to read chapters of the Bible for my own benefit.

My Mom’s parents are a different breed altogether. Clemente, who is Italian, and Peg, who is Irish, gambled, golfed, drank, and had a very social existence as well. Both sets of grandparents were well-liked by their peers but ultimately had a different sense of style. I grew up going back and forth from these households due to the custody of my parents. I would go from one to the other on Christmas and then I would have to see family, if they were in town at either place as well.

At one point almost all my family lived in the same state. Now none of them do, except for my Dad’s mom who I visit once a week.

Alright, now onto other things.

I went to kindergarten in Phoenix, Arizona, at a school called Rover Elementary. I transferred about halfway through the school year with my mom, who decided to stop living with her sister (I can’t recall why she was). What I remember the most about Arizona is the giant houses my mom’s sister lived in (this is the one with the con-man husband who was forced to move a lot when deals went sour). My cousin (who is rumored to have been a Las Vegas hooker) and my other cousin (who lives in Denver and always has the next “million dollar idea”) would all play make-believe games constantly. Whether it was house, army, Star Wars, or some exploration adventure on the steamy streets and lawns of Arizona, there was always something fun going on.

We moved to Arvada where I finished kindergarten at Weber Elementary. Then my mom wanted to get back to her social life and find a real boyfriend, maybe even someone for me to look up to, so I was forced to live with my Dad’s parents. I did this from 1st to 6th grade.

I went to John E. Flynn Elementary from 1st to 5th where I met a lot of people I still stay in touch with today. In 2nd grade I become close friends with a kid named Kyle Jackson (he is on my myspace and facebook). We hung out all our elementary years and I spent a lot of time at his house playing with all his latest toys, since his family was rich. They financed a lot of his education, cars, computers, and whatever else he needed—which for some kids is a curse. It can easily breed laziness. Not in Kyle. He pursued his passions and now co-runs his own post-production film company in Santa Monica. He is also the guy who directed the film, Chasing Ghosts, I mentioned to you briefly. You can find it on www.imdb.com, if you really want to read about it. I always seemed to maintain friendships with nearly everyone in school, on some level, and made sure I was well-liked—it seemed important to be.

Elementary was fun because kids are silly with their early love. In first grade I thought I was absolutely in love with a girl named Kirsten Hartman. Kyle and I would battle for her affection throughout the rest of elementary. The three of us still joke about it. In 1st grade, before Kyle, I had a giant crush on a girl named Leslie Allen, who later attended high school with me. We laughed about that too. In third grade I did the weird “arm writing game” with the music teacher’s Hawaiian daughter and we confessed our love as well. This was also the time that my friend Tracey developed a crush on me because we both wore glasses. Ah, elementary drama.

I managed to get out of elementary with a multitude of crushes and really nothing else. I had still never kissed a girl or done anything other than feel the very first stages of crushing on someone.

I also remember that I briefly lived with my mom during elementary. I seemed to float back and forth from her house and my grandparents, depending on what my mom’s schedule looked like. We lived in apartments on 80th and Lowell for a small time. I remember being obsessed with Nintendo by this point and especially the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that had just come out. I met a friend named John Simmons. He was about five years older than me and our first interaction entailed him stealing my hat on the playground. He also picked on me a bunch before we really become friends.

As my mom moved to a new house, I remember meeting a new kid in the neighborhood named Kyle Brendlinger. Eventually all my friend’s would compile into a list in my head that I would recite out-loud to try and always have someone to hang out with. I was alone so much that when anyone was available, their company was amazing. I blame my need for social interaction on my mother for dragging me around to bars and partying so much.

Unfortunately what troubled me the most about the trail end of elementary is that I lived in a different school district than almost all my friends. I ended up attending Shaw Heights Middle School for 6th grade while everyone else went to Scott Carpenter. My separation from these friends made it difficult for me to see them as often as I would’ve liked.

In 6th grade I met a guy named Nickolas Lysohir (also on myspace). He was a kid very into his health and weightlifting, wrestling, computers and school. He was a mix of jock and nerd and fairly popular. He got me so into computers that I begged my Grandma to help me purchase my first computer. This is when I became addicted to America Online and writing. Addiction might be too light of a term. It was as if life was secondary. My online world took precedence and fueled my imagination like nothing else. I wrote and role-played a specific persona/character online until I was at least 20, so for about 8 years. I hung out with Nick and his family mainly for the entire year, occasionally visiting the aforementioned friends.

Fast forward a bit here. I went to Oberon Middle school in Arvada right after 6th grade. I went there from 7th until 8th then became the first Freshman 9th grade class at Arvada West high when they expanded their grades levels. Nothing really that interesting in between that needs to be summed up now. I had a few more crushes, Jamie Reicow that I ended up sneaking her number from a friend and calling her randomly to talk. She humored me for a while, knew I had a crush, but wanted nothing to do with me in that regard. I kissed my first girl, Caryn Lindsey my Junior year and even though I started drinking at 16, I never did anything else with anyone. There was always the pursuit of women, but my friend Chris (who I met at Oberon in 7th grade, the guy who I started talking to again recently) was much more successful. He dated a number of women while I made fun of the fact that I was so terrible at it. I really had no sense of myself yet; couldn’t figure out what to wear, how to do my hair, or really anything other than be awkward. (Sorry my grammar is going downhill, it’s late).

PS: There is a ton of filler stuff in here, but I’m just trying to catch you up on the overall picture