CaptainOrange

If you don’t mind spoilers (the photo stream is a day or two ahead of the blog posts), don’t forget that you can find better quality versions of all these photos elsewhere . Except for my awesome drawings, that is. They are one of a kind ;) 

I felt pretty powerless as a little kid. I was terrible at crossing the street. Even if my mother started crossing, I would rip my hand free of hers and stubbornly wait if there was a car within two blocks. I think the only reason I ever crossed, is that she began leaving without me and the only thing I feared more than being struck by a car was being lost and alone. Example: When I was a pre-schooler, I once cried while holding my mothers hand on a crowded stairwell (in church) because I had momentarily lost sight of her. Maurice Sendak acknowledged the utter powerlessness of children, but still gave them power. It made a big difference to me. I took comfort knowing that Max was a tiny kid and on a time-out, but still able to stare down the ferocious Wild Things. Sendak is dead. If you are wired, you already know this, so let's not rehash(tag). There are already fantastic stories in the New York Times and tributes on NPR . If you are a fan and have an hour to spend,...

The Preamble I've just spent what could have been a nothing-to-do weekend at a work-sponsored class on storytelling. Having known about it for a month or so, I have been living in anticipatory dread the entire time. I didn't really know what I thought was going to happen. On reflection, it was a problem I have been dancing around all year. I'm scared to let myself down. If I don't blow away expectations, I feel like a failure. No pressure there. To combat this problem, my usual solution is to lower expectations so that it is easy to surpass them. That is likely familiar to some of you. Perhaps you are someone who eats expectations for breakfast. I'm working on it. For right now, I lost not a few nights of sleep worrying about what story I might do and thinking more than once about giving a co-worker, Jim, my spot in the workshop. I'm sure he wishes he could have taken part. Having managed to go, in the end, I wouldn't trade it for anything. And I didn...

A couple of days ago, Wendy bought me a replica of Bilbo's sword, Sting. Needless to say I was ecstatic. The Hobbit has been my favourite story for as long as I can remember. From the time I was 10 years old, I pretty much assumed that one day a great big adventure would walk through my door and sweep me away. It was going to be a hard road and I would resist, but in the end I would wind up growing in ways I couldn't have imagined. When I got married, I began to realize that adventures come in more shapes and sizes than I had at first thought and that opportunities to save the world as we know it were relatively rare (still don't know anyone who has done it). So, we're on the subject of stories... A few weeks ago, I was asked to tell a story in front of an adult audience. This was to be part of my job at the library and I was excited. I've been enjoying the illusion that I am being paid to become a master storyteller. The mundane details of my job are bec...