Memory and emotion…it is odd how these things are linked together. Jeff pulled the most awesome April Fool’s joke on me Saturday. The biggest of the two comic conventions that Kansas City annually holds was cancelled earlier this year due to a space issue. This is my favorite one because it brings in more “celebrities”, more artists, and offers a variety of merchants, not just comic related. Jeff told me that not only was Planet Comicon back on but that Neil Gaiman and John Romita, Jr. were going to be there to promote their new comic, The Eternals. As exciting as the news was I have recently seen Neil Gaiman and I was honestly much more excited about Planet Comicon being back on. Yes, it was stupid of me to fall for that but it was late and I was obviously very gullible. It was a great April Fool’s Day prank! However the unreasonable melancholy that I feel over the show not being on this year has stuck with me all week and I was wondering why so I looked back through my blog and realized that it was this week last year (April 4th) that I attended Planet Comicon for the first time. It was a wonderful experience and I have such great memories of it. Ah, cruel fate! At least they have dates reserved for next year already.

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Continuing the odd coincidences of my feelings this week and memories, this past Sunday I watched ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover for the first time in a loooooong time. It brought up such a flood of emotion and remembrance, more so then many of the other shows I watched. Turns out it was the year anniversary of when I had the privilege of working on the Kansas City home for the show! I can only speak for myself personally but it was such a fun, exhausting, surreal experience and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity. This time last year is also the anniversary of me taking my wife down to the comic shop to meet Jeff. Jeff and I had been hanging out for a little while by that point but this was the introduction of bringing our families into it, which eventually resulted in the Smith family being brought into our circle of friends (sorry Smiths! 😉 ). Its hard to believe that this was only a year ago. From last April to this April…what a fantastic year!

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And speaking of anniversaries, this weekend marks the one year anniversary of our nephew Motley entering into the family. He was such a little stinker then. Now he is a slightly bigger stinker but still as cute and fun as ever. Happy kind-of-birthday/anniversary/adoption day Motley!

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Do you dream in color ? It is an odd question that I personally had never known the answer to. I think unless one specifically thinks about that immediately after waking up from a dream then one doesn’t really know because any future remembrances of dreams will most likely be filled in with color unconsciously in the remembrance. I found out the answer for this myself this week. I had went to bed particularly late and as often happens after nights of doing this I woke up not long after going to bed from an odd dream. I was outside looking at the trash that had been set out for the garbage collector. Going through it I was finding boxes of stuff that was very important to us as a family…our Christmas decorations, etc…in the midst of actual trash. I panicked because I knew the garbage truck would be there any second. As I was anxiously trying to decide what to do I looked up. Now I don’t know why this is but often when I dream of being at home, as an adult with my wife and child, I am in my parent’s house…the house I grew up in. So I looked up at the neighbor’s house across the street (my parent’s neighbor) and saw a group of 5 people I had a sense were in their early 20’s all dressed in very strange, warped circus/masquerade costumes. The costumes themselves weren’t horrific nor were the people particularly scary but I got such a sense of menace from them and as I caught their eye they immediately began to move toward me in one sychronistic movement. With their first step I woke up with a startling feeling of dread! My first thought was “cool, that dream was in color!”. I remember it so vividly because everything I was seeing in the dream had this really cool grainy, special effect type of tweaking to it. I’ve seen it in movies before where they do this and punch up certain colors…reds and blues were enhanced in my dream. Anyway it was a very interesting experience. I love waking up with that slight terror. Your senses are heightened and you lay in bed wondering if something woke you up…the blood is pulsating in your ears and you hear every little creak in the house. Its such a rush.

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The title of the post comes from a Stephen Merritt song featured in the movie Pieces of April. For some reason I have that song in my head today, a very melancholy song. Stephen Merritt is a very interesting musician that I expect not everyone would take to. He is a favorite of many authors I enjoy from Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket’s own Daniel Handler. His music, the stuff I like anyway, has a very folk-ish quality to it. Stop by his site and check it out.

I hope you have a wonderful, April Day. Tomorrow, a Friday Favorite that I am very excited about!