T w e n t y S i d e d

It’s 1982, and my life is in the process of being rebooted. Mom’s troublemaker friends are gone, the substance abuse has stopped, and the number of medications rolling around in my bloodstream is reduced to a very reasonable two. The world has come back into focus.

Mom remarries, filling in that persistent gap in my life where a father should have been. I don’t like Dave at first. He’s… Well, he’s not my dad. I’ve never had a dad before, but I still resent this stranger entering my life and taking the spot on the pedestal I’ve reserved for my idealized biological father. Like all grown men, Dave is big and scary and his voice is like a terrifying storm when he raises it. He’s never been a father before. A lifelong bachelor, he’s suddenly got an eleven-year-old and a nine-year-old on his hands. He’s playing catch-up.

This was taken in 1984. There are actually very, very few pictures of anyone during the Dark Year and the Reboot Year, 1981-1983. At first there was nothing anyone wanted to remember, and then we were too busy forming a new family to take pictures.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Autoblography Part 12: The Reboot”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Mom, raised Lutheran, is now a kind of pagan hippie. She’s decided to not talk about religion with my brother and I, and instead allow her sons to, “Find the truth on their own.”

One Wednesday she takes us to Skate Castle (which still exists!) to enjoy some roller-skating. Actually, not “skating” so much as “slamming into walls and faceplanting”, in the case of my brother and I. But these are dues that must be paid if one is to rollerskate. Better to do this when one is four feet tall than to wait until mass and gravity are more dangerous adversaries.

People keep coming up to us and asking, “Are you here for church night?”

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Autoblography Part 11: Roller Rinks and Jesus”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

During the school year I spend my day in three environments: Home, the sitters, and school. When school is out, it’s just the sitter, all day. Since Mom works full time and her job is almost an hour away, this makes for a long stretch of time with an adult who is paid to tolerate us.

There are very, very few pictures of the Dark Year. That’s my brother Patrick on the left, me on the right. I’ve been told that Cthulhu has that same wallpaper in his dining-room.

Our current sitter is Amelia, a demanding, prudish woman with a deep southern accent. Her husband is a preacher. She has two sons – Carl and Darren – who are just a little older than Patrick and I. (All of these names are changed, to protect the… uh. You’ll see. Well, not Patrick. His name is the same. Look, you know how this works.)

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Autoblography Part 10: Meet the Sitters”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.