Well, no, not that old. But certainly not the wet behind the ears spring chicken I was the last time I set foot on a college campus nearly two decades ago. That guy, I look back on him with equal parts fondness and astonishment. Impudent little whelp, but his heart was in the right place.
I'm Craig Wolf. So was he, but he was the earlier model, kind of dopey, very naive, full of fire and sure that he was going to be The Next Big Thing in horror fiction. Stephen King, watch your back. Armed with a typewriter (anyone remember those?) and an attitude. That sort of thing.
I'm the more recent issue: maybe a tad wiser, a little softer and greyer, certainly more jaded and aware of the sharp corners of the world. And plus also, as a certain politico says, I am quite positive that I better taste in beer now.
Some things to know about me. I'm married, have been for going on twenty-one years, with a daughter about to turn seventeen. Which means my college career will be winding down to a long delayed finish about the time hers starts up. I'm a published novelist and short story writer (the novel and a short story collection are available at Amazon.com, and here endeth the hype) albeit through the inky-dinky presses, with a couple of very close calls with larger houses. Hope, like the Dude, abides. I had a corneal transplant not so long ago, and the other cornea is close to crapping out, so with luck there's another transplant in my future. Being who and what I am, I can't help but think there's something a little cool walking around with stitches in your eye. Talk about body modification! And finally, I work for Oklahoma Gas & Electric (the evil electric utility, except we're not all that bad) in customer service, answering emails and backing up the call center in regard to our marketing programs. I am my department's resident oddball. After a stint in pest control and working for two evil insurance companies, I feel I've moved up a step in the world.
And now I'm going back to school to finish up the degree. Why now? Well, it happened almost by accident. Certainly the time seemed right, seeing how we know the first corneal transplant is going to stick, and seeing how we seem to be past the worst of my daughter's run-in with a nasty thing called pseudotumor cerebri, and also seeing how my employer will foot much of the tab. But most of the big decisions in my life have been made on a hunch, and I'm just playing this one like the rest.
Upon completing my BA in liberal studies with an emphasis on mass communication, I hope to be in a position to move into corporate communications at OG&E, which would put me in a nice place and enable me to use my writing skills more. So that's one thing I have now I didn't have before: a goal to work toward. I gotta have goals: the end of the story, the end of the novel, the next espresso martini. Without goals I am a ruin, a wreck, adrift and listless.
I have another blog, the infrequently updated Raving and Drooling. It's a little more, um, unrestrained. Also more aimed at rambling on about the books and music and movies I love, and on writing, and on whatever raging rants seize me. Here I'll stay more focused (gee, like this post, Craig?) on my experience going back to school now that I'm all growed up.
Except I'll never really grow up.
