THE SURFING PIZZA is about a love of toys, snacks, holidays, snow days, crap, making fun of life, and sitting around in sweatpants and socks. This site is a compendium of knowledge for my future kid, for any kid, and for kids at heart.
The blog is a place for my humor, creativity, and writing to brainstorm. My earliest muse was the Happy Ending Sundae at Friendly’s, where the ice cream had a face made out of Reese Pieces and a hat that was an upside down cone. Or as my girlfriend refers to it, “that clown ice cream you like.”
I’m writing a collection of humorous essays written from the perspective of childhood. I remember a time when the playgrounds weren’t safe and plastic, but rickety and wooden. Cartoons were hand-drawn. Whole milk and red meat were considered good for you. I also remember myself, the weird, creative, gangly kid in glasses who wanted to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex when I grew up.
These were the routine days of childhood, the long school days and weekends, waiting for the next holiday or birthday party to come along. We made secret movies on the video camera. We tied trash bags to our arms to see if we could parachute off the deck. We ate candy bars and rode bikes and dreaded the bus stop. There were also disappointments, things like your Halloween costume tearing on a branch or getting stuck with pistachio ice cream over chocolate. The heart breaks easily when you’re ten.
I’m interested in the inherent truth of childhood. Childhood is exciting and boring. Happy and sad. Forever-long and super-fast. To be a child is to be everything at the same time and to be anything—a superhero, a movie director, a Ninja Turtle—not just a weird kid in glasses. I also love nostalgia—a word that literally means homesickness. In my writing, I explore what it means to be home and yet homesick for a place and time that no longer exists.
We grew up, but we look back to see, and see again.
