About Me (or “To Make a Long Story Short”)

This is me. Go on, you can say it. Sexy, right?

*My name is Phil Higa. I’ve lived on Oahu – a Hawaiian island – for my entire life. Well, with the exception of those four glorious years at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Those were the days… *sigh*

Anyway, at various points in my life, I wanted to become one of the following things: a rock guitarist, a rock singer, a comic book artist, a comic book writer, a poet, a professional baseball player, a person who finds an anonymous bag of money on the side of the road, time machine inventor, time machine pilot, a writer of anything, and – most recently – the winner of the largest sum of money ever distributed in the history of Las Vegas. Well, none of those things panned out. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life using one of the few talents God has built into me by teaching English at the high school level. Yes, God has also built patience into me.

This is my wife reliving her own reaction to my marriage proposal.

I like to write. Twitter is tough for me. I will never use four words when twenty-six will do. Even though I’ve grown (mostly physically) and changed (mostly clothing sizes), I suppose taking pleasure in writing is one of the few things that has remained constant in my life. Speaking of which…

Lynnette is my teammate and wife. We met in 2000. Our whirlwind romance began in the summer of 2003. We were married in 2006. We had a child 2008. The only things we have in common are the love of both shopping and eating. She’s the kind of woman who thinks that Edward Cullen could punch Wolverine in the face and get away with it. I’m the kind of guy who wants to punch her in the face for even thinking something crazy like that. She likes to say things to me like “I have two degrees, that’s one more than you,” right before yanking at the Starbucks door 5 times because she can’t read “push.” It hasn’t always been easy, but somehow we make it work. Neither of us have acquired the services of an assassin to put down the other. Well, I haven’t, anyway.

This is my daughter, the biggest part of me.

This is my daughter Madison. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Right now, you smart asses are saying things like “Well, technically, your wife would have to be the best thing that ever happened to you since you wouldn’t have had exactly that daughter without first meeting, dating, tricking her into marriage, and then consummating the pact in the physical manifestation of your love.” You’re probably right. But still.

When Madison shot out into this world, I wasn’t ready to be a father. I blamed Lynnette for making it difficult to sleep while she was in labor (I will never live this down, even if we have another kid and I deliver it myself). Madison’s diaper was the first I had ever changed in my entire life (she crapped on me). Those first few months of fatherhood were among the most challenging in my life. And now? I wouldn’t change a thing.

Abby, planter of mines, chewer of expensive items.

And then there’s our dog Abby. She’s a Maltese/hot dog mix. I’ve tried coming up with clever names for what she is like “Maltdog” and “Hottese” but one makes me hungry and saying the other confuses my wife and makes her angry. I don’t know why.

Abby has special skills like “occupying a spot on the path I am going to take while carrying large and/or heavy objects” and “secretly biting things so when I find them later, they’re gnawed the hell up” and “overtly biting things so that I chase her around the house” and my personal favorite “stealth bombing turds so that when I come home from the bar and walk to the computer, I step in those mines.” We lovingly call her Turd Ferguson.

This blog is the physical (I mean as much as the internet is physical) narration and commentary of my life, as well as whatever else pops into my head at the time. Please stay for a bit. Take a look around. Enjoy.