Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 11: Keep Me In Your Heart

 Keep Me In Your Heart

In loving memory of Shana Marie (Savage) Tackett

June 22, 1979-May 16, 2025

On Monday, June 2, 2025, Paige and I got to my parents' house on Meadow Park Drive at about 3:45. We got out of the car and walked to the funeral home at the top of the street. My mom’s sister, Shana, passed away on May 16th, about a week after Paige and I got engaged. We entered for the visiting hours and spent that time talking to family and friends, which included my dad’s side of the family from Florida.

The service started at 6. After everyone had talked about their favorite memories about Shana (I was the last one), Ryan, Luke, Josh, and I stood up and prepared to play a cover of a song called Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon. As my brothers started playing the intro (Ryan and Luke on guitar and Josh on harmonica), I thought back on Shana's impact on my life.

Mom was about 6 months pregnant with me when Shana graduated from high school, and I am the oldest grandchild on Mom’s side. As the first baby, I know I had a very special place in Shana’s heart. On my end, Shana was just a college kid; she wasn’t a full adult like Mom and Dad or Aunt Melissa or Uncle Andy were. On some level, I was able to watch Shana grow up, even if I was completely aware of it. This dynamic led me to see her more as a friend than as my aunt.

From the time I was 2, Shana would take me to the mall. Whenever we were together, she was very interested in what was going on with my life, and that continued as I grew up. I spent many nights sleeping at Shana’s house, telling her about the struggles I had making friends as an autistic child. It was during one of these sleepovers that I held the first baby I ever would: Shana and Uncle Scott’s daughter, Lexi. While Shana and I didn’t see each other as much after Lexi was born, it was evident that Shana was born to be a mom.

On Saturday, September 30, 2023, Aunt Cyndi and Jeremy got married. While I wrote an installment about it (The Wedding Of Cyndi And Jeremy), their relationship was obviously the point of that installment. On that date, Paige and I were just days away from our 6-month anniversary. Paige and Shana met for the first time at the wedding. The whole reception, Shana was jokingly saying, “So you guys are going to get married next, right?” At the time, Paige and I had already discussed the possibility of getting married, but we didn’t tell Shana then. Despite how sad I am about her death, I’m glad that the last thing she knew about me was that Paige and I got engaged!

Now, even though my books are available on Amazon, I make more money if I sell them myself. As a result, I don’t pay too much attention to the book reviews. When you publish a sequel, it takes about 24 hours for it to be connected to the rest of the series. The day after I published The Greattastic Adventures 2: Fractured, I was obsessively looking on Amazon to make sure everything had worked properly. As I was scrolling through, I noticed a review on my first book, The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child. It read as follows:

Shana Tackett-  Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2023

MUST READ!! LOVE this book!! His story is so endearing, and he has this awesome positive outlook on life. I think he is so inspiring to everyone, not just to those living with Autism, but all people all over! Definitely purchasing his next one!

Now, is that review anything special? No. But me finding it now as opposed to back in 2023 makes me feel like it’s Shana saying, “I’m okay.”

As the boys and I sang the song, I looked out at Shana‘s friends and family. I imagined Shana standing in the back of the room and smiling as we finished singing, because I think she would have really loved it.

I love and miss you, Shana.

Your nephew- John Mitchell Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 10: Book Rage 2: The Other Mitchell

 Book Rage 2: The Other Mitchell

I was single when I published my first book, The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child. I purposefully set Paige and my first date for two weeks after I got her number because I was publishing my second book, Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam. As I have said before, I hate “publishing Mitchell”; he’s filled with stress and anxiety, and he takes it out on everyone that “proper Mitchell” loves.

On February 24, 2025, Kid and I left Kobolt after working on my third book, The Greattastic Adventures 2: Fractured’s book cover, with Dad’s employee, Kate (The Fractured Book Cover). As Kid drove off, I smiled. My original plan was to publish Greattastic Adventures 2 in March and Greattastic Adventurers 3 in Late August or early September. At this point, I seemed to be on track, and publishing Mitchell had not reared his ugly head.

Pins Mechanical is a bar/duckpin bowling alley that started in Columbus. Kobolt has created all the graphics for Pins as they have expanded across the country. Now, all the writing I do is on Google Drive, but the template for formatting a book for the company I use is in Word. Unfortunately, my laptop does not support Word. As a result, I have to reformat everything on Mom’s laptop. There was a new Pins location in Austin, Texas, and everyone had to go down there for two weeks in early March. I was unaware of this development until the day before everyone was about to leave, when Mom asked me to watch the family cat, Sami.

This led to some understandable stress, and publishing Mitchell came back with a vengeance. Because I was single when I published my first two books, I was a little nervous about publishing Mitchell existing around Paige. Not that she couldn’t handle him; he appears every time I post an installment to this series. Still, I felt guilty exposing her to him for more than the usual hour or so. Especially because at this time I was already putting her through a lot, because I was sneaking around to get things set up for our engagement!

“Hey,” I told Paige when Mom finally got back from Texas, “I might stay at my parents' house a couple of nights this week.”

“What? Why?” She asked.

“I don’t want you to be around publishing Mitchell anymore than you need to be,” I explained, “I feel a little guilty about it.”

As any good soon-to-be fiancé should, Paige replied, “That’s understandable. But you shouldn’t. I would love to help you with this. We can go to your parents' together and we can work on it!” 

While there were still many major struggles with getting it published, even up to last week, but I officially published The Greattastic Adventurers 2: Fractured on Wednesday, May 28, 2025! The name of this season is Goals And Dreams, as I am trying a new system to better organize (and as a result, achieve) my goals and dreams. When the book was published, I smiled because I knew that I am now one step closer to achieving my goals this year, and my system is clearly working!

Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe

J. Mitchie Ulibarri!

The Greattastic Adventurers 2: Fractured is available on Amazon as a paperback and A hardcover, now! 

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 9: The Scroll Of Proposal

 The Scroll Of Proposal

As you may recall, I asked Paige to be my girlfriend after Kid helped me make a makeshift scroll that said, “Will you be my girlfriend?” on it. Then I took her out to a restaurant, and had our waiter hide it in her tiramisu (The Scroll). My first date with Paige was at a bar called Seesaw. Since then, it’s become a new bar called Good Night John Boy. John Boy is 70s-themed, while Seesaw was more modern.

At 5:20 p.m. on Friday, May 9th, 2025, Paige stepped out of Nicole‘s car and walked into John Boy. She had just gotten her nails painted blue, and she was wearing a blue, flowery dress. She knew that the proposal was coming soon, as we had bought the ring together. She pretty much figured out that it was happening that day when Nicole kidnapped her, and I was dodging her calls when I got off work early, but John Boy confirmed it.

A bartender named Andie took our drink orders, and once we got them, we sat awkwardly because we were dancing around the fact that she knew. Though I was OK with the fact that she did, because I knew she didn’t know everything that was about to happen. When we finished our drinks, I waved at Andie, and she dramatically nodded. “What was that?” Paige asked, a little nervously. I smiled and waited. She brought out the pad for me to cash out, and gave Paige a scroll. Paige looked at me, smiled, then unrolled the scroll. It read: Where Our Love Story Began. “Is this a scavenger hunt?” She asked.

“Maybe,” I replied.

Paige and I met because our brothers went to high school together. When Ryan, Will, and Mitch started Cousin Simple, Paige’s brother (who is also named Ryan), invited his whole family to a show. While I have known Paige for 8 years, we only started dating after reconnecting when Cousin Simple played The Newport (Columbus Against The World).

Noah had sent an email to The Newport to see if we could get inside for the next scroll in the scavenger hunt, but there was a concert that night, so the best we could do was meet Ryan outside. Because this happened to be the weakest part of my plan, I didn’t know exactly how it was going to work. Luckily, there was a parking spot right in front of where Ryan stood. Paige looked at me, then looked at Ryan, and she was obviously confused. In a moment of panic, I rolled Paige’s window down like we were at a drive-through, Ryan handed her a second scroll, and we drove off.

The second scroll read: Where Our Life Story Started, and Another Chapter Begins. When we pulled into our apartment complex, we were both giddy with laughter. We walked into our apartment, and the camera Luke got for Christmas was set to record, and music was playing from his Bluetooth speaker. There were tall black candles and small blue candles that my coworker, Elizabeth, let me borrow, placed around the ring and a huge scroll.

The Scroll said The Scroll Of Proposal on the top of it and had the date at the bottom, and my engagement speech made up the body. The first paragraph talked about how much I loved S.M. and that I thought I was going to marry her. The second paragraph was about Ryan catching up to me in grade level, and him starting Cousin Simple with Will and Mitch. Despite how much I loved the band, I felt very insecure about it; however, the insecurities were worth it since I met her through the band. The third paragraph was about how my cousin Ellie met her at Josh’s grad party (Graduation, Girlfriends, And A Pig Roast). She looked at us for all of 10 minutes and said, “When you’re with her, you have the same look on your face that you have when you talk about S.M.” The last paragraph talked about how much I love her, and how I am so excited for her to wear the ring, because every time I see it, I imagine growing old with her, and I can’t wait for that!

As I unrolled the scroll, Paige laughed and said, “It’s giving Hamilton.”

I couldn’t help but reply, “Hear ye, Hear ye!”

When I started talking about Cousin Simple, their slow song, Doorstep started playing. I had told Luke to hide in my room, with our cat, Charlie, until I started talking about Ellie. When I started talking about Ellie, out of the corner of our eyes, Paige and I saw Luke dash out of my room, into the hallway like a little goblin. Once I had finished my speech, I knelt down and grabbed the ring box on the table.

“Paige O’Brien,” I asked, “will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 8.5: The Asterisk

The Asterisk

I posted an installment on Sunday about Paige, Shane, and me going to the grand opening for the new Bitty & Beau’s coffee shop location in Columbus. In it, Paige left to go back to my car because we had been waiting in line for about an hour, and she was cold. I put an asterisk at the end of the sentence describing her leaving. The reason? I took out a scene because it wasn’t majorly important to that installment; however, it is pretty important to the rest of my life. This is that scene:

At about 10:45, Paige asked, “Can I have your keys?” When I asked her why, she told me, “I’m going to sit in your car for a bit. I’m freezing!” I gave her my keys and watched her walk off. 

“Okay,” I said to Shane excitedly as soon as she was out of earshot, “it’s happening next Friday!”

“What’s happening?” Shane asked.

At this point, Jessica, Shane‘s fiancé, who works at Bitty & Beau’s, ran through the line, and she gave Shane a big hug. After they let go, Jessica greeted me. I said hi and hugged her. Then I made eye contact with Shane, looked down at Jessica’s engagement ring, looked back at Shane, and raised my eyebrow. Shane’s eyes went wide, and he said, “Oh my gosh! Congratulations!”

On Friday, May 9th, 2025, I pulled into a parking Garage at 5:00 p.m. After I parked, I pulled out my phone and checked Paige’s location: 17 minutes away. I took an excited breath, exited my car, locked the door, ran out of the garage, and looked across the street at the bar: Good Night John Boy.

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 8: Bitty & Beau's

 Bitty & Beau's

In the year or so since Paige and I moved in together, I haven’t really mentioned my former roommate Shane. Despite our intense fights during the two years we “lived” together, my intention was to keep our friendship alive after I moved out. The reason I haven’t mentioned him in the last year is because while I have seen him a handful of times, we haven’t hung out in the way that either of us wanted to.

There was a girl in the grade below me at OLP; let’s call her Laura. Laura‘s little brother, let’s call him Andrew, ended up going to New Story during my last two years as a student there. At the beginning of January, Laura and Andrew‘s mom shared a video from a coffee shop called Bitty & Beau’s. Bitty & Beau’s was started in 2016 by a couple with two children named Bitty and Beau, who both have Down syndrome. They almost exclusively employ people with developmental disabilities. The video that Laura’s mom had posted was introducing the employees for the new Columbus location. Andrew and Shane’s fiancé, Jessica, were both introduced. 

After Mom told me about it, I looked into it and found out that the Bitty & Beau’s Columbus grand opening was on Saturday, May 3, 2025. I immediately called Shane, and we decided to go. At 9:30 that morning, Paige and I drove up to the Gleason Road apartment. Shane was already outside, and we got to Bitty & Beau’s by 9:45. It was very rainy that day, but luckily, there was an awning, so we had cover.

A handful of things happened while we waited in line for 2 hours. 1. I saw three of my New Story coworkers ahead of us in line and said hi to them. 2. Laura and her friend from OLP, Sylvia, saw me and we talked briefly. 3. Unfortunately, we were too far back in line to see the ribbon-cutting, but we could hear it. 4. At about 10:45, Paige went back to my car because she was cold.* 5. Shane had texted Jessica’s mom and told her that we were there. When she found out, Jessica came through the line and gave Shane a big hug. 6. After Jessica left, a woman named Maddie and her husband started talking to us. They were very friendly, and they brought my books!

Eventually, Paige returned, and within another 30 minutes, we finally got into the shop. Jessica rang up our coffees. She gave me a 7 of hearts playing card, and the person who made our order had to match ours with the 7 of hearts they had to make sure they got the correct order, which was really cool.

I wrote each War Of The Roommates installment (War Of The Roommates, Dancing With Our Stars, and The Truth About War Of The Roommates trilogy) the same way. I reveal that despite what I’ve depicted before, Shane and I are having problems for one reason or another. I then reveal that I’m trying to use this series to make myself feel better about my complicated living situation. Finally, I resolved them with, “he and I fixed it because x, and now it’s all gonna be perfect from here on in!” While the point of The Truth About War Of The Roommates trilogy was Paige and I moving in together, even though I still wanted Shane in my life, the way I wrote it and his lack of appearance after it made it seem like I was running away from Shane. But as we sat and drank our coffee, I looked over at Shane with pride that he and I had finally grown past the War Of The Roommates.

Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 7: Sam’s Fans 10

 Sam’s Fans 10

When S.M. died, back in 2009, I felt more lost than I ever had before. As I depicted in my second book, Sam’s Fans was the first thing that really helped me cope with all the death I had experienced. In the two years since I published Once in a Lifetime, I haven’t written about Sam’s Fans as much. I think in some ways, writing and more specifically editing that book, helped me to process my feelings and move forward in my life. This doesn’t mean that I’m not still going to events.

As of this installment, Sam's Fans is 10 years old! S.M.’s favorite dessert was ice cream. Every year on her birthday (March 15th), Sam's Fans hosts a social media campaign, in which everyone posts pictures of themselves getting ice cream with the hashtag #icecreamwithsam. In April every year Sam's Fans has an ice cream party to celebrate S.M’s and it’s “birthday.”

Last Thursday, April 10th, 2025, I left work at 3:45, drove to pick Paige up, and drove down to Kobolt to finish working on Greattastic Adventures 2. Once I had finished, we drove to Meadow Park Drive. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream is a shop that started locally, but it’s now in multiple states. Paige and I parked right outside of my parents’ house, and walked up to the Jeni’s at the top of the street.

When we were about to walk in, we ran into Finn and Jack, two of S.M.’s brothers. After we greeted them, we entered and said hi to S.M. ’s mom, Nikki, her mom, Patti, and her best friend, Mandy. Then we ordered our ice cream and sat down with them.

As we caught up, with everyone I looked down at the table and there was a sticker. The sticker had expanded the cellular Sam's Fans logo, put a ladybug in the 0 of the number 10 (a ladybug is a symbol of S.M.), and had the words, “celebrating a decade of healing” on it. I couldn’t help but smile.

S.M. has been gone for nearly 16 years now. And yet, when I tell people about her without fail they always say, “I’m so sorry.” This is always a bit weird for me because I never really know how to respond. S.M.’s death started one of the darkest periods in my life and I miss her every single day. But, in the last 10 years S.M. though her mother and Sam's Fans, has touched the lives of thousands of kids just like her! It will never be “okay,” that’s not how grief works. But I’ll tell you, she would be so happy with what Nikki has done in her name over the last 10 years, and that makes it a bit easier to live with.

Have A Greattastic Day and Be Safe 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 6: The Things That Stay The Same

 The Things That Stay The Same

On Thursday, March 27th, 2025, at around 7:00 p.m., my uncle Bob was walking back to his car after meeting with a former coworker. As he was about to turn the corner, he heard someone running towards him from behind. He turned around, didn’t recognize the stranger, and turned the corner in a panic. “Hi, uncle Bob,” I said.

“Oh, hi Mitchell,” he said, “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. What are you doing down here?” 

“There’s a Cousin Simple show at A&R,” I replied.

It’s not surprising that Uncle Bob didn’t recognize me. Since last summer, I've been wearing my hair up in a ponytail, and I haven’t shaved my face since the day after Christmas.

After Bob and I talked for about a minute, I returned to the restaurant where Mom, Dad, Josh, Paige, and the parents of the lead singer, Will, David, and Tracy, were eating. Now, Cousin Simple has played A&R before, but they haven’t played there since they released the music video for their song Candlelight a few years ago. 

When we got to A&R, we met up with Nimba, Aunt Cyndi, Will’s sister, Helen, Mrs. Hartman and a few other regulars. While I have not mentioned Mrs. Hartman in any of my writings, her son, Pete, appeared in my second book, as he was a really good friend of mine in grade school. After we said hi to each other, Mrs. Hartman said, “Pete got married last year and they are expecting their first baby in June!”

 Now, before Paige and I started dating, at every single Cousin Simple show, I would be practically at the front of the crowd. This changed when we started dating. Before we dated and she came to shows, I thought of her as just a fan of the band, but when she came as my guest, I felt a little more obligated to be with her, even though she did not agree with that obligation. After the rest of my family said hi to Mrs. Hartman, and congratulated her on the baby, Nimba, and Cyndi, expressed that they wanted to go to the front, and that encouraged Mom, me, and Paige to go too.

As Cousin Simple started playing, we were still a little further back than I would have liked to be. However, I noticed Josh, as close to the front as possible, and I used him as a landmark. I'm a very tall person, so it took me about half a set to get to Josh. When I did, I felt someone continually tap me on the shoulder. I was ignoring her, since I assumed she was just a disgruntled fan, until I realized it was just a little too deliberate, and I turned around and it was Paige. After a few minutes of dancing around, Paige asked me, “Can you throw my drink  away?” I grumbled a little bit, but as I grabbed her cup from her, I knew I could get back to where I was if I was a little more aggressive, fighting through the crowd. You will not believe the number of enemies I made that night!

This series has always had a weird relationship with the theme of change, mostly because I, as an autistic person, have a problem with change, and I want to move away from that theme, even though things change in life, and so I inevitably have to go back to it. Pete's eminent fatherhood is a weird change for me. Obviously, Pete is not my first friend to have a baby, and I haven't seen him consistently in nearly 15 years. The difference between him and, for example, August is, I watched August grow into an adult and literally grow, when she was pregnant. In contrast, the most recent version of Pete that I remember is a 6th grader; someone who should not have a baby.

Yes, Pete's wife's pregnancy has absolutely no bearing on my life (other than me obviously being happy for them), but it brings up a subset of insecurity about change that I haven't experienced before. It's not the, “Oh my gosh everything's changing in my life and it's never going to be okay,” kind of thing that I felt before, it's more subtle. Remember when you were little, and like your great aunt, or distant cousin or whoever, would say, “I remember when you were this small.” I feel like I’m doing the emotional equivalent of that in my head to Pete now that he's going to be a dad, and it's just a weird feeling and I don't know how to handle it. 

While there's probably a lot more packed into that little paragraph, that I should unpack with my therapist, as I was kind of overthinking about change the day after the show, I started thinking about how even though the feelings are a little weird, and maybe even a little incomplete, I had the makings for a good installment. Because whether the changes are small, like facial hair, an old friend's parenthood, or if they're bigger, like a friend moving away there are always the things that stay the same: like me being at the front of the crowd at a Cousin Simple show!

Have a Greattastic Day and be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri