The Good Ol’ Days

I was talking to my highschooler the other day and he said something I’ve been holding onto. I guess his physics teacher mentioned subatomic particles while talking about atoms, and my kid asks, “Where does it stop?”

“What do you mean?” goes the teacher.

And my kid goes, “I thought atoms were the smallest things in the Universe, but now we’re saying there’s things smaller than that. Where does it stop? Are there things smaller than those particles?”

And bless him, his teacher goes, “Y’know, we don’t know yet, but probably.”

So he comes home and now we’re talking about it. And we start talking about how, well, the Universe is infinite, right? It doesn’t have an end. It almost can’t, because even that thing we call the end is just edge of the Observable Universe, because if it has an end, and if it’s expanding, the obvious question is “What’s it expanding into?” Even if it’s empty nothingness, that nothingness is still something, in the end, if it’s space to be expanded into.

And this is all him saying this, but he goes, “If it goes infinitely out, why can’t it go infinitely in?”

And I ask him what he means, and he says that, well, if space goes infinitely out, it doesn’t make sense that it stops going the other way. Like, it seems less likely that we’ve found the starting point – atoms at first, now subatomic particles, maybe later something smaller than that – and everything else just gets bigger from there. So what if there’s an infinite smallness too?

He said he tried telling his friends this stuff and you know how kids are. They tell him stuff they heard in Ant Man, then google some stuff about quantum this and that without understanding what they heck they’re talking about. But, I mean, come on. We do it too.

But then he goes, “Is Time the same way?”

And again, I ask him what he means.

And he goes, “Well, it didn’t start, right? Because how would Time start if there’s a time without…Time?”

And I tell him I don’t think it works that way. He asks me why not, and I tell him that, I guess, I don’t really know.

“So, for argument’s sake,” he goes, “what if there’s always been Time? Like a Forever Past. There’s never been a time without Time and without Stuff. No beginning to it, there’s just always been Stuff, whatever that is.”

Okay…I say.

And he goes, “So then what about the future?”

“Well it hasn’t happened yet,” I tell him.

He says, “Sure,” but in that way you say things when you’re just being polite, and then he goes, “But why not?”

I ask him to explain, and this is what he gives me.

He says that to people in the past, like the 1800’s, we’re living in their future, and it’s real to us, so why wouldn’t it be as real for them, even if it hadn’t happened yet, because bottom line, our present, their future, is a real thing, and right now proves that. So why not the same for our own future? If Time goes back forever, without a Beginning, just always being, why wouldn’t it be the same for the future? The same way there’s an infinite expansion to space, going forever outward, getting bigger, why can’t there be an infinite smallness?

So, he says, the same thing we did for space, accepting that it goes infinite in both directions instead of just the one, what if we say the same for Time? There is no end to it. There will never be an End to it, just like there was no Beginning. It just…is. Everything didn’t just Begin, it always Was.

It’s had me messed up. He’s at his mom’s now, but I’m still up thinking about all this. It’s changed how I look at the Future. I used to think that determinism or Fate was at odds with Free Will, but I don’t know so much anymore. Maybe we’re just characters in a movie, everything in every way already determined in some unknowable way, but us, here, now, in our freedom to choose, are going to make it that way. It’s got me thinking about when I die, however that’s gonna happen, and wondering if when it happens, I’ll experience it with a wonder like, “Ah, wow. So this is what it’s gonna be like.”

But mostly, it has me thinking about now differently. Like, if Now isn’t the vanguard of the timeline like I’ve thought, the place where the Future becomes the Now, and instead it’s just somewhere in the infinite middle with the Future set, as real now as it will be when it happens…

I don’t know, I guess it makes me feel like I’m living inside my own memory. I look around and go, “Huh, a lot of this I’m going to forget. But what I’m looking at right now. Feeling right now, hearing, smelling. Sometime, I’m going to be remembering this moment. It’s like I’m alive in the Memory of Some Day, all the time. Makes me remember that even when times get tough, the Good Old Days are happening right now.

…

That, or he got into some reeeaaally good weed, and I need to call his teacher.

The Window Seat

“Sir?”

–

I read once that astronauts experience this thing called ‘the overview effect’. They get up there, into space, and they look back down at the Earth. And all in one frame they see their home. All of it. Everything they’ve ever known, all in one spot. And behind it is this endless, limitless, boundless, timeless, infinite expanse of empty black. It’s the closest thing to seeing the face of God itself.

And in that black, distance suddenly means everything and absolutely nothing at all. Miles no longer matter. And everything that maybe seemed so foreign or strange as a different country or culture on Earth is suddenly realized to have been so embarrassingly close by this whole time. There’s no such thing as an Other, or a Them, or a fight that’s at all worth fighting over when you see it from up above.

It’s why I like having the window seat on airplanes. When it’s taking off or coming in, and you’re just a few thousand feet above a major city, and you get to see it all while still being close to it. See all the cars on the highways, see all the streets winding like veins through business centers and neighborhoods, seeing all those houses, each with a family or two inside…

I read about another term too, called “sonder”, out of the Dictionary of Dark and Nameless Things. It’s the term for that existential feeling you can get when you realize that everyone you meet, everyone you come into contact with, even if it’s just a glancing one on the sidewalk or in a restaurant, they each have a story and an inner life that’s at least as rich and complex and complicated as your own, with thoughts, observations, dreams, lessons, experiences, wants, pains, et cetera.

However complicated my life may feel sometimes, or how drowning or urgent it may seem to me some nights, seeing all of those streets, those houses, those lives, those souls and lived experiences remind me how many of us there are. They remind me how incalculably many of our stories there have been throughout history, each and every one as meaningful or tragic or triumphant as the next. It reminds me that I am a drop within an ocean, one star inside a galaxy, no less phenomenal for my smallness nor my brevity on this planet, which itself is one among untold billions. And in that brevity and in that smallness comes the privilege of ever being.

And that, in itself, is pretty great.

–

“Sir?”
“Oh! Uh, yes? Sorry. Yes, what? Sorry.”
“Would you like anything from the drink cart?”
“Ah, a Sprite. Thank you.”

This Old Jacket

Oliver and Sarah walked along the beachside park. The wind was crisp with the sun trying its best to warm them from behind the heavy overcast. They walked on the sandy grass beside the paved path to make room for all the joggers, strollers, and headphone-wearing rollerbladers that used it too. They each nursed their own vanilla ice cream cone while they walked.

“Happy birthday, again,” Sarah said.

“Thanks,” Oliver chuckled weakly.

“How’s it feel to be thirty-three?”

Oliver chewed the inside of his cheek a moment in thought before answering.

“Tiring,” he said.

“Yeah,” she conceded.

They kept walking after that, occupying themselves with peoplewatching as they went. There was someone in large, flappy pants juggling bowling pins with a hat full of tips nearby. They saw an old couple laughing together on a park bench, and looked on at what seemed to be a fiery teenage break-up out on nearer the shore. There was also an overturned tricycle with a young father inspecting his son’s scraped knee next to it.

“I’m not as patient as I used to be,” Oliver sighed. “And that’s kind of a bummer. It used to be easy, but now it takes effort.”

Sarah nodded sympathetically. “I get that,” she said.

“I’m an optimist at heart, but the more I see things not work out it gets harder and hard to be that way. It’s like being out in the cold with an old jacket on. It’s familiar, cozy, and warm enough to keep out most of the chill, but it’s gotten thin with time and has some parts along the seams. You can feel the cold on the other side of the fabric and bits of the breeze sneak through here and there, but the jacket’s there too, keeping the heat in. It almost becomes about which you focus on is which you feel more, the warmth of the jacket or the chill reaching through it, and you flicker back and forth in this limbo between comfort and discomfort, making it sort of both and not really either, all at once.” He took a big breath, then let out a somehow bigger sigh.

“But I like my jacket,” he said.

Sarah glanced between Oliver and her own shoes. “It’s a pretty good jacket,” she agree quietly.

END

What Cake Taught Me (+ Story Promo)

A few years ago, I baked a cake for the first time, and I legitimately think it changed who I am as a person. I think I’ve shared this before, but I’ve been ruminating on it again recently. It was maybe January of 2022, my wife and I were lazing the day away watching Try Guys baking challenges on Youtube, and I couldn’t help myself.

“Is it…I don’t know. Is it bad that I kind of think I could do that?” I asked. I had never made a baked good outside of boxed brownie mix to that point in my life.

“You think so, huh?” she asked back, indignation clear in her tone. “I know what I want for my birthday then. I want you to bake me a cake from scratch.”

“You’re sure? Easy-peezy. Consider it done,” I said with a shrug, palms already sweating.

I’d never followed a recipe before in my life, much less attempted the delicate art that was creating a baked good from raw ingredients. And, I’ll be damned, I did it. But not only that, my wife and others also swore under oath that it was actually pretty dang good. Now yes, beginner’s luck played its part of course, but I’ve managed the hat trick of two more birthday cakes in the years since.

But that isn’t the important part. The important take-aways of the experience are two-fold.

The first came when I was making the frosting. I put heavy whipping cream into the stand mixer and watched the attachment whirl away. Cream lapped and splashed while I waited for it to “turn light and fluffy,” but I just wasn’t seeing it. I shot a confused glance over at my wife where she sat, resolutely content to observe and not offer hints. Then the miraculous happened: the stuff in the bowl went from milky liquid to fluffy clouds.

I felt like a god. I felt like I’d harnessed the powers of alchemy and transfiguration itself, granting new form where it hadn’t existed before. The power of creation was at my fingertips, and it felt good.

And that led into the second take-away: I made a thing…by following instructions. Cake was no longer something that existed just in pictures and in stores. I’d taken a bunch of stuff and turned it into a birthday cake by following written shared knowledge. And that meant that could be true of other things. Things you see around you that have been made or built, there’s a strong chance that with the tools and the know-how, you could do the same. (In fact, that reminds me of another recent triumph that I’ll share in greater detail next time.)

Just, I know it can often not feel like it, but just remember that you’re plenty capable, with whatever it is. Baking a cake, fixing up an old car, landing a job, running a marathon – people worse off than you have done bigger, so the math checks out that you can do it too. Different things might take more effort, more investment, more time or willpower than others, but it’s frighteningly simple how many things are within our reach reach as capable people that escape us just because we convince ourselves they’re beyond us.

So get out there and do it, whatever it is.

Oh! And something awesome. Had another story get picked up recently, this time to podcast! So if you’re looking for something to do, or just to go on a journey for a little while, go check out my story “Re-Runs” with Tell Tale TV. It was a funny little story I brainstormed with a friend, and Chris over at TTTV did, I think, an excellent reading of it.

A Quiet Strength

A few of us had nothing to do so we just decided to skate at the middle school until it got too dark. We headed out the gate out past the soccer field and saw a bunch of fire trucks in front of one of Michael’s neighbor’s place. No fire or anything, but there were a bunch of people standing around and we wanted to see what was up. We texted Buzza to meet up, saying we were probably going to go get stuff at the corner store before heading to Austin’s for some Gears. Then we just killed time, talking shit, laughing, until he got back to us.

After a while, this guy comes up to us. He has his hands in his jacket pockets all casual-like and nods to us with his head. He looks like he’s forty or something.

“Hey guys,” he says with a little laugh. “How’s it goin’?”

“Not much, just hangin’ out,” says Riley. But nobody really says anything else. The dude is weird.

“Right on,” he chuckles, then nods his head at the scene. “Any idea what happened?”

“No,” we tell him, but he sounds like he does. “What’s up?” we ask.

“Ah, right on. Yeah, no, I guess Nancy got a call – that’s the lady on the front lawn there – yeah, she got a call from her kid, Jess. I guess she came home from a friend’s and found her dad after he put a gun in his mouth. Redecorated the kitchen wall with it, too.”

“Damn,” Michael answers. “No shit.”

“Yeah,” says the guy easy enough. “That’s why she’s on the lawn now, coroner’s dealing with the body, you know?” I mean, we didn’t, so no one says anything. He sort of sighs. “She’s probably wondering what to do now. Besides losing him like this, she’s got the two kids, her job she might need time from to sort things out, probably wondering how she’s going to keep the house now without him…but once she’s pulled herself together, she’ll probably focus on the kids first and foremost, and the rest will follow from there. But her life’s going to change now, a lot, that’s for certain. Can’t hardly imagine what she’s going through right now.”

The group was pretty quiet. The guy was making his point.

“Yep, anyway,” he sighs. “You guys were being pretty loud. Might be good not to do that here. Have a good night, though.” And with that, he brought his shoulders up against the cold and walked back to the house.

Oof.

So, while fictitious here, it’s based as faithfully as I can remember on a conversation that actually happened. We were the gaggle of teenagers, hanging out together and thinking the world was ours, when that guy approached. And I remember specifically that Austin and I afterwards talked about how much like utter crap we felt, rightfully so. It wasn’t on purpose, but we were being assholes, given what was going on, whether we knew it or not; and that guy did everything right.
He approached us, informed us in his own way the severity of what was happening and that which we were unwittingly taking lightly, and asked us (without asking us) to leave. If he’d come down on us with fire and brimstone and “Get the hell out of here!” we wouldn’t have listened, and I’m sure he’d calculated it that way. Rather than leaving with a good lesson seared into our brains, we just would have felt like hooligans that had gotten away with something and talked about “how much of a dick that guy was.”
It was also an excellent demonstration of strength, one that’s quiet, sure of itself, and calm, and I think about that guy every now and then, some fifteen years later. I don’t get angry or blustery very often (and if I do, 99% of the time it’s over something dumb and in a fun way, like over a game of Catan) mostly because when a feeling like that would start to swell, a wave of embarrassment washes over me first, prompting me to measure out my response and consider how I want to be perceived or have my point taken.
And now, looking back on this little memory, that nameless, calm, sure, compassionate guy probably had a part to play in it.

‘Longest Road’ Thinking and Being Behind the Curve

Self awareness is an important skill, and I do think that it’s a skill. Some folks are good at it off the rib, and some of us need to cultivate it carefully through attention and practice. In my view, it’s an important skill too, maybe the most important as it relates to one’s degree of emotional intelligence, as other forms of empathy and the ability to interpret others’ actions and words can spring from your own self awareness.

And I believe much of this following an infamous game of Settlers of Catan.

I enjoy boardgames and shared tabletop activities a lot (talked about that recently, in fact). It’s a great hobby that can be social, intellectually challenging, adventurous and just plain fun. But that doesn’t mean it comes without its faults. I’m reasonably certain everyone has those family members or know a That Guy who’s either overly competitive, prone to being spiteful, or otherwise capable of ruining a good boardgame night.

One night – and what’s follow isn’t to say that Alan was being a That Guy, in fact, it might have been me in this case, but – we were over at our close friend Alan’s house for a dinner thingy and game night. On the docket, Settlers of Catan, and for sake of a cast, the players are myself, Alan, my wife Mandy, and our friend Micah.

You’re likely familiar with Catan, but if you aren’t, the short version is that you’re trying to reach ten Victory Points, and you do so by building Settlements, Cities, and Roads through collecting resources and trading them with other players. Everyone starts with two Settlements on the board, and thus, everyone starts with two points. Just eight more to go! There are also bonuses you can earn by, for example, building The Longest Road. <grumble, grumble>

So the game starts and right away Micah starts kicking the rest of our asses, to put it mildly. In a few short rounds, thanks to his admittedly strategic planning, shrewd trading, and some good luck, he rockets up to seven Victory Points. SEVEN! The rest of us all still just have our starting two. Part of that pool of points is the couple one gets for having the Longest Road.

I planned my start poorly that game, so my prospects at eventually winning are slim, but I could build roads. In fact, it was just about the only thing I could do. So I start aggressively building roads on the map to try and steal some points back from Micah, give the rest of the table a chance to catch up. In a round or two I’ve nearly surpassed Micah on roads, and much to my shock, confusion, and dismay, Alan blocks my move.

I…I stare at him. My flabbers are ghasted. My bams were well and truly boozled. And so I ask Alan, my dear friend whom I love just what the fuck he was doing.

His response: “…but you always get Longest Road.”

I discovered that night that I have a pet peeve when it comes to boardgames. It…God, it gets under my skin when somebody makes a tactically stupid play at the table. I don’t mean making a mistake, or a Hail Mary longshot, or forgets something, or has a misunderstanding, or even makes an admittedly risky choice for the sake of a big payoff or just for chaotic fun. Those things are all either understandable or are great in and of themselves. But when someone makes a decision that goes directly against even the most basic and rudimentary strategic sense…

Even writing this now, this game having taken place years ago, I shake with fury at his answer.

To reiterate, as I did to Alan then, all I was capable of at that table that night was building roads. You cannot win by building roads. You must construct Settlements and Cities to win. In blocking my road expansion, Alan only hurt our collective chances of competing with the far-and-away frontrunner, Micah. And I tried explaning that past games just cannot matter in one like this, especially with the dynamic at the table at present.

But it was cool. I pivoted, redirected my expansion and went another way…and he blocked me a second time, for the same reason.

I almost flipped that goddamn table. And it’s a heavy table. And I have a bad back.

Now please don’t imagine I made (much of) a scene. I’m not a voice-raiser or a shouter. And I don’t get angry at much. For the most part, I find displays of anger to be more embarrassing than they are likely to be justified – just my life experience. But like, I did berate him pretty good, but not with anything that was cutting or couldn’t be within the (stretched) bounds of good fun. And I still bring it up. And will do until we’re geriatrics, likely.

Anyway, what do I bring up this story and any of the rest of it for? Well I’ve come to find that ‘Longest Road Thinking’ – that is, an emotional response to a situation that actively hurts the one having it while simultaneously justifying said response as being helpful – can be found off the Catan board and out in the real world. In fact, I’d be willing to be that over the course of that last sentence, a few examples from your own life (or social media) probably sprang to mind.

But while relating these things to real life – another detour.

There’s a documentary out there called Behind the Curve. To summarize it here in brief, it explores those in our society that believe in a flat earth, and in my opinion it does a fair job of presenting them as neutrally as could be done, allowing prominent members of that community involved in the work to represent themselves rather than poke low-hanging fun at them. The juxtaposed flat-earther interviews with those of astronomers, psychologists, and other scientific minds as a sort of counter, foil, or opposed argument to balance them.

In the end, the documentary posed Flat Earth Thinking – that being something which to you might make perfect sense or seem perfectly adequate, despite those around you disagreeing, sometimes vehemently – is something that can happen to any of us, and challenged the audience to consider what thing, what belief they might hold could be their own personal Flat Earth, and why they hold that particular belief.

Tying this rant together in an effort to bring it to a close: Settlers of Catan is just a game.

Boy howdy, did Alan’s stupid, stupid move with blocking my road not deserve the amount of energy I’ve given it over the years, but I like to harness it differently now. Now, when I catch myself having an emotional trigger to an event, it gives me pause. Not always a big one, but just enough to consider if the thing I’m considering doing or saying is about to block someone’s longest road.

Bikes, Bows, and Everything Else

I recognize that I’m saying this from the perspective of a first-world dweller, but I like simple things. I think it’s part of what keeps me frustratingly (for my friends, not me) about five years behind any kind of trend or bandwagon, and by now most of my friends know not to ask if I’ve heard of something before those requisite 1,825 days.

As I mentioned recently, I got married in October. My wife was the one who taught me about this “wedding registry” thing, and she held most of the interest in keeping and updating it for the longest time. My brain just didn’t have the depth for considering things like receiving wedding gifts. That was until a couple of our friends gifted us with a two’fer: a serving set of margarita glasses and a cast iron skillet.

Y’all, I love that skillet.

Even when we opened them, we both gave audible happy sighs, but then she grabbed the glasses and I hugged the skillet, silently each telling the other, “I love you, til death do we part, but if anything happens, this is mine and that’s yours.”

In the months since then, I’ve taken a real cooking turn. I bought a couple of cookbooks (The Official D&D ones – Heroes’ Feast and Flavors of the Multiverse – because I’m a nerd) and have been churning out culinary creation after creation. A lot of the credit goes to my aforementioned spouse for challenging me to bake her a cake a few years ago (which has gone on to become a solid tradition) for first introducing me to the magic that is following a recipe, and the rest goes to that skillet.

Certain things on occasion call for using food processors and immersion blenders, but I’ll modify as I need to in order to eschew those and make due with the following: a knife, skillet, hands, yum. That does the trick nine out of ten times, and it had me thinking of the tons of kitchen gadgets and shiny things that exist out there for cooking. And that had me think of a couple other encounters where I think it’s easy to be oversold, namely bikes, bows, and everything else.

I remember a time I was at my favorite archery shop. I’d just finished at the range, had packed up, and was milling about before leaving. All sorts come through, from hunters, competitive shooters, casual and seasonal shooters like myself, to total beginners. One such newbie was looking around the store, thinking aloud on where to start, when another somewhat-new guy approached him. I’m all for being helpful, but I…disagreed with his advice.

“Yeah bro,” Sorta New Guy told him, “I tried all sorts of bows when I started looking, and I just got my first. Now, you can get one of those beginner units, and that’s all well and good or whatever. And this puppy” (he said, hoisting up his own, pretty expensive compound bow) “cost me about $1,700, but let me tell you, you get what you pay for. You can feel the difference.”

Which to that I say, you can…to a point.

My bow is a faithful steed that was just a baseline Great Tree recurve, out-the-door all said and done for about $300. He’s stuck by me for north of eleven years and…well, got me preferable results up at the line than Sorta New Guy with his bells and whistles.

Am I against bells and whistles? No. Am I here bragging? Well…a teensy bit, yes. But just more to say that that dude way overbought, and that a sturdy, reliable, baseline set can demonstrably serve you for over a decade. Kind of like the above-mentioned “knife, skillet, hands, yum”.

The other encounter was when I went shopping for a commuter bicycle about six years ago. This was an expensive purchase, but that’s because…I won’t lie, I guess these things are just pricey. Mine cost me about $1,000, which hurt, but I genuinely think it’s immortal. And when I was looking at bicycle prices, the costs could be little dinky ones for less than mine, ones like mine, and then quickly and suddenly up into the thousands of dollars, then thousands of thousands of dollars. Like, Jiminy Christmas, I guess if you’re Lance Armstrong and microseconds count to you in a race, but outside of that, no thank you.

The lesson I found in these things is this: More often than not, baseline will do you. Like bikes, bows, and everything else, stuff can and will get as expensive as you want it to be, but wow will that not really mean that it’s much better. It’s about the skill you apply (or eventually apply, through learning) that will make the difference.

And that’s the fun part.

Would Your Coworkers Survive the Apocalypse? (Oh, and Happy New Year!)

Wowzers. Happy New Year, everybody. I know it’s a little belated, but I think I also kind of just wanted the first blogged word of 2024 to be “wowzers”, if I’m honest.

Hope your respective holidays were all grand, and your Resolutions such as they might exist are so far going to plan. Normally, I’m big on making Resolutions for the New Year and doing what I can to see them through. Thing is, I’d made a habit out of making Resolutions that were ambitious to a degree that I would need to devote an average of six hours a day, every day, for the whole year to see them through.

It’s usually a list of things I’d like to accomplish, since I find vague Resolutions such as “Swear Less” and “Get More Sleep” as being too easy carry out for a day then check off one’s list. “See? Went a whole day without saying ‘F***’. Good enough.” Whereas giving yourself things to accomplish can bring about those changes you want to see along the way to completing them.

This time though, rather than a huge list of things like Run a Marathon, Write a Book, Save Up $100k on a $30k Annual Salary, and other huge tasks, I’m going more moderate. I AM going to finally finish my novel manuscript goddammit, but now instead of a marathon I want to run an old trail I used to when I was active; and instead of a million dollars in savings, I’ll settle for actually starting my 401k like I’ve been telling myself I will and doing my taxes on time this year (like I also always tell myself I will).

Anyway, enough potatoes, now for the meat.

[After this quick note, because speaking of po-tay-toes, my wife and I went to a Lord of the Rings trivia night a couple weeks ago. I recently finished reading the books, and we did a rewatch of the extended cut of the movies. I wanted to be extra prepared though, so I also took a few online quizzes to make sure I was sharp, and you know what? We got first place and a $25 gift card for our efforts! So whoever said being a geek doesn’t pay can cover their own tab.]

Right. Potatoes done. Meat now.

I remember asking this icebreaker at a wedding once, and it earned me a friend for the night. It isn’t applicable to everyone, since everyone’s work environments and professions vary wildly, so I just picture a “typical” office setting when I ask it. It goes as follows:

If the apocalypse happened while you were at work and you couldn’t leave – say the building you’re in gets buried in radioactive snow full of mutant beetles or something, I don’t know – and communications are down so you’re isolated with just your colleagues now, what sort of hierarchy do you think would emerge?

To think of it another way if you need it, your coworkers and you are all stranded together on a deserted island. Do you think the organization of the workplace would persist into that new post-apocalyptic, survival scenario, with the managers and whatnot still giving directions and organization to the lower level workers? Would it stay that way because it’s easier and pre-existing? Or would that all dissolve and reshape into a new form of leadership, with Lyla from accounting becoming the new Chief and the old CEO Todd now relegated to being the Water Boy?

The guy at the wedding who I asked about this was pretty quick to posit the latter scenario, though when he said it, he started with “Oh, f*** those people,” so his answer could be considered biased.

I would get into a larger conversation about how thinking on it a bit creates an interesting perspective on social organization as a whole, and why we follow the rules we generally follow in our daily lives (Social Contract, and all), but that’s too brainy for this little pocket of the internet we got here, at least for right now.

For right now, it’s a fun question to pose to fellow wedding guests or to make conversation when you don’t know anybody else at a party or something. Tools for life, that’s what we provide here at the Light of Day.

Go now, in peace and power, y’all, and conversate with strangers about how you’d likely cannibalize Eddy in IT or something.

Whoa, I’m Married Now

Wow. It’s been an eventful couple of months.

Since my last post – two and a half freaking months ago! – we’ve had a lot happen. My now wife and I ran off to Kauai to get married last week, and we decided to elope so it was just the two of us, if you don’t want to count our photographer and officiant. We’ve been really fortunate in that we’ve never really suffered too much pressure from family on either side, whether it was regarding a timeline to get married or what kind of an event we should have for ourselves.

And for us, elopement was the best possible scenario. After our little ceremony on the beach, we were too dang tired to think about hosting a hypothetical reception. It was a sunrise ceremony too, so afterwards we just got the rest of the day to go at our own pace and enjoy the day as we wished.

So, to anybody thinking about it, it gets a solid Thumbs-Up from us.

Now that isn’t to say that it was wholly without its drama. Before any of that could even happen, about six weeks before we were set to leave, a whole mess of compromising stuff took place. The first and certainly not least of which were the fires on Maui. Our original destination was Maui, in fact, and we were set to stay in Lahaina. We’re from California, and live in a place that has a desperately intimate history with wildfires of our own, so we did what we hoped was right, donated a part of our budget to relief efforts, and began repivoting our plans to Kauai. It was a huge disruption to our plans on such short notice, which is, again, to say nothing of the obvious tragedy to the residents of Maui, but not an obstacle that couldn’t be overcome.

But that week had more in store for us.

My mom has some health matters that I’ve mentioned on here before, and in the same few days we learned of the fires in Lahaina, her condition worsened. I would take some time off work to be her caregiver, and when we realized something bigger than myself was going to be needed, that would become a leave of absence as I searched for an appropriate assisted living facility for her.

It was a massively emotional undertaking that, if I’m honest, will stick with me for the rest of my life, and I’m going to seek therapy for when I’m able for a whole host of reasons; not least of which being that it meant we faced another question: Do we cancel our plans?

The question naturally came up a couple of times, but as I’ve put out there before, I’m a diehard optimist that can border on delusion sometimes, so my attitude was such that, in that first week, we either needed to cancel everything immediately and not waste the time and the hope, or forge ahead right away and make use of every second.

We opted for the latter, and as I sit here now, I’m supremely happy we did. It felt friggin’ impossible sometimes, there were set-backs aplenty, and at times I felt like my soul was being ground down to millet, but I tell you what…

We did it.

Mom’s in a safe and comfortable place where she’s stable and happy, my wife and I got to go get married and enjoy our honeymoon, and we did it all in time. Like, damn. It was an accomplishment in more ways than one.

Now that I’m not drowning in Life Stuff for the moment, I’ll get back to a more regular presence on here, and part of that will be going in-depth on our Kauai adventures (ziplining, surfing, snorkeling, hiking, shave ice, etc), as well as some old novel excerpting and that site design overhaul I mentioned looking into forever ago.

Otherwise, for now, it’s just good to be back. Ciao for now, y’all.

No Rest for the Wicked

Sometime recently, I think I remember talking about the gift of gab, and my appreciation for the art of persuasion and rhetoric. To me, it’s a valuable art form that has a whole web of connected associated skills – it can help form you into a greater conversationalist, listener, or storyteller, it forces you to reflect on what something you will say can or will affect who you’re saying it to and thus affect your deliberate decision making, and so much more.

Here’s a quick story about a time where that network of skills laid a total egg and got me nowhere.

It was summer time in 2019, and for the last week I’d been on my hands and knees redoing the floors in my mother’s house as part of its renovation, all by myself. My wrists were sore, my knees were sore, as were my back, my neck, my shoulders and my goddamn will to live, but I’d gotten it done. And now it was Saturday, and I’d gone to a casino one town over to sit my ass down, have a beer, and watch a UFC event at their sports bar.

Weird thing about me: I like getting carded. I think it started when I was maybe twenty-two at a grocery store, and the clerk doing the bagging called me “sir.” When I get called “sir” or give my ID at a bar, I feel like a high-ranking government agent giving my clearance code to a classified sector or something.

Overblown, but how I feel.

Now, I had never been carded before going onto the gambling floor at this particular casino, but this time as I approach to make my way to the sports bar that is my destination, security fella by the name of Brandon, as I would come to find out, welcomes us and asks for our ID’s.

Here’s the rub. My driver’s license had expired, like, a week before this. But with the aforementioned renovating and back-breaking floor work, I hadn’t had the time or emotional fortitude to make it to the DMV yet. I don’t think it matters, but I know how the world can be. And sure enough, Brandon sucks in air through his teeth as he looks my card over and goes, “Ah, hey. Your ID’s expired.”

I play it off pretty aloofly and explain my situation with the floors and the DMV and broken spirit and such, and the whole time he’s nodding, knowingly and smiling sympathetically.

“I get it, man. But it’s still expired, and technically I can’t let you on the floor without a valid government ID.”

I laugh, pretty warmly I think. “Hang on. So, two weeks ago, I’m certifiably twenty-six years old. But now, half a month later, we just don’t know if I’m of age?”

He laughs with me and holds his hands up. “I get it, but dude it’s my job. I can’t. I’m sorry.” He laughs again. “Like, really. I am. But they’re the rules.”

“They’re dumb ones,” I chuckle.

“I agree,” he nods.

“Tell you what, man, I don’t- I’m sorry, by the way, Evan.” I hold out my hand to shake like I’m finally introducing myself, which he does and tells me his name is Brandon. “Hey Brandon. Dude, my back is f***in’ mush. I’m not here to gamble, I’m not here to even drink, I just want to put my flat, tired ass in a chair to watch the fights. Here.” I dig my wallet out of my pocket and hold it out to him. “Brother, please even, hold onto this as collateral if you have to. My butt,” I point to it, “just wants that chair,” I point to one maybe six feet behind him, “for the next two, trouble-free hours. Can you level with this broke-ass, tired-ass, tryin’-to-be-a-good-son-to-his-mother-ass bitch and let me have a seat? You can hold onto my wallet and watch me, hands on the table the whole time. That cool?”

He smiles and laughs with me the whole time, and by the end of my diatribe- well, he hasn’t exactly been won over, but he does level with me.

“Listen,” he says, “I really can’t let you through. I really could lose my job.” He takes a big breath. “But what I will say is that I go on my break in about ten minutes, and I’ll be walking away from my place here. And, like, from there, whatever happens happens, y’know?”
“You a real cool motherf**ker, Brandon,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

Now, of course, it doesn’t work. Like, it sounds nice in a conspiratorial sort of way on paper, but naturally as soon as he walked away his replacement fills his place like clockwork without room for me to slip past. So, I shrug, and start trying to work my magic on this guy.

No dice. And I throw the whole book at him: “Helping my mom,” “Ow, my back,” “Certifiably twenty-six,” “Here, take my wallet.” Everything. But Brandon must have turned his radio on while I was talking with him or something, because this dude (David, I think) just laughs and shakes his head the whole time like it’s a story he’s heard before – which he probably has, to be fair.

Well, shit. If my plan for the evening isn’t going the way I’d hoped, I’m gonna make some lemonade out of these achy, sore-ass lemons.

“So, hypothetically,” I say to David eventually after a long pause and my book of tricks has long-since failed, “if I tried to just, like, run past you, you’d probably have to stop me, huh?”

He laughs pretty good at that one, but nods his head. “Yeah, probably would,” he says.

“Would you tackle me, or, like, would you be nice about it?”

“Depends, probably.”

“Easiest just to tackle, huh?”

“Kinda, yeah.”
“Shoot.” Another long pause stretches between us, and he checks some other peoples APPARENTLY VALID ID’s in the meantime. “What if I just took that chair,” I point to the one I did earlier with Brandon, “and brought it out here?”

“Nah. Can’t let you do that either.”

“Hmm. Against the rules too?”

“Yep.”

“Fire hazard or something?”

“Yep.”

“Mm, sure. Well…shit.”

Now, I feel like I should mention that at the top of this when I said Brandon “welcomes us and asked for our ID’s,” it’s because Amanda’s been next to me during ALL of these shenanigans. While I’ve been finding it amusing, she has rightly hated the whole wasted encounter. And believe me, I tried using her as a bargaining chip more than once, like if she could be my chaperon or if I could just use the validity of her ID in the same way spouses share an insurance plan.

Shockingly, neither of those worked either.

My last gambit was to just lean against the railing and watch the screens from afar, since I was tall enough to do so without technically having my feet over the line of the gambling floor. I’d even joked with David about what he’d do if I stepped over the line to lean less far, to which he said he’d have to stop me.

Well, I’ll tell you one thing, after jabbering his ear off for the better part of half an hour, I did inch a couple toes over the line the lean more comfortably and he didn’t say a damn thing.

Boom. That’s the power of persuasion.