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.

The Meaning of Life has Four Legs

I’m willing to bet you read that and thought, “Dog. It’s a dog. He’s gonna say dog.”

Or maybe you’re more of a cat person. Or something weird and adorable like a capybara.

After announcing my blissful marriage a couple of weeks ago, I’d expected to follow that up with a travel blog-style round up of the adventures that were our honeymoon – which were awesome. But in the couple of weeks since, telling those stories to friends and family is all I have been freaking doing. And I have more of it ahead of me. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved recounting the tale and reliving it each time with the retellings; and in fact, that’s sort of our point here today. But I’m going to take a breath and enjoy talking/writing about something else for a second while I recharge.

In any case, with regard to all the above hypothetical answers I’m positing then taking upon myself to shoot down: No. You have a guess of your own? Give up?

…

It’s a table. The meaning of life is a table.

When I was in my early twenties, I was taking an English class, and as an icebreaker the professor had us pick a question for the rest of the class to answer. It was a good way to get a feel for personalities, both in the asking and in the answers that followed. Some were pretty creative, too, and others ran a bit of the usual gamut, one such being: “What is the meaning of life?”

Well’p, the young lady who’d gone and asked that had messed up, because I was a pretentious 20-something who’d done some “deep thinking” and had an answer for her. Now, I denigrate younger me a little, but I feel now still as I answered then: Life doesn’t have any inherent meaning, and the question itself assumes too much. It assumes there is a meaning to this life, it assumes there’s only a singular one, and it implies (at least to me) a bit of universality to it, like it’s a one-size-fits-all.

Now, ironically, around that same time I’d come across someone else’s definition of their meaning of life, which I’ve gone onto adopt as my own, and that is a table.

A table where folk sit together and swap stories – about their day, about crazy things they’ve done, confessions, adventures, complete fiction! – is the meaning of this life, in the best way. A table, laden with food, drink, cards, etc, shared with loved ones or new friends, is a place that brings together the things that matter most in this human experience. When I imagine that, I imagine a safe, warm place together with people who matter to me.

And the thing about stories like that is that the best ones come from experiences you gather from getting out there and living life. I have legitimately made decisions, gone and done adventurous, memorable things I might not have otherwise, and vastly more for the better than for the worse, off of the motivation that “this will be really cool to tell my friends at a dinner party.” With the prize of that story awaiting you, it can get you to go and live your freaking life, which is the whole point!

Tables are magical things. They represent togetherness, shared times, a motivation to go on adventures and a safe place to come back to when those adventures are had. And to counter the title, not every table needs to have four legs. Sometimes it’s a campfire, or the cab of a car during a road trip or move, or even a journal or postcard.

And I think I came just shy of a proper rant. So we done good today.

So yeah. Get out there, do stuff, try new things, surprise yourself, then tell people about it.

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.

A Quick Thought on Spoon Theory

I’ve always sort of prided myself on maintaining patience as a virtue. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t look back and see times when my patience failed (good God, my teenage years), but on the whole I regard it as a strength of mine. But now, as I prepare to exit my twenties, a decade in which a freakin’ lot has happened, just…damn.

I feel like it used to be a lot easier to be a patient person.

Nowadays most of us have heard about Spoon Theory, and if you haven’t, here’s the gist: We all only have so much battery life to us, and that’s in regards to different kinds of energy – physical, mental, emotional, social, and otherwise. And as will happen to all of us, given enough time, those energies and stores of them wear out, wear a little low, and need to be replenished.

Spoon Theory, as far as I understand it, basically represents that energy pool for socializing as a handful of spoons, and any time you might hang out with somebody in a social setting, it costs you some spoons. Everybody has a different amount of spoons on them at any given time. Somebody might have a whole drawer full of spoons, while someone else might be all tapped out, and the whole point to the thought exercise is that sometimes people just don’t have spoons to give out. It’s okay to not have the energy for something sometimes.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be imagined with spoons, I think that’s just a funny, palatable way of imagining it. But lately, I’ve come to realize something based off of something we’ve all probably heard somewhere: Butter makes everything better.

Potatoes, pancakes, toast, corn, Slip n’ Slides – everything.

And I think the same applies here.

I’m finally reading The Lord of the Rings after a long while of, well, not, and while spoons are well and good, Bilbo’s quote to Gandalf before leaving the Shire articulates the feeling the best: “’Well-preserved indeed!’ he snorted. ‘Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.’”

See? Leave it to Tolkien and a simile involving butter to accurately articulate the feeling of needing respite and the toll that regular, daily adult life can exact on the person living it.

Count your blessings, of course, and realize the Good Old Days you might be living through in the moment, but allow yourself the mercy too of recognizing when you just feel like some thin-ass butter scraped across too much of the Goddamn Bread of Responsibility.

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.

“You Are Absolved, My Son.”

You know the phrase “you get more with honey than with vinegar”?

I’m willing to bet you do, but I recently did a workplace poll on who had or hadn’t heard the phrase “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” and was astounded by how many people hadn’t.

So, however extra (as The Kids are wont to say these days) it may be, it basically means that you’ll garner a more positive attitude and curry more favor with folks if you’re sweet and kind than if you’re kind of a mean, smarmy douche.

A few weeks ago, I accompanied Ms. Amanda (#fiance) to a colleague’s retirement party, and this thing was a bash. There were probably two hundred people at what was basically a hilltop mansion, enough food to feed a zoo, and a live band. Like I said, a bash. Maybe a bash and a half. And all of it for a retiring elementary school teacher.

This dude was be-love-ed.

Funnily enough, since I went to this thing expecting to obviously be a plus-one that was a fish woefully out of water (which is, uh, something you say when you feel out of place, #extra), I knew a number of people who were there. I guess if you live in a city long enough, the world can only really get so big. One of them was actually the host!

Here’s to you, Chuck. Helluva place you have, and it was good to see you.

Another was one of the band members. Standing tall and proud in his cowboy hat and blue button-up playing the stand-up bass was my old high school physics teacher, Mr. Davis. First, the wash of nostalgia and familiarity hit me, but second was the dawning realization that this was going to be a day of reckoning.

Back-story time.

See, the last time I saw Mr. Davis, I was a sixteen-year-old rapscallion and troublemaker. Like I said, he taught me physics in high school, and during the segment of the year we were studying sound waves, he comes into class with a shiny set of tuning forks – they’re the two-prong things you hit on something and they go “Biiiiiiiiinnnnng!” They have practical uses, but that was the extent of my interest in them: hit thing, go bing.

So at the end of class that day, I put one of them in my backpack. I nicked it. Absconded with it. Freakin’ stole it.

I’m ashamed of it now, but at the time I fancied myself some kind of cunning rogue.

At the beginning of class the next day, Mr. Davis comes into the class room, and you can tell he’s in a somber mood. Like, really sad. After the morning announcements over the PA, he addresses us:

“Hey guys. I, uh, I noticed that in the back there, some of my tuning forks are missing. (So I wasn’t the only one!!) And I, uh, y’know, the school didn’t pay for those, I did. With my own money, and I did it because I thought they would be a fun thing for us to get to use and learn with and- ah, anyway. Hey so, if I could just get those back, I’d appreciate it. Nobody’s in trouble or anything. I could even watch you put them back. I’m not gonna get mad or say anything, I’d just, ah, I’d like my things back because…well, anyway. Yeah. Please. Thank you. Ahem, anyway, today we’re going to cover…”

Y’all. I was heartbroken over what I’d done. I couldn’t possibly have focused that day. I was so wracked with shame at having stolen this man’s property. I was a dirt bag, and I remember (stupidly) telling a friend later that I’d have felt justified if only he’d come in with fire and brimstone. But he didn’t. He spoke softly, honestly, and sadly. Christ…

I put that tuning fork back in my backpack the second that I got home that day.

The next day, when I returned it, oooooo, the glares that I got from my classmates – and I deserved them. I did it while he was out of the room during announcements, but my peers did, and his plea had tugged at their heartstrings like it had mine.

And I carried around that guilt for thirteen years, until this retirement party.

I see that Mr. Davis is in the band, and eventually the musicians go on break to get some food. As they do, I get up from my seat and follow him, calling “Hey! Matt!” (I get to call him that because I’m an adult now.) He looks back at me with an eyebrow raised, but smiles too. We shake hands, he says he’s headed to the food tables, and I say I’ll join him. On our way he asks, sort of hesitantly, “So, um, how do I know you?”

I laugh and tell him that he taught me physics a lifetime ago, and we chit chat a couple of seconds over how life has gone and where it’s taken us, but them I tell him that, actually, I have a confession. And I tell him about how I stole one of his tuning forks, but what his plea did to my conscience, and how I returned it and all the rest.

No joke, in between scoops of potato salad, he stops, faces me, and performs the sign of the Cross over me saying, “You are absolved, my son,” and laughs.

I laugh with him, but then rightly tell him, “Hey man, this might have been a joke to you, but I legitimately feel lighter all of a sudden. I’ve been carrying that shit around with me for over thirteen years.”

And it was true! Like, there was a crick in my neck that’s gone now, I sit and stand a little taller with a straighter back now. I freakin’ feel like my conscience, at last, has been cleared.

By the end of the night we bumped into one another again, brought it back up, joked, and he friggin’ hugged me. It feels good, closing the loop on a thirteen-year quest for redemption you’re on for stealing from an honest man. 10/10, would recommend.

…

But….except- just, don’t steal.

#PSA

See you guys.

My First Hater (?)

I’m a nobody.

Not demeaning myself, either. The world’s just huge with a lot of people in it. But especially in internet terms, my little presence here is barely non-zero sum. But it is kind of cool to, on occasions when I feel the need to validate my existence through a search engine, google the title of one of my stories and – pop! – there it is with my name next to it.

Today was one of those days, but I found something new.

Now, I haven’t really written anything since about April. No major life events or distractions, I just straight up hit a wall, and after a pretty busy couple of months in the Spring, that silence has been kinda deafening. Normally, when I hit a block in the past, I’ll just try and hammer through it. I’ll sit down and just write a whole bunch of bullcrap with no direction or intention of it being any good ever, but just used to beat down the door of nothingness that was halting me.

This time, I decided to take a different tactic. I decided to take a break.

Revolutionary concept, maybe, but I made the choice to just chill out and take a break from writing for a minute, my story schedule be damned. But a look in the mirror told me that the burnout was very real, and a moment away to let the idea of my notepads and keyboard become fresh (and something that I wanted to do) again was a good move. Rather than beat my head against a wall, I would patiently take some time away and let inspiration come to me…

I posted recently about my one-sided rivalry with a successful author who probably couldn’t remember me if his life depended on it, and as a part of that shared an anecdote that I introduced with a complaint over not having any negativity in my writing life to harness for motivation.

Well’p, found some.

I googled an old story of mine that aired with the NoSleep Podcast a couple years ago, “The Bones of Lily Gordon”. It was a spiritual sequel to another, “The Scars of Eliza Gray”, that aired with The Nightlight Podcast a little bit before that. (Funny enough, I wrote it off of a recommendation that Nightlight’s showrunner Tonia Thompson gave me during my interview with her for my story’s episode.) It’s definitely nothing prolific, but still pretty good, I think. Ironically, though I’ve had a number of horror pieces get picked up, I’ve long said I’m more in camp Fantasy Nerd than I will ever be in tribe Horror Geek.

And “Bones” certainly isn’t a thrill-hopping ride of terror, but a slower, aesthetic horror story with soft worldbuilding and intentional vaguery.

Well, I guess it also has a reddit post dedicated to shitting on it.

I want to be clear that there exists much harsher criticism for art out in the world than was given to my poor story, and I’m sure other work of mine has been read by someone who then went, “Eeeh, not for me,” “Pfft, lame,” or “Jesus, that was stupid”, but I’ve never had to see or hear that before.

But the title of the post is “The Bones of Lily Gordon LOL or whatever”.

…

“Or whatever”??

And don’t you laugh out loud all dismissively at me, whoever you are. You…nerd.

The post addresses some of the vaguery in the story and postulates answers for some of the unexplained, shown-not-told elements, and certainly came away with vastly different answers than what I thought while putting it together. But cow tools are cow tools, and you’re not gonna please everybody.

On the plus side, I feel like a kid that just fell off of his bike for the first time, came away with a lightly skinned wrist, and got those first critic jitters behind me. It also makes me feel sorta bonafide. Like, the worst response you could hope for to your art is apathy (which…I mean, happens plenty, but that’s a separate thing entirely), so if someone thinks negatively of it (ie calls it sleep-inducing, nonsensical, and lame) I’m weirdly compelled to think of that as a compliment.

And it’s gotten me back at my desk and back at work to fill the world with more of my literary crap on this quest for glory and lame critics. So, thank you KF2015 or whatever, you total nerd from two years ago, for reigniting the creative fire in me that fuels my passion for this weird pursuit.

To the rest of you: You’re…you’re just the best.

Update: Truth be told, I wrote this about a week ago and have been meaning to find the time to post it. In the meantime, while looking up the URL’s for the links for this post, I actually found another one critiquing the same episode, that restored my faith in humanity some. Not saying that just because this one included some compliments for my story this time (among more critiques), but the critiques that were present were more fairly given. Also, in reading the first “mean” post back…it really was pretty dang tame. Just called my story “sleep-inducing”, pretty harmless, and I was frumpy about that.
But the praise did help. It always helps. lol
I’m a Leo.

Fiction isn’t (Just) Nonsense

We’ve all had those times after a conversation with someone. You know the ones I’m talking about. The “Oo, I should have said this” times. And of course, then, we replay the conversation in our heads but this time it goes in such a way that we’re a badass with all the right things to say.

The other thing about those moments is that they can stick with you for years down the road.

I was having a conversation in the break room with my boss years ago, we’ll call him Mike, and he’d heard about my (at the time) upcoming sabbatical. I never knew him all too personally, but my read on him was that he was a very left-brain sort of guy: math, numbers, engineering, logistics, factors, etc. He knew that I was trying to become a fiction writer and I think that he was just trying to find a way to relate, even if that meant communicating a lack of relation.

“I tried reading a bit of fiction before,” he laughed. “But once I was done, I was like, ‘What was the point of that?’ I just have all this useless information now.”

I’m loosely quoting him there, but the words I’m sure about are the ones of him referring to fiction as “useless information”. And again, I’m pretty sure he meant it kind-heartedly and jokingly, but whoa, bub, word choice. In the moment, I just laughed a bit awkwardly and agreed because I was twenty-five, not sure of what the heck I was doing (still not), and talking to the CEO of the company about a pursuit he just deigned “useless”.

Since then, I’ve found myself in odd moments here or there having that conversation again in my head and justifying the value of fiction to him. The first quote that came to mind to neatly and concisely encapsulate the sentiment I wish I’d had the presence of mind to communicate in the moment is one from Neil Gaiman:

“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people and gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.”

The ability to relate a situation in your life to another you know of, whether real or fantastical as found in fiction, that skill of being able to draw patterns and associations between those circumstances and draw wisdom, advice, inspiration, or answers from them is valuable. Characters found in novels or movies are just constructs in our own minds, but the beautiful part is that by their nature we forget about that fact. Those characters, for all intents and purposes, are people with real experiences that we can choose to relate to and learn from – if you just freakin’ choose to.

Don’t believe me? While thinking up this little piece you’re reading right now, I jotted down two names that, in very real, substantial, earth-changing ways have historically demonstrated the value of storytelling.

Jesus and Disney.

One can be a devoted church-goer and readily tell you of the impact that a powerfully delivered sermon had on their life, or be decidedly atheist and still see Christianity’s undeniable impact on world history and society today. And if money is the measure by which you choose to estimate success, Disney Enterprises–a massive corporation built off the back of selling fictional stories–could buy the moon, half of Western Europe, every truffle to come out of the earth from now until the collapse of society, and still have plenty left over to continue bankrupting the state of Florida to spite DeSantis.

And all of this cutting, razor-sharp wit is what I would have said to Mike…if I’d freaking thought of it in the moment.

Eh. There’s always next time.

My One-Way Rivalry with Christopher Moore

Wow. Say that ten times fast.

Motivation can be difficult to find in the best of times, especially when you’re trying your damnedest to hone the Powah of the Pen. And part of what makes it difficult is that what we each find motivating is different for each of us, dang it. Some of us are really propelled forward by the support of family and friends, others are set ablaze by a really inspiring example someone we admire sets for us, and others don’t get a push by anything other than a negative, “I’ll show you” mindset.

Despite my best efforts, I’m a contrarian at heart, especially with my self-esteem. As such, no matter what motivational force is in front of me, part of my brain/heart/soul/whatever finds a way to blockade it.

Friends and family support what I’m trying to do? Ah, well, they’re friends and family, and so of course they say that. It isn’t real, it’s obligatory, so it doesn’t count.

Those same friends and family are understandably apathetic to my pursuits? Well, the real, objective kicker is that nobody is obligated to give a damn about what you’re striving for. They’re not. And so, sometimes, that means you can feel like you have to care extra hard about it to make up the difference, and that’s incredibly taxing over time. So in those weak, tired moments, the weight of it can really easily translate into, “Who even cares? And why should I anymore?” And that’s a difficult hole to dig yourself out of.

My problem with the last one about folks being negative or dismissive is actually its absence. I don’t know why on Earth anybody would, but I don’t have anybody in my life who’s actively rooting against my writing career.

Ah, okay.

There was one.

QUICK SIDEBAR

A few years ago when I was preparing to try and make writing more of a serious pursuit, I went to a friend’s birthday party, and there was a lady there who was in a similar boat. She was a housewife without kids, and was seeking it as a way to occupy her time. Very much to her credit, she went to a few seminars, did a bit of public speaking at an event in the City, and through that linked up with an editor for The Bold Italic, a magazine out here that covers life n’ stuff in the San Francisco Bay Area. When my fiancee Amanda mentioned my plans, she replied, “Oh, I wouldn’t if I was him.” The implication being rather clear: “You don’t have what it takes, honey. Don’t quit your day job.”

And from there, when things got tough, there would be dark moments of doubt, before any sort of measurable success had occurred, and those words would ring in my head, burn in my chest, and weigh heavy, sure.

But a year later, we were back at this friend’s next birthday party, and there was this lady again. We get to talking, and she mentions that she remembers me as “that writer guy,” and asks “How did that work out?” (Politely spoken, in tone, but I did note the use of past tense.) This is when my friend, and wife to Birthday Boy himself, answers for me, saying that I’d been published–twice.

No matter how things should go from here, the look in her expression is something I will happily take with me to my grave.

Thank you, Claire. And I will forever be a fan of yours for that awesome, awesome defense of my honor. You rock.

She then motioned me to continue and explain that I had, to that point, been published twice, had a couple of podcast appearances, and had more work on the way. The sweetness would redouble when I reciprocated the question and found, as she told it, that she was no longer with the Italic because her editor had moved and stopped answering her emails, and the podcast she had founded couldn’t get off the ground because her co-producer sucked, etc etc. (And I know this reads as bitter, but it truly doesn’t extend beyond that given conversation. I genuinely hope she’s doing well at whatever she’s pursuing–now. And in fact I’m grateful.)

SIDEBAR OVER

Anyway, the next time I needed to rage-channel my creativity against someone, I chose a famous guy.

Over my thankfully busy month of March, one of the things I got to do was take part in Flame Tree’s Author Q&A. In part of it, I got to talk about one of my favorite novels: Lamb, by Christopher Moore. I got to meet him a long time ago, and I have a signed copy of Lamb on my bookcase at this very moment. It’s one of those possessions that I’d make sure to save in the case of a housefire, if that carries my meaning.

But Lamb was one of two signatures I got from him the evening I met him, and the second one was the more formative of the two.

Now, I want to say here that when I met him I was eighteen or nineteen, and it was the first time I’d met someone whose name I had already known for famous reasons. I was nervous, excited, and I’m sure that I fan-boy’d pretty hard and that it was probably kind of awkward. I own that. So when I gave him my copy of his book Fool to sign, a story about King Lear’s jester, Pocket, he addressed it: “To Evan, Who Tries Really Hard! And fails -Christopher Moore”

Well’p. I had to try pretty hard to keep a happy face after reading it, I can tell ya that.

I also want to put that I’m sure- nay, positive that he wrote it in a kind-hearted way. And when you’re on a book tour like he was doing, and you have a hyperactive teenager in front of you, not every joke or fun jab is going to land the way you want it to. Wit is going to run dry every now and then. And in those cases it’s not your fault when that thing you mean as a playful inside joke stays with that kid for eleven-plus years, in those dark moments during the late nights at his desk, when passion evades him, words escape him, and the obsidian claws of doubt and weariness pry into his mind, and when his muse refuses to show itself so he forges a new one from your haphazardly scribbled words…

…

<ahem>

So I took up a sharpie and made a little addition:

It may read a little corny, and that’s fair, but as the old adage goes: “Fall seven times, rise eight.”

I’ve never really been bullish or tenacious, but I sure am willing to be persistent.

It’s about the Long Haul, bay-bee!

I’m not finding a link to it to put here, but when I was first getting started, Amanda found a book for me called “How Did I Get Published?” and it was a collection of blurbs and testimonials from successful authors on how they got their start. Chris had an entry and, to put it in brief here, he said that by the age of 30 he’d published precisely one short story in a magazine, and that he’d never seen a copy of that magazine; then he’d go on to publish his first novel in his early-thirties.

In a move that’s either pitiable or a little creepy (though I choose to see it as motivating), I decided I would race Chris’s schedule, putting me in a one-sided rivalry with the man without his knowledge.

Published one short story by the time he was 30? Through a blend of persistence, good fortune, and I’m sure I had to lie to somebody somewhere, I have ten, with more on the way.

Published his first novel in his early-thirties? I have a novella that I’m currently shopping around, but a full-fledged novel is also on its way, and Chris’s signature up there is what pushes me to finish that manuscript before my birthday in August.

And when it’s done and ready, this will definitely be part of the heroic origin story that I’ll be shoveling onto whatever literary agent gets saddled with me to shove my book at publishers.

In fact, one of the shiniest gold stars on my life’s story would be to one day meet him again, thank him for signing my book the way he did, and to give him a signed copy of a novel I’d penned.

Ah, to dream.

One day.

Professional Profiling

Some of, if not all, of my favorite characters in fiction are scoundrels. In the conflict of a story, I have a soft spot for renegades or independent operators that stand apart from the protagonists and antagonists with their own individual goals. They’re usually plucky, funny, clever, and come packin’ a pretty sharp wit.

I would never in a thousand years say that I truly have a gift of gab, but have moments of inspiration where, if you squint, it kind of looks like I do. When my social battery’s nice and full, I love small talk, vigorous discussions, and volleying a string of jokes back and forth with someone. And I usually credit my love of fictional scoundrels as what I’m subconsciously trying to emulate in those moments.

Take for example a random Wednesday night about eight years ago. My fiancee got an invitation in the mail from a local car dealership in the form of a kind of lottery ticket. The gist of it was that it was a scratcher ticket, and if you felt so inclined, you revealed the numbers and went down to the dealership to see if they matched and collect your prize.

Of course it’s just a way to fish for new customers, get them down to the dealership, and once they’re there in person, start trying to sell them on the shiny showroom floor models. But Amanda asks if we can go, see if maybe we won a prize, and since we had nothing more significant going on in the evening, I relent. We make our way down there and naturally the salesman starts working us on whether or not we’re happy with our current vehicles, all but ignoring our “lottery” ticket.

“Fine,” I think to myself, “if this guy is going to waste my Wednesday night, I’m going to waste his.”

I start to play a game with the guy. I figure just as he’s trying to spin the conversation however he can to the subject of buying a new car, I’m going to, at every opportunity, guide it away from that topic. I take note of the time and decide to see how long I can keep us purely dancing around with light conversation and small talk.

“What’re you driving now?” he asks. “What color’s your current vehicle?”
“It’s a black Sebring,” I say. “It works for me, y’know?”
“Sure, black’s good. Any new car you might get going to be black too?”
“Don’t see why not. I know it shows dirt a bit more, but that’s fine. Only really gets dirty when I take it camping. Oo! You ever go camping? Make your way out to Salt Point or Doran?”
“Heh, I don’t think I have,” he chuckles, then prepares another car question.
“Ah, you should,” I follow quickly. “You have any siblings? Big family?”
“Sort of big,” he answers, but masks his irritation. “Only a brother though.”
“Older or younger?”
“He’s the older one.”
“Ah, cool. I’m an only child. Any nieces or nephews? It’s a good spot for kids with the beach so close.”
“I bet.” He pauses a moment, calculating. “You take your sedan to a camping place near the beach? Wouldn’t an SUV be more fitting?”
“Nah, why not? The trunk’s surprisingly spacious, and I only make it out there maybe once or twice a year. And I mainly go to fly my stunt kite. You ever fly a kite as a kid?”
“Not really, no.”
“Dang. Ever hear of stunt kites?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Shoot, dude. Alright, next time you’re heading out to the coast, there’s this little shop called Candy and Kites. I swear, check them out and….”

Rinse and repeat for about the next hour or so. I say “or so” but I’m not perfectly certain we made it a full trip around the clock, but I’d like to think I did. My poor fiancee stayed mostly quiet during these exchanges, so I do ultimately have to reconcile the fact that there was some conversational collateral damage in boxing her out like that.

But, that said, it was because of her that we got the golden nugget that, almost a decade later, we remember that night for. Eventually, probably sensing that she’d been mostly quiet up to about the half-hour mark (and likely truly tired of my meandering small talk), our salesman turns to involve her in the conversation.

This is also a good point to mention that we were about twenty-one years old when this took place, and our salesman was GREEN at the job, maybe our age or a hair younger than us. So he’s somewhat fresh out of high school and now in a charisma-driven job trying to handle a bored jackass with no business there (me). That became relevant and especially noticeable with what came next, since I will forever remain positive that what he said was straight out of his salesman’s handbook.

“And how about you, miss?” he asks, turning to Amanda. “What do you do for work?”
“I work at an artisan meat and cheese distributor,” she said delightfully.
“Ah, you look like someone who works with artisan meats,” he replied.

…

…

Um, what?

I will not be convinced out of my certainty that that guy was going off of a template, “Ask Question A: ‘What do you do for work?’, and plug their answer [X] into Response B: ‘Ah, you look like someone who does [X].'”

This guy was expecting- nay, praying for something like Teacher, Nurse, Secretary, Banker, Waitress, f*cking Dispatch Operator. Literally anything other than “artisan meat and cheese.” There was a palpable beat the moment after he said it, and his eyes were glued to his computer screen after he did, so I’m guessing that he gave the B-side of that response by reflex and the inside of his head sounded like this: “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” etc.

I don’t remember how we reacted, but I’d like to think that it was with polite silence. I know that if we were being open and honest, our response would have been, “Yeah? You just have that profile in your head? Firefighter. Accountant. Mechanic. Nurse, or Teacher. Like, those are stereotypes I can understand having a picture of in your head already. But I go diving for the mental file on Artisan Meat and Cheese Lady, and I’m sad to say I don’t have that one on record already.

Some time after that, our sales guy goes “to get our prize” (it was a [probably counterfeit] $2 bill), and comes back with an older gentleman that looked like a senior salesman–probably our guy calling in the cavalry. And this guy’s veteran savvy showed through immediately:

“Hey, evenin’ guys,” he says.
“Hello hello,” I beam back.
“You two interested in buying a car tonight?”
“Ah, no sir, I don’t think I am.”
“Anything I can say to change your mind?”
“At this point it time, I don’t think there is.”
“Mm, well you two have a good night.” Then he nodded politely enough and walked away.

What a pro.

It wasn’t long after that that we left, but the legend of that guys endures to this day, and Amanda and I together have long joked that we should get t-shirts made. Not totally sure what the design would be, and we’re halfway joking anyway, but I imagine a black tee with a Dork Tower art style salesman on the front saying, “You look like you work with artisan meats!” Or maybe just plain text in a goofy font. Nonetheless, the joke would be for us.

Unless…

If we were to bump into that guy out there, in this wild, wild world, and he recognized us…

Because, as a point to close this story out today, I recognize that all of us, every single one, puts our foot in our mouths occasionally. But I do sincerely hope that that guys, wherever he might be, thinks back to that interaction every so often and shakes his head in shame. Just a victim of circumstance, that. And maybe he’s gone onto become a super salesman, or became a famous drummer, but regardless, it’d be a reunion for the ages.

Ciao for now.