World War Squirrel: Air Assault

“Command, this is Acorn One. Command, come in, do you read? Over.”
[Ack! I’m hit! Oh God!]

“Copy that Acorn One, The Nest is reading you loud and clear. Over.”

[It’s coming by again! Get down!]
“We’re getting hammered down here, Command. Requesting immediate air support, now! Over!”

“Roger that Acorn One. Request granted. Sending some Gliders your way. Over.”

“Sugar Squad, do you copy? Over.”

“Copy, Command. Sugar One responding. Over.”

“Got a request for a fly-by. Sending you the coordinates now. Over.”

“Received, Command. Sugar Squad, preparing to launch. Over.”

“Got that bombing run on the way, Acorn One. Sit tight, boys. Over.”

[Sir! Spreckle’s been hit!]
[Aaugh! So…soggy… Tell my mate I love her…]
“Roger that, Command. You’re really saving our nuts on this one.”

“Sugar One to Sugar Two. Come in, Sugar Two.”

“Sugar Two reporting.”

“Let’s get an open channel up here.”

“Done. Air’s yours, Sugar One.”

“Good. Gliders! Report in.”

“This is Sugar Three, reporting.”

“Sugar Four, reporting in.”

“Sugar Five here.”

“How’s that tail wind, Sugar Five?”

“Steady and ready to drop the yolks on these folks, Captain.”

“That’s what I like to hear, Corporal. Gliders! V-formation! Our target’s the giant at the smokestack.”

“Let’s get these assholes.”

“Hoorah!”

“Ugh, Christ!”

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“I think some squirrels just threw bird eggs at me.”

“I told you, it agitates them when you turn the sprinklers on. I think it hits their nest or something.”

“Ew! These eggs are rotten!”

“I keep reminding you to adjust the sprinkler head.”

“Dammit, some of it got on the grill, too.”

“How about we just finish up the burgers inside?”

“Ugh, fine.”

“Confirmed hit, Command. Dead on target. The giants are turnin’ tail.”

“Roger that, Sugar Squad. Great job out there today, boys. Come on home.”

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.

Oasis

Jeremy watched the birds circling overhead. Seeing the black dots dance in their circuit above him, dark wings flickering against the bright white-blue of the sky, it was sort of like a negative image of sparkles in his eyes, and the thought of that made him chuckle. His tongue prodded dryly at the back of his teeth. He was lightheaded. His heat-shrunken brain reminded him that dehydration caused things like that. He chuckled again.

This was bad.

His feet were hot, so he tucked them underneath himself as best he could, into what scant shade his car provided against the abusive sunlight. Looking out, he watched the heat waves ripple against the unending white of the salt flats.

“You really should have packed some water,” said a voice.

Jeremy turned his head limply in the direction of the sound. There was a man leaning against his trunk. He wore loose-fitting linens that billowed gently in the warm desert breeze, bangles about his wrists, and nothing on his feet. The man smiled softly at him.

“Jared Leto?” asked Jeremy. The man barked a full laugh, but shook his head. “Thank God.” Then, after a moment, he asked “Am I dying?”

“A little bit,” said the man, nodding. “For real though, no water? Nothing?”

It was Jeremy’s turn to shake his head, then, reaching up through the open driver-side window, withdrew a mostly full bottle of bourbon.

“Wow. Not much good that’s going to do you.” The man in white took a seat next to him. “How’d you get way out here?”

“Mid-life crisis,” Jeremy answered simply.

“Some people buy a motorcycle to cope with those, maybe dye their hair. Not you?”

“Nope. Divorced, then bought a car I can’t afford and took it somewhere I could drive it really fast without getting arrested.”

“Race track didn’t make sense for that?”

“I guess not. Always wanted to drive on the salt flats, loved the idea of the desert. Or, at least, I thought I did.” Jeremy eyed the bottle in his hands a moment before setting it down. “The desert sucks.”

“It’s not great,” the man agreed. A few minutes passed with them both watching the few, thin clouds in their struggle against dry air. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’re you running from?”

Jeremy fought the reflex to deny the question and say that he wasn’t running from anything, and instead actually thought about it. Because, of course, there was an easy answer. He was running away from an utterly crumbling life: failing marriage, dead dreams, the shame of those things now hanging over his social circles like a immense wet blanket. And while there was still truth to an answer like that, the longer he took to steep in thought over it, it didn’t feel like the complete truth.

“I don’t think,” he began at length, “that I am running from something.” The man in white watched him patiently, feeling that the rest of the answer was incoming. “No. I think…I think I’m running after something instead. It’s like a dream, maybe, but one that I’ve never had- or maybe, more like one I’ve had a thousand times. That, and I listen to too many hard rock highway songs.”

“The ‘us against the world’, ‘drive fast and die young love song’ type?”

Jeremy flashed a finger gun. “Bingo.” Despite himself, tears slowly began to well up in his eyes. “So, when I bought this stupid car, tore off the lot, and drove it out here as fast as it could go with the top down, it wasn’t supposed to be by myself. That’s never how the daydream went. It was supposed to be my wife and I, middle fingers up in the air, rock music, all the rest of it. Not, well, this.”

“Well,” sighed the man in white, “what are you going to do, now that you are here?”

“I could just…die. Lots of people have done it.” He looked at his warped reflection on the bourbon bottle. A hot breeze blew dust over Jeremy’s feet and speckled the brown glass, aging it in an instant. For a moment, he considered what it would look like to someone who found him out here, weeks, maybe years after he died. Skeletal, coated in dust, forgotten. What stories would that person come up with as to how he got here, or would they find it obvious? Since Not Jared Leto was clearly just a figment of his dried up imagination, it would be the bones of a single lonely and doomed idiot who drove out to the desert, broke down, and died.

“You could,” nodded Not Jared, “but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“It would be easier. A lot easier.”

“Than what?”

“Going back.”

“‘Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave.'”

“Ghandi? Old Testament?”

Not Jared laughed. “No,” he said. “Albus Dumbledore.”

END

I wrote that up at work the other day on nothing more than a whim. I was listening to some rock music from my teens years, felt a scene coming on, and voila. It definitely feels a little unfinished, but I had nowhere else I cared to take it, but I imagine Jeremy made it home, apologized for something, and lived happily ever after.

Anyway, news! Had a couple of publications this summer, firstly over at Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight Magazine is my story “Just like Old Times”, and more recently is my Sci-Fi story “Software” with Third Flatiron’s Offshoots: Humanity Twigged anthology. Check ’em out, let me know what you think, and live well.

A Council of Husbands Convenes over ‘The Bread Incident’ (+ a quick promo)

Since getting married last year, I like to think I’ve grown into the role of ‘husband’ rather well. It was a long road getting to matrimony, and my now-wife continues to be patient with me as I learn the in’s and out’s of my new job. Seeing as half of that job is knowing what to say and what not to say, suffice it to know that it’s been a learning process.

Some months ago we had a disagreement (what I like to call episodes where I earn her ire), and we’ve since laughed about it, so I feel somewhat free to discuss it here. As with any good disagreement of this kind, I have almost no idea what started it. But what I can say is that I didn’t help matters. The short version:

I said words about something, then she said words about that thing, after which I uttered sounds, whereupon one of us was grumpy with the other. We had plans to be at a friend’s that evening, and I was making flatbread to take with us. It’s a super simple recipe, dough gets squished, says hello to a skillet, boom – done. I think there was some lingering tension in the air, which led to some anxiety over us being punctual, and so with regards to my food prep and time management she asked, “Well, does it need to rise?”

I couldn’t help myself.

“I mean,” I half-snorted, “it is called flatbread.”

#comedylegend #foreverfunny #got’em

She gave me a look. And long story short, she was mad at me for about the next thirty-six hours. I went in to work a couple days later perplexed, and so asked my married friends. In short order, I was surrounded in a half-circle of other husbands, trying to decode where I went wrong. My friend Kopa mostly laughed, either at my misfortune or in sympathy, I could never really tell. Brad, the longest-married and most experienced of us broke it down for me like a coach reviewing a play, capping it off with a ‘better luck next time, champ’ kind of attitude. My friend Jason, though? He gave it to me straight.

“I thought it was pretty funny,” I argued.

“Oh, it was, but you called her stupid.”

“I categorically did not!”

“I get it, but yes you did. ‘It’s called flatbread, you idiot, no it doesn’t rise. How could you be such a dumb person to think that?’ That’s what she heard.”

“It was a play on words. Nothing more!”

“And it was cute, clever. But you shouldn’t have said it. In that moment, all it sounded like was, ‘Duh. It’s called flat, so no, it doesn’t rise, you dumb dummy.’

I took his wisdom to heart, went home, and apologized. We’ve been best friends ever since.

The creature Woman yet remains a mystery to me. At one moment, she stands clear as glass, transparent with her feelings and intentions. The next, she conflagrates, and stands aflame in righteous fury that is somehow your fault. Beautiful, deadly, she stands as an enigma to me, but one in whose aura I know only awe…

Anyhoo, if love stories like the above are your jam, go check out Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight Magazine and my story “Just Like Old Times” with them. It’s a cute little ditty about a love like we should all hope for. I should have more news soon too, been a busy year.

Bye now ❤

Our Daily Bread (+ News)

“Quickly, help me with him!” shouted the first. “It’s the only way he can be saved.”

The second solemnly shook his head. “You know, if we do this,” he said gravely, “he will never be the same.”

“If we don’t, he will die! He’s already begun to turn, before long he’ll fall apart entirely. I’m not going to leave him here to rot!”

The first searched his feelings for a moment, before taking a deep breath and relenting. Together, they lifted their beloved elder and carried him to the steps of the Great Door, and upon its opening, felt the wintry breath of the beyond.

“Lo, there do I see my father,” spoke the second. “Lo, there do I see my mother, my sisters and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning of The Journey.” He began to sob, pain wrestling with the words. “Lo, they do call to me, and bid me take my place among them.” He placed a hand on their elder, snowfall already burying their feet.

“Rest well, brother,” he said. “Wait for me, beyond the bread.”

“Beyond the bread,” echoed the first.

Then, with heavy hearts, the two bananas closed the door to the freezer, and retook their place in the fruit bowl on the kitchen countertop.

[THE EXPLANATION]

So, I thought I was hilarious when I first scribbled this one out. And to be fair, I do still chuckle when I read it back to myself. I’ve shown it to a few friends and get nothing but a raised eyebrow and a “Huh…?” back. If it didn’t come across, it’s a couple of young bananas taking an older banana that’s started to spot and turn brown up to the freezer, where it later has a chance of being made into banana bread – which, if my wife has taught me anything, is the promised fate of all bananas that wind up in the freezer.

I’d also just watched The 13^th Warrior, which is likely where the Lo speech came from. If you got it and enjoyed it, freaking right on! Thank you for the validation. If not, I mean, I get it, and thank you anyway.

Lastly, if you haven’t heard or don’t remember from last time, I have a story coming out! Yeehaw’s and Woohoo’s all around. The lovely little tale this time is called “Shoes for Little Sap”, and it’s coming out with Abyss & Apex Magazine on Monday (4/1/24), so keep a look out.

Shoes for Little Sap

by Evan A Davis

The Challenger (A Napkin Note)

Zzzit’ck climbed the precipice until he stood at the ziggurat’s peak, and there he beheld Her.

“I have come, Titaness!” he bellowed. “Another challenger to bask in your glory and one who will defeat you! Many have fallen where I now stand, and I have taken the mantle of their number, their valor, and their memory. Now come, Great Lady, face me and reckon!”

And lo did the goddess, fierce and unknowable, strike down the challenger with unconquerable fury.

“Ugh, God,” Sarah grunted.
“Hmm?” grunted her husband.
“Every night I find, like, a single ant on my nightstand and I’m getting sick of it. Can you pick up more traps from work tomorrow?”
“Hmm,” he grunted again.

END

A Brief Discussion About JOMO

I’m not a hermit, I don’t play one on TV, but I do sometimes fantasize about being one.

Of course, when I say that, I’m sure I do mean “not a real hermit,” but a squishy kind. I fantasize about a cozy, far-away cabin, tucked away in the cradling arms of some distant mountain, where I could spend my days as I wished in pleasant solitude. Of course, in that daydream, that cabin also has central heating and WiFi.

But precisely what makes that a daydream is that that isn’t the real world. In the real world we have responsibilities, obligations, endure a constant barrage of attention-grabbing things and whatnot. In a world where we lead our lives in a seemingly increasingly faster and faster manner with so much going on, I’ve no doubt at least some of you have heard of the term FOMO: a Fear Of Missing Out.

If you don’t suffer from it yourself, I’m willing to bet you know someone who does. They always need the new thing on its release, or better yet they preorder it. They want to be a part of conversations they would/should otherwise pass by, and they anguish the thought of missing an event or announcement that’s got any degree of public interest. And sometimes, either feeling eroded by the anxiety of FOMO or being surrounded by those afflicted by it, it can feel like you’re on the outside.

Well, please allow me to enlighten you.

I’ve never really felt the pull of FOMO, but as I’ve gotten older (I’m 30 now, yeesh), I’ve it’s become even less so. I never would have thought to describe myself as a private person, but evidence builds more and more to the contrary. I love my friends, I love my family, I like going out and doing stuff – I do. But I also kind of love not. It makes me feel like a boring lump to say it, but dang, I enjoy quiet afternoons or evenings after work just spent at my desk, by myself in the kitchen, or on the couch. In the earlier paragraph where I described the cabin daydream as providing “pleasant solitude”, that was a careful word choice. Solitude, not isolation.

If this sounds like you at all, allow me to present to you the delightful cousin to FOMO-

JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out

Just as schadenfreude describes the tiny inner thrill at another’s pain, JOMO is the tiny inner thrill one might experience when plans get cancelled or postponed. Have dinner plans with a friend or for a beer after work with a colleague that fall through? Mmm, nice. Had plans to see a movie with your cousin but something came up and now you have the afternoon free? Cooool.

It doesn’t at all mean you didn’t want to do those things or that you dislike those activities or the people involved. You very much were happy to grab that beer, get that dinner, see that movie, socialize and all the rest, and for sure maybe there’s a pang of disappointment in there. Totally.

But that little breeze of freedom you feel now too? Aaaah, that shit’s JOMO.

So there, hopefully if you’ve felt the same way, or have wanted a way to express it but couldn’t quite find the way, now you have a word for it. And with words come power.

Go forth an enjoy life with the power of JOMO as you wish, you triumphant bastards.

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.

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.