Author: Skeptifist

Reading, Writing, and Hope

• I have a reading goal for the year.
• 52 books.
• Just one a week, right?
• Manageable.
• And I was on track, too, if not for those darn kids.
• Kidding.
• I’m currently at 42.
• I think I mentioned I’ve been on a William Gibson trend lately.
• He almost derailed the whole thing.
• I do not dig present-tense narratives … unless I’m reading a movie screenplay.
• This last book of his I read, Pattern Recognition … present tense.
• If it were any other author, I’d have bailed.
• And then … the main character is something of an overthinker/over-analyzer, and I almost couldn’t do it.
• Took me three weeks to read.
• I don’t think it took me three weeks to read any of the books in The Wheel of Time.
• Oof.
• And I liked it, though it’s not my favorite.
• Kinda felt like a narrative version of one of those ARGs I talked about on Monday.
• The more important part …
• Now I have three-and-a-half months to read 11 books.
• Maybe I need to switch to trashy romances or something.
• …
• Maybe one?
• I’m not sure I’ve ever actually read one.
• Not a real one, anyway.
• Closest would be Karma Girl and then this post-apocalyptic sci-fi book about librarians by Kit Rocha.
• I gotta tell you, those books were … spicy educational.
• I remember feeling like the biggest prude in the moment.
• Like, dudes, you have no idea what they are reading.
• Pick up a few, learn some things.
• I can’t get into it any more than that.
• I can’t even get into it as much as I just did.
• But … whoa.
• We’re going to get into craft a little bit today.
• First, because I lost an argument to the Teenager this week about the Bechdel test.
• I won’t make excuses.
• I thought it was simple: in a work of fiction, if two women interact and have a conversation that is not about a man, it passes.
• If not, it does not.
• I am currently working very hard to make sure my novel passes that test.
• Once I heard about it, it has never left my brain.
• However …
• There are, apparently, other conditions of which I was not aware.
• I don’t like to argue, or bet, when I’m not going to win.
• I thought I was winning.
• We argued about it for at least an hour.
• She sent me a screen shot of an explanation of exactly how I was wrong, important bits circled in red.
• She was right.
• I told her so.
• She taunted me.
• My tiny teenage daughter is a social justice warrior and knows a truckload about all the things she’s interested in, or that get her riled up.
• And she will not say what she thinks someone wants to hear if she disagrees with it.
• She suffers no fools, even when those fools are her dad.
• Makes me so proud.
• I haven’t the words, really.
• Change the world, you stubborn young woman.
• (Yes, I’ll let her read this. I almost always let her read the Lists.)
• Okay, let’s have that craft talk.
• I’m not saying any of this to deliberately provoke anyone.
• What is the point of the written word?
• It’s to communicate an idea, a concept, a piece of information.
• (Yes, I am aware of poetry; let’s stick to “communications” and essays.)
• Sometimes things get obscured by habit or ego.
• What good is communicating if you’re not understood?
• Or if your method of communication is so dense, so impenetrable, the audience has trouble understanding it?
• Is that way for you? Do you get points for being highfalutin’?
• Don’t get me wrong, I love a good .25 cent word.
• Somnambulant.
• Ephemeral.
• Petrichor.
• I don’t use them a lot in my writing.
• Papa Hemingway did not recommend.
• And what’s that quote I always see attributed to Einstein?
• If you can’t explain a thing simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
• Paraphrasing. (I’ll have to check the attribution before posting.)
• There are studies about how even smart people prefer to read things written more accessibly.
• Because it makes them feel smarter.
• Studies like this one.
• True story, I tried to write my grad thesis on the ineffectiveness of academic writing.
• Yes, of course they did not let me.
• Punk kid.
• None of this is to say I’m correct.
• The older I get, the less I know and the more I want to listen and understand.
• Assume everyone you work with is a subject matter expert in their thing and give them the respect you hope they give you.
• I think vocabularies were better 100 years ago than they are now, possibly because of all the debris I spewed above.
• Which makes me sad, really.
• I know a lot more words than I can make my brain use when I write, which is kinda frustrating.
• I write like I talk, and I talk to match the vernacular of my audience.
• In fact, if you were to have a conversation with me, it would likely sound exactly like these lists.
• I changed my major in undergrad from pre-med to Journalism (dummy) because I wanted to be Dave Barry or Hunter S. Thompson.
• Or Dave Barry and Hunter S. Thompson.
• As it turns out, I am not them.
• Not as good.
• Not as smart.
• But I understand a few things.
• Gotta give good voice if you want people to read.
• Dialogue.
• After a long time in this business, I like to remind people to always remember your audience and what you’re trying to accomplish by whatever it is you’re writing.
• Remember the W’s (who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes w-how).
• Because writing isn’t about you.
• Ego is the enemy.
• Why am I writing about this?
• Trying to somehow regain self-confidence after my Teenager won a literary concept argument with me.
• Oof.
• Seriously though.
• I lost to my Teenager.
• (Mentally swearing about it again right now.)
• (My dad was blue collar; there was no avoiding the swearing.)
• Let’s end on a high note.
• Yesterday I had one of the best work experiences in my life because of the people I work with.
• I’m not going to get into it because it was kind of our thing, you know?
• But … I have never felt so supported and uplifted at work than yesterday.
• Was amazing.
• I came home and had to tell the Women about it.
• And the Teenager hugged me for a good five minutes.
• I hope to be able to repay it to all involved.
• Remember the Golden Rule, gang.
• That’s the only one you need.

• I wrote a list yesterday. 
• About scrambled eggs. 
• I’m … concerned about my brain translating everything to bullet points.  
• That I’m now so A.D.D. I can no longer write or think in proper paragraphs. 
• … 
• Yes, that’s malarkey. 
• I write paragraphs all the time. 
• I mean, at least I use mostly proper grammar, unlike Cormac McCarthy. 
• … 
• Too many …s already.  
• It is Monday after all. 
• The Teenager woke at an epic level of crankiness. 
• And slowness. 
• I get it, kid. 
• Mondays push their weight on you like an emotional elephant. 
• Sure, sure, not everyone handles Mondays the same way. 
• Some of you they don’t bother. 
• I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m sure a psychologist could tell me. 
• Heh. 
• I couldn’t sleep last night. 
• It’s a common thing on Sunday evenings. 
• A lot on my mind. 
• A. Lot.
• There’s always the conundrum: 
• If I turn the light on to write down what I’m thinking, am I going to get to sleep faster when I’m finished, or is it going to prolong the wakefulness? 
• There’s plenty of articles to read about this kind of thing. 
• Like, this one. 
• As always, application seems more difficult than understanding. 
• I had stuff to write about last night. 
• It’s gone now.  
• Like Keyser Söze. 
• But yes, brain stillness is a problem, especially at night. 
• You guys remember that movie The Game with Michael Douglas? 
• Fincher directed it. 
• Basically, Mikey plays a rich guy whose brother (Sean Penn) buys him a play through “The Game.” 
• A company basically starts messing with his life, and at the end, there’s a birthday party.  
• In modern parlance, it’s called an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). 
• I LOVE these things. 
• Back when Halo 2 came out, there was an ARG called “I Love Bees,” put together by an agency in San Francisco.  
• It started with this really basic website that was laden with hidden stuff, things embedded in the code that lead to things happening in the real world. 
• Gamers literally all over the globe had to work together to decipher the stuff. 
• One of the clues led to a call at a phonebook at an abandoned gas station in the Nevada desert, for instance.
• The call unlocked another clue.
• It ultimately unveiled episodes of what was a radio drama set in the Halo universe. 
• (Which had awesome production values.) 
• I mean, this was 2004 and I still remember most of it. 
• A little earlier than that, there was a “video game” called Majestic. 
• “Majestic was a science fiction thriller based on a Majestic 12 shadow government conspiracy theory. As an ARG, the game was played by phone, email, AOL Instant Messenger, BlackBerry messages, fax, and by visiting special websites. Gameplay frequently involved the player receiving clues that they would use to solve puzzles and unravel the story.” 
• I loved that game. 
• So. 
• ARGs. 
• I actually have an idea for one. 
• I’m not sure we can do it because of the rampant abuse of modern gun culture. 
• But here’s the idea:
• Basically, you sign up to be “kidnapped.” 
• My team puts you in a van, blindfolds you, and then drops you off on one side of downtown Tulsa. 
• You have to get to the other side of downtown in a designated time without getting tagged by the opposing force.  
• (Which is just a gang of your friends, and augmented by my employees to make sure we have enough Agents after you.) 
• Would love to do it with Nerf guns or something. 
• But it’s like a frantic grown-up game of hide-and-seek/tag coated with some espionage flavor.  
• I think it would be a blast.  
• You sign up.  
• You set designated availability blocks. 
• And then …  
• You don’t know when we’re coming for you. 
• I have all these weird business ideas. 
• Like, if I could just get my “Hand Picked Books” bookstore opened, we could use that as a clandestine front for The Game. 
• I do not have the money to open the bookstore. 
• But it is also a plan for me and the Teenager. 
• We’d only carry books we’d read and could rec. 
• And our marketing would involve and old school blog of book reviews. 
• I miss blogs. 
• I still have one. 
• But way back in the early oughts, my group of friends all had one, and we’d write and post and share and it felt like community. 
• I miss it. 
• I still post, but the rest of them are gone. 
• And no, I can’t share here. 
• Work-me and blog-me are different. 
• Obviously. 
• Keep it secret. Keep it safe. 
• The ARG stuff is what I was thinking about when I couldn’t sleep last night, btw. 
• There was more, obviously, but … that was a lot of it.  
• Anyway. 
• Where was I? 
• Had some meetings. 
• Had lunch. 
• List is late. 
• Monday, right?

The weekend edition.

• Those of you with children, do you ever think about the differences between how you grew up and how they are growing up?
• This morning, and it’s Sunday btw, I’m thinking about it because of scrambled eggs.
• I learned to make them when I was about six. 
• The Teenager, this summer.
• I’d make them for myself and my little sister.
• Scrambled cheesy eggs.
• I only feel like I’ve perfected them now. 
• (Though if I went out on the internet and looked, I’m sure there are multiple instructional videos and recipes explaining how I’m doing it wrong.)
• Mine go something like this:
• However many eggs, depending on the number of people, in one or our Pyrex measuring cups.
• I add sour cream right then, not cheese, but don’t ask me the amount.
• On all the things I cook all the time, I don’t do a lot of measuring.
• I’ll then take a fork or our small eggbert beater to the eggs.
• Pan on the stove is set to medium, and I let it heat up four or five minutes, then throw in a pad of butter. 
• Soon as the butter starts to bubble and brown, I’ll dump in the beaten eggs. 
• I let them just sorta take over the pan for a minute or two.
• Add some pepper.
• And a tiny shake of seasoning salt.
• Then I scramble them around until there’s no more liquid egg, and take the pan off the burner. 
• They are usually the last thing I cook if we’re doing breakfast meats and/or some sort of potato (hashbrowns or fried like my great grandmother used to do them). 
• There’s always the high probability of biscuits, though I still have not committed to doing those homemade.
• Sigh.
• We switched to those bags of frozen Pillsbury buttermilk ones.
• Waaaay better than the stuff out of the cans. 
• It’s like an entirely different company made them.
• I’m writing about breakfast because I just finished making a scrambled egg-and-cheese English muffin, and it was magical.
• Eggs from above, throw a slice of cheddar on top while they’re still in the pan.
• Toast the muffin.
• Viola. Breakfast magic.
• Which brings me to part two of this.
• Big coffee cups are the worst.
• The worst because you can’t drink all the coffee before it goes cold side.
• I did not sign up for cold brew, bros.
• And microwaving coffee does not improve its taste.
• Smaller cups, multiple trips.
• I told you up top, typing this on a Sunday.
• I may just post it today, write another tomorrow.
• I could be writing this in my Journal.
• But … it’s not really journal material, though you can make the case all of these Lists are journal material.
• My “big” coffee cup is green, brown, and possibly handmade, wrapped in the language of Mordor, which we will not speak here today. 
• One cup to ruin it all.
• I’m not getting rid of the cup, mind you.
• It is awesome.
• I just have to drink faster, more recklessly.
• Also, it is perfect for hot chocolate.
• Gonna spend the rest of the day watching Fellowship and cleaning house, I think.
• Maybe grill some chicken on the blackstone tonight and have an Old Fashioned.
• A whole day ringed around food.
• Sigh.
• I need to go shop for a few things, probably at the Mall, which is also the worst. 
• Funny, that, right?
• When I was a kid growing up in Sand Springs, trips to Woodland Hills Mall required begging.
• Once there, it was all KB Toys, the arcade, and the music store (which I can’t remember the name of at the moment). 
• (I’d phone a friend, but … if you interrupt the flow, it takes 20 minutes to mentally get back to where you were.)
• It’s going to bug me.
• But I’m not going to cheat and use the internet to look it up.
• I did not buy my first Metallica t-shirt there, though I did buy my first Metallica tape.
• The t-shirt came from Starship (in its previous location).
• So.
• We’ve gone from scrambled eggs to music stores.
• Probably ought to stop.
• The Weekend Edition.

• We’re gonna roll with today’s date for starters, then see where we end up.
• Sound good?
• I started my writing journey in Mr. Roberts’ sixth-grade class. 
• Maybe every other week, we’d have a creative writing assignment.
• I don’t think they were prompts, more of a “write a story” kind of deal.
• But that was a long time ago, so I’m sure there are details missing.
• Back in my day …
• (had to)
• … We got away with watching whatever Rated R movies we could.
• One time, for my buddy Francis’ birthday, his parents rented us some horror flicks, and because I was, what, 11, 12?, I became obsessed with them.
• Loved Halloween stuff then, love it now.
• C’mon, the hockey mask and machete … iconic.
• So when creative writing came around, I wrote sequels to the films.
• Even at that age, I knew having movie series with multiple sequels was kinda ridiculous, so I named my stories, Friday the 13^th, Part 2,351 or something like that.
• And then I’d have Jason do his thing.
• (I honestly think I still have one of them in a box somewhere, written in pencil on wide-ruled notebook paper.)
• We had to read these at the front of the class, mind you.
• By like the third or fourth one, I think he stuck me at the end of the reading rotation.
• No recovering from my nonsense, I guess.
• Horror sequels = prime sixth-grade entertainment.
• Lol.
• Ridiculous, right?
• Anyway, because I know you wanted to know, that’s when and where I became a “writer.”
• That’s my villain origin story. 
• Earliest I remember anyway.
• The next official creative writing instruction didn’t come until Senior year in high school.
• Mr. Vollertson’s class.
• Which has stayed with me all this time.
• He would not have put up with the Friday the 13^th nonsense.
• “Write what you know.”
• Very much in the Hemingway school of writing, Mr. V.
• He still writes today, btw. 
• Has a blog.
• He’s still better than I am.
• When college rolled around, I realized … I could weave in creative writing to my degree.
• I worried I couldn’t make an immediate living doing it, mind you, but I was pre-med at the time and figured I might as well enjoy something. 
• Somehow I ended up with a journalism degree and a minor in creative writing.
• (And was just two classes short of my graphic design minor.)
• But what’s important to this story is that Unlocking Opportunity didn’t exist then, and those academic advisors didn’t tell you, “Hey, Editor, you’re only going to make like $15,000 a year with your first job.”
• Might’ve made a difference.
• Pre-med/Psychology to journalism because I wanted to be Dave Barry and did not think I could make a living as a graphic designer. 
• I was the only journalism grad who earned a … B.S. and not a B.A.
• (Took a lot of science classes before changing majors as a junior.)
• I had no good information, obviously.
• All my graphic designer friends made more than I did for the longest time.
• I still would’ve done the creative writing stuff, but … maybe journalism was not such a great major for life-sustaining wages?
• And that’s back when a semester of classes was less than $2,000.
• (Or was that a whole year?)
• Heck, I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees and only ended up with $17,000 in student loans.
• Now is not the same.
• But we all know this, and I’m not getting into it any more than what I just did because I like being employed.
• Back to Jason.
• One year in junior high, I bought the hockey mask and then proceeded to scare the pants off my best friend.
• That is a different story I’m not going to tell right now because I sometimes repost these lists in other places and he might read it.
• (Love ya, brother!)
• He hasn’t done anything lately to deserve my telling of that story.
• Ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah.
• I need to ask the boss if she can make an exception to starting Halloween season in Sept. when there’s a Friday the 13^th.
• And start my GoFundMe for the 12-foot skeleton.
• I kid. I kid.
• I need to mow some lawns or set up a lemonade stand or something.
• Old skool.
• Here’s a truth: I’m not sure I could watch Friday the 13^th again.
• After we had the Teenager, I sorta lost my taste in horror films.
• Part of it was becoming a parent, but part of it was Saw and Hostel.
• Torture-porn.
• Hated those movies.
• I trashed them as a critic, fairly or not, we’ll never know.
• That’s the thing about critics.
• You have to find one that jives with you or you’ll never get any use from them.
• Trust me.
• I wrote my master’s thesis about film critics.
• That was before Rotten Tomatoes and all that, mind you.
• Back in my day we didn’t have …
• Sigh.
• I got to order a new Kindle this week.
• Stoke is high.
• The Wife kept stealing mine to read books, so I just gave her the old one and ordered a new one.
• Maybe that’s unfair.
• But you know what the Kindle means to me.
• The precious.
• I’m sitting here this morning listening to, not Friday the 13^th, but Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Makes me feel good. 
• Currently, it’s the music from the Map Room scene.
• OMG.
• So good.
• My life would be less without John Williams.
• And this is where I get riled up about corporate greed and AI.
• Imma sigh again.
• That’s what I’m doing at my desk right now.
• Sighing.
• And internally swearing.
• Perhaps.
• Brainnns.
• “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”
• This is one of those lists where it would be super swell if you guys dropped some comments.
• Tell me about the horror movies of your youth.
• Share your stories of changing majors and what you wanted to be when you were still young and idealistic. 
• If you want to.
• You don’t build community by sitting there silently, sipping your coffee, and frowning at your computer screen. 
• And I say that as a card-carrying introvert. 
• This list is waaaay too informational about myself. 
• I’m uncomfortable with it.
• Who are you people?
• Anyway.
• You guys caught up on Bad Monkey? 
• Rings of Power?
• Watching anything good?
• I realize, I think, I’ve crossed the precipice of the longest list to date.
• If you must know, I only started typing on this thing about 36 minutes ago.
• It’s best, sometimes, to just get out of your own way.
• Sometimes, it’s also good to know when to stop.
• …
• I wrote a haiku as a Facebook comment before work this morning in answer to my buddy’s “Friday Question” he’s been doing every Friday for more than a decade.
• He asked about how you check the weather, and he and another friend were talking about watching it on TV.
• Gross.
• Do not watch news.
• Read it.
• READ. IT.
• Anyway, I’ll share the haiku, then get on the way.
• Websites to write.
• And … other things.
• Ready?
• The Weather, by The Editor: 
  It is on my watch 
  And on this fancy smart phone 
  TV rots your brain

• OMG
• Frosted Flakes.
• So my sister stayed at our house with the Teenager last week while we were in Rochester. 
• Apparently she’s become a cereal killer.
• Heh.
• She left behind one of those Kellog’s cereal variety packs, the ones with those little boxes.
• Fruit Loops. Apple Jacks. Pops, Coco Krisipies … and Frosted Flakes.
• You remember that scene in Pulp Fiction where Samuel Jackson is eating the poor guy’s burger from that Hawaiian Burger Joint?
• The Big Kahuna Burger.
• “My girlfriend’s a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian.”
• The Wife does her best to keep our options healthyish.
• She always gets herself that Raisin Brand nonsense, and for me, something highish in fiber.
• The takeaway you need is that from my childhood on, Frosted Flakes are probably my favorite cereal. 
• I could not tell you the last time I had them.
• They have zero nutritional value.
• I had one of those tiny boxes of Frosted Flakes last night.
• So good.
• There’s one more tiny box on the counter. 
• Sorry, Sis, I’m eating them.
• Them? That? Does multiple flakes in one box make it singular or plural?
• The other important takeaway you need is … portion control.
• That one tiny box keeps me from overindulging.
• When I was a kid, those boxes were made so you could open the little bag and pour the milk right in, so the box became a bowl, saving everyone from having to do dishes. 
• You remember those, right?
• Pepperidge Farm remembers.
• Since we’re remembering … how about those long bags of powdered sugar donettes?
• …
• How am I not diabetic?
• Good gravy.
• It’s probably coming.
• Everything else is out of control.
• Anyway.
• I wrote those bullets last night in my journal as I finished the Frosted Flakes.
• Now I’m out of pre-written material, and we’re not even halfway to the word limit.
• Yes, I know I set it myself.
• And it’s completely arbitrary.
• But …
• I do this as much for myself as for you.
• This just happened in our office.
• Me, yelling from my office: “Laurie, is it Halloween season yet?”
• Laurie: “No, Editor, no it is not.”
• (Don’t ask me why I keep sticking to the Editor moniker; it’s been almost four years. You guys know who I am. It’s just that I’m more of a Wizard of Oz type. Anyway …)
• And then she explained the schedule.
• Apparently, according to Laurie, who btw loves Halloween, we’re still like five weeks from the season.
• I dunno. I stopped paying attention when she started doing the calendar math.
• Still, she is, as it happens, the boss of me.
• So I’ll take it under consideration.
• Yesterday and today, I drove to work with my window down.
• Glorious.
• So close to Fall.
• And because of the Dogs, I may commit to getting up earlier so I can take my coffee on the back patio and mentally prep for the coming day.
• But that’s not why I want fall.
• I want the leaves.
• I want the colors.
• I want those chilly breezes that make you don a hoodie. 
• I want those walks on Turkey Mountain.
• I want to bury myself in movies and shows laden with fall ambience.
• Like Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.
• (As it turns out, the bad guy in my work-in-progress gets called Ichabod by the rest of the characters.)
• I want haunted hay rides.
• And campfires.
• What I really want is a Fall in New England.
• I want to visit Salem during Halloween season.
• You’ve looked into that, right?
• You almost have to book your Inn more than a year out to get to do that.
• And then … a madrigal dinner somewhere after we’re through the spooky season.
• Is there any way to make time slow for the next four months? 
• Asking for a friend.
• Asking for me … what else you guys have for media that provokes that perfect fall feeling? 
• (I’m having trouble not capitalizing fall; it deserves a formal title. If we were to make Fey out of the seasons, their names would be capitalized.)
• Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes fits.
• And Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, but I just watched that again two weeks ago.
• And Fellowship of the Ring, obviously.
• (I’m enjoying the second season of Rings of Power more than the first so far, and the elven stuff seems to bear mostly fall ambience.) 
• A lot of fantasy books seem to start in the autumn, stuff like The Eye of the World and The Belgariad, and the first Dragonlance book (which as an adult writing professional has become unreadable; I cannot stand third-person omniscient with multiple POVs on the same bloody page.)
• It’s still too early to make that butternut squash soup I discovered last year.
• I’ll try to find the recipe for you guys, because it is magical. 
• It’s like tomato soup, only, you know, good.
• Okay. Hit the word goal.
• Now I gotta go write a Tulsa World ad and a webpage and some other stuff. 
• You have a Wednesday, all right?
• Heh.

My favorite poem of all time (unfortunately not autumnal):

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake  
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.    

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

• This is weird, but it happened, so I’ll just own it and move on.
• The Wife is out of town for work.
• The Teenager spent last night holed up in her room doing homework.
• I found myself alone on the couch with the remote.
• This never happens.
• For whatever reason, I queued up OSU’s bowl game from last year, and then watched most of it.
• What. The. H-E-Double hockey sticks.
• As an OSU (Oklahoma State) fan, despite the fact the team won the game, it did not lift my spirits.
• All summer long the talk has been about all the “talent” we’re returning.
• But that team in the bowl, which is basically the same team that’s taking the field this weekend, almost let a team missing 32 regular season players come back and beat it.
• Which means … I can now settle into the typical OSU fan headspace where we expect to stink.
• When I was there for undergrad, the football team stunk.
• I literally enrolled the semester after the team went 0-10-1.
• I don’t think they went to a bowl game the whole time I was in undergrad.
• The year after, sure.
• Of course.
• Of course.
• Anyway, my apprehension for this weekend’s game is properly calibrated.
• And do not get me started about NIL.
• This football talk does not really mesh with my nerddom.
• I’m not sure how to explain it.
• I played soccer and ran track in high school, but I also was in all the honors classes, skateboarded, worked on my muscle car, listened to nothing but thrash metal, and played an abundance of D&D.
• Do not fit the mold, man.
• Like what you like.
• Apologize to no one.
• I did not want to open today’s list with a cat story, so I pushed it down toward the middle/end.
• I’ve told you about Liho, right?
• She’s our first rescue cat, named after Black Widow’s cat in the comics.
• Somewhere in the last two years, she has claimed me as her primary person.
• I assume because I fed her most in the beginning, but who knows.
• Cat.
• The Wife is annoyed by this situation, because she’s always been a cat person.
• I dunno what to tell her.
• I did not seek this out.
• Anyway, it’s not that I have a cat.
• The cat has me.
• Has claimed ownership, and she has certain expectations.
• I have to pick her up and hold her for a length of time, for instance.
• This length of time is chosen by her.
• If I do not comply for the expected time, I get growled at, swatted, and sometimes bitten.
• To initiate said cat cuddling, she walks in front of me, frequently trying to trip me, and makes a demanding cat sound.
• And like the Terminator, she will not stop until I pick her up.
• Once I have, she usually expects me to walk her around her house, surveying her domain.
• This was my morning.
• “Cat, I have to get ready. I have to prep lunch. I have to make my coffee. I do not have time for your shenanigans.”
• (Words I actually said to the Cat.)
• Which got me growled, swatted, and fake bitten.
• So.
• I’ve got that going for me.
• Which is nice.
• (Yes, I picked her up again, and then had to listen to her self-satisfied purring.)
• Grammar Interruption: Word tried really hard to make me change those “have tos” up there to “must.”
• No, Word.
• I do not really use must.
• “I AM SORRY! I MUST GO!”
• No.
• It’s one of those words that carries some amount of melodrama.
• Again, why I think reports of AI’s takeover of copy writing is a bit premature.
• Yes, it can output copy.
• But the quality of that copy is dependent upon the person doing the prompt.
• You can still tell.
• I had this boss who insisted labeling writing as good or bad was subjective.
• I didn’t argue with him, because he was the boss, but … that’s malarkey.
• If you are telling me “good writing” is subjective, it means you’re not really qualified to tell the difference.
• Which is scary, really.
• It’s why they can use AI to output a lot of garbage.
• And I can’t really get into that any further, because then we’d be arguing about our country’s education system, and that’s beyond the purview of accepted List content.
• List is kinda spicy today.
• Or weird.
• Not weird like its currently being used.
• Traditionally weird.
• Right now, I’m jamming at my desk listening to Anthrax’s “Caught in a Mosh.”
• It makes my inner 14-year-old self happy.
• I won’t link it.
• You don’t want to hear it.
• I imagine the pool of metalheads at TCC is less than … 10 people.
• I’m not sure how I’d even find that out.
• Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be headbanging at my desk writing copy all afternoon.
• High five.

Yeah, I realize this list is a little self-absorbed. I dunno. It took the coffee a long time to get the brain primed this morning. If, in fact, it actually did.

• YIL 
• (Yesterday, I learned …) 
• If you click on a band name in Spotify, and then click on the three little dots by their name, you can select, “Do Not Play This Artist.” 
• Goodbye, Five Finger Death Punch. 
• May you and your Village People-of-Hard-Rock routine never darken my ears again. 
• And could you please take Rob Zombie with you. 
• K? 
• Thx. 
• Byyyyyyeeeeee. 
• No, not bye. 
• Not yet. 
• That was only 62 words. 
• There are expectations. 
• I feel if I go too short I’m cheating my regulars. 
• Anyway. 
• More of this, Spotify. 
• I know, I know. 
• I keep talking about Nine Inch Nails. 
• I love his instrumental stuff maybe more than his hits. 
• I love the mood in almost all of them. 
• Movies play in head. 
• A lot of chase scenes. 
• Usually in some sort of flying cars in cyberpunk metropolises.  
• Metropolisii?  
• Whatever. 
• Head movies. 
• I wish all those AR headsets would rise to their potential already. 
• Give. It. To. Me. 
• I want Tony’s glasses from the Iron Man flicks. 
• Well, really, Spider-man: Far From Home.  
• Honestly, still sitting here smiling about getting rid of bands I dislike. 
• DO NOT SUGGEST THAT NONSENSE TO ME, ALGORITHM!! 
• Sorry. 
• I prefer to be my own algorithm, just like back in the old times. 
• I won’t be saying “Get off my lawn” in a few short years. 
• It’ll be shorter. 
• And more profane. 
• Heh. 
• Annnd whatever powered our manic energy kick off to this list ran out. 
• It was just riding the wave of “do not play this” giddiness. 
• Last night, I went into my bathroom, which is where my closet is, to get my running shoes. 
• Moved a shoe, noticed skittery spider movement of the bigger variety. 
• Reacted like when Sheriff Brody is chumming the water and Bruce shows up right next to his head.
• Picked up a different shoe, then moved the one I saw it skitter toward. 
• Thing was the size of my palm. 
• Smashed it. 
• And then I noticed lots of smallish things around it. 
• Which, of course turned out to be baby spiders. 
• Smash all the things!!
• From the living room: “What are you doing?” 
• Me: “You don’t want to know.” 
• Finished smashing tiny moving things, which is challenging given my visual … issues. 
• I think I got ‘em all, but it was large enough the thought of having to clean it up gave me the geebies. 
• I did. 
• Obviously. 
• Then I went out to the living room and told her. 
• Freaking nightmare fuel. 
• I go in there in the dark without turning the light on, for cryin’ out loud. 
• Now, what, I have to shoe-up beforehand? 
• Freaking babies.  
• Everywhere. 
• I could feel them on me for a good hour afterward. 
• Still can. 
• My brain is not always on the same team as me. 
• Tow the line, bro. 
• Oof. 
• I have written a lot of words this week. 
• Like … 4500+. 
• Have word fatigue. 
• And many more to go. 
• Because I haven’t written anything for the Book. 
• Can’t keep letting that slide. 
• I follow a ton of the writing-related subReddits. 
• r/Selfpublish 
• r/writing 
• r/etc. 
• There’s a ton of people on there, if they’re not bots, making decent money writing fiction and self-publishing. 
• I don’t always follow up on what kind of fiction they’re producing. 
• When I bought my Subaru, the salesbro, when he found out what I do for a living, told me his wife was an author. 
• Sure she is.
• He said she wrote “romance” and self-published on Amazon.
• That she had about 10 books, and was working on a deal with a traditional publisher. 
• But also, that she was pulling in $30,000-40,000/month. 
• Record scratch. 
• And then he showed me her Amazon page.
• … 
• What I’m saying is that I should just give up and write smut under a pen name and profit. 
• Like, the Wife had this dream the other day that we were all at a family dinner at her Mom’s house, and her sister announced she was pregnant. 
• The father? 
• A Cyclops. 
• And like a bad one, head like a muppet. 
• We laughed about it. 
• But my first reaction that I dared not speak … that could be an Amazon smut book. 
• We could be rich. 
• People buy that stuff all the time. 
• I mean, c’mon, neither the plot nor the prose has to be any good when you’re writing about Cyclopean womanizers. 
• … 
• The List may have just jumped the shark. 
• Weekend plans? 
• I’m finally going to go try the Grocer for breakfast. 
• Can’t wait. 
• Breakfast is probably one of my favorite eating out experiences. 
• Past that, no plans.
• Well, maybe a couple Old Fashions. 
• Clean the house, probably. 
• Notice how the weather during the week was magical, and today, tomorrow and Sunday are back to the normal August shenanigans.  
• Conspiracy. 
• Okay, since we’re jumping about. 
• This came up in conversation with my oldest friend via text this week. 
• What music/album have you rebought the most times? 
• I’m guessing mine is Metallica’s Master of Puppets.
• 1) Cassette 
• 2) CD 
• 3) Replacement CD (possibly multiple replacement CDs)
• 4) Digital 
• 5) Remastered Extended Version CD (four discs!!)
• And I honestly can’t remember if I paid for the Remastered Extended digital version so it would be mine and not subject to whether or not I subscribed to Amazon music. 
• Yes, I still have a CD player in the car. 
• In fact, if they still offer CD players in cars as Options, I’ll continue to have CD players in my car. 
• Because once I buy a CD, I own it. 
• And I’ve had enough of subscriptions. 
• … 
• We’re stopping before this turns into an Oldish-Man Rant. 
• You!
• Have a weekend. 
• And have one like you mean it. 
• High five.

• You ever think about names?
• Specifically, of people?
• Like you hear a name of someone who’s doing something exceptional, and think, “well, yeah, with a name like that …”
• Like, I dunno, Laird Hamilton.
• Or (and I told you I’d been on a Nine Inch Nails kick) Trent Reznor.
• Sounds made-up.
• Pauses to go see if, in fact, he made it up.
• Nope, that’s his real name.
• What else would that dude have been but a superstar musician.
• Names have power.
• Thanks, Mom.
• Though technically, she did name me after a popular rock singer.
• I just don’t think my name has bestselling writer juice.
• I had more names on that list until I actually sat down to write this.
• Poof.
• Middle age sucks.
• So many dementia flags flying.
• That’ll be fun, too.
• Bring it.
• Baring my teeth at the world today.
• I can’t blame the aggressive music.
• I was thinking about what you show at work.
• How much of your authentic self is there every day.
• The outline, sure.
• The shape of the thing.
• But if you had a Self Dial™, what would your knob be turned to?
• (If you say 11, you’re foolin’ yourself.)
• I’d say, three, maybe four some days.
• And I think of myself as mostly authentic.
• But there’s just so much that comes up on the mental prompter we ignore.
• Yeah, no, that’s probably not a good idea.
• Probably Not a Good Idea would be a fantastic name for a memoir.
• Not mine.
• I’m risk averse.
• Hands and feet inside the roller coaster at all times.
• And there’s a good reason for that, but again, three, maybe four, on the dial.
• If you’re only seeing the low-hanging fruit on almost everyone you encounter on the daily, how much truth are you witnessing?
• I try.
• Nothing I’ve ever put in here is the least bit untrue.
• Filtered, yes.
• Untrue, no.
• I find the differences between public and work life fascinating.
• We all wear masks, is someone’s metaphor I’m borrowing.
• But yeah, names.
• Names are hard.
• I have changed the names of all the characters in my book at least twice, and some of them three or four.
• Names in writing are like clothes you put on your imaginary mannequin.
• They shape the thing, give it voice and manner.
• I’m writing this list the night before.
• Which is probably why it is what it is so far.
• Won’t have time to write it today (tomorrow).
• Okay, there is no fucking way I’ll post this list.
• I’ll write a new one tomorrow.