My father gave me a singular fact that shows how he felt when I was born. Our family was scattered all around town in about 20 homes. He could have called his mother and asked her to pass the news to the rest of the family, but he didn’t. Calling every home himself was far more personal. But he didn’t do that either. He drove to each home and told them face to face that his son had been born.
Sometimes the way you say something is as important as what you say. Today we can say things to thousands of people with almost no effort. Social media lets us tell our friends and their friends that we had a hard day, or we’re at lunch, or our heart’s been broken. We can share jokes, pictures, opinions, and insults. It’s fun and satisfying. But some messages are truly meaningful, maybe more meaningful to other people than to us. Hearing those messages almost by chance, through a largely frivolous medium, can hurt them in ways no one intends.
The birth or death of someone you love is probably the most meaningful event in a life. Bringing someone this kind of message deserves more intent and effort than it takes to comment on the weather. That’s why the names of the dead are withheld until the family is told. Learning about this kind of thing though a casual word, even if well-meant, is like finding out your brother is dead through a television commercial. It’s like finding out your child has been killed by seeing it on a billboard on the side of the road. It’s an effortless, throw-away message that capriciously tells someone they’ve received the only thing in life that’s irreplaceable, or that they’ve had the only irreplaceable thing in life taken away.
Open Heart Publishing is including my story, The Santa Fix” in their anthology An Honest Lie, Volume 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy. The book will be published later this year, but they’re promoting it now, and part of that promotion is author interviews. My interview was posted this afternoon, so please take a look if you’re interested.
Part of the interview was about what my muse looks like. I provided a photo, but they weren’t able to include it in the posted interview. Therefore, in the interest of completeness, my muse:
Yesterday a news report on the radio terrified me so much that I nearly crashed my car into Wendy’s as I drove by. It was some chilling stuff, and it literally made me forget about every other bad thing that could possibly happen in my life. I was so petrified that I don’t remember the report verbatim, but the reporter was interviewing an expert, and it went something like this:
Reporter: “Doctor, what can you tell us about this threat to our safety?”
Expert: “We’re talking about a neurological condition here. It’s caused by an amoeba swimming up your nose and into your brain.”
“Holy Mother of God!” I think.
Reporter: “That sounds awful. Can this amoeba attack you while you’re just standing around in your house, or does it live somewhere in particular?”
Expert: “No, it generally lives in warm, freshwater lakes and rivers.”
I think, “Okay, I don’t go to the lake that much.”
Expert: “But it’s been known to live in home water systems.”
“I’m never taking another shower! Or drinking water!”
Reporter: “That means that none of us is safe! What does this amoeba do once it attacks you, doctor?”
Expert: “The symptoms to watch out for are fever, headache, and stiffness in the neck.”
I start to breathe again.
Expert: “And then it eats your brain.”
Reporter: “What? It eats your brain?”
Expert: Yes, it takes about two weeks and then your brain is eaten and you die.”
Reporter: “Isn’t there any cure?”
Expert: “Unfortunately, no. Only one infected person in history is known to have survived, and we have no idea why. If the amoeba attacks you, you’re pretty much a goner.”
I think, “This is like a horror movie! Who gives a shit about zombies when we’ve got real amoebas eating our damned brains? Why the hell are we spending money researching cancer and AIDS when these amoebas are stalking us?”
Reporter: “What can we do to protect our children from certain death?”
Expert: “Fortunately, humans are not this amoeba’s preferred prey. They would rather eat some nice, tasty bacteria. So, amoeba attacks on humans are not all that common.”
Reporter: “How many people have been attacked this year?”
Expert: “Well, only three.”
Reporter: “In the city?”
Expert: “No, in the entire country. But they all died.”
Reporter: “Are there precautions we can take to prevent these amoebas from devastating our families?”
Expert: “I’m happy to say that very simple precautions can protect you from the amoebas. The best one is to just hold your nose.”
At this point, in my mind I took over the interview.
Me: “Did you say, ‘Just hold your nose?’”
Expert: “Yes, although I suppose you could get someone else to hold it for you.”
Me: “Isn’t three people a year nation-wide a low success rate for the amoebas? It seems pathetic. Shouldn’t they get into another line of work?”
Expert: “Well, they’re doing their best. I did say that humans are just a sideline for them. I’m sure they do better with bacteria.”
Me: “Doctor, why are you wasting our time with a so-called threat that kills three people a year?”
Expert: “It’s not a waste of time. The amoebas live in warm water. It’s summer, so the water is warm. People should be alerted to the dangers.”
Me: “Isn’t it true that thousands of people die every year for reasons we’re unable to determine at all?”
Expert “Yes, that’s true, but—”
Me: “For all we know, those people could be getting killed by ghosts. Why aren’t you stumping the radio news circuit warning people about the ghost catastrophe?”
Expert: “You don’t have to be that way about it.”
Me: “You’re right. I can’t possibly employ enough sarcasm to make you look more idiotic than you already look.”
Expert: “I don’t have to take this shit. I have an MD and a Ph.D.!”
As the expert slams down his phone in my imagination, I pull into my driveway. All of my normal fears once again cluster around me like drinking buddies. I have standards. I demand high-quality fears, and any piss ant fear like terror of amoebas can just find somebody else to drink with.
Magical Lover, a new paranormal romance by Karilyn Bentley hit the internet today. I know Karilyn, and if you’re a fan of this genre then you’ll definitely want to check it out. It’s published by The Wild Rose Press, and is available in a sparkling array of electronic formats at http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=177_139&products_id=4593. It’s also available at Amazon!
They won’t let you cut out a guy’s kidney unless you have a college degree. I asked. And it has to be a medical degree. Medieval Russian Literature won’t convince them to let you scrub and order a nurse to hand you any of those obscure, scary surgical instruments. So, if you want to do something like this, I recommend snagging a college degree or two. Even if cutting out kidneys holds no appeal for you, a degree looks really snappy on a resume. It gives you something to list below your first job at Hobby Lobby and above your personal interests in Angry Birds and pornographic origami.
Keep in mind that if you don’t want to do something specialized like medicine, the exact type of degree may not matter much. I personally went for one of those degrees that makes some people say, “What do you expect to do with a degree in THAT?” Now, I would like you to please do me a personal favor. The next time you hear someone say that to a kid, look around for the heaviest thing you can lift and hit that person on the knee with it as hard as you can, because he is a damned moron who deserves to limp for the rest of his life.
I’m not the brightest guy on my block, but my degree never kept me from getting a job. Think of an employer’s problem this way. Employers only hire when they’re in pain. If everything was fine and they weren’t in pain, they’d just keep the money and not hire anybody. Now, if you were in pain, say from your hand being crushed in a car door, would you care whether the guy running towards you was a certified mechanic?
If you’re considering college, I’d like to share a little of my perspective. During my years in college there were facts being tossed around by the bushel basket. But in the end I learned only three significant things.
First, I learned what makes soap work. I mean how soap works from the chemical standpoint. I won’t go into the details, but this is the coolest piece of knowledge ever, and learning it justified every dollar and every hour I put into college.
The second thing I learned was almost as great. One day I was walking through the Student Union. That’s the place on campus where guys go to pretend to study while they look at pretty girls out of the corner of their eye. A crowd blocked the hallway, and I saw that the dean of my university was giving a speech. I had never before heard him speak nor even seen him in his actual flesh. Then I heard the golden, magical portion of his speech. He explained that he, the administrators, the professors, and the staff were the university. The students would come and go—we were transitory, and when we moved on the people who ran the place would still be there. We, the students, did not count—and we’d damned well better not forget it.
That did make me cock my head in a Scooby-Doo moment. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to kiss the man right on the mouth. Oh, certainly he was a nasty sack of moose piss, but amidst his mean-spirited locust swarm of a diatribe soared a single white dove. That dove landed on my shoulder and said to me, “Grow the hell up.”
The third thing I learned was, oddly, about learning. Sometimes people call universities “institutions of higher learning.” People do not call universities “institutions of higher teaching,” and there’s a reason for that. University professors will point you in generally the correct direction, but they have better things to do than spend a bunch of time teaching you stuff. It’s your responsibility to teach your own damn self. During my college career, the occasional dedicated teacher manifested, but as a rule my professors treated students the way alligators treat their young: “There’s the bayou, kid. Either teach yourself to hunt or get eaten by a muskrat, I don’t give a shit which.”
To summarize, my advanced university education consisted of the lovely mystery of soap, the revelation “Grow the hell up,” and the directive “Teach yourself if you don’t want to remain as ignorant as a sack of rusty screws.” Everything else was secondary, although I admit that lots of it was interesting.
I consider it all to be time and money wisely invested.
Yesterday I finished my interview for the upcoming anthology An Honest Lie Volume 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy. The interviewer hit me with a nice mix of both serious and funny questions. My favorite was “Do you consider yourself to be perfect?” I consider my answer to be pretty good, so that should count for something. An Honest Lie Volume 3 will be released later this year, including my story about belief and panic.
Just because I’m still in an interviewing mood, here are some questions I wasn’t asked, along with answers. Feel free to answer them for yourself!
If you were a method of breaking off a romantic relationship, what kind of method would you be?
A note in sky-writing at her family reunion.
When you reach Heaven, what will you say to St Peter?
Did I miss the exit for Lubbock?
If you were a flavor of ice cream that could never exist but should, what would you be?
Satanic Music Videos and Cream
If you were a lame excuse for coming home late, which one would you be?
The dog ate my car.
If you awoke with a cat perched on your chest, what would that cat be thinking?
You can be tolerated, but you sleep like an amateur.
If you were a zombie standing next to another cute zombie, what would your Zombie Pickup Line be?
How about a picnic? I’ve got a toddler crammed in this little basket.
If you were sitting on Santa’s lap and wanted to be remembered next year, what would you say?
I want a bike like you brought me last year, except one that won’t fly apart and break Grandma’s hip.
If you were Santa Claus, what would you do the day after Christmas?
Hit a topless bar with 8 tiny reindeer and 500 $1 bills
I do not worship at the altar of logic. I refuse to bring it frankincense and goats. I’ve employed deductive reasoning in my work for years, and I’ve read its instruction manual. So when I tell people that logic isn’t always the best way to know the world around us, they look at me as if I’ve been replaced by a dancing pixie from the Land of Dreams and Candy Corn.
A friend taught me a crackerjack quote from our buddy, Albert Einstein: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Don’t misunderstand me—I love logic in its proper place. In the world of things that can be measured, logic rules with a mighty fist. Will my car not start? Logic is my ally. Do I want to build a helicopter? Logic stands ready as my sword and shield. Do I want to tie a Windsor knot? Logic throws me a party in Monte Carlo with dancing girls and baccarat.
But if my wife asks me how much I love her, logic is a tiger shark eating my damned leg off. If I fire up my spreadsheet to answer her question, I will be dragged below the surface and never seen again. To illustrate my point, try to assess these statements logically:
When your 16 year old son wants to borrow the Jaguar and you deny him, he will calmly understand this if you provide him a matrix showing the probability of him slaughtering half the city, including the dogs and cats.
When two groups of people massacre each other because their common ancestors moved to different neighborhoods 2,000 years ago, giving them a Venn diagram that shows they’re one big family will solve the problem right away.
Please hand in your answers at the end of class, and be sure to show your work.
Years ago my job included helping people jointly make decisions when they hated each other. I had a nifty, logical tool for the job. Everybody loved it. It involved giving ratings and assessments to various factors. It used actual math, and the option that got the highest score at the end was the logical one to choose. Not once—ever—did a group select the option with the highest score. Yet they always agreed unanimously on a different choice. They all walked away happy. They all stuck by their decision, although otherwise they remained bile-spitting enemies.
When people aren’t building pyramids and fixing faucets, they are not logical. They live by intuition, and applying logic to people problems leads to misery and death. Or at least, to unpleasantness and failure.
But people should be logical, right? Isn’t that the problem? I agree that it is. People should be logical in the same way that tanning should be a fat burning activity and trees should be covered in lollipops. People just are not logical when it comes to people-related stuff. If you spend time trying to make people logical, you should also spend time trying to make a toaster cry when it hears La Traviata.
So what is the answer? We can’t abandon logic. It’s too darn useful, like that TV remote that does nothing except activate slow motion, but you keep it because none of your 7 other remotes does that. I suggest that we just embrace intuition when we’re dealing with the illogical dominant species on our planet. And when our wives ask how much we love them, we’ll all know that the correct answer is, “I cleaned the litter box before you got home.”
I like the friends I have on Facebook. I’ve culled my friends list ruthlessly, like a dog breeder drowning puppies while trying for a new type of canine, maybe a Saint Berdoodle. So now my friends list contains real friends, or at least acquaintances I like. This has led me to do far stupider things than I did when my Facebook friends included my dentist’s uncle and the guy I met at the gas station.
The Wise Folk advise us to avoid certain subjects in polite company. We should not discuss sex, religion, or politics. I think this is usually great advice. But now on Facebook I’m not in polite company, I’m among my friends. So I say to the wise folk, “Screw you, you god damn commies!” I feel comfortable talking to my friends about delicate subjects. They’re my friends.
Allow me to show you the stupidity of my ways. Say I’m scanning posts and see that a friend linked an article. It reveals that last Christmas Eve the Republican National Committee held a cross-dressing orgy and sacrificed goats on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. My friend has commented: “This is outrageous! These guys are traitors to the nation!”
Back when my friends list included the guy I met at the gas station, I would no more have responded to this than I would have inhaled Drano. But now I’m among friends. I may freely read this article and offer friendly insights.
I admit that the image of the RNC writhing in ecstasy under Abraham Lincoln’s gaze is amusing. Yet I try to be honest, and I comment: “I read the article and am not sure it’s accurate. The article was written by a plumber in Little Rock who said he’s never been east of the Mississippi, and he relied on his nephew’s field trip to DC for his source material. I couldn’t locate anyone else who saw this event, and unless the RNC has a Romulan cloaking device then someone should have seen them and said something. And while the article appears on a website named www.window.on.truth.com, it’s in fact owned by the non-profit ‘Kill Republican Maggots Who Kick Orphans.’ I’d say exercise some skepticism.”
Half an hour later my friend responds: “Maybe, maybe not. There’s no proof that they DIDN’T have this orgy, is there?”
I suppress my knowledge that it’s impossible to prove a negative. My friend knows how she feels, and I’m not determined to change her opinion. She likes her opinion. We had a friendly conversation, polite on both sides, and I’m happy. So I comment: “I see what you’re saying, and you’re right—I can’t prove the orgy didn’t happen. If some of these guys have their penises fall off later, that could be evidence that an orgy might have happened. But overall, go you!”
Fourteen seconds later a comment appears from one of my friend’s friends. I’ve never heard of this person, and if he was on fire I probably wouldn’t bother to write an app to simulate a stream of urine directed onto him.
He comments, addressing my friend: “I don’t know where this guy came from, but he’s just the kind of shit-for-brains reactionary who’s going to drive this country into a revolution that will end in an influenza pandemic and nuclear war! Just because someone’s a plumber doesn’t mean his words are false—that’s nothing but elitist thinking from a lackey of the rich and privileged who have filled this country’s prisons with the innocent poor and are conducting scientific experiments on them to create a super-soldier! I’ll bet he’s never even been to an orgy! I’d like to see this asshole debate the real issues instead of drooling his opinions—I’d shred him in 2 seconds! But I doubt he has the guts!”
As I read this, I reflect that they are called Wise Folk instead of Pretty Folk for a reason. I should listen to them more. I feel a gut-wriggling urge to respond to this snot-streaming cretin, but it’s evident that hours of spiteful conflict will ensue with a person I do not know, care about, or wish to see in the gene pool. Only evil lies at the end of that path.
There is salvation. It’s called the “Block” button, and I punch it as if it was the ejector seat and my F-18 was flaming out.
Sure, Facebook is a social network, but social isn’t always good. Most murders are committed by someone close to the victim, and the most vicious wars are fought between people with only a few degrees of separation. If I want to enjoy my time online, I’ll keep my fingers in my pockets when those touchy subjects float by. If I want a fight, I can always walk up to someone in a bar and call his mother a clot of nose-filth.
My wife had an enormous hole jack-hammered into her jaw yesterday. Her dentist implanted a post, on which a crown will later be placed. The procedure’s a bit pricey, but compared to what she’s worth, the cost is 1 divided by infinity.
The dentist numbed the area with a bucket-full of Lidocaine. My wife is one of the happy few whose mouth resists anesthetic. So by the time she was ready for the procedure, she was deadened from her esophagus to the back of her skull. Then they opened her jaw like she was an anaconda and worked on her with the world’s tiniest hammer-drill. For the final step they jammed a shiny silver post into the hole. It reminded me of the spike driven at the meeting of the transcontinental railroad.
The nurse brought her to me in a wheelchair. She needed it. The dentist had wanted to protect my wife from anxiety, so he’d prescribed Ativan for her to take before the procedure. One of my friends took this drug for anxiety a while back. The dentist gave my wife eight times as much as that fellow took, so she was unable to walk. However, she was able to stumble from the wheelchair into the passenger seat of our car. On the drive home she chatted with Buddha and the Tooth Fairy about what a bitch Glenda the Good really is.
We arrived home. As I guided my sweetie into the house she mumbled about needing to clean the litter boxes and wash clothes, as soon as she sits down for a few minutes. I told her it’s all taken care of, and that she’ll probably sleep the rest of the day. She then drifted into the kitchen, where she sagged against various kitchen counters and prepared her ibuprofen, her antibiotics, some tea, and other necessities, while I hovered, trying to aim her at a chair and making sure she didn’t put rat poison in her tea.
At last she sat enfolded in her favorite recliner, which we call “The Womb.” She had a small table beside her holding tea, water, ibuprofen, and an icepack. On the other side sat tissues, two TV remote controls, and an iPad. Two cats drowsed across her legs and tummy. I crept off to let her sleep. She called me back, wanting to know how long she should leave on the icepack, how long she should leave it off before putting it on again, and what time she could stop using the thing altogether. I answered her questions and resumed my creeping.
Over the next few hours, when I checked she was sometimes asleep and sometimes not. The TV played programs occasionally interesting enough for her to look at. I brought her some yogurt, which was good exercise since she had to repel a cat attempting to seize it. Evening found her vertical and in the kitchen, stable on her feet, and talking about food.
“I don’t know why I’m so tired,” she said with perfect sincerity.
“You went through a lot today. And you had a lot of Ativan.”
As she selected a tomato she did not reply, and she gave no sign that she accepted my hypothesis.
I tried again. “It’ll probably take a little while to recover. They carved a big hole in your head.”
She didn’t look up from slicing her tomato. “When I had my tooth pulled I didn’t feel like this.”
“Well, this was a different procedure. This was probably harder on you.”
She didn’t respond.
I considered reiterating that she’d swallowed enough Ativan to kill a pony. But I realized that my arguments meant nothing stacked against her determination to press on and function, even if wild dogs were chewing off her leg. She’s a rock. You can drill a big hole in a rock, and it just keeps rolling.
So, instead I kissed her head on the side away from the new hole. “I imagine you’ll feel better soon.”
She flipped me a smile that was a bit pained on the left side. “Thanks for doing the kitty litter.”
When I decided to become a writer, I received a license to whine. More correctly, I gave myself a license to aggravate everyone I know with my whining. They can’t shut me up, unless they want to beat me to death with my laptop and toss my body in a ditch. I think they don’t do that because I threw a great New Year’s party one time, and they’re hoping I’ll throw another one.
I whine about having no ideas, having bad ideas, not enough time to write, how much time writing takes, writing myself into a corner, hating the characters I created, having to kill characters I love, not knowing how to end a story, finishing a story and being depressed about leaving it, and reading books that make me realize everything I’ve ever written sucked. But my most profound whining comes when friends and family fail to show a slavering interest in my work and my writing process.
Perhaps a friend never gives me feedback on the 200,000 word monster I forced on her. Maybe a friend took three months to review my story, when I know that during that time he read someone else’s novel in two days. I may know that a friend read my book until four pages from the end and then let it sit on the desk for a week. Some friend may finish and point out a dozen typos, and when I press for details all she says is, “I really liked it.”
At these times I become dejected, and I whine. The fact that other friends provide me fantastic help doesn’t seem to lift my gloom.
But today I realized something. Writing isn’t an ego-boosting activity. Writing isn’t a holy calling worthy of everyone’s attention. Writing is a job. How many people have jobs about which they expect their friends to get all enthused? Sure, all of my friends read, so I expect them to be interested in my writing. But say I was a plumber. All of my friends use the toilet, but I wouldn’t expect them to get excited about how I replaced a P-trap at work today.
So I’m resolving to whine less and work more. Perhaps my friends will stop pretending they’ve snorted salsa up their nose when I approach them at parties. That would be nice. I just have to keep in mind that when I’m writing, it’s no more than the social equivalent of fixing a toilet.
Magical Lover, a new paranormal romance by Karilyn Bentley hit the internet today. I know Karilyn, and if you’re a fan of this genre then you’ll definitely want to check it out. It’s published by The Wild Rose Press, and is available in a sparkling array of electronic formats at