Compared to teenage girls, I'm a fat slob.

Nothing makes you feel more fat than having to stand near a teenage girl. They are almost like real people, that is to say they are proportionality the same as adults, just at a smaller scale. They are like. 1:.75 scale. It doesn't work with teenage boys because they are roughly normal sized, but teenage girls are just small.

I need to lose weight. My dad has diabetes and I am roughly turning into the same shape he was before he got healthy and lost weight. I do a lot of walking but that is just barely enough to keep up with my ridiculous diet of bacon cheeseburgers, cookies, and deep fried fat. I really don't want to get diabetes so I have to lose weight.

The thing is I don't feel old enough for this kind of stuff yet. I'm old enough not to get excited about summer anymore because I still have to work only now it's hot, but I'm not old enough to really take health issues seriously. I can't see me having a heart attack. I still watch cartoons and sometimes I pretend I'm an army guy. I can't have a heart attack like that, right?

I think I'm done playing world of warcraft. It's just not fun anymore. I've leveled a few characters all the way to the top and the only next step is to do their high-end raiding which requires more commitment than a navy seal and I just can't see myself doing that. I'm not DONE done. I'm sure I'll reactivate the account when exciting things happen, but I just don't have fun so why pay money for something I don't have any fun with like a light bill.

The only issue is my brother plays it and when we can play together it is really fun, but with life getting in the way we hardly ever have a chance to play.

Spring is here and I am dying because I'm allergic to all of the outdoors. In the winter I forget how bad it is and I look fondly for the summer when I can roll in the grass and run through the meadows, but when it gets warm enough I'm hold my head over a steamy sink trying to purge the pollen so I can not die.

I think part of it is my hair. Long hair could very well hold more dust and pollen to be transferred to my face, but it's impossible to tell.

My wife said my hair is too long which is probably a good a reason as any to cut it. Of course the problem with that is that everyone I see for the next six months will want to talk about it.

“Oh, hey! You cut your hair.”

“Yep.”

“When did you do that?”
“A while ago.”

“Wow... cut it all off, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Why did you do that? Just got tired of it?”

“I am joining the marines and, you know, standards and all.”

Then there are the people who take it personally.

“Oh, I liked it better long.”

“Sorry, I should have called you first.”

Or...

“Finally, it's time to grow up, eh?”

“Yeah. You are an inspiration to me and I want to be like you.”

I must be very vain. I look in the mirror and I don't see myself as fat, but when I see myself in a photo, it's awful. I hate looking at photos of myself because it's this fat guy. I hate looking at photos of me from a few years ago because the most obvious thing is how much fatter I am now.

Why don't I exorcise more? Because I'm lazy and would rather sit around. I guess there will be plenty of time to sit around when I lose a limb.

Just tell the truth.

Three Things;
I just watched a documentary on the Sherman Brothers who penned some of the best known songs of all times. It's on Netflix play it now and anyone interested in classic Hollywood or Disney should watch it. It's called “The Boys: The Sherman Brother's Story”. While the movie hits on a lot of interesting aspects to the Sherman brother's lives (they both cried when remembering how Walt Disney offered to put them on staff), the thing that struck me is this: Though they worked mainly on children's films, they never condescended to kids and they were always honest.
The film gives some of the backstories to some of the songs and they all come from a real place. The song “Let's Go Fly a Kite”, for example, came from the fact that their father took them kite flying every chance he got. “A Spoonful of Sugar” came from one of their sons coming home from school after getting an oral vaccine and saying it wasn't that bad because they put the medicine on a spoonful of sugar.
I think the real difference between an artist (or entertainer) and other people is that an artist is able to take these small slices of real life and change them into something more. Because these things come from real life, other people relate to them. I don't think it even matters if the inspiration source is familiar to the audience, so long as it is presented in a way that is honest to the artist. Life in post WWI France is as foreign to me as a Martian Brothel, but the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec speak to me because they are so very honest.

This brings me to my second point and it's about video games.
Recently a promotional video came out for a video game called “Dead Island”. The video shows a family being terrorized by zombies, which is cliché video game fodder. The difference is the tragic reverence it gives to it. Nothing about the video is cool or awesome, but it is very appealing as it digs into emotions not often found in video games.
The video became a huge sensation on the internet as people contemplated what sort of game could follow such a somber and amazing promo. In my opinion, it's the second best video game promotional video I've ever seen (the first being from The Beatles: Rock Band).
Of course the publishers of the game weren't prepared for the sensation the video would cause and find themselves in a bad situation as they try and justify how their game (which will most likely turn out to be just another zombie game) will still be good even though it doesn't hold to the emotional drama of the video.

Watch it here
And I ask myself, “Why not?”
I started playing “Heavy Rain”. So far the game has me play as a father of two kids. I wake up, brush my teeth, and work while I wait for the wife and kids to get home. When they get home I can choose to ignore them or go outside to play with them.
I take them to the mall and lose track of one of them, the older son named Jason. The only thing the game lets me do is try and navigate through a crowded mall while shouting Jason's name over and over. Jason has a balloon and I try and follow that while pushing through the crowds.
When I finally find the kid he has wandered outside and is across the street. As he runs to his dad, his is hit by a car.
Holy cow. I have NEVER been effected so much by a video game. I'm not a parent yet, but that moment struck me to the bone as it is a very close recreation to a time when I saw my grandfathers dog Lady, whom I loved like she was my own, get hit by a semi as she ran across the highway to my calling.
Video games can be honest and interesting. This scene proves that. Also, people WANT video games to be honest and interesting, the huge popularity for the Dead Island trailer proves that. Why don't more video game companies give us honest, compelling, stories? Are they afraid of the emotional nakedness that comes with true art or are they afraid of all the money they would make from it?
I don't know. I wish there were more truly interesting video game stories out there.
My third point has nothing to do with the first two.
A recent youtube video shows an Australian school kid finally fight back to bullies. The story is pretty cool. The kid, apparently, has been picked on for years and this is the first time he fought back. Kudos to him. I was a huge target for bullies for years and years in school and it warms the heart to see a spiritual brother defend himself.

watch it here
Of course I had my family to back me up, in elementary school especially, but still, being the target of a bully is hell on earth. I won't get into the physical, mental, and emotional torture bully victims go though, this isn't the time for that.
I do what to talk about the “Zero Tolerance” most schools have when it comes to violence. To put it simply, it's a load of crap. Because of this policy, the kid who stood up for himself was punished right along with his tormentors.
This is what happens. A group of kids bully one kid. They push him over, trip him, torment him in class, punch him and then walk away, beat him up during lunch, whatever. If the kid being bullied tells a teacher he makes it worse on himself and the teacher usually doesn't do anything because they knew it was going on in the first place.
This is a huge truth that people don't like to admit. Teachers know that bullying goes on. They know who the bullies are and they know who is being bullied. They may not see the actual events go down, but they see the practical outcome in their class.
So this goes on. Finally, one day, the bullied kid loses it, or gets fed up, or whatever, and fights back. Once the one-sided bullying becomes an actual two-sided fight then people HAVE to notice. And what happens then? Because of the Zero Tolerance policy, both kids, the bully and the bullied, are punished. One for being a royal dick, and the other for finally having the courage to stand up for themselves.
The only time I got in any real trouble at school was when I stood up for myself against the bullies.
This is stupid and lazy on the part of schools. Why not actually take a look at the situation before hiding behind some half-assed policy to dollop out some cookie-cutter punishment. Schools can feel warm and fuzzy with such a policy in place, but the actuality of it only punishes the bullied when they stand up for themselves.
It's been years since high school and I still bristle up when topics like this come up. But since the school system is nestled sweetly in itself and bad teachers are protected by their union and tenure, nothing will happen to change it.
Blah. Now I'm in a bad mood. I'll finish this post with a warm story that the Sherman Brothers documentary reminded me of, though it isn't about Sherman Brothers music.
It's about John Lennon's music.
When I was a senior in high school, my dad and I couldn't really communicate anymore. I hated the farm and he loved it. Neither one of us could see the others point of view and the end result was one huge fight after another. It was that stupid high school time where I didn't really know what I wanted out of life, but I knew I didn't want what my father had.
Anyway, like I said, we couldn't talk.
We went to see the movie “Mr. Holland's Opus” with the family. In one scene they play John Lennon's “Beautiful Boy” Some of the words go:
“I can hardly wait to see you come of age,
But until then I guess we'll both just have to be patient.”
watch it here
Again, this song came from a real place for Lennon who wrote it for his own son.
My dad, who was sitting next to me, put his hand on my knee and patted me twice. To this day I remember that and know that I always had a dad that was on my side, even if he didn't know what my side was. Thanks dad. Also, thanks John Lennon for giving my confused dad a vehicle to show a confounding son that he loved him.

On the effects of having long hair as a male

I am a guy with long hair. Just today my wife braided my hair (an exercise I am not fond of, it hurts) and braided up, the longest of my hair reaches below my shoulder blades. I can reach behind my back and grab my hair.
Why did I do this? It was an experiment. Years ago I shaved my head completely bald to see if people treated me any different. They did. Well, strangers did. I found that people in college treated me worse and “other” people treated me better.
I also found that girls who wore more revealing clothing paid more attention to me with no hair, but, whatever.
I wanted to grow my hair long since I was a kid and I'm not sure why. It wasn't really a rebellion thing, I was pretty sure my parents didn't care. I wasn't trying to model myself after some long-haired hero or something. I just though it would be, I don't know, cool.
It wasn't until I was 29 or 30 that I dared do it. Now my hair is very long and this is what I'm finding.
-People have a easier time recognizing me. Sure, now I write for a paper that is delivered to every home in the city and my picture is in most of them so it stands to reason that more people recognize me because of that. But before I wrote for the paper more people went out of their way to notice me with long hair. If I was gone from church or school, way more people would comment on it when I got back than when I had normal hair.
I think this is a similar thing to something an old Polynesian girlfriend of my said about being a minority. If a white kid skips class, no one notices. If a dark kid skips class, everyone notices because there was only one dark kid in class to begin with.
-People tend to be nicer to me. I don't know why. In my ego I think it's because I look so dang cool and people want to be friends with the cool guy.
-People assume I'm liberal, non-religious, or a hippie. This I understand. It's a stereotype and it's part of life. Before I had to wear glasses it was worse. Without my glasses I really look like a hippie. With glasses I look like an intellectual.
-Jobs. I've had 2 job interviews with long hair and I got both of the jobs. One was for the reporter position at my current newspaper and the other was for a reporter position at The Daily Spectrum which I got but turned down because they lied about what the job would be. I don't know if I am brave enough in this concept to keep my hair long if I was applying for a government job the like, but a journalism job, or even a teaching job I'd be fine with. I don't look trashy. I keep my hair clean and whatnot, still I know that some jobs would not hire me with long hair, and that is their prerogative. If I got a high paying job at Disney, for example, I couldn't have long hair and I would cut it.
-Wind sucks. I don't know how most women with long hair do it. I go for a walk in the wind and hair is everywhere. Strands of hair slap across my eyeballs. It gets in my mouth and up my nose. It fills with dust and pollen which keeps me sneezing well into the night unless I wash my hair a couple times a day, which I do. Even if I put it into a ponytail, errant strands whip out and flock around my face.
-Ponytails. I don't like the way I look in them. Some guys look like computer programmers or rock stars with ponytails. I look like Thomas Jefferson which isn't a very hip look. I let my hair hang down and, except for in cases of high wind, it's never an issue.
-Care. I wash and condition my hair. I dry it with a towel. I brush it. That's it. It takes slightly longer to get ready than when I had no hair. Brushing your hair can hurt sometimes. Now I know why my sisters would throw fits as little girls when my mom tried to de-ratnestify their hair.
-I'm not sure when to cut it. I know haircuts have to happen. Even people with long hair get haircuts. I'm just not sure when to get one. My hair is very healthy. I don't have spit ends, so there is no real reason for a trim, right? Am I missing something? How long is too long? Is the song right when it says that it will stop by itself?
-I like it. I want to keep it. I think it looks better than any haircut I ever had. I know I won't keep it forever, my hair will probably fall out someday and nothing is worse than bald on top with long hair on the sides. Still, I dig the way it looks right now. I'm happy with it. I'm not happy with a lot about how I look. I'm not happy with my weight. I'm not happy with my constantly greasy, zit-covered skin. But I do like the way my hair looks. So I'm going to keep it for a while.

the first post in a year.

So I'm going to do this business again. I kept thinking that I wanted to start blogging again but never did because it would be somewhat embarrassing for a writer to start a blog then not write in it for more than a year, then start again.

But what the hey. No one reads this anyway.

So. I'm a writer. It's what I do. I do it everyday. I don't get published hardly at all, but I do it.

I'm starting a new surge of submitting my “ALB!” novel as one of its core concepts and there has been quite of bit of that in the news lately. BUT, it's still a young adult novel that does NOT deal with supernatural supersexy gooey love stories. Meh. We'll see. It's a good story and I know it will get picked up eventually once the market shifts.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a graphic novel with Jeremy Christiansen. It's a larger takeoff on a short story I wrote awhile ago called “The Orange Analogy”. The basic premise is that there is an alternate dimension full of creatures humans consider mythological. The story itself is coming along quite well and consists of some great characters. The artwork that Jeremy is doing is fantastic. It's very exciting to see the brain-mush come out visually.

Another friend of mine, Tyler Cole, and I are starting a collaboration for a graphic novel as well. This one is a sci-fi story staring a normal person. I think I'd like to call it “The Plumber from Earth” and have it be about a plumber who ends up in the middle of huge intergalactic issue with the fate of worlds in the the balance.

AAAAANNNNDDDDD THAT is what I am working on.

Oh. I gave up on Twilight. I just couldn't do it. It was like trying to force myself to be a vegan while beautiful steak was all around me. I have been reading Terry Pratchett books and that has been awesome.

AND this is what it is going to be like here.

Dilbert comic strip for 02/22/2010 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

Dilbert comic strip for 02/22/2010 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

Half of higher education was this.

So very, very tired.

I just got done writing about all about the crazy Iron County sports scene and I'm tired. Sundays are tough because between church and the last minute interviews and writing I need to do to meet my deadlines; I can't sleep during the day. Then I have to work Sunday night. Every week I get a good 24 hours of wakefulness. It doesn't really suck anymore, after a while most things, like my vacuum, stop sucking.

I’m moving along in Twilight and laughing most of the way though.

Okay, if you like Twilight and are reading this please tell me: Why do they like each other?

This is what I gather: Bella likes (excuse me, loves beyond all comprehension) Edward because he is a vampire and is able to trance people into liking him. Edward likes (loves to death) Bella because he can’t read her mind.

What?!

Is there more I’m missing? They never really enjoy each other’s company. They go between being pissed at each other to being hopelessly and over dramatically attracted to each other. Sure, there is the whole two days where Edward questions Bella on every detail of her life, but that seemed more like Edwards bully nature than an honest interest.

Do either of them stop complaining? Bella talks endlessly about how she just wants to be with Edward, then throws a hissy because she has to hike for a few miles. Ugh.

Also, Man this book is sexual. I’ve never read such a sexual book where the two main characters don’t hardly touch each other.

I’m going to get a bit personal here.

I lived in Florida for a while and while there I had the unusual experience of being the object of several girls’ attention. Part of the reason was that I was one of three straight single guys working at Disney World, but another part of it was that I was a known virgin. Girls liked to know that they could lead me along for as far as they wanted and I’d always keep them safe. They would try and push me to the edge just to see if I’d turn away before it was too late (If mom is reading this I never went further than a gentleman should go, and I never went as far as they would have wanted me to go [if someone apart from my mother is reading this then it’s still true. I was raised thinking that going “all the way” meant a trip to Disneyland and “hooking up” meant meeting someone for burgers]).

The point being: I know that some women are attracted to the guy who, though capable of dangerous things (sex, and all guys are), they can feel safe with them.

Of course basing a relationship on that in the context of fiction is very superficial and 2 dimensional. I’m hoping for Edward to come out and say “You know what Bella, I’m tired of being such a jerky, overbearing brute. I like you because….” and then give a real reason.

Okay, not going to happen.

And there are HOW many books after this one?

Oh! I got to the part where he shows how he sparkles in the sun. It was just as embarrassing to read as I imagined.

Slogging Blogging

It's just so... bad.

I've had to slog my way though hundreds of books in college, but Twilight instills this deep sense of.... like when you are starving but the food you have to eat is not tasty or nutritious AND it takes a long time to prepare. Also, better food is all around you ready to eat. I'll do it, I feel a challenge to do it, but it may take longer. I can only do it if I let my mind have vacations with better things around.

Tonight I started watching the TV show "V" and I kind of like it. Overacted, yes, but anything that finds an obscure internet conspiracy and uses it as a premise for an entire series has my vote.

My own story is lingering in that strange place between character and plot. I have this vague sense that it is good, I just don’t know what it is. I have all these really compelling images and scenes in my head, as well as characters, but I don’t know what ties them all together yet.

Also, World of Warcraft is awesome and I like to play it. I’d say I play it too much, but I’ve written three frackin’ novels in the last few years. That’s most than most novelists, WHILE I was going to school. I think I’m okay as far as video game time goes.

Also, the word “frack” and any derivative thereof is from the TV show “Battlestar Galactica”. It is used as their futuristic swear word and highlights the absurdity that some words are considered bad and some are considered good. I don’t swear as a general rule, and I never use the name of God in vain, but I like frack. It sounds enough like a bad word to make people stop, and then dismiss immediately, which is stupid really. Someone said to me, “If you mean it, why don’t you just say it?” It’s all so relative as to render it absurd. And the way people swear is just funny. It’s suppose to be edgy, but is something really edgy when virtually everyone does it? The opposite of edge is, flat, as in the EDGE of this knife is no more. It is now FLAT. So if everyone uses the edgy words, they are no longer edgy, right? Why do people get away with this? Same thing with sex, but that’s another topic for another day.

I assured her that if I ever did mean it I would say it. It being the other swear word that starts with a letter F. The “Eff” word. The F-dash-dash-dash word. In the words of Ralphie, FFFFFUUUUUDDGGGEEEE.

Twilight is funny, it uses the word “crow” for Bella’s swear word, which is so farfetched and stupid as to render it adorable, like a differently-abled puppy trying to argue for libertarianism. Everyone knows that it won’t work, but the effort is just so scrappy you have to smile.

I’ve never heard any American person use the word crow as an exclamatory. I’ve heard it twice apart from that. First was from an old Australian man who said. “Stone the Crows, It’s hot.” And the second time was from British playwright Andrew Lloyd Webber’s show “Joseph and the Amazing… and so forth” where Pharaoh says “Stone the crows, this Joseph is a clever kid.”

The saying makes no sense, but that’s the way it is with sayings from Brittan.

So Stephanie uses it because she doesn’t want her characters to swear, which only dips this story deeper into the shellac of unreality.

“But it’s about vampires,” a fan my say. “It’s not supposed to be realistic.”

Yes it is. Every story is suppose to be realistic. Even if you clone dinosaurs, have zombies, and show Hitler winning the war, it has to be done in a way so that the dinosaur riding zombie Nazis can exist in a world that we believe in. This realism is created by the little things. The way people talk or the way scenery is described. The books characters read or the conversations they steer away from. The way light shines though a leaf or the swear words they use.

I love Stephen King’s books because they seem so realistic to me. Not that I believe a vampire could exist, but because his characters and locations are so methodically put forth that I believe what happens.

Another good example of this is the book “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” by Cory Doctorow (which you can read and download for free by clicking here, it’s not stealing, he allows people to do this). This book is a scifi book about a future where death is a minor inconvenience and you wear your reputation on your sleeve for everyone to see and rank. The story could never happen, but it is set in Walt Disney World and the culture and setting is perfect enough that you believe it. Then the fantastic stuff just happens.

So, the popularity of Twilight must mean that lots of people relate to the story or to Bella as a person. As I’ve said before, people don’t act like that EVER, so it has to be something else.

I think it’s sex, but as I said, that is another story for another time.