Questions we always ask, but hate to answer.

Basically, I've been asked a lot of questions in my day... and after having my job relocate itself to the third state in the country on my list of "States I don't want to go to" I'm in the market for a new job.  Lots of self reflection, lots of resume lying buffing.

Basically, there's always these questions people ask you in life, that you ask people, and we all hate them so very, very hard.  Here's a few I've actually found answers for.

"What do you do?/What do you do these days?"
This always sounds like an inoccuous question, like general concern or interest.  Usually, it's just a set up.  You say "Not much" or "working" and they then ramble about what they're doing, because they only wanted you to repeat the question back to them, so they could ramble on about their so very important life.  Know that at this point, it's not a conversation, but them bragging/complaining. 

Unless, they actually want you to explain what you do...

For all of us, unless we're in a very small and select field, this question makes us feel like processed shit.  Because unless you're a doctor, firefighter, or licsenced orphan rescuer, this question will force us to justify our lives to this person, who is so far removed from us, they don't know what we do.

It's multiple choice from hell, if you answer wrong, they're going to hold it against you, and you know it.

My answer: I tell them what I DO, not what I do to pay bills.  If those two are one in the same for you, you selected correctly on the test.  Well done.

I reply that I'm a martial art instructor, which leads us into the next question...

"What do you teach?/What do you (Insert your job here)"
This is where they, a layman, asks you the details of your highly specialized job that you think easy.  Every try explaining an easy thing to someone? It's ironically not easy.  They always ask what I teach, and nine out of ten times, they've only heard of Karate, Kung Fu, and possibly tae bo.  Out of the thousands of martial arts available in the world, they know of the basic name of this one they heard of from TV. 

I usually just say "Kung Fu" now, because it's easier than explaining Wing Chun, or the fact I focus more on sword work.  Most people have never heard of Wing Chun, and most people think swords only existed in England for six months during the dark ages, or in Japan.  That, and if I heard one more "I thought Wang Chung was a band..." joke, I'm going to start handing out free "lessons" to people I'm introduced to.

A quote I was told in high-school was this; "A bore, when asked how their day was, will tell you."  which I found to be one of the most idiotic quotes.  Because if hearing about my day will bore you, then why did you ask?

As a people, we need to stop having vestigial questions.  Or, at least have snappier comebacks to them, especially to those "people" who ask you "how's it going?" in passing, as they pass you, and then walk away.

I just say "Baking soda" and walk on. 

Stab you with a granola bar...

If you were unfortunate enough as myself to grow up being fit and healthy, you've likely come across this weird form of hatred: Fat people will make your life a living hell.

It's odd, not so much the fact that they will go out of their way to make you feel like less of a person (<-- pun), but that the ways they go about it are just damn hilariously bad. You'd think they'd be better at insults...

"Metabolism": This has always been a favorite of mine, to assume that it's not the fact that I run, or never eat at McDonald's as to why I'm not 200lbs, but Divine Providence that I, should be thin. Here's how my metabolism works: I eat, until I'm rather not hungry, then I stop. If I've eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner... I don't eat another meal late at night. I'll wait till morning. Sure, I've been told it's depriving myself of simple pleasures in life... but I also like being able to jump high.

"Breaking me": I've never given the "What The Fuck" face as hard as when a large girl has turned to me and pronounced "I'd be afraid of breaking you." Insulting on two levels here; one, that by this point in the conversation, -this- is the reason that will determine whether or not we have sex. Two: that since I'm in good shape, -this- is your reasoning for why we're not going to have sex. This leads to the next one...

"I'm twice your size!" This one almost always comes from fat guys with beards. I don't know what it is about that particular combo, but it leads to this conversation, every damn time: "I could crush you in a fight man... you're tiny and I'm huge!" Yes, because my weight and size being a product of me spending my entire life training in martial arts, is completely eclipsed by you spending yours eating too much.

See, I have nothing against fat people, I really don't. I just have a problem with the ones that go out of their way to make -me- feel terrible for not being fat. I don't insult fat people, even though I'd be damn good at it. Honestly, I don't care if you were made fun of in high-school by skinny kids... I was made fun of in high-school by fat kids, only now you're an adult and it's considered wrong to tease you about your weight, but I'm still fair game.

Go anywhere on Facebook and you'll see it, hatred against people who aren't fat. I don't mean people who are deathly skinny, to the point where you can see the sockets for their bones, but if you can see the side of the bottom ribs (which by the way only is unseeable when the person's muscle mass has decreased to the point where it folds over that exact part), they're called "hideous."

How many saw those pictures where they show people who were called "Curvy" 30 years ago, against people who are considered "Skinny" now, and use it to insult the skinny ones? I didn't see Hepburn in that picture next to Monroe... I wonder why? She's probably a bad choice considering she was tiny.

I get this an awful lot, but not as much as girls. I -will- rage when I see women being treated like this. Too fat, too skinny, not good enough, there's a magical number that fits 3% of body types that's allowed to be "fine", it's the exact body type of a 16 year old. Wonderful, you're creating a culture where teenagers are the only acceptable body type for women, and for men it's fat, older men.

Some people may take offense at this, because they're fat. One will notice that I haven't used "big boned, husky, or big" to describe any of them. Because if I'm "skinny" "scrawny" or my absolute favorite from a man who couldn't make it up the stairs without a break to breathe "a pit chested stick boy", if I'm all that... you're fat.

Livin' La vida Marriage

The news of your friends breakup always hits in a strange way, part of you always saw it coming, that part that remembers every single flaw your friend has, along with the flaws you noticed with this new person in their lives... but also in another way.

You start to look at your own significant other in that manner.

As you get older, this gets easier to deal with, hell in high-school, the moment one person broke up with someone, the entire hierarchy of relationships in the school was weakened. Everyone re-evaluating their own social and relation standings based on this new development.

Past college, you hardly notice anymore. One day, that other person just isn't there anymore.

Then it happens... one of you gets married, and the world shifts. Marriage is sort of a strange happenstance for all friendship circles, because now, you've a new recruit that isn't just going to be tossed away after a bad fight. You marry the person, you marry their friends.

Making a significant other disown friends as a part of marriage is the fast track to divorce/shallow graves, because they were here first. I luckily don't have this problem, but I know those that do.

So I think about the oddities of marriage, how now I get up on my day off, and decide to do the dishes. Not because they need to be done, or the smell has finally pissed off the mechanics across the street to the point where they're leaving passive-aggressive notes, no, I do it because I want to see the look on her face. And because she's kinda scary when she's angry.

The weird part of wandering around my apartment, knowing that while it's mine, she'll be back to it. She won't knock, she won't call before hand, she'll just walk in like she owns the place. Key Note: She does.

I see my non-married friends now, and they're alien to me. They do things I can't comprehend anymore. They get numbers from girls... I haven't asked a girl for her number in six years.

I don't sit around, talking about things with them anymore as an equal, something I loved to do. Now it almost always turns to marriage talks... and they lead me into it. I used to think that married men seemed to always talk about it, but now that I'm the married one, I notice just how much they don't know about things that are obvious... and they ask questions about it I didn't know I asked then, but do now.

I think about Hannigan, me a married me with no kids, him a single father. Our conversations are just weird these days... and no one else understands it when they're there. It's unique to us, two men who understand eachother in ways usually reserved for married couples, with completely different lots in life, our conversations are light years beyond what others can know.

The strangest part, that so many of my friends don't understand from either of us anymore, are the choices we make, or really, don't make. So many comedians make a living off of joking about "women making all the choices and being in charge" and single guys laugh and say that marriage is about losing control, and married men laugh at those single guys.

When I was in college, in my dorm, my computer was against the wall, why? Fuck it because. It was there when I moved in, it stayed there till I moved out. No need to move it, because I didn't care about it. Why should I care? I put things where I wanted them to be, and that was it. It either looked good, or terrible, but it looked how I cared it looked. If I didn't care where something went, I just put it someplace and ignored it.

Now, there's someone who might just care about where that is, so I let them do it. It's addicting. I don't care what's for dinner, as long as it's food I'll eat. If I want a pizza, I'll bring that up, but it's not really something I'm passionate about. I have all the power I never had as a child in my parents home... and I give so much of it away because I just don't care about where the TV goes, as long as I can plug my Xbox into it. I think people forget this when they talk of marriage and loss of choice. We don't lose anything that we want.

So, these days, I don't do much with my unmarried friends... because they're just not up to speed. It's like hanging out with an unemployed person, when you work full time; they just don't understand why you can't go out at 2am to a bar. Same concept, but it's not that I work in the morning, I just don't need to go to a bar to get drunk. I can do that at home, watch tv where I can actually hear it, and the food isn't shit. What's the point of dropping $20 at a bar? When it's free at home? Because at the bar, you can pick up girls.
At the club, the concert and all other manner of places I went as a single guy to find a girl... I don't do anymore and they all still do. You forget how much of your time was spent trying to find a girl... that you've got so much extra once you're married... that you end up just doing the dishes between episodes of Scrubs, just because.

In the end, I find a lot of my old hobbies have been shelved... like the SCA, my wife isn't the biggest fan... and you'd be amazed how much of my time was spent just... trying to get a girl to take off her corset. My unmarried friends don't understand this at all... which is fine for them now. But remember, I now have introduced this idea into your lives, you can't hide from it. By just knowing me, you're more likely to get married... your time is coming...

New Year: Same Resolution.

What was your resolution this year? Mine's the same it was last year. I don't resolve to lose a few pounds, or hit the gym more, or to smile more, spent less on clothing, finally quit that habit I've had for a while.

No, mine's harder. Every year, I renew my resolution of "Being a Better Man." Not person, but Man. Everything I do, next time I do it; I do it better than before.

I did twenty push-ups yesterday, I'll do twenty today, but I'll do them with a cleaner form, with less strain on my arms and more full body. In a word; better.

It's not day to day, it's moment to moment. I strive to learn from every success and failure, and be better for it. If you saw me a few days ago, I'm a better man today than I was then.

Spelling, grammar, typing, and vocabulary: Better.

Style, form, practical application: Better.

Dishes, cleaning, remembering things: Better.

For every moment of this entire year, I have to be better than I was the last. It means that everything I do, I do at my best, so the next time I'm better than that. I fight, I live, I love, I write and see the world, better than the last moment I was in it.

Do I fail at this? Sometimes, yes. I consider each and every day that I -don't- publish or write the worlds' greatest novel a failure to do so. I will continue to fail at this until I succeed, because I can fail 10,000 times for each success, and still consider myself a success. Because a man is only a failure when he gives up. I refuse to give up. Because I choose not to.

To speak of choice, while I'm here, I also speak of active choices in day to day life. Prime example:

My brother can't figure out my relationship with my family, despite being a part of it. He has stated numerous times that I, do in fact, romanticize my life with them. That I don't remember the bad things, or that I wasn't there for some of them. He's wrong; here's why:

I was there for numerous bad times, which won't be put here because I don't care to. Not out of some mental block, but because I just don't care about them anymore. Yes we were poor, yes dad was sometimes too strict, yes mom drank. Yes, I have emotional scarring from all that, but I've also got a scar from when my own cat scratched me, that shows brighter than any sword related wound I've acquired, and I fucking loved that cat.

My mother, was a drunk for the last years of my teens. Crazy drunk, the kind that caused enormous problems with the entire family. I can easily put this for the world to see, because the world saw her then, as it sees her now; a functioning alcoholic, who hasn't had a drink in years.

Bam.

Was it hard to be there during that time? Being the only person besides my father in that house for most of it? Yes, very much yes. Do I hold it against her? Not at all. I completely forgive her for it.

Why? Because I feel like forgiving her for it, and I don't need a grander reason. I felt like saying "yes, it sucked, but it sucks significantly less now, so fuck it, I forgive you." Cost me nothing when I decided to, costs me nothing now, and I now play Xbox with my mom, and slaughter bandits. I couldn't do that if I held things against her.

You don't forgive because it's the right thing to do, you don't because Jesus says so, or because someone did something to make it up to you. You do it just because. If someone had to do something to make you forgive them, it's not real. My mom didn't do anything to beg my forgiveness... she asked, but I had already done so.

I forgive, because I can. Not everyone can pull that off, but I know I can forgive people, while still being mad at them, so I do. I feel better for it, they feel better for it, and the world gets one less problem in it.

I live up to my resolution with that, because things are better every time.

Character Focus

I've spent a great deal of time in my life, making characters.

Whether for stories, games, or just sheer boredom, I love building a character from the ground up. I've written back stories for characters that will never be revealed, they just exist in a different world that will be referenced on occasion. It's how I roll.

I play WoW, and I write long, detailed backstories to every character I play. Every. One. Through this they have a sense of self, and a motivation that many never understand, but to drive it home, I never spout it out at the first chance given.

For some, a backstory is a platform to leap from, for others; it's a secret without being a magical twist later on.

One of them, has a long history of pain and suffering, brought on mostly by their own bitterness. It's not a redemption story, and he never "finds peace". He simply finds a measure of contentment and goes on with his life, when asked why he does things, he simply replies "because."

I've met people who spill their life story like a toddler with a cup at the slightest provocation. Which is at the same time strange, and sort of realistic. But not this guy, he refuses. Even to people who know him, who understand him, he just doesn't talk about it. He has a friend, who does however, so his story is out there, but you'll never get it out of him.

That is depth, that is how one creates a character that isn't two dimensional, by giving them a motive for life beyond plot development.

From the "Iron Rose", a few of the characters follow this mentality, the way of having their own story that's bursting at the seams, but never is quite spelled out.

No one knows why Izo so willingly quits his job and signs up with Rose.

No one knows why Hafwen lives alone, and has no other friends, despite all her positive qualities.

No one even knows Rose's parents names.

The beginning of this thought train came from a video game I recently bought; Prototype. Its' narrative is... confusing at best, it gives literally less motive for anything your character does than anything I've seen since the first Mario Bros.

You wake up in a morgue, two guys say your name and run away. The military kills them, and then sees you, a walking corpse, and shoots you. You don't die, because you're fucking Zeus. No really, their codename for you is Zeus.

While all that would cause a game to be terrible, this game gets one thing right above all others: you feel like everything they say about you is spot on. You move through the city with an ease that makes Spider-man jealous, while you're not invincible, you may as well be if you're clever.

You can lift a truck, and freerun with it up the side of a building, and throw it two blocks.

It all fits, you're amazing, you're god-like, and it just fits the story (what little you get to know about) so very finely that you forgive it's shortcomings.

It's like the Doctor Who of super violent games.

Writers and Magicians

When you say "I'm a writer" people tend to nod their heads, and ask what you've written.

When you say "I'm an aspiring writer", most people tend to take a second, to figure out what aspiring means, before asking what sort of stories you write.

There's a difference in there, that there's a measure of respect that comes with the first one, that makes all the difference. In the second, they ask it out of politese, and pray you don't actually answer. A simple "oh this and that..." is what the vast majority want to hear.

When you're a full fledged author, it's different. There's a respect in their question, even if you wrote a children's book about "not poopin' in the tub!" it's an achievement they respect.

And they're right to.

Writing is easy, it just sort of happens when you think with your hands. If you've ever spoken in your life, you've written something in words. It's that simple. The various degrees of difficulty come in when you actually expect the rest of the world to give a shit.

Because they don't have to.

John-boy was told "it's an arrogant thing to be a writer, to assume that the world wants to read what you write" and it's very true. I was bored at work, so I wrote a story while wandering around an art museum. Years later, I'm working on publishing that very story. Imagine that.

I actually will require people to give me money, to be given the privelage to read 580 pages born out of my boredom. Good Gravy, that's some ballsy balls right there.

I was bored, threw this together when I couldn't sleep, you should pay me for it. Damn...

While it's not that bad, it's in a sense very much that bad. But it's also that good. The difference between a writer and a aspiring writer is that the former's bored, inscesent ramblings actually entertained someone.

Or enriched their lives, with is the point of writing when you get down to it. Writing shouldn't be about making you smile for twenty minutes, it should be about giving you a moral, or a hopeful story that one can hold in their heart for years to come. It should shape you as a child, and temper you as an adult. Writing shouldn't be about a worthless halftime show crammed some where between eating and sleeping.

It should be a magic show; where something is pulled from nothing, and amazes the world. The audience should feel a part of the show itself, because they very much are. Every person knows magicians are just performing elaborate tricks, but while you're sitting there, watching them do impossible things, you believe.

That's what writing is about, it's about believing in the impossible, the mundane, or simply the weird for a time. Because everyone knows that the realm of magic isn't really there... but in this book it is, and if it can be there in this book, maybe it can be outside of it as well.

It's reasonable doubt for imagination, not because the writer said so, but because the audience said so.

That's what the audience do for the magic trick, without them reading the story, living the story, there's no trick if there's no one to show it to.

They make the difference by reading, the difference between an aspiring writer, and an author.

Sex, Drugs, and Lack Thereof.

Read an article today about children, and one of the points that stood out to me, was about how to talk to them about drugs. I had to comment on this, and I never comment on forums.

My father won this part of my childhood, with a simple short speech.

No matter where I was, what I had done/taken/broken, one call and he could come get me. My own personal extraction team in a beat up two-door. If I was drunk, high, bare-assed naked and running from the cops, one call was all it took to get me home.

My father was a Hearthstone.

He told me that he wouldn't yell, punish, or even question what I was doing... until the morning, but by then I'd of had time to think of a decent excuse... and it better have been decent. This is also the man who accepted: "they were damn hot" as an excuse.

Here's the weird part; it worked. I was never big into drugs or alcohol. Hell I was a full fledged adult before I even tried a drug, or smoked (it was at the same time as well).

Somehow, having the support and trust of my father, made it really easy to just brush off peer pressure. I didn't even have the fear of "if I do this, I ruin that trust..." because you always think "by even coming here I've broken it..." you're a teen, you're angsty, it's a tailspin.

But not me, I knew that all I had to do to secure and prove that trust was well kept, was to simple call him, and let him bail me out. In one small paragraph of dialogue, my father out witted an entire generation of shit-headed teens who tried to get me to be shit headed with them. He basically said he'd be an accomplice, to whatever I did, a getaway driver.

As to the Drug incident, I was out of college by that time, I was with two hot girls who said "hey, you should try this" and I did. I did it for really two reasons, number One being that I wanted to know what it was like, before I told my kids whether or not to avoid it. Then Pot failed me. Here are the top three reasons:
3: It tasted like trying to deepthroat a car muffler. Hot, smokey, and sharp. Three things that should never go down your throat.
2: It didn't really "enhance colors and sound", because the movie I can't remember, is not remembered as "enhanced."
1: with a bullet: it didn't lead to a threesome. We watched a forgettable movie instead. Seriously, a recreational substance cannot fail you this much, and still be fun.

I've had a better time with gummy worms: They tasted like candy, because they were. They were brightly colored. And my girlfriend at the time like to use them as weird making out accessories.

So you see, future spawn of mine, Gummy Worms completely pwn Pot. They're also cheaper, and you don't have to talk to a sketchy dumbass to get them.