Big Man

I have ants in my shower. And only in my shower. And only, like, one ant at a time. I know it's not the exact same ant because I've killed a few of them. But then I've let a few of them live too, because I'm beneficent.
   I wonder what they think of me. Assuming they can register the concept of me, since I'm so much larger than they are. It would be like me trying to conceive of a two-mile-tall person, a concept I can't even begin to get my head around. And I wonder what they think of the shower with its expanses of white tiles like acres of porcelain Heaven. I also wonder how they're getting in there, since I don't see ants anywhere else in the house. If you see one or two or three you know there are many more somewhere else. Ants don't go it alone.
   I also feel guilty for subjecting them to what must be the worst hurricane they've ever experienced. There's almost always one ant in the shower no matter when I get in, and they're gone when I'm done. Which means they must be - whoosh! - down the drain.
   Does that ant's best friend miss it when it doesn't come back from foraging? Do the others organize search parties? Have I unwittingly become the ant Bermuda Triangle? Do ant conspiracy theorists believe aliens are spiriting their brethren away when in fact it's just me trying to wash off the day's grime? These are the thoughts that keep me awake sometimes.
   Mostly, though I wonder what ants must think of my junk. I mean, really, my wiener has to be immense to them. Truly gargantuan on a scale that's like nothing they've ever seen. Maybe that's it... they've come to pay their respects. Like a cargo cult. For my penis. Sure, let's go with that.

There Oughta Be A Pill...

I don't usually take drugs. And I don't mean just crack, I don't take regular medication of any kind. Aspirin now and then, when I have an ache or my head hurts from giving up soda yet again. But I was sitting in traffic today behind a person who WOULD NOT GO THE SPEED LIMIT -- grrr -- and I thought, 'there should be a pill that person could take to realize that if the sign says 45 she doesn't have to go 30.'
   It's a modern conceit. Just take a pill to solve the problem. Quick and easy, relatively painless unless the pill goes down sideways, and very American in its simplicity. Why work to fix something when you could just take drugs?
   And the floodgates opened. Here's a list of things that could be solved by better application of modern pharmacology.

Notaloneicin - makes you realize that there are, in fact, other people in the world who may not want to be held hostage to your whims. Perfect for people who leave their shopping carts in the center of the aisle.

Quitchabitchin - provides for relief of kids who have always gotten their way when they find out that the world doesn't hand out participation ribbons.

Getalongopril - specifically for elected officials who believe their mandate is to oppose rather than to compromise. We'd need a lot of this one. A LOT.

Compassionalitril - used to allow the self-righteous to walk a mile in the shoes of someone less fortunate. It's easy to be a smug judge when you have no idea of someone else's situation.

Thinkaminit - designed for bureaucrats who blindly adhere to the formula of their job instead of the overall intent. If we made it with an aerosol delivery vector we could gas the DMV and solve everyone's problem overnight.

Dontbeadoucheatall - for CEOs and finance jackasses who imagine their sole purpose is to line their own pockets, not to protect the American financial system. I'm also thinking this might be better used like rat poison, sprinkled on ill-gotten gains so the greedy bastards will just curl up and die.

Free Research

I've been thinking lately, and here are some topics that would make really good Master's theses or even PhD dissertations. I provide them free of charge, just mention my name when they award you the Nobel.

   What is the correlation between the rise of religious fundamentalism in US society as a whole and the rise of originalism in the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution? Can both these things be traced back to a single source, be it social movement or world event?

   What is an electron, precisely? If you measure an electron one way it's a particle, if you measure it another way it's a wave, which means that an electron is actually neither of those things but something else entirely. What is that thing? Same goes for the other elementary particles. And don't tell me it's a vibrating string, that's just another barely-suitable model.

   Why do people become so eager for McRib sandwiches and Shamrock Shakes? The idea is that rarity breeds desire, no secret there, or the principle of intermittent reward. But neither of those things fully explains the fan base these horrible food items have. If you can unlock the secret to why people love these two things so much you'd go a long way towards predicting human behavior.

   Why are yawns contagious? Ignore for a moment the question of why we yawn at all, I want to know why yawns are contagious across species. If I yawn in front of my dog he's probably going to yawn too. Same thing if I had a monkey, which - God willing - I will one day. What's the deal? Why does it happen?

   To what extent does the media shape and inform political discourse? And I'm not just talking about drug addict right-wingers on AM radio, I mean broadcast television, the AP, Reuters, all of them. If the media doesn't tell us about it we don't care, so how does news coverage affect our impression of the political landscape?

   What are the ethics of complete sequencing of a person's genome? I don't mean the first time scientists finished the job, I mean what are the ethical implications for sequencing mine specifically? Or yours? Or the President's? We'll be able to tell a lot more about a person from their genes in the coming years, for instance if someone has a tendency towards being a serial killer. Do we pre-emptively treat someone for being a serial killer if they have shown absolutely no tendency towards that? What are the social stigmas attached to having a serial killer gene? And if we suppress that serial killer gene - we don't allow that person to breed - what are the implications for the human genome as a whole?

I swear, I should work for a think tank. Anybody have any idea how to go about getting hired by a think tank? Maybe creating one of my own? For that matter, how did they come up with the term 'think tank' in the first place?
   So many questions...

The Underwear Dance

I danced in my underwear this past weekend.
   Well, I guess, technically speaking, any time you dance you're dancing in your underwear. As long as you're wearing underwear, that is. I mean this past weekend I took off my pants and danced in my mother's living room in my underwear. So did my brother-in-law. And, no, before you ask, there are no dark secrets between the two of us. We did it because my 2 1/2 year-old nephew asked us to.
   See, he had his pants off for some reason - probably some potty reason - and he was running around the house in his undies. Pull-ups, I believe, though my sister would know for sure. I told him that he should do the underwear dance, which he did, and I joined in. Then he told me I needed to take off my pants. Which I did, what kind of fool does the underwear dance while wearing jeans? My underwear dance was more a twist, with some funk elements thrown in, coupled to a healthy dose of white-man-overbite dancing. But it was great fun.
   I made a few New Year's resolutions a while back, and to tell you the truth I haven't accomplished one of them. But the day of the underwear dance I resolved to be more honest, like a two-year old. My nephew is delighted by the smallest things, surprises to him really are a surprise, and disappointments, while bitter, are short-lived. I should model myself on him.
   I need to take more delight in things. I need to stop being so jaded. I need to have faith in people. I need to enjoy the moments I have. I need to let go of being an adult. I need to assume a position of weakness from time to time. I need to let other people take care of me. I need to trust more. I need to laugh when things are funny and cry when they're sad. I need to hug dogs more. I need to dance when the mood strikes me. I need to run when I get the urge. I need to get a reward when I go potty.
   We'll see how things work out. Seems to me that we all need to let the two-year-old inside us loose a little now and then.

Boots On The Ground

I took a walk through my old neighborhood today. This is the place where grew up, from elementary school through post-college, streets that have years worth of my tennis shoe rubber on them, asphalt soaked in the blood of my knees and elbows, streets I don't even know the names of yet that I can navigate in my sleep. I know the area, is what I'm saying.
   But walking it, the way I used to, following the same route I trudged to high school, traversing the same alleys and back ways that took me to my first adult job as a waiter, things started coming back to me. Vignettes I hadn't thought of in years came back fresh as the day they happened, moments in time that helped form who I am today came bubbling up, demanding admission to my conscious mind.
   There was the house where Andrew had been standing outside, waiting for a kid like me to ride by on his bike. 'Mummy, I found a new playmate,' he said. Seriously, he said it like that. I was on my three-speed with the banana seat and the sissy bar, going to Winn's to see if they had any swim fins that would fit me. Andrew and his mother had just moved to town.
   Catching toads in the drainage ditch down the street a ways from Andrew's house (but not with that little weirdo), where the cement ended and the tiny stream took over. It's all paved now, but I know where the mesquite trees used to be, their branches leaning over to sweep the water that ran from a little spring.
   Walking across that same drainage ditch years later in high school with my friend Steve, only to have some kid run up and slug him. A neighbor dispute that spilled over to the kids. Which explained why Steve suddenly wanted to walk home with me the week before.
   My daily, personal Long March from high school, slogging up the hill headed for home, heavy book bag over one shoulder because using both straps was for dorks, watching as people with cars passed me by. I always held out hope that someone I knew would stop and offer me a ride but that never happened. Which is why, when I finally got a car, I would stop and give rides to people I knew, because I remembered how much it sucked to be on foot hoping for help that never came.
   That place I assumed had always been a Home Depot? Nope, they built that after my time. The building I was thinking of was a toy store, a great-big stand alone toy store out in the middle of nowhere. I had forgotten that it was a toy store first, for years actually, before it became the office supply store it is now. But walking towards it through an alley as I would have back in middle school it all came roaring back to me. That's the place where I would buy Micronauts and my sister got whatever lame girl toys she was interested in. Strip malls and parking lots - and a Home Depot - have since grown up around it, and what was once a trail blazing iconoclast of a building is now just another contributor to suburban sprawl.
   It's amazing what comes back to you when you put yourself in the same place under the same conditions as you were back then. I've driven those same roads in a car, even this past week, and I didn't remember that stuff. But being outside, in the cold with my nose running a little, with my legs aching a little, with my fingers tingling a little, brought it all back, just like it happened yesterday. Kind of spooky, actually. But it does make me want to go exploring a little more, so I can remember what I've forgotten.

How Do You Know?

I was watching Hamlet this past weekend, the Kenneth Branagh version, which is in Technicolor and totally rocks, and I specifically noted the line Hamlet says to Horatio, when they're chasing Hamlet's father's ghost in Act 1 - 'there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosphy.' Truer words were never written.
   For instance, I can tell when a woman I know is pregnant. Happens all the time - the part where I can tell, not the part where women I know get pregnant. Nobody believes that I can do this, so the last time it happened I wrote down the day and time when I took at look at one of my former employees and thought 'she sure looks pregnant.' She didn't have a big belly, she may not even have known herself that she was expecting, something about her just... changed. I could look at her and tell she was different. Fast forward about four months and she announces that she is, indeed, with child. Out of my wallet I whipped out the yellow post-it I'd written the day and time on, just to prove that I knew. Somehow, I knew.
   You ever have that sensation like something is crawling up your neck or across your ear and then five minutes later someone calls you? Obviously something is telling you that someone is thinking about you, or talking about you (or both), but there's no way you could say for sure what that something is. You just know.
   Or how about when you're waiting for your name or ticket to be drawn at a raffle, and you know, you just know that your name is the one they're going to pick next. Happened to me last December when I was at my city District meeting and they were pulling names out of the hat for Rose Bowl tickets. Somehow, some way, I knew that when they were reaching for the fourth pair of tickets that they would call my name. And they did. Don't know how I knew, but I did.
   So there's something working here. Scientists say that until you have hard and fast proof nothing of the sort exists, but experientially - anecdotally - you know it's true. At least it happens to me a lot, I don't know about the rest of you.
   I just wish I could make money at it. But they don't pay you the big bucks because you can tell the doorbell's going to ring.


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes      back - 36 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 60 days

I Need A Catchphrase

Ah... the good old days of 70's TV... when everyone had a catchphrase. Everyone worth knowing, that is. That's how you knew they were a regular cast member. I'm feeling a little lost now, back in the corporate grind, and I need to know that I'm a regular cast member in my own life, and not just a bit player. Or, God forbid, an under-5 featured extra. I figure that there have been some catchphrases so long out of use that one of them has to fit my purposes.

   So here's a short list:
Dyn-o-mite!!
And that's the name of that tune...
What 'choo talkin' 'bout, Willis? ( a personal favorite because of all the apostrophes)
Aaaayyy!
Consume mass quantities.
Gotta put the hammer down.
Kiss my grits!
Hey hey hey! (this was Rerun, not Dwayne)
Who loves ya, baby?
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...
I love it when a plan comes together.
I'm coming to meet you, Elizabeth!


COMMUTE: there - 35 minutes back - 50 minutes (I took a different way)
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 86 days

From My Bookshelf

I read a lot. A LOT. Magazines, books, stuff on the Internet, books I've written myself, words and words and words and words and words. In the past few years I've leaned towards non-fiction books - seeing as how I write my own fiction - and I try to keep informed on advances in science through magazines. I also love Vanity Fair, even though I sound really fey when I admit that. I haven't been reading a lot of fiction, until recently when I paid another visit to Movie World in Burbank. I picked up this book, which reminded me why I started reading in the first place.

Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs
   This is pulp fiction at its grandest achievement, done by a master. Make no mistake, it's not high literature, the story is about a 1930's man who rockets to Venus and becomes leader of the noble savages there. It was written in that amazing time between 1900 and the advent of World War II, when pulp magazines ruled the news stands and the stories were ripping yarns of high adventure and base betrayal. I loved this stuff as a kid, it's what got me reading in the first place, and coming back to it now is like visiting my old college campus, familiar and yet with surprises I forgot I knew about.

   Edgar Rice Burroughs is the titan of early sci-fi responsible for Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and Pellucidar (Hollow Earth). Tarzana, CA is named for Tarzan - really - and since Pirates of Venus was written in the 30's, the protagonist leaves from Tarzana to go to his rocket ship. Written towards the end of Burroughs's life and career, the Venus series borrows heavily from everything he'd written before, and he even mentions Tarzan and Pellucidar in the first chapter, but that doesn't detract from the work one bit. Every boy should read this. Twice.

Quote: (you're gonna love this)
'I pressed her to me for an instant; I kissed her, and then I gave her over to the birdman.
   "Hurry!" I cried. "They come!"
   Spreading his powerful wings, he rose from the ground, while Duare stretched her hands toward me. "Do not send me away from you, Carson! Do not send me away! I love you!"
   But it was too late, I would not have called her back could I have done so, for the armed men were upon me.
   Thus I went into captivity in the land of Noobol, an adventure that is no part of this story; but I went with the knowledge that the woman I loved, loved me, and I was happy.'

Two-Fisted Tales

Where did Steve McQueen go?
   Before you get all smarty and tell me he died quite a while back, I know that. I mean in a metaphorical sense, where did Steve McQueen go? A tough guy, who thought with his fists and led with his iron chin. A man's man, who could ride a horse, race a motorcycle, beat up the bad guy and still win the dame at the end of the day. A guy who could do stuff, who knew how to fix a car, or build a house, or take justice into his own two hands and see it delivered. What actor today knows how to do any of that stuff?
   Seriously, look at all the headliners. Pretty boys, who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag if their agent wasn't around to tell them how. They didn't have lives before they became actors, their lives are as actors, so they don't know how to do anything else. If you put them on a deserted island they'd starve to death or die of exposure because they don't know how to take care of themselves. It's just embarrassing, I tell you, having our country's major cultural contribution - films - riding on the mincing posturing of sissy actors. For God's sake, the toughest guys in American films aren't even American, they're Australian putting on a convincing accent. Jeez.
   Hollywood producers, put down your mirrors of cocaine and listen to me. No more emaciated metrosexuals, if you have a man's role, you get a real man to play it. Like in the old days. When Rock Hudson was a movie star.

What's Wrong With Being Weird?

I've noticed a trend lately - and maybe it's just because I'm home during the day during my time 'between assignments' - but it seems that everybody needs a diagnosis nowadays.
   You get kids with ADD or ADHD or anxiety disorder or OCD, you have celebrities with sex addiction, people with detachment disorders, maladjusted loners have Asperger's syndrome, fat people have eating disorders... I mean, seriously, it's getting so that people who don't have some sort of medical condition explaining their behavior are in the minority.
   What the hell? Back in the day, when I was a kid, we had the fat kid (yes, me), the angry kid, the sneaky kid, the hyper kid, the sissy kid, the smart kid, and the artsy kid. None of us had or needed a diagnosis, we were all cool with who we were and what others expected of us. And if the angry kid suddenly decided he loved animals and stopped being angry, well, we just accepted it. If the fat kid stopped eating so much and lost weight, well, he wasn't fat kid any more. No biggie.
   Our behavior was something we did, not something we were. Which meant that we were responsible for how we acted, we didn't have an excuse to point to: 'Oh, I have a detachment disorder, that's why I hit people with rulers.' No way, no how could we get away with that. And the weird kid was just the weird kid, he didn't have autism or a personality disorder or a metabolic defect. He didn't need an explanation and we didn't want one.
   I think this business about giving everybody a diagnosis is the worst sort of communism, because it assumes not only is there a middle ground for what is acceptable behavior, but that everyone should strive to meet that middle ground. Which is bullshit of the worst kind. I wasn't there, I don't know for sure, but I can guarantee you Albert Einstein was the weird kid in his school. So was Picasso, and Leonardo, and for sure Hemingway who was also probably the sissy kid. If any of these men - or any of the iconoclast high achievers during all of human history - had parents who looked for a diagnosis and then for drugs to 'fix' their weird kids, where would our society be?
   Enough already. Let kids be kids, stop pumping them full of drugs, and hold them responsible for their behavior. They'll rise to your expectations.
   Just keep them off my lawn...

The Chef Bubble

First we had the dot-com bubble of late 1999 and into 2000. To work our way out of that mess, our government engineered a housing bubble, which burst in late 2007, and which is still bursting even as we speak. So how are we going to work our way out of this housing bubble/ credit crisis/ totally fubar economic situation? By engineering a chef bubble, evidently.
   When I go work out, I usually walk past the cooking school a few blocks up. Been doing it for years, but it's only been in the past six months or so that I've noticed a dramatic increase in the number of cars parked along all the side streets. Used to be that all the cooking school people parked in the parking garage right behind the main building. Not no more. The students are crusing up and down every street for blocks around, emerging with their little white hats, hounds-tooth-checked pants, and gargantuan recipe books. There are a lot more cooking school students now than there were even a year ago. A LOT more.
   This is understandable, when times are tough trade school enrollment goes up. People want to know they have a skill they can actually make a living with, as opposed to, say, being an expert in putting together Power Point presentations. But there's a problem here, one I don't think the cooking school faculty is letting their students know about.
   There are far fewer chef jobs than there were before. Americans are eating out less, restaurant profits are down overall, and restaurants are closing their doors across the country. So when all these new cooking school students graduate, where are they going to go? Sure, right now they're greasing the gears of the economy with their tuition money, the school employs more instructors, they build more classrooms which employs more contractors, they buy more food which keeps the delivery companies and ConAgra in business. But then what? The economy can only absorb so many classically trained and accredited chefs, and right now there are definitely more on the supply side than the demand side of this economic curve.
   Before you know it, we'll have rank after rank of cooking school graduates with nowhere to work, making crepes on the exit ramps for spare change.
   So how do we work our way out of the chef bubble? Maybe we start a carpet cleaner bubble. Or a board game bubble. Wait, I got it. A stripper bubble. Yeah... a glut of strippers would put a definite spark back in the economy. At least in the glitter, baby powder, and 6-inch transparent shoe sectors.

Lost In The Sands Of Time

The other day I was cleaning out a closet - more like rearranging it, really - and I found a small can of paint. So I got to thinking, somebody must have invented paint. Somewhere, some time, some dude thought that it would be a good idea to coat a piece of wood in a layer of stuff that would keep it from getting wet or keep bugs away. But that had to have been so long ago, thousands of years. We know who invented the light bulb, but there's no way we'd ever know who invented paint.
   Thinking further, I wondered what other ubiquitous things had to have been invented by people we're never going to know.

Forks
   Soap
Mayonnaise
   Thread
Coasters - the kind you put under glasses
   Ink
Boat oars
   Fences
Hammers
   Erasers, either chalkboard erasers or the ones on the end of a pencil
Buttons and button holes
   Wire

This is the kind of thing that occupies my day.

Dream A Little Dream

You ever have a dream where you're speaking another language? Except you don't really speak another language, you just read several ancient ones really well? And so when you're having the dream and everybody is speaking another language, including you, when you try to make sense of what people are saying, within the dream you realize that none of the words are from any language you've ever heard or studied? So you know you're dreaming, and you know that everybody in the dream is speaking a non-existent language, except that there does seem to be some internal consistency and grammar to the nonsense, and people use the same word to refer to the same thing, so it's not like everybody's doing their own thing? And even while you know you're dreaming you try to make sense of the fake language that really only exists inside your own head while at the same time in the dream you continue to speak that same made-up language? And while you're speaking it in the dream, in your own head you're really wondering if this is some kind of real language you've tapped into, or if all the internally-consistent linguistics that seem to be around this made-up language come entirely from your own imagination? And if it is all from your own imagination, then you're either seriously f**ked up or a certifiable genius? Or both?
   You have? Really? What a weirdo.

Tales From My Past - Crazy Lake Michigan

Before I relate this story, I swear it is completely, 100% true. I'll swear to God, Buddha, SpongeBob, whoever you want. I have a witness who was there for the whole thing.
   A few years back my friend Sean and I were in Milwuakee, WI on a road trip. We'd flown into Chicago and accidentally happened upon Uno, the real one, where you order your pizza when you put your name on the waiting list. Say what you will about a New York pie, authentic Chicago pizza is awesome. After stuffing ourselves on three-inch-thick slices, we drove to Milwaukee, and on the way had to stop at the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha. It's a cool place, but it smells like fondue. And the building is constructed with cinderblock, not cheese, so it's kind of false advertising. If they say 'cheese castle' I expect the whole thing to be made of cheddar.
   Anyway, we finished our business in Milwuakee and we had over half a day to kill before we had to be back at O'Hare in Chicago, so we went to Lake Michigan and rented bicycles. There's a bike path that winds around there, and even in August the wind off the lake was freezing cold. We got tired so we stopped at one of the park benches positioned every fifty yards or so.
   We saw an old couple walking together - it's not just a bike path - and they stopped at the bench next to us and spoke to the people there. Those people looked kind of confused and amused, but I thought nothing of it. The couple then ambled over to me and Sean.
   The man stood back, saying nothing, but the lady came over to us. She wore a pink and green pastel shirt, beige shorts, and she held her hands held up to her shoulders, palms down. She smiled. We smiled back. And then she said these exact words as she patted her hands on her shoulders.
   "Goody goody, goody goody, goody goody goo."
    Then she and her husband (I'm assuming) walked off. No explanation, they just went to the people sitting on the next bench over, and from the expression on those people's faces, the lady did exactly the same thing to them.
   .....
   Yeah. Freaky. And I swear it actually happened, Sean was right there for it, and to this day we are both completely at a loss to explain what the hell that was. Was she just bonkers and the guy was humoring her? Was she doing it on a dare? At her age? Was she marking us for death by ninjas at some time later in life? Who knows?
   That whole trip was full of odd things. Like the homeless guy Sean wouldn't let me have a conversation with, or the Miller Beer mad scientist's lair, or the Brewers game, or the dangerous convenience store in the bad part of town. All stories for another time.

Robotic Seniors

I've written before about how the Japanese concern me, what with their penchant for talking toilets and their creepy human-like robots. Well now they've gone too far again, this time with human-assist mechanics intended for old people. Japan has a lot of old people, and they're only going to get more as their population ages, so recently they unveiled three new mobility assist devices. Two strap to a person's legs to help them walk, and the other is designed to sit on and zip around. The first two look kind of silly, but that's no concern if it helps people get around, and the other one... well, I just don't see how grandma is going to balance well enough to use it.
   But the point is that once again the Japanese are messing with the natural order of things.
   See, the thing about getting older is that you get wiser and sneakier. Craftier. You've seen more things and had more experience, so you're better equipped - mentally - to get one over on people. The trade off is you get feebler, sometimes slowly, sometimes alarmingly quickly. But now the Japanese are inventing stuff to help old people stay stronger for longer. A noble pursuit, at first glance, but think about it for a moment. With these things strapped to them, old people, naturally sneakier to begin with, are going to stay strong and vital far longer than they otherwise would. I'm not sure I want a crafty, cybernetic codger who can kick my ass.
   Young people are stronger but stupider, old people are smarter but weaker. It's the way of things, like the change in seasons or the slow decline of NBC as a viable TV network. If we start making old people into Six Million Dollar Men and Women, what's left for the young people of the world? Around here kids in their twenties are already pretty much worthless, the one thing they have is their youth and vitality, if you take that away Lord knows what will happen. I'd say there could be revolution in the streets, but there'd probably be a squadron of elderly peacekeepers with their cybernetic parts ready to dispense justice with a good helping of common sense advice.

Job Yawn-Fest

Is it just me, or do most of the jobs posted out there seem completely boring and awful wastes of time? I know I'm probably looking at this with a jaded eye, but, seriously... 'Infrastructure Solutions Consultant?'... 'Franchise Development Manager?'... 'Sales Planner?'... 'Contracts Manager?' Companies couldn't put a little more effort into a job title than that? No wonder those jobs are never filled, only a zombie would apply for them, and zombies are too busy prowling for delicious brains to bother applying for a job.
   Why can't I apply for 'Personal Jet Pack Tester' or 'Bobsled Runner?' Those would be pretty cool gigs. Or how about 'TV Dinner Taster,' I bet that's the kind of job people never quit, they just keel over in their chair one day, clutching their chest and mumbling about the brownie. Around here 'Drunk Celebrity Herder' is a job that always needs doing, but that would mean I'd have to hang out in Hollywood after dark and I just hate that. And something that really, really needs doing is 'Bad Tattoo Arbiter,' someone to warn people off of especially terrible body art. Who are we kidding? it's all pretty terrible.
   And why is it I never see 'Indolent Billionaire' posted on any of these job sites? I could do that one with my eyes closed.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

Sometimes I find myself wondering if maybe my life could be the figment of someone else's imagination. It's hard to believe that everything I've done, everywhere I've been, everyone I've met could all be just... chance. So of course it must be that I'm a work of fiction. What other answer is there?
   You may recognize this idea from the movie Stranger Than Fiction, a Will Ferrell movie from a few years back. That film itself was a rip-off of a pulp sci-fi story written by none other than L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, that L. Ron Hubbard, the Scientology guy. Before he invented a religion he was a B-list writer for the pre-war pulps.
   I've been entertaining this idea for quite a while, though, long before I knew who Will Ferrell or L. Ron Hubbard were. Whenever I wrote a story I imagined the characters' lives so fully and completely it was as if they were alive to me, as if I weren't inventing it so much as just recording it. That led me to wonder what my characters were doing when I wasn't watching them. Which in turn led to me wonder if maybe someone else wasn't doing the same thing to me. Writing about me writing about my characters, and wondering if someone were writing about them too.
   Yeah, I'm gonna stop now, my head's hurting...

I Knew I Was An Adult When...

One of my nieces turned eighteen recently, and while she's officially now an adult - she can be in the Army but can't legally drink a beer - I don't know that she's yet had an experience that brings her newfound majority home to her.
   It didn't take me long to know I was an adult. I wasn't even eighteen yet, as a matter of fact. In the summer between my Senior year of high school and my Freshman year of college I was out driving in the Green Machine, my '72 Chevelle. I was about two miles from my home, getting gas at the convenience store, when I noticed one of my car's tires going flat; there was a big-ass nail right through the sidewall. I got on the pay phone (no cell phones back then) and phoned home. My father answered and I told him my plight, that I had a flat tire and I was not too far away. I was hoping, of course, that he would come and rescue me. There was a moment of silence on line.
    "What are you going to do about it?" my father asked.
   I hesitated. "Uh... change the tire?"
   "See you when you get home," my father said then he hung up.

I became an adult that afternoon, changing my own flat tire on a scorching Texas summer day,sweat dripping in my eyes, the sun burning my neck and the backs of my calves. I figured out how to work the jack and I figured out the right and wrong way to turn the lugnuts and I figured out what a miserable, thankless job car repair is. And I not only figured out how to curse just like my Dad, I finally understood why he sometimes found it necessary.
   Scraped my knuckles bloody too. That's man stuff right there.

Mom Tricks

Do you know how little kids can tell you're trying to feed them something healthy?
   You won't tell them what it is until they've tasted it.
   The first time I can remember my mother doing this I was between two and three years old. I know it was then because my little sister had invaded the house, but she hadn't reached her first birthday yet. My mother put some green stuff on my plate - why is it always green? - and I just stared at it, expecting it to do something. I asked her what it was, because it certainly didn't look edible to me, I thought maybe she had gotten my plate and the baby's mixed up somehow.
   "Just try it, you'll like it," my mother said.
   I remember the words specifically, because even to this day as far as I'm concerned that phrase is shorthand for 'I'm tricking you into eating something really, really gross.' And it was zucchini, and it was gross. But because I was three-ish, I didn't really have a choice, I had to eat it. No civil disobedience in my parents' house.
   Little kids are smarter than you think, they know when you're trying to put one over on them, they just don't have the vocabulary to let you know that they know what you're doing. So if you want to really trick little kids, when you try to feed them something healthy, just lie to them. Tell them the grody zucchini is cake and then the next time you really do have cake, maybe they'll think twice before gobbling it down.