How I Became Rich and Powerful (Part I)

National Novel Writing Month made me quit my job.

Okay, maybe that isn't entirely fair or true. There were dozens of other factors that brought me to this decision. I'm overweight, my health is suffering. I don't sleep because I'm anxious about work. My performance is consistently overlooked unless there's something negative that can be shifted my way. You know, typical food service stuff. I've been doing this job for sixteen years in various states of satisfaction. Then, November rolled around. I'm a creature of habit, but that growing dissatisfaction with my career and where it has led me started to become insurmountable right about the time I started seeing things like, "101 Ways to Have a Fun, Successful NaNoWriMo!" and, "Is It Time to Murder Your Spouse and Focus on That Novel?" popping up all over.

See, most of these articles are written by morons. They're people who have a sort of generic voice, parroting back things that someone else, who maybe self-published a novel once in the halcyon days of 2002, wrote down so they could show their exasperated friends and family that, "Look, I am a real writer."

The rest of them, barring a special few with something to say and the moxie to say it well, are written by people that want to give you just enough vague, nonsensical advice that you'll decide writing for money is fucking magic and take their 12-week course on which part of Lucifer's taint you need to suck to get a book deal.

So, I thought, I gotta get in on that racket.

Then I had some work stuff go on, which I won't delve into too much because I'm still processing it. Long story short, I became willfully and gloriously and terrifyingly unemployed. So here I am, with a dozen browser pages open to different job searches and the thing I keep coming back to is the feeling that none of it will make my health or my well-being, or even my long-term financial situation any better. Because, ultimately, I don't want to do anything I'm seeing in front of me. I want to chase that dream, slay that dragon. I want to quit being such a fucking coward and put everything on hold while I go on this quest.

Typical, selfish, and invigorating because now, right god damn now, I can do it. Oh, sure, my head's all big because I had one little short story published this year but that is all I needed. I needed some editor somewhere to say, "Hey, you're pretty good at this." Since then I've been a maniac, writing and plotting and doing the things I had only sort of contemplated before, because the reality is that I've always assumed my support system, my incredible friends and family who have patiently listened to my excuses for not doing this, would get tired of me lounging about in front of a keyboard trying to make this happen. But you know what? I'm wrong.

So while the encouraging articles on how best to write your novel are being hammered out by idiots, and the world keeps spinning toward the end of this year, and I have no financial safety net except to be excellent, I realized that it was time to shit or get off the pot. Stop saying you can do it and just do it. Worst case is some hunger pains and light homelessness. Its not even that cold yet, so I think we'll be fine. I choose to shit.

Also, I have an interview for a Human Resources job tomorrow morning. Baby steps, kids.

Yours,
-JT

Rhyme and Reason

I haven't written a poem in five years. Now, I was never much of a poet to begin with. I have always preferred fiction. There is a freedom, in prose, to ramble and lose yourself in tangents. It is, by all accounts, the more forgiving method of writing. And, truthfully, I have never been particularly good at poetry. You could say that's subjective and I would say that I have personally met some of the most talented poets of my generation and it is not, actually, subjective. Not one bit. Its a skill that can be honed, but one where a natural affinity either is or is not present. I'm not a terrible poet, I'm just not a very good one. Even in short form I have always written songs, preferring to hear melodies and music as I spill my words.

Poetry has always been a little bit mythical for me. When people talk of muses and the sort of divine inspiration that comes with being an artists, poetry is what it brings to mind. I have never, for instance, plotted a poem. I've never edited one. They appear, when they appear, wholly formed. In a moment of creative fury I put them down on paper and that's it. The feeling is gone. The magic, if that's what it can be called, is used up all at once. It strikes when it strikes and never by choice. I have pulled over on highways, left meetings, ignored classes and family dinners, ended phone calls and interrupted post-coital cuddling because I had to write something down. Fiction is different. There's always a source for it. I can trace the idea for every story I have ever composed back to a handful of specific, if unrelated, bits of inspiration. Different things that came together and gave me an idea. Fiction, therefore, seems much more logical to me.

I can't edit a poem. I can't change character names, descriptions of places, the subtle but flowery details that come with a love of language and a vivid mental picture. I can't move chapters around to make the narrative flow better. I can't eliminate whole threads because they went nowhere. A poet, of course, will tell you that you can absolutely do those things. That poet is fucking wrong. She can do those things. I can not. You, its likely, can not. For me, a finished poem is one that is out of my brain and on the page. Further examination of it can only tell me if I like the piece or if I should save it into a file filled with songs and poems and half-thought short stories that I tell myself are works-in-progress but are really just mental abortions. They are twisted, awkward things, shambling around with acne-ridden faces and treatises on war and politics and the semi-incestuous relationship between fantasy and heavy metal. The kind of thing that, if it went to school with you even your least socially adept friends would pity it. They aren't inherently bad, my basement-dwelling creations. They're incomplete. Or, rather, incompleteable. Perhaps that's too harsh, but I would encourage you, non-poets, to sit down and write a poem and then, upon being dissatisfied, try to edit it into something palatable. You can't because poetry is a thing of divinities and you, poor bastard, are as mundane as I.

I'm not saying poetry is the most difficult thing in the world. In fact, a few of my poet friends struggle mightily with fiction for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with their implied magical natures. I give them advice, if and when they ask, but the truth is that fiction requires discipline and poetry requires you to be some kind of a god damned ancient Greek creatrix.

I'm not even sure what led me to musing about how long its been since I wrote a poem. But, I suppose that's the point to this whole thing isn't it? It just fucking came to me, all at once, without rhyme or reason, and now that it's out I'll probably never consider it again. Well, except as an example in five years when I wonder why I don't write blog posts like I did in my angsty teenage years. Or, for that matter, in my mid-twenties.

Look for it around 2022, probably posted directly above this one.

Yours,
-S.R.

Game Over, Man

The election, at long last, is over. Donald Trump is going to be President. 

Let that sink in. 

If you voted for Hillary, and if you're reading something I post chances are good that you did, you're probably feeling a lot right now. Shock, confusion, sadness, anger. You'll grieve in your own way. Just remember that the final stage of grief is acceptance, and you have to accept this. The democratic process is a wonderful thing. And if you care enough about this country, about democracy to have voted and to have these feelings then you have to accept the outcome and understand that the result isn't always what you hoped it would be.

I have always found politics fascinating, but more fascinating is the way people react to politics. I remember, as a very young man, my grandfather ranting and raving when Bill Clinton was first elected. He was a staunchly conservative man, my grandfather, but he was as complex as any of us. I remember when Bush was elected, the way people almost immediately started insinuating, implying, outright stating that he was a complete moron. In the last eight years I have seen President Obama, the first president for whom I was old enough to vote, called a communist, a nazi, a nigger. 

The time has come to stop that. The vitriol, the hate, that unwavering rage that has been spewing forth only creates more of the same. This election has seen so many unprecedented things, things that get overlooked when we only focus on the things that make us angry. 

If you voted for Hillary, know that your candidate actually won the popular vote, although not by a tremendous margin (otherwise she would have almost certainly won the election). Know that the things you really stand in favor of, women's health and equal rights and sensible gun control, are the things that the majority of this country also want. This was the closest election I can recall (without looking up figures). That alone should give you some indication that the status quo has changed, must continue to change and evolve with the times.

If you voted for Trump, know that I get it. I understand those things that frighten you. Those things, like jobs and safety, that are important to you. While I don't believe that Donald Trump is the man to help you with those things, I hope that I'm wrong. Truthfully, I hope that he is the right person for the job. Know that the change that you see won't stop because progress isn't something that can be stopped with an election. Progress, real social progress, is a natural outgrowth of people. And while I think that fiscal conservatism and small government are wonderful things, I believe that you have overlooked the major social changes that brought us all to this place. The national identity that allowed a man with no political experience to challenge the multi-billion dollar political machine and win. Please don't simplify this for yourselves or others. Trump didn't win because he made himself louder and more confrontational over and over. He didn't win because he's a billionaire racist and that's what the people want to follow. He won because America's national identity demands that we challenge the establishment and that's what he did. He challenged two hundred years of politics and we wanted someone to do it. He was the man with the ability, the person in the right place at the right time to take advantage of what we, as a people, wanted to see.

For both sides, know that the next two years will not be easy. Any president faces challenges, disasters, hardships. That's the job description. There are hurdles in every facet of our country from education to healthcare, foreign policy to infrastructure. Don't simplify the issues and call them fixed. Don't make this a party line. Hold your elected officials accountable. Seek out new, stronger candidates. Mid-term elections are two years away. Give them two years to make good, to show you that your votes weren't just sustaining a system that is already rusted and rotted. And God help them if they don't. Continue the momentum this election has created and keep pushing for change, but remember that hate never changes anything for the better.

If you didn't vote, or if you chose to vote for Harambe or a write-in, then do us all a favor and shut your fucking mouth. The adults are trying to make a better world. When you're mature enough to handle that responsibility then you can join the conversation. Until then, sit the next couple of years out and think about your actions.

For the rest of you, allow yourselves the time to process everything that has happened over the last year and a half. Think about the social unrest, think about the people all clamoring, in one way or another, for things to change and understand that, whether it went in your direction or not, we accomplished exactly that. Things are changing, because they must change. Every change is scary, new things have always been frightening for humanity. Don't lose hope that these changes will result in something better. We built civilization from the ground up, with tools and systems that we invented. Not every idea has been general relativity or Shakespeare or the wheel. Not every plan comes to fruition exactly as it was laid out. The real work is in the small pieces, the little tweaks and compromises we make as we strive toward a better future. A future we can only reach together. United. 

Please remember, too, that people are complex. Donald Trump may be a lot or negative things. Hillary may be a lot of negative things. We all have negatives. We all make mistakes. In places of power, in times of crisis, in private moments when we hope no one else will notice, we can all look back and see things we aren't proud to see. Overwhelm the negative with positives. Look for the good in people and nurture that, rather than attacking the negative things about them. I don't personally like this man, but I don't personally know this man. I didn't vote for Hillary because I like her. That's absurd. I have some very dear friends, people I know intimately and love unconditionally, but I wouldn't fucking vote for them. I know every stupid thing they've ever done. I know how they would handle, say, immigration by just passing out beers until everyone was too drunk to remember why they were concerned about it. You don't vote because you like a person you've only ever seen on s television screen or a You Tube video. You don't know them well enough to like them. You vote because you believe they stand for the same principles that you hold dear.

So be hopeful, and be attentive. You elected these people, and you have the power to continue to change this country and world for the better. Hold your leaders accountable, challenge the preconceptions of how things are and push to make them how they should be, how they can and will be when we, as a people, come together and decide that our differences are as much a part of our strength as our similarities. With challenge comes change, and with change will come progress.

Fear of Silence

I have surrendered up my words to fear, and succumbed to silence. Let the dark take my songs and twist them, tear them out of my hands and throat and hurl them away. Fear of that very silence has driven me to it. Fear that there was nothing left to say. That all of the self-important voices and verses about vices and vice versa were dried up, depleted, repeating over and over again.

A woman dances. I spill my guts in a shower of gore. Rinse and repeat. Cash the fucking check. A run of the mill windbag, windmilling the same too-taut notions of viscera and shock and schlocky sex. There's nothing cerebral in it. Nothing visceral, really. Gratuitous, glorified nonsense. Piteous things, those words then, pious though they sometimes were. Pedantic, prattling poetry and pilfered, polluted pragmatism perched upon ponderous pustules. All about alliteration, all the while braying that the forms, though always worth a read, are too restrictive. As if creativity gives a damn about which channel you're watching.

So what is worse? The fear of silence or the fear that nothing I've said has made a difference? Indeed, that I have said, at best, nothing. A year (and some) of sleepless nights and listless, breathless pacing. A year (and some) of twitching fingers and rampant, repugnant anger. The sort of directionless rage that twists you into knots and warps the world around you. A year (and some) and I have found the answer here is neither.

Perhaps I've never said a word that matters. Perhaps I have spoken once, and then everything else has been echoes. Perhaps all the profound things I could unearth I've already sold for scraps, squandered all the gifts I was born with on whores and drugs and other men's brilliance. I could be wrong. And what if, suddenly, the silence took me forever? If all the potential still to be mined stayed there, buried, forever. If no one ever read my tales of bards and broads and battles. If all my songs went unsung and all my heroes vanished. If Tyrvas never reclaims her honor, if Hyleth never saves his wife. If Rythe never rallies against the Darkness, if Varth and Kade are never reunited. What if?

The answer, of course, is that the fear is the worst part. If silence takes me, then silence takes me. Shame on me for losing the fight. If all I had to say is said then let it echo on and on again. But being afraid is foolishness, and that I cannot bear. I have always been terrified of looking stupid, and in being terrified gave stupidity a chance to creep in. I will not stand for this anymore.

The storm is brewing. All their voices keep me up at night. All howling, all in chorus, all telling their stories at once. They can't die, not really, not unless they die with me. So now to break the silence. To stretch and flex, to unfurl from this hibernation and shake the dust off of my bones. Now to claw at the sky and breathe deep of the earth. Thunder. Fire.

I have never felt so alive.

Revenantly Yours,
-S.R.

Uncertainty

There's a sinking sensation here, in the center of the universe. An almost imperceptible feeling of ineptitude. There is a wrongness in this place. I get the sense that I've taken a wrong turn, but there haven't been any turns for miles. So I bite my tongue and think of something else. Something brighter, but bright things seem ever in the past, tangled up with people and places I've long since left behind. It is almost as if the best of things are done and gone, and only the slow trod of time remains. I'm not unhappy here, not exactly. Not unhappy, but unusual.

Things have gone beyond my control. Far past my comprehension, in ways I can't begin to grasp. I lost my edge somewhere, that indomitable part of me that demanded solitude for the sake of my sanity. Too many people, too close, and not a single one of them afraid of what I am. Perhaps they can't see it. The domesticity seems to have leeched into my bones, and I spend my nights thinking of stories I can't find the words to tell, escapes that I have no way to put into motion.

And yet, for all of it I'm not unhappy.

There is a mildness to me, now. A sort of numbness. I have always been a creature of routines, but I don't crave this one the way I have before. It isn't that I don't care, that I don't feel. I just don't care the way I should. I don't feel as strongly as I have. Little hope for salvation. Perhaps this is salvation. From that old, wild spirit. That raving lunacy. The madness brought on by drink and food, by the words of bards and the tales of heroes. The unquenchable thirst for ever more adventure, roving far from home and finding that there's newness, even in the oldest places. I miss the sky. I miss the taste of new flesh. There are parts of me, deep and dangerous things, that yearn for it again. That roil and writhe in rebellion against this new, petrified self.

I find my fists clenched. Eyes wandering wildly. Heart racing. I want to run and fuck and feast. I want to create. To destroy. To rend the myriad worlds I've built and then build them anew. I want to savor every sultry inch of the earth, to take her in wild flights of need, to succor and sate myself upon her. I want to be alone of it all. The wanderer, spinning his tales over a drink and then vanishing. A spectre and a story.

I'm not unhappy here. But then, I have never wanted for happiness. There are better things in life.

Fleetingly Yours,
-S.R.

Glorified Nonsense

So what the fuck is up with airline food, amirite?

If that didn't chase you off, then...awesome. You can sit through bad jokes. That's a skill you're going to need here because this shit is about to get wacky. I mean, it's after midnight here. I worked all day, I have to work again in like, six hours, and I've spent most of the time I allotted for "awesome stuff" bitching about how bullied kids are pussies and watching funny videos on the Internet. I'm living on the edge of my seat, is what I'm saying. Gabbing life by the sack and just...I don't know. Pulling on it? That sounds like kind of a dick move (hah!).

In fact, I don't even know that I have something to say. I'm just so damned happy to be posting something on here. I'd like to blame the holidays, you know, or literally anything but my own sincere and yet unbelievable laziness. But, no, just lazy. I've been reading and playing through Oblivion again and I've even spent some time at work doing things I get paid for, but the old blogosphere just sort of gets ignored in the fast-paced life I lead.

I'm still writing, though. Novels and what-not. I think if I ever tried to stop my colon would literally grow limbs, climb out of my body and devour me. Because that would be the ultimate way to shove my head up my ass (GET IT?). My blogs, though, I seem to go through spats. Like poetry. I'll go through a week or a month or four years of high school where I just compose like a mad...composer, fingers all aflutter and reams of words spilling out of my brain. And then, silence. Save for the long fiction, nothing comes. I've even got about a dozen posts I started writing on here (not to mention the other two blogs that I'm involved with because monogamy is just terrible, but don't tell this one because it gets jealous of the attention I give the younger ones). I just never finish them. I get a few sentences in and then I'm like, "Oh, right, porn is a thing I can do for free."

And then I remember that there are other people here and fapping isn't an option so I go outside and rake leaves or whatever.

I just realized two things. First, I used the word blogosphere and second, and more importantly, my browser didn't correct it. Is that an actual word now? Did I miss a meeting somewhere? It's not cool to do that to me, you guys. Don't just make stupid things socially acceptable and not tell me. If its a real thing I can't use it sardonically and if I can't use it sardonically I might as well just piss off.

For serious, though, I'm into this story. It's got everything. Comedy, boning, Vikings (kind of), zombies, badass action, characters and an intriguing plot or something. And I titled all the chapters using the names of metal songs, because fuck coming up with chapter titles and copyrights are for wusses.

And that reminds me.

Wait, no it doesn't. Nevermind.

There's something of literary merit in those last two lines, but I don't really know what it might be, honestly. Probably nothing. Just glorified nonsense.

Oh, dropped a title-bomb right in your mind parts. I win Internets.

Ridiculously Yours,
-S.R.

Bullying (Or, Stop Being Such Ladies)

Let me preface this by saying that if it offends you, I firmly believe you are the problem. That said (because saying it means I can instantly galvanize my readership into two sides and stir up a whole bunch of shit) my intent isn't to be provocative (that's a lie) or to insight a riot (also a lie) but to weigh in on a hot-button issue that has come upon a bit of a lull in its media coverage.

I want to talk about bullying. Candidly, I should add. You should know by now that I'm always candid. I don't do dress rehearsals before I post these things. I just spew them out into the Internet. I'm like an articulate You Tube commenter. Full of irrational thoughts and nerd-rage that mask deep-seated insecurities and latent homosexuality. Only none of that, and much more awesome.

Anyway, bullying.

I don't agree with bullying. Only sociopaths think bullying is a good thing. But I do think its a necessary thing. Necessary things aren't always positive, naturally, and too much of anything, necessary or not, becomes a problem but I think the issue of bullying in this country could be curbed pretty easily. If kids would just stop being such pussies.

Ah, there. Four paragraphs to get to the inflammatory statement.

I'm not saying this as someone who has comfortably walked through life. If you knew me before college (because my idiosyncrasies were accepted, fuck encouraged where I went to college) you know I was kind of a target. Scrawny, quiet, frequently dressed in women's clothes and Crow-esque makeup. I was into things like books and Japanese RPGs and writing just the worst poetry you've ever seen. I smelled funny because I was like, "Fuck bathing" and I wore a lot of leather. Seriously. Like, so much black leather Dimmu Borgir would have asked me to calm it down.

I got picked on a lot, is what I'm saying. The ugly truth about being kind of weird and insecure and way, way smarter than your peers. Unfortunately, despite years of playing football (both the American and rest-of-the-damn-world versions) I wasn't ever particularly imposing. I went to school in rural areas where kids rode four-wheelers and shot at beavers for fun. Ten-year-olds started chewing tobacco and beating up kids like me for kicks about the same time their mothers finally stopped breast-feeding them whiskey and sour milk. So I was a small, quiet, presumably gay (at best, goth) kid from a low-income family and that meant I had, well, quite a bit of time to get used to what fists and dirt taste like.

And you know what? No big deal. Because after a while I figured out that those kids were fucking idiots and, despite my long-standing refusal to consider myself better than another person, they were clearly outmatched. First, I stopped being so afraid. There's only so many ways you can call someone a fag before it stops stinging. There are only so many times you can get shoved into a locker by some douchebag in a crowded hall before you realize that if you step just a little out of his reach, he falls down and looks like a moron.

There are only so many times a kid can call you a name before you leap over a desk and beat the everloving shit out of him in front of all of his friends. And while I was never all that big, I did have blind, Viking berserker rage for that last one.

And, quite frankly, social media made it easier. I didn't have a Facebook until somewhere around the middle of my sophomore year of college. But I did have a Myspace page during the height of its popularity and you know what I realized? Bullies are dumb, guys. Really, really fucking dumb. Even in a world where reality television exists and the most successful forms of entertainment have an embarrassing story-to-explosion ratio, people will read the things a bully says, all hate-mashing keys with his gorilla fingers and spitting on the screen because he can't understand that you aren't actually there in the room with him. Then they'll read the articulate response you crafted, because Internet conversations aren't, in fact, identical to real life conversations where you have to be witty at a moment's notice and you have plenty of time to think up something awesome before you reply, and even the cretins will realize that, holy shit, that guy might actually be retarded.

Now, I know kids these days are constantly being social which means that even though I could escape that bullshit when I got home as long as I stayed the hell off of Myspace, they're always logged on. But you know what? Log them the fuck off. Just because your phone can access Facebook and Twitter and Cracked.com at any time doesn't mean you should. And if those cyber bullies we're always hearing about are such a problem why don't you just block them? Facebook has some pretty convenient privacy settings so people you don't want to talk to can't talk to you. Sure, its kind of a hassle but, I mean, so is being bullied until you kill yourself.

That, or catch that little twat by surprise in the hall between classes and cave in some of his teeth. Or her teeth. Lesson learned. And if your school throws you out for standing up for yourself? Well, fuck it. Those guys were dicks anyway.

What I'm saying is that bullying isn't a sudden epidemic. It's been around forever. My parents had bullies in school. My grandparents might have, but they were all so brutal I doubt the bully survived to adulthood. It isn't some new age, modern world problem. But being a pussy about it? That's new. Having parents that are too busy tweeting inane bullshit and sharing pictures of stupid cats to check up on what their kids are dealing with? That's new. In fact, having parents that are pussies? That's new, too. I think I complained to my mom once that a kid at school was picking on me. She asked me if he ever hit me. I probably said something like "uh...." and she responded that, if he took a swing at me I was, under no circumstances, to let him walk away without enough bruises to make sure he never pulled that shit again.

Physical bullying goes away. All of those "it gets better" speeches will tell you that. In fact, by the time you get to high school physical bullying is probably all but completely gone from your life. Its the mental stuff that really gets you, right? The emotional torment. Well, folks, if you have ever had a boss who was a total prick, or a co-worker who kept getting you into trouble for shit they did, you've found exactly where those people end up. Bullies don't grow out of it, but the power they have to hurt you does get weaker. Because as you get older you realize that those people, the ones that want to make you feel like shit, are nothing. They're empty, worthless people and their opinions don't matter to you or to anyone else.

That's what I learned from being bullied. That those assholes you encounter in the real world? Those human failures (no matter how materially they may appear to be successful) are the same jaded, bullshit, fuckheads you learned how to ignore (or beat senseless, if the situation called for it) in school. The kids who never had to deal with bullies? Those are the kids that have a hard time adjusting to real life. The ones that have a mental breakdown every time someone critiques them. They didn't endure years of abuse and now they're crippled every time someone disagrees with them.

Of course, I don't think every bully needs his ass kicked. Actually, I do think that, but your kid is kind of a pussy (as I've established) and is in no way going to fight a bully. In fact, if he did, your kid would get fucking destroyed. And violence isn't always the answer. Or even always necessary. Sometimes telling an adult that gives a shit, or a friend that gives a shit, or a parakeet that gives a shit, will be enough. Sometimes I got frustrated with it and I vented to, well, myself because I didn't understand social cues and couldn't bring myself to talk to other human beings unless they approached me first. But I vented, and then it all seemed so...petty. I got over it. Because it was silly to be upset in the first place.

Kids calling you names makes you want to die? Kids throwing things at you or embarrassing you in front of people you haven't known long enough to remember their names makes you want to end it all? For fuck's sake, really? Say that out loud. See how insane that sounds?

Of course, you could always start wearing a long, black trenchcoat. Then at the very least everyone will be so terrified you're about to shoot them they won't dare bother you. Worked pretty well for me for a little while (although it was entirely unintentional, I started wearing them because they look badass). Obviously don't actually shoot them. That makes you a pussy too, just a pussy with a gun. But you can use the reprieve to bulk up, learn some kickboxing, grow a bitchin' beard.

Then go back to school in September and shove every one of those damn nerds in a locker for picking on you.

Irascibly Yours,
-S.R.