Me And My Boys...

Me and my Boys…

I love my kids.  My wife and I have two boys, one just turned sixteen (Michael), and the other will be fourteen in April (Dylan).  I love these guys.  They can be a barrel of fun to goof around with and an exasperating challenge to deal with at the same time.  Sometimes, we do all of this on purpose.

Laundry day.  Actually, we do laundry just about every day of the week, but that’s beside the point.  Anyways, when folding laundry, one of the things that bugs my wife and I a lot is that we have to turn the boys’ clothes right side out before we fold them.  I know, I know—it’s not that big a deal, but it also wouldn’t be that big a deal for our sons to just take the care to make sure their clothes are right side out before they go into the laundry.  I decide to mention this to the boys, and I get this sort of “okay” eyeroll.  I can tell they’re not taking it seriously, so I tell them that any piece of laundry that comes out of the dryer inside out will be folded inside out.  I get another “okay” eyeroll.  I can already see how this is going to go, or at least, that’s what I think. 

Laundry day again, more clothes inside out.  Screw it!  I fold their clothes inside out and throw it on their stack.  I warned them, and I must follow through.  The laundry is finished, and I don’t think anything about it till the next morning when Dylan comes downstairs wearing his shirt inside out.  Then, Michael comes from his room, also wearing his shirt inside out.  Trust me, they’re not stupid.  They’re doing this on purpose. 

Dylan sits across from me at the table, and Michael beside me.  I look at them both, back and forth for the better part of a minute before Dylan says, “What?”

“Are you two seriously going to wear your shirts like that to school?”

“Guess so.”

“Turn them right side out.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

“Maybe we can start a trend, dad.  Maybe wearing shirts inside out is going to be the new thing, and we will be where it begins?” Michael says.

“Don’t hold us back, dad,” Dylan adds.

It’s early, and I don’t have time to argue with them.  My boys are stubborn, and I suppose they get it honestly.  I use reason, or at least what I call reason.  It’s cold out that day, and they will probably be wearing their jackets all day, no one in school will probably even notice, so I let it be.  As it turns out, they apparently turned their shirts right side out in the restroom at school—they were both wearing their shirts correctly when we picked them up from school that day.  For the moment, I believe that I’ve won. 

Laundry day again.  My wife and I were folding a load of shirts and found another sign of my victory as all the shirts in that load were right side out (okay, there was one inside out, but it was mine, and that doesn’t count).  Progress!  An hour or so later, we folded a load of jeans.  Have you ever had a moment where you were on top of the world, and then suddenly the rug was pulled out from under you?  On that day, I was standing on that very rug.  Every pair of our sons’ pants that we pulled from the load had one leg inside out, and the other leg right side out.  Every. Single. One. 

My wife looked at me, and I know that she could see the gears grinding in my mind. 

“What’re you going to do now?” my wife asked me.

I look at the pants.  This is obviously done on purpose.  If it were just one pair of pants, I’d call it an accident—but every pair of pants in that load that belonged to one of our boys—they had taken extra care to make sure that all of their pants were turned half in half out.  They was trying to outsmart me—get one over on their old man.  I get that, and in a way, I enjoyed that.  Like I said, my boys and I have fun.  So, how do I respond to this?  I turn the pants completely inside out and fold them.  I go a step further, and I pull their pockets inside out too.

“What are doing?” my wife laughs.

“Justice.”

The next morning the boys come into the kitchen and drop themselves into seats at the table.  They’re both wearing their pants right side out.  I say nothing.  Dylan sits across from me and he shakes his head.

“What?” I say.

“Dad, it would have been just as easy for you to turn the pants right side out.”

“I know.  It would have been just as easy for you to turn them right side out when you took them off too. 

“Whatever,” with his famous eyeroll as he pours his cereal.

“Besides, I was being nice.”

“How?”

“I could have folded them as they were, but I didn’t want you to hurt yourself trying to put them on with only one leg inside out.”

Dylan looks at me for a moment.  He’s thinking, and I soon realize that he’s taken my words as a challenge.    

“I could do it.”

“What?”

Dylan gets up from this chair and heads to his room.  I turn and look at Michael.

“Well?” I said.

“I have a girlfriend.  I’m not doing that.”

These boys.  They’re so funny to watch, and so frustrating at the same time.  All I can say is that if you have kids, love the hell out of them, and never get too angry in front of them.  Watching them grow up is an amazing thing.  I do hope, and I know, that they will both one day be much smarter than me, and I will have to accept that.  But so long as we’re folding their laundry, mom and dad rule this house.   

Write Every Day!

Disclaimer first—I do not consider myself a professional anything, so my suggestions and tips should be taken as just one more person on the internet sharing his personal opinion based on his own experiences.  These tips and ideas may work for you too, but they may not.  Just saying.   

Writing Tip #003

Write something every day!  I know this is a tip that a ton of writers throw around as the go-to-advice for being a writer, but there is so much truth to this exercise.  Seriously, if you actually sit down (or stand if you write standing up) commit yourself to write just one thing every day, it will keep your fire lit.  Write one chapter.  Write one page.  Write one paragraph.  Hey, just write one sentence—something that develops your story a little further than it was.  Set that small goal before you sit down to write, and just make that little goal happen.  Yeah, maybe you will delete that sentence, or paragraph, or page tomorrow, but you wrote something today.  You set a goal, and you achieved it.  Chances are, you will appreciate what you’ve written and will have a difficult time calling it quits for the day.  Or maybe you will only complete that small goal and come back to it the next day hating everything about what you had written—now you’ve learned something about your story—you know what doesn’t work.  Try again, and set a new goal for the next day.  Write Every Day!  

I Just Don't Like Social Media That Much... PART TWO

 Part Two:  There is far too much hate, arrogance, and bullying on social media.  Now, this is an opinion that I’ve had from the first swollen up hate filled rant that I read on social media.  I don’t recall the topic of the rant, but I remember knowing to my core that this person would not be saying these words to the recipient if they were face to face.  This thousand-mile buffer zone creates a false sense of bravery for some posters, or trolls as some people call them.  I do my best to reason that maybe this act of dominance over a person they don’t know and probably will never meet is a confidence builder to some.  Maybe taking that stand enabled the poster to stand up to a bully in real life, or walk out on an abuser.  I don’t know, but I can only hope for a positive effect from all of this.  Plus, there are a lot of people that want their opinion to be heard, and why should they?  Why shouldn’t they?  That brings me to the rants of opinions and the spreading of information that is deceptive and sometimes just all over incorrect.  Every human being is capable of doing their own research when they read of some outrageous farce on the internet—I know that I do.  Sorry, I’m just not going to take your word for it.  But I’ve witnessed a lot on social media where people do not do the research.  Someone posts: “Can you believe that enter name of person of interest once said that we should hang babies from trees if they refuse to quit crying?” (Admittedly, not a real post, and a bit of a stretch, but you probably wouldn’t be surprised that it’s not that much of a stretch.)  Replies begin to fill that original post with ideas of canceling or terrorizing that person’s life before any research or confirmation that the information is even legitimate.  Then, there are the arrogant know-it-alls that want to explain the reasoning behind said comment, and why they believe there is more truth to it than ever.  I am the last person that wants to see social media policed by someone who decides what can and can not be posted—that delves into a whole topic of whether or not ones freedom of speech is being restricted.  Maybe we should go back to the first section of this paragraph—how is your freedom of speech being infringed upon if you’re not actually, and literally saying it?  You’re typing it on keyboard a thousand miles away—you’re not saying anything.  And would you even say it if you had an actual., physical audience to say it too?  My principal argument for Part Two:  Social Media makes people grow the balls to say things that they wouldn’t normally say to another person.  Maybe I’m wrong about this—maybe you would walk right up to me unprovoked and call me a twat-waffle for wearing a t-shirt that supported something that you don’t—I think that’s just another problem all together.  Be nice.  Respect one another.  Treat others the way that you would want to be treated.  And please, be understanding—Just because I don’t agree with your point of view, doesn’t mean we can’t coexist on the same planet.  I'm certain that there is no way that we can peacefully remove social media from our existence at this point, but it would be nice if some of us started using it to spread more kindness, instead of tearing others down.  

I Just Don't Like Social Media That Much... PART ONE

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day social media.  The whole topic was brought up because they wanted to know why I didn’t have a Facebook or Instagram account.  My answer was short and simple:  I just don’t like social media that much.  If you want a more detailed answer, it’s a two-part story.   

Part One:  Until last year, I did have an account with just about every social media platform out there—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, Linkedin, Readit—I could go on.  As a creator, I was under the impression that the more accounts that I could blanket my work across, the more likely I was to make a sale.  (Here’s a tip, and this one’s for free, having multiple accounts does not help you sell content.)  After one crazy weekend, I decided to delete the bulk of my accounts and consolidate down to one account on Twitter.  What happened?  I was hacked.  Someone had managed to hack into my Facebook account, which was linked in one way or another to several of my other social media accounts. (I had linked my accounts for the convenience posting across all media at once, back then.)  After the hacker had access to my Facebook, they were able to infiltrate all of my other accounts, and in a snowballing kind of way, wreak havoc with my personal life.  My family and my social media “Friends” were being sent offers, and inappropriate solicitations of all sorts through my accounts—it was embarrassing to say the least.  To top it off, I had saved my credit card information on one or more of my accounts for quick purchases.  Big Mistake.  Thousands of dollars of small charges went unnoticed for a whole month.  The charges were small enough that they were under the radar of my notifications, and obscure enough that the credit card company didn’t seem to find them suspicious.  Imagine my shock when the credit card statement came in that month.  I was fortunate enough to have a credit card company that protected me from these charges, and they were able to be reversed.  But this process took some time, and it was still a very scary experience.  To ice the cake, when I tried to cancel some of the social media accounts, I had to jump through flaming hoops to prove my identity in order to log back in.  It was absurd.  Facebook actually wanted me to send them a copy of driver’s license, and my social security card in order to prove who I was.  The request made zero sense to me.  I didn’t need to show them any of this to create the account in the first place, why did I need to do it now?  Facebook also does not have a “Contact for Support” option.  I had no way to have direct contact with anyone to help me resolve the issues.  I had to send in messages, and then wait a day or two for a reply that simply directed me to help topics.  I did not share those personal documents with Facebook, by the way.  I was able to navigate my way through the help topics and prove my identity through information that was already saved on my hacked account, and the situation was slowly, but eventually resolved.  So, the principal argument for Part One is that social media makes me feel unsafe, and it makes my private information far more vulnerable than I want to be.  Furthermore, once my private information is intruded upon, no one at these large social media outfits give a damn about me enough to actually have a “Social” interaction with me.

Quit While You're Ahead!

Disclaimer first—I do not consider myself a professional anything, so my suggestions and tips should be taken as just one more person on the internet sharing his personal opinion based on his own experiences.  These tips and ideas may work for you too, but they may not.  Just saying.

Writing Tip #009

Quit while you’re ahead!  

Okay, that sounds bad, and I'm sure that you're probably taking that the wrong way, but that's not the way that I mean it.  What I mean is, when you're getting tired, and you know that you need to stop writing for the night; or because you need to get ready for work, or whatever-- find a spot to quit that will be easy to start up again.  

Example:  Sometimes, I will find myself at a turning point in my story—maybe in the midst of a confrontation, or even on the verge of killing off a character.  Stop right there.  Wait.  Let the words that you’ve already written soak in for a few hours, maybe even overnight.  I find that when I do this, it is much easier for me to pick up writing from that point the next time that I sit down.  I think it's because I know exactly where I'm going with the story at that point.  Once I get the words flowing through the keyboard, it's easy to keep going and continue with the next scene of the story.  Quitting while you're ahead may sound redundant, I know, and it may fall into the realm of tips that only works for me, so try this tip with caution.  I'd love to hear how it worked for you.