Long Black Train

Has it really been over a month since my last post?

Oh my, it has.

Well, I'm still not finished with the first draft of my novel. I was bound and determined to finish it by the end of September, but that's not gonna happen. It just seems when I get bound and determined about something, I tend remain more bound and not get anything done. Well, if you want to know, I've been making slow, but excellent progress on the novel. It's really turning out to be all that I wanted it to be and more. I also wrote a rough draft to a long short story that is currently titled "Two Baby", though I don't know if that will be the title when all is said and done. It's one of those stories that I thought would be about ten or fifteen pages long and turned into fifty plus pages. I even left some things out that will need to be added in. I think novella is a better word for what I wrote. Or novelette. I can't remember the delineations. I hope everyone is still doing okay. Perhaps I'll try to post a little more often. I won't make any promises. I'll definitely let you know the day I finish the rough draft of said novel. Then begins the long and grueling process of research and rewrite. And yes, I will have to do loads and loads of research. I'm one of those people that doesn't like to think that I've gotten any part of it wrong. Opinions are opinions, but the facts must be as accurate as possible. Until then, just keep on doing what you do. Because you do it so well.

Blog Bots

Yes it was inevitable that the same people that have brought us mountains of spam in our junk mail boxes and Chat Bots that flash their messages of low mortgage rates or hot sexy girls live on webcam in various chat rooms have infiltrated the blogosphere. If you'll notice in the comments on my last post, I got two comments from the same bot boasting about two different blogs. And I've also noticed that when I click the next blog link, checking out random blogs, more than half of them are for loan companies or insurance companies or porn sites. I knew it was only a matter of time before the once crystal clear blogging waters would get dirtied.

I apologize for teasing you, but I don't see that story happening any time soon. I'm determined to get through the first draft of my novel by the end of September. If things go like they've been going, it will be about 500 or so double spaced pages. If that ends up being the truth, then I'm only halfway there. That's seven weeks roughly to crank out another 250 pages. That's about 36 pages a week. That's 5 pages a day, if I deign to write on Sundays. 6 pages a day otherwise. I've already written twelve pages this morning, and on a normal day if I get after things, I can easily whip out 5 or more pages. The key is not lounging around and then suddenly getting busy an hour or less before I have to head to work. But the wonderful thing is that the story is falling into place and the ending is not just a possibility, but a mounting inevitability. A big, slow train that is gaining speed and not likely to stop until it has reached its destination. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Can you say Amen!

But is it a good story? That's the all important question. The answer is, I don't know. I never know if what I write is any good or not. I need others to tell me that, and even then I still don't believe them. Not that they're lying but perhaps guarding my feelings. Well, my feelings don't need to be guarded anymore. I say slap me in the face if it will make things better. Anyways, I better get back to work. I just thought I should check in and apologize once again.

Maybe next weekend

This weekend didn't go entirely according to plan. So I didn't get that story wrote. I'm still thinking about it, though. My parents adopted a kid. He isn't officially adopted yet, but he's staying here anyways. They still have to sign papers and a lawyer gets involved in there somewhere. So I spent the time I would have spent writing it moving things around and helping get the guest bedroom situated for him and all that stuff. I did do a ton of writing Friday night/Saturday morning, but it was all on my novel. I'm glad to be writing on my novel again. I truly am. I don't know why I stopped for so long. Maybe I just needed the time to regroup. I don't know. Anyways, um...how about Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. That one should keep you busy for a little while. I really like that book. I read it twice. The whole Ender Quartet is really good, and so is the Ender's Shadow series. I'm working my way through the last book in that one as we speak. Or any one of James Clavelle's doorstoppers, though I've never read them. They're really long, so they should keep you busy for a goodish while.

When the thick, black clouds part for the shining Son

Sorry, there's been a bit o' delay on the story I intended to post. I'll blame it on the creative ebb and flow of my mind. I was just so inspired when I wrote that last post that I thought I would hop on over to my other computer - my writing computer - and whip it out. I did not, however. And furthermore I've been caught up by my novel once again, so all indications point to next weekend when there won't be any birthday parties to attend nor a lawn to mow. I apologize to those anticipating this future tale. May I suggest you read Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running. There's a few too many curse words in some scenes (one is too many in my opinion), but it's not blatant. It's all character in other words. But the tale is so inspiring. It's one of those I'll want to pick up from time to time just to make me feel better. And it just feels so honest. It kind of wanes at the end, but let's not get all caught up with endings. Haven't I discussed this book on this blog before? Oh well, it's worth a second discussion. If you've already read that book, how about Richard Adams's Watership Down, or Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon - it's his cleanest and possibly best novel. Or pick up any copy of The Sun - the literary magazine, not the tabloid. I'm sorry to disappoint my legions of fans in this way, but those suggestions should suffice to get you by until the week has passed.

The Bridge

How about another story, huh? How about that? It shall be called "Upon the Bridge We Meet". I plan to write it this weekend. My hope is that it will be shorter than "Grazing the Dead", but I make no guarantees. I just got the idea for it as I was driving home from work not thirty minutes ago, so I don't know how the story might grow before I get it down on paper. And further more, this story will be written with an English accent. I don't know what region of England, so just read it with whatever your idea of an English accent is. The purpose of posting this story is to introduce you to an entirely different aspect of my writing. I don't know what that aspect is, precisely, but if you read "Grazing the Dead", you will notice that this story sounds completely different. However, those fundamental elements of my style will still be present. I hope you notice that, too.

Diosa de Espana

'Twas a brilliant morning.

Felt like Autumn.

I can't wait.

Grazing the Dead - Part VII

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

“You alright, son,” Jim said, helping him to his feet. “That’s a bad bump.”

“I’m fine,” Benjamin said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later, teasing them cows like that with all this good grass. I told the office people to have them put a barbwire fence around this place when Mr. Reynolds started grazing this field out. A barbwire fence with maybe some hotwire running top and bottom. But, no. They said it was too gruesome in a place where kids might be, as if a cemetery aint already gruesome to a kid that aint old enough or smart enough not to be touching hotwire.”

He sat Benjamin into the cab of the truck and walked around to the other side. He continued to honk his horn as he drove over the fallen down part of the fence and on into the pasture.

“I been keeping a bag of cubes in the back for just this occasion,” he said. “That’ll keep em busy enough while I get that fence back up. You sure you don’t want me to run you home real quick. Let your momma have a look at that bump. I doubt the clinic’s still open.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “Just hurts a little is all.”

“Man, you really had a strangle hold on that baby calf,” Jim said. “Getting ready for the junior rodeo, I reckon.”

“I don’t rodeo.”

“I didn’t think so. Cemetery’s no place to be practicing your skills no how. And those calves they have you chase down are a might bigger than the one you was wrestling.”

“I wasn’t wrestling it.”

“Then what was you doing? If you wasn’t trying to take it down, you was being a might friendly. You wasn’t trying to rustle it was you? Tie it up in your backyard for a little while, waiting on some veal.”

Benjamin didn’t say anything.

“But you sure ticked momma off. Lucky a little bump on the head is all you came away with. Cows is docile mostly, but you go messing with their babies and they can be just as mean as anything. It’s a wonder that calf let you get so close. They’s usually skittisher’n a man with a million dollars sticking out his pockets.”

“I don’t know,” Benjamin said. “He just came up to me.”

“Maybe you just one of those people that’s got a way with animals,” he said. “A whisperer, like on that movie. You the cow whisperer or something. Oh, man, that’s a good one.”

Benjamin started laughing. It was the first time he’d felt good in a week. And his stomach let out a loud rumble to match his laughter.

He was hungry.

He was so hungry.



THE END

Grazing the Dead - Part VI

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

He knew from what some of the kids said in school that there were people that believed you would come back in some form or fashion after you died. Reincarnation, they called it. You wouldn’t come back as the same person, though. Usually you would come back as somebody else. Some even believed that you would come back as an animal. He thought that was stupid though, coming back as an animal. A cow, even. One kid said that in India they thought you came back as a cow. Not everybody in India, just some segment of Hindu. Benjamin thought if he wanted to come back at all, he certainly wouldn’t be coming back as a cow. He’d end up in the supermarket wrapped in cellophane. But those people in India didn’t eat the cows, of course. They didn’t want to eat their relatives. They’d sit and starve while a cow walked right through their front yard.

Benjamin heard a loud moo right behind him. It startled him, his mind already thinking about cows like that. The cemetery was surrounded on three sides by pasture. The grass was near dead in the field and the cows would often saunter up by the cemetery and munch the fresh green grass near the fences edge where the sprinklers spilled over. But that moo had been too close. He turned around and saw several heifers and calves milling about the headstones, grazing the tall grass. He noticed that part of the fence in the corner was down, but he wondered if maybe Jim hadn’t left it down on purpose to recruit a little help from the cows to keep the grass down. But that didn’t make sense with Jim all the way on the other side and the front gates still open. He reckoned after staring at such plush, green grass for so long, the cows had finally put enough pressure on the fence to knock it down.

Benjamin tried to ignore the cows, but their incessant mooing at him was making it hard to think, much less reconcile his feelings about his grandpa. He had almost decided to give up on the idea when he heard a baby calf bawl. He turned around and saw a baby black baldy bull calf trundling towards him. The calf bawled again and stopped in front of him, reaching its head towards his hands.

His first reaction was to back off and try to shoo it away, but then he remembered the cows in India. He imagined if he lived there and a baby calf like this one, not more than a week old, came up to him and started bawling, he’d shout for joy.

“Grandpa,” Benjamin said, timidly at first. “Grandpa!”

He put his hand out and the baby calf licked it. Then he patted its nose and began to rub the fur between its eyes. Before he knew it, he had dropped to his knees and embraced the calf in a full hug, crying out, “Grandpa, Grandpa!”

Then he heard a disgruntled moo and felt something hard and heavy slam into his shoulder. His arms pulled free of the calf as he was thrown into the headstone of a neighboring grave. He bumped his head on the granite and fought hard not to pass out. He heard a vehicle drive up and start honking its horn. He thought it might be his mother, telling him to get home and eat something before he died of a broken heart. His heart was the least of his worries right now, however.

Grazing the Dead - Part V

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

When he finally made it to the cemetery entrance, he didn’t want to go in, but he knew he must. There was something he had to do, but he didn’t understand what.

The gates were still open. Jim, the cemetery’s caretaker, didn’t shut and lock the gates until six o’clock or later, but any person on foot could just slip through the bars if they wanted to. The cemetery was larger than he thought it would be before the funeral. He didn’t remember much about Grandma’s funeral, except that it was cold and it had rained. It just seemed amazing to him a few days ago how such small town could have such a large cemetery. But the dead didn’t go anywhere. A lot of kids grew up and went off to college and never came back, but some people got stuck in this town until it swallowed them up. He imagined there were as many graves as people in town. The exponential growth factor didn’t hold in small towns like it did in the city.

Nobody else was in the cemetery except for Jim, who was weed-eating around the headstones on the far side. During the spring and summer and on into the fall, Jim could be seen out here most days trying his hardest to keep the grass cut down enough so that people wouldn’t complain. There was an underground sprinkler system that came on automatically at night to keep the grass looking nice and green all summer long. It had been so hot and dry the last month that the cemetery would have become a giant dead brown patch without it. Benjamin didn’t see how it made much sense to keep a place of the dead looking so fresh and alive. The cemetery only ever looked right in the winter. Right now the grass was so tall where he was that he could hear it whisper as it swayed in the wind.

When he saw the mound of dirt still looking freshly turned at his grandpa’s grave towards the back of the cemetery, fresh tears began to spill down his cheeks. He wanted to turn and run away. Run all the way back to the house and shut himself back in his room. But he knew that he needed to be here. He needed to face this one last time by himself so that maybe he could let it go. Not so that he could forget. That could never happen, but so that he could let those emotions drain out of him so he could feel hungry again.

He noticed that the headstone had been removed from his grandma’s grave. They were supposed to be bringing a joint headstone in sometime that had both their names and dates on them. He didn’t know what they were going to do with the old headstone. Perhaps grind the engravings off the front and sell it to someone else. He would hate to think he had someone else’s headstone. But by that point, he probably wouldn’t know or care. Instead there were two metal plates in front of each grave detailing the basic information while they waited on the new headstone. They were surrounded by wilted, dying flowers from the funeral.

He placed his hand on the mound of dirt as he continued to sob. He knew Grandpa’s spirit had soared to heaven, but on the off chance that his spirit had decided to return to his body, Benjamin was prepared to dig him back up if he thought he could feel something pressing up against this mound of dirt.

He felt nothing.

Grazing the Dead - Part IV

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

He sat in his room for a while longer, but he kept glancing at the door, thinking his mother might poke her head in and try to make him be strong again. Finally he ran from the house and headed up the street. He didn’t know where he might go. Everywhere he went there were people milling about. Mostly kids, some of them his classmates.

“Hey, Benny,” his best friend Christopher said from across the street.

Chris was standing on his front lawn with a football tucked under one arm. Any normal evening he would be right there with him, tossing the ball back and forth, wondering if they would have enough players to have their own seventh grade team, or if they would have to play up with the junior high and most likely ride the bench all season. But nothing had been normal for the last week.

Benjamin gave Chris a small wave and continued past him. Chris stood and watched him for a moment before tossing the ball back up into the air and catching it.

The houses began to thin until he was walking past Mrs. Simpson’s house at the edge of town. He could see the fields beyond and just kept walking, ignoring Mrs. Simpson’s toy poodle as he growled and barked and nipped at Benjamin’s heels.

When he could see the arched stone gateways and the American flag flapping in the breeze, it didn’t come as any surprise to realize that his body had instinctively led him towards the cemetery. It was the last place that he ever thought he would want to go. This was the place where those men had lowered his grandpa’s casket into the ground and made it final. There was no turning back once they lowered the casket to the bottom of the grave and pushed that impossibly large mound of red dirt over the top of it. During the viewing and later as he walked by the open casket at the end of the funeral before the pallbearers loaded it into that old, black hearse, he kept thinking his grandpa’s body might suddenly come to life. Benjamin could see him sitting up and staring at the astonished crowd before letting out a long gale of hearty laughter. Like his mother said, Grandpa was a quiet type and not one for telling or playing jokes, but if he ever had the perfect chance to pull a fast one, this was it. Benjamin didn’t cry during the funeral until the tractor was dumping it’s first load of dirt over the casket. Until that point he had been preparing himself to laugh with his grandpa when the jig was up. He tried to hide his smile behind a handkerchief, pretending to wipe his nose or daub his eyes. He couldn’t imagine what someone would think if they saw him smiling at his grandpa’s funeral. They would think the wrong things, like maybe there was a giant inheritance waiting for him and maybe it wasn’t a heart attack that had made him fall off that ladder. Maybe the heart attack came later after someone pushed him off or shook him off. It was horrible the way people thought about these things, but he had to hide his smile. He couldn’t give them a chance to think it.

Grazing the Dead - Part III

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

“Grandpa told me once that he wondered if Jesus looked anything like any of those pictures people put on their walls. I guess he can see for himself now.”

“I don’t think we can begin to imagine what Jesus looks like in His glory at the right hand of the Father. I imagine an angel so bright you can’t look upon Him with human eyes, even at a distance. But you rest assured that Grandpa can see Him now, and perhaps shining almost as bright. Now it will do you good to eat some of those eggs before they get too cold.”

Benjamin ate a few bites and sipped his milk, but it wasn’t long before he was back in his room, crying fresh tears and secretly begging God to let Grandpa come back, if only for a few more days, so he could hug him one more time and say goodbye.

“Lunch is ready,” his mother said, peeking through his bedroom door. “I made chicken and cheese soup, heavy on the cheese the way you like it.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

“This is what I was telling you about earlier, Benny,” she said. “Grandpa wouldn’t want you dying for his sake. You’re too young for your heart to break like that. And I know I haven’t made you work too hard for it to wear out just yet.”

“I don’t want to,” he said. “Can’t you just let me be sad for little while. I don’t feel like trying to force food down my throat right now.”

“Just have a taste, and I’ll bet you’ll want more.”

“I don’t want a taste. I don’t want more.”

“Darling, I thought after our talk this morning you would be okay with things.”

“Well, I’m not. And I don’t see how you’re so calm about the situation, either.”

“Don’t you dare say that. I feel like a million shattered pieces inside just like you do, but one of us has to be strong. And I can’t let that fall on you.”

“Then I’m weak and you’re strong. Can’t it just be okay for things to stay that way right now.”

She sighed deep and heavy. “It’ll be in the fridge if you want to heat some up later.”

Grazing the Dead - Part II

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

“Your father would never take you to the river,” his mother had told him that morning. “He’d be sitting here watching the early news or reading the paper and yelling at you not to bug him anymore about it. It took me a long time to see it, but it’s a good thing he left before you could get to know him too well. This way you’re nothing like him. You’re just like your Grandpa, instead. A little too quiet, but it’s not such a bad thing to keep your mouth shut. Keeps you outta trouble.”

“But I didn’t want him to go,” Benjamin said, leaving his breakfast untouched before him on the kitchen table. “Couldn’t he have waited a little longer. At least long enough to teach me how to drive.”

“I’m sure he wanted to wait. I’m sure he would have liked to see you all the way through college and see his great grandkids, but when God wants to you come home and be with Him, you can’t say no. You don’t want to say no, really. There’s some great things here on this Earth and it’s hard to leave your family behind, but Heaven is so much better. And I’m sure he was looking forward to seeing Grandma Elsie again. I think if he didn’t have you in his life, he woulda died of a broken heart six years ago.”

“You can really die from that?”

“In a way. When your heart gets broken like that, you just kind of stop caring about living and stop doing all those little things we do to keep ourselves alive. You stop eating right. Maybe you don’t take your blood pressure medication. You sit in the house until your muscles start to atrophy. Things like that. But Grandpa still had you to look forward to. You filled that empty space left when Grandma died. You kept his heart from breaking.”

“But Grandpa’s heart did break,” Benjamin said. “It was attacked.”

“But that’s a different kind of broken heart,” his mother said. “Grandpa had a hard life. He had to work hard everyday just to have food to eat and someplace to stay. His family lost the farm in the depression and there just wasn’t much a man could do with a third-grade education. He made it through when a lot of people didn’t, but those kinds of things catch up to you when you get old. Every time he came home tired and worn out from picking cotton all day or plowing for some farmer, it was just building up to last Wednesday. Then when he was climbing up that ladder to adjust the antenna because the TV was all fuzzy, his heart finally gave out with that last bit of effort.”

“He was gonna miss the weather,” Benjamin said. “He thought it might rain.”

“Everybody’s been hoping for it.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Why couldn’t he have that last wish,” Benjamin said. “To feel the rain one more time. He always smiled when it rained. Even though he didn’t have a farm or crops anymore. It made him feel good to know other peoples’ crops were getting the water they needed.”

“He can feel the rain now everyday if he wants to. No one knows exactly what Heaven is like, but I think it’s going to be every good feeling you ever had plus all those you didn’t, wrapped into one multiplied by a billion.”

Grazing the Dead - Part I

copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar

Grandpa was old. Old people die. Benjamin was supposed to understand that. He didn’t understand it when he was four years old and his father left, but now he was twelve and he knew that after you’ve been on this Earth a long while, some important part of you would wear down and fail. And you would die.

But Ben wasn’t ready for Grandpa to die. Grandpa was going to take him down to the river and show him how to catch a real catfish with his bare hands.

“It’s like petting a baby kitten,” his grandpa had told him. “Be real gentle and caress its belly. Let it think your hand is a soft bit of mud. Then when you feel a gentle current of water brush against your skin like a warm breath, plunge your hand into the gills behind his head and pull him out. But you have to feel him first. If you think he’s too big, just let him be. No since letting him drag you under the water with him. Kids older than you have drowned in this river. And don’t listen to their friends who say they were just having a swim. The river’s too shallow most of the year that any normal kid couldn’t stand on his own two feet, and too raging the rest of the year to be dumb enough to try and swim in it.”

He had been excited to go noodling with Grandpa in the river, but he also had nightmares of being taken under the water by some giant catfish. And he was afraid of losing his hand inside them. But Grandpa used to do it all the time when he was a kid. So it must be okay.

He was sitting in his room crying, now. The funeral was three days ago and he still woke up each morning wondering if Grandpa would be sitting in the living room asking if he was ready to go. It was summertime and he didn’t have to worry about school so they could spend all day at the river. Even if he was too afraid to stick his hand into the deep holes underneath the bank, Grandpa could teach him how to weave a net from the tall grass that grew beside the river, and they could seine minnows or try to scoop up some crawdads. Above all they could sit there and Benjamin would get a glimpse of what it was like to have a father around to do things with.

Disclaimer: This is a rough draft with a quick brush up. Normally my rough drafts don't end up this clean, so you are witnessing something quite rare, dear reader. I've never gone noodling before, so I could be quite wrong on the mechanics of it. My apologies.

Intro to the Dead

Alas, the original story I was going to post wasn't working out like I wanted it to. So I wrote a different story from an idea that has been bouncing around my head for three months or so. This story isn't about me at all. Well, maybe a little. It's almost impossible for some deep part of myself not to show up in everything I write. This story is called "Grazing the Dead", and it's about a boy trying to cope with his grandfather's sudden death. It's a common enough theme, but hopefully I've been able to put a unique perspective on it. Truly, my hope is that you'll get to see my style of writing. Like most styles, it was developed accidentally, but I can't seem to part from it. No matter how I tell the story, whether it be third person or first person or any other variance, and no matter what character I develop to give the first person account, whether they be intelligent or not or male or female, it just seems that this particular style, this particular way of going about the story, is forever present. At first I thought it was a bad thing. I couldn't imagine that any style that I could call my own could possibly be any good. I'm still unsure on that matter. I'm sure there are other writers who perhaps write in a similar style, but like everything else, God made each of us different, even identical twins. There's nothing wrong with trying to copy someone else's style as you're learning to write and put the words together that become the story, but inevitably, you will find your own unique way of doing things. Usually, as I have done, by accident. And I'm sure that it will continue to change as I become older and more mature, but the part of it that points at me and says, "Yes, that is you," is becoming more clear. And that core part will probably never go away. As I feared, I will have to do a touch of research for the story, so it will probably be Monday evening before I can post Part I. I'm not sure how many parts there will be. The story ended up being 11 double-spaced pages, so it would make sense to post a single page at a time, but I want to see if I can find any lines of demarcation so I can make each piece seem as whole as possible. Again, stay tuned...

Great News!

Yes, absolutely ecstatic news! Just kidding. Inspired by fellow blogger Carol, I'm going to post small pieces of a short story I've been working on. I’m thinking five or six installments. Then you can read a piece of my writing for yourself and decide if I'm any good or if I've just been blowing a lot of smoke. I'm a humble person and I don't think that my writing is all that good, so in my own mind I've been blowing smoke. Sorry about that. The story is really quite short for my normally long-winded self. What usually happens is a story starts out in my mind as maybe five or six pages and the next thing I know I'm on page twelve and not even halfway done. Currently, I'm near what I believe is the end of this story and I'm only on like page three. So let's cross our fingers and hope another page or two will wrap things up. I'd hate to take up too much of your time. I don't have a title for it yet. Maybe by the time I'm finished with it a title will come to me. If not, I'll post the story anyways and see if you, yes, you, my fellow blogger, can think of one for me. Sorry, there's no prize for the winning entry. I'm thinking Sunday morning part one should be up. That depends if I have to do any research, which I shouldn't since the story is mostly about me and nothing really happens in the story that would warrant any extensive research. But I just never know where the story might take me, so I can't be sure. So stay tuned...

Harvest of Souls

Well, potatoes actually. I think I let some of them sit in the ground too long. It's been so dry and hot lately causing the ground to heat up that perhaps some of them towards the surface were beginning to bake in the dirt. They got all wrinkly and squishy feeling. But overall it was a good crop. I'm estimating around 240 to 300 lbs worth. All of that from a few small sacks of seed potatoes sliced up and planted in the spring. I've had people tell me that you have to plant the seed potatoes whole. Like the plants somehow need all the life-giving power contained in the complex sugars of the starch inside. But I'm looking at these seed potatoes and seeing how small some of them are and how big the others are and thinking if these tiny ones can produce a plant that will later grow its own nice sized potatoes, there's no reason that a segment of the larger ones can't do the same. Just as long as they've got an eye that will spring forth a new plant. Besides, my dad, who learned this from his granddad, had always halved and quartered his seed potatoes to make more plants. I remember one year, perhaps when I was in high school or junior high, that my dad basically peeled the potatoes, paying close attention to the eyes, and planted those thin slivers that still produced a nice crop. It's no different than plucking the seeds from an apple or a watermelon. You don't have to plant the whole watermelon to get a vine. You just need one tiny seed. They key is fertile soil. And plenty of water. Though when the potato plant has flowered and begins to die, it's wise to stop watering. If the potatoes stay wet in the ground for very long they'll begin to rot. We lost almost a whole crop like that one year. It just rained and rained and rained and we finally had to dig through the mud and salvage what few potatoes we could. So is there a lesson in all of this? Yeah, probably, but I’ll let you figure it out for yourself. I don’t have the energy today for deep thought and probable wisdom.

Tearful Goodbyes

No, not really, but I am gonna lay low for a while. I'll keep posting little things. Maybe not everyday. But as I was compiling my 100 things about me list, guess what I discovered. It was over 19 pages long. Single-spaced, except for the extra space between entries. And do you know what that made me think about? My novel! Which I've all but abandoned these last several weeks. If I had put that same energy and effort into my novel, I'd nearly be done with the first draft. So as I renew my efforts in hopes of a resurgence, and as I continue to ponder the questions of the universe and search for answers, my time spent blogging will be minimal. My time spent on the internet will be minimal. I shall engross myself in my life's work. Really make it become my life's work. For I've been treating it more like a hobby as of late. I got myself caught up in so many other things that I found no time for my real writing and bible study. And this cannot continue. I calculated it, and I only have five hours on the days or nights that I work in which to do other things that don't involve sleeping, getting to work, working, or getting home from work. Only five hours in which to live. I'm lucky if I can wrestle two hours of it into writing time. And I've also got my garden and my nieces to play with and people to talk to. A good chunk of it is used in my bible reading and pondering time, and sometimes I just need to relax a bit. So until I can make enough money with my writing to write full time, I fear I have little choice. And the only way to make enough money writing to be able to do it full time, I've got to write enough in the little time that I do have to get something finished that a publisher might want to purchase, thus garnering the aforementioned money that could buy me the time that would allow me to write perpetually. I hate to look at it that way. I hate to think that I'm writing for money. I don't really. I don't write what I think publishers will want, thus compromising my artistic integrity or moral aptitude. But when I have finished what I'm writing, I will seek a publisher in lieu of monetary gain. So look at it and think of it what you will.

Yay! I did it!

All right, folks. Now that that madness is over with, I can get back to regular posting. I'm gonna go through all 100 of those things about me and edit them and make sure I didn't repeat myself, as I'm sure I did. So eventually I will have a link to a fully completed 100 things about me list just below my profile so people can go to it and view it without having to search through my archives to find all the entries. If you've been reading this list on a daily basis, you might want to go back and look at the expanded entries. I posted a bunch of one liners, but I went back and wrote them in some more detail. I think in the future I might do some 10 or 20 or some number of things about whatever lists. That way I can take some of the more general entries on my 100 things list and really break them down. If you noticed, I cheated on the dates to make it look like I posted five things per day. I was using cheat sheets for this before I realized I could make any post look like it was posted on any day I wanted. Why did I do this? Good question. It's part of my perfectionist personality. Ultimately, does it matter? Of course not. I don't understand half of the things I do anymore. Why do I constantly do things that impair me and keep me from having the things I want most? Maybe I really am crazy. Or maybe I'm just really normal. Or maybe everybody is really crazy, which makes us all normal. Or maybe everybody is really normal, which makes us all seem crazy, which again, in turn, makes us normal and crazy again at the same time. Doesn't that all just sound crazy?

Okay, enough of that madness. I have absolutely got to get back into the swing of my novel. I'm gonna read my bible, try some deep prayer, work in my garden for a little bit, and see what I can do.

Fin

96. I have a computer science degree. Surprise! You would think with my knowledge of programming that I would have a really cool blog design and all these other cool things. But I don't. Why? Because I really don't care much for computer programming. I hit a snag in my college career when I decided that a non-teaching English degree was about the most worthless thing in the world and far too much reading besides. So, um, I had to do something, right. The college I went to didn't have a degree for University Studies, as I've heard that some college's do, or maybe that was just on that one movie. Or a Fiction Writing degree, which I know that some colleges offer. Anyways...having no idea what computer science was really all about, I thought it would interesting, and I'd heard that you could get a good paying job with a computer science degree. I had been told, in fact, that you were pretty much guaranteed a good job with that degree, no matter which college you got it from. However, over the span of the two years it took me to take the required coursework, the whole computer science boom went bust. Tech companies were dropping like flies. Corporations were laying off programmers in droves. And then 9/11 happened during my senior year and pretty much shot what little chance I had left. But honestly, I've always been a writer at heart, and once the novelty of programming wore off, I didn't care for it much anymore. I did my class work, and I did it superbly, but nothing else. I learned only what I needed to get by in my classes and worked on my writing and read books the rest of the time. I did a little job searching after graduation, but quickly learned that it was a futile cause. The industry is picking back up again, so I hear, but I'm so outdated by now and still don't care much about it. The last program I wrote was the last one I had to do for a class over three years ago. I just don't care about it anymore and I can't convince people of this truth. However, my experiences with computer programming did give me tons of cool story ideas. So I won't tell you that it was all a waste of time. And I did meet a really cool girl in one of my classes that I'm still sort of friends with. I long to see her again, but she seems so unreachable. I've mentioned her before on this blog. I try to call her now and then, but she rarely answers her phone, and when she does she's either been sleeping or is too busy to talk. She just had or is about to have her second child, so I can imagine if she doesn't care to talk to me or anybody else right now.

97. I have stretch marks on my belly from one intense summer of gluttony seven years ago that I have regretted ever since. I gained like thirty pounds in two months. Half a pound a day, and most of it went to my belly. My poor skin cells couldn't divide fast enough for swelling fat cells beneath. The marks are mostly faded now, but they serve as a constant reminder. Even if I managed to get myself together and lose all of this excess weight, they will still be there. I can never be beautiful again. I can never be perfect again. I am forever flawed with this ugliness caused by my sin. Well, not never. God will make me perfect again, someday. But never again on this Earth, at least, where physical beauty seems to be the only important thing to most people.

98. I used to love to play with silly puddy. My favorite thing was to flatten it out and slap in on a newspaper so it could peel off a little bit of the ink and show the mirror image of the printed words. And I loved to squish it between my fingers and roll into a perfectly round and smooth ball or into a long limp rope. I loved its pliability to be anything you wanted it to be. It was one of the tools that helped shape my imagination.

99. I'm not a collector. I used to think that I collected books, but I've even let that go. I sold a bunch of them on ebay and didn't regret it. I'm just a very nonmaterial person. That's the only way I can say it. I don't give into fashion very often. I understand when things look cool, but I don't judge people by what they wear. I really try not to judge people at all, as the bible says. People should just be who they are and not try to copy somebody else or chide others for not being just like them. I get the feeling I've said all this before, and I probably have. But it's still true. That's one thing about the bible. It was written a thousand plus years ago, but it's truth is still constant. Truth, real truth, doesn't falter or fade. Because if it did, then it simply wouldn't be true. And the bible also clearly shows that despite advancements in technology, humans haven't and probably never will change.

100. I'm trying very hard to put my life into order. As you've probably noticed from the other 99 entries into this 100 things about me list, I'm conscious of most of my faults and I'm seeking to change. I know that I can't do this without God's help, but too much of the time I try to do it on my own. And I fail. Help me, God, be who You want me to be. Make me stop procrastinating and seeking things for myself. Help me be compassionate for others. Take away my lust and my greed and my envy and my hatred and my stubbornness and my selfishness and all the desires of my flesh. Help me to obey Your word and do Your will. For this is what my spirit desires. Help me to understand that this life is only a testing ground for eternity. Help me pass the test. Help me to remember that the things of this world are ultimately meaningless and soon will pass, and that the things of God are the only things matter. Help me stay focused and keep me from sliding back into the despair that I only create for myself. Keep me forever in Your presence. Amen.

Home Stretch

91. My pirate name is Mad Jack Rackham. I just found out.

92. I used to be frightened of death, but I'm not anymore. The longer I live and the less chance there is of my dreams coming true, the more I'm looking forward to spending the rest of eternity in heaven. I'm not reckless and suicidal, but I don't worry about my eventual death like I used to.

93. I should like to travel to some foreign places before my flame is extinguished. St. Louis is about the most exotic place I've been. I was there when they were building the dome where the Rams now play. But I would like to experience some different cultures like Japan's and China's and Zimbabwe's and Chile's and Russia's and pretty much any culture different from my own. This will all be a part of that eventual breaking out of my shell thing that I'm slowly experiencing.
94. I can suspend my disbelief of impossible things long enough to search them out with my mind to find out if they really are or can be possible. This aids my super creativity. People think that a lot of Christians are closed minded fools, for some reason. Though believing in God from a worldly standpoint is a fantastical thing. For me, as I've mentioned, it's impossible for God not to exist. But for the sake of it, I tried to imagine this universe without God in control. Utter chaos, folks. Complete and utter chaos. When God destroys the world, and in fact the entire universe, for the final time, it will be quite simple. He will simply put it from His mind. And it will be no more. Right now, I think we're just living in God's dream. He created our spirits and dreamed a place for us to be. When he wakes up, it will all be over, and our spirits will all be living joyously in heaven or in the eternal agony of hell, whichever we chose. For, yes, it is a decision. God gives each of us a chance, and we decide. No one will have an excuse for not believing.

95. I'm still a virgin. I was holding off on that one, hoping I could think of 100 other things, but alas my well has nearly run dry. I'm not ashamed of it, really. It's a blessing not to have that baggage to bring into future relationships. And as a Christian, it helps me keep a clear conscious. But the truth is, there have been times in my life that if I'd had a girlfriend that was willing and able, I probably wouldn't be a virgin right now. I think that's why God made me the way I am. To keep me pure until the time is right. Though I can hardly think of myself as pure. Like all teenage boys and young men, I've lusted in my mind repeatedly. But you can't get a girl pregnant or contract a venereal disease from lust. It's still a sin, but with less physical consequences.

Travel in time

86. I want to be famous after I'm dead. I want people to look at what I accomplished while I was alive and say, "Wow! Now that man did some things in his day. And he didn't get paid for any of it and he never complained. Just...wow!" Do these things in secret, and God will reward you openly, especially once you're deceased.

87. I love using my credit card. I don't mean that I go crazy and buy a bunch of stuff I don't need like a lot of people that love credit cards do. Well...I may splurge a little now and then, but I'm good at paying my balance in full each month. I don't like writing checks, and I don't like letting go of the cash I have in my wallet. It's just better to swipe the card. And my debit card never seems to work anywhere. Otherwise, I might use it instead.

88. I don't see why aliens can't exist. So far in my bible reading, I've seen nothing against the existence of aliens. I read somewhere where someone pointed out that it says somewhere that Adam's sin cursed the entire universe or something, and that if there were other intelligent beings elsewhere it wouldn't be fair for them to have to share in Adam's curse. But I'm like I wasn't even born and I have to share in it. So what's the difference. But I did a quick search and I can't find where it says that in the Bible. Of course, then there's the deal with Jesus coming to Earth and soon to return and all that. Are the aliens a part of that, too? All these questions. What if God has a bunch of planets going like Earth all around the universe? What if he's been doing the same thing on these other planets that he's been doing here. It says we are made in God's image. But God doesn't have a physical form, so I take that to mean his spiritual image. No reason weird looking aliens can't have the same spiritual image as us, right? I'm gonna write a short story about this someday. And I'll post it right here on my blog if I'm unsuccessful at getting it published in a real magazine or by a real book publisher (since I have no idea how long the tale might end up being.) I wonder if anyone else has tackled this issue before. That's one thing about writing and being creative. You just never know if somebody else has already used up an idea. And if so, how can you make yours different. Though I think because God made us so radically different from eachother, that even if you told the exact same idea to two people, they'd come up with very different stories. So I try not to worry about that too much when I write. Sometimes I'll think of a different slant on someone else's idea for a story. I really don't like stories just to be about ideas and stuff, though. I like good characters and good narrative more than anything else. I get so bored with the fast paced thrillers with onion skin thin characters.

89. I really don't care what my socks look like. Most of my socks look rather dingy. At one point or another, I've worn all of my socks while working in the garden or at the lake fishing, and they've all been stained time and time again so that they're more of a cream color than bright white. But what does it really matter? Nobody sees my socks. I don't wear shorts in public, and I certainly don't take my shoes off in public. So my socks stay covered up all the time. But even so, it still doesn't embarrass me for people to see my socks. I currently have a package of unopened socks that I've had for a year or so. I don't see the point in opening them until I've worn holes in all the ones I got.

90. I feel sorry for old people sometimes. Where I work, I see lots of old people that can barely get around trying to do their shopping. There just aren't enough electric scooters for all of them. But you tend to forget that they were vibrant once. They had tenacity. They've lived long, full lives and they're fine with this stage of their life. They're near the end. They're almost home. I envy them sometimes, too.

Can't be held responsible

81. I'm a second generation bandwagoner. I say this in regards to the University of Oklahoma. More specifically their football team. I was raised to be a sooner fan, but my family does not come from a long line of Sooner fans. My dad was raised to be an Oklahoma State Cowboys fan. My Granddad and Uncle on his side are die hard OSU fans. My dad even went to OSU for a spell, leaning towards a pharmacy degree. I would have had a much more lavish childhood if he'd stuck with it. Though most likely I would never have been born. But during the Barry Switzer era, when OU was winning a bunch of games and a few national titles, my dad jumped on the bandwagon. However, he stayed on the bandwagon during the Gibbs era. He even trudged through the embarrasments of the Schnellenberger year and the John Blake era. I didn't really get into watching much of anything until the beginning of the John Blake's three year tenure. We've had a bad run in National Title games lately, but we've been having great seasons in the present Bob Stoops era. I think we're looking at two or three losses in the coming season, but that's okay. The Sooners need to be humbled a little bit before they can make another National Title run. But all that is beside the point. I'm not a bandwagoner myself. Well, maybe a little. I've been a Dallas Cowboys fan and Chicago Cubs fan my whole life. I did jump on the St. Louis Rams bandwagon after they won that Superbowl, but I've stuck with them ever since. Of course, ultimately, I know all of this is trivial and means nothing and will not carry on into eternity. If people, especially Christian people, could have as much passion about God as they do about meaningless sports, this world could be a much better place.

82. I work overnights. In fact, I just started working overnights. I still haven't quite gotten my new sleeping pattern worked out, but I absolutely love working the night shift. It's hard and fast work, but by and large stress free. You don't feel so overwhelmed that you can't get things done like I did in the evenings. And when the night is through, I feel like I've really accomplished something worthwhile.

83. I really think a song made with bagpipes, a harmonica, and a snare drum would probably be the best song ever. I tend to like every song that has either of the three. I think bagpipes make a nice intro into a song. Then throw in a nice harmonica solo. With a nice drumroll to finish things. I like the clept drumroll sound, too, where you throw in extra beats amidst the roll. Travis Barker does this quite nicely on Adam's Song by Blink 182 (One of the many bands I probably shouldn't be listening to.) But Mr. Barker is quite the Virtuoso. Tom Petty's pretty good with the harmonica. And Korn's Jonathan Davis uses the bagpipes very effectively.

84. I used to be an awesome soccer player. When I was young, back in my glory days, me and my middle brother were about the best soccer tandem in the land. Quick, fast, strong, and utterly tireless. I could and did play just about every position on the soccer field. My last recallable stint being a goalie, just like my big brother. He was the best goalie ever just about, but I never got to be on a team with him, I don't think. But, alas, we moved away to a place that was more into summer baseball and nobody played soccer, so there weren't any teams. I wasn't near as good at baseball.

85. I think of really cool ways to play jokes on people, but I rarely go through with it. I'm so afraid that I might actually hurt people emotionally and physically with my jokes that I keep them on the inside. Or I tell that person how I was going to play a joke on them and how funny it would have been. They will laugh and quietly feel relieved that I didn't follow through with my cunning. However, these jokes will probably be chronicled in my future novels and short stories.

Bit too late to wait for fate

76. I haven't studied literature. You would think, being a writer and reading as much as I do, that I would have studied literature. Yes, I've taken some literature classes in high school and college, but I didn't pay much attention and still managed to pass the classes. But I think it would be nice to really study it. Learn all the literary styles and techniques and get down and dirty with it. Learn it for what it truly is rather than all the mumbo jumbo the college professors turn it into. I'm not saying that all college professors that teach literature don't know what they're talking about. Just the ones that I had. But how would I know. I wasn't paying attention.

77. I like to procrastinate. In high school and college I would put off studying for a test or writing a long paper until the night before and end up staying up all night and morning to finish up. I took a lot of tests on zero sleep and turned in a lot papers with a completely fried brain. The problem now is I never have any deadlines for anything, so my procrastinating ways just turn into long bouts of inactivity bordering laziness where I eventually buoy up enough motivation to get something done. That's why I'm still working on a novel that I started over three years ago. In the last several months, not counting the last several weeks, I got really charged up and wrote most of it. I've got about another hundred pages to go and I'll be finished, but lately I haven't felt inspired enough to write anything. It seems every time I get pumped up and decide that I'm not going to procrastinate anymore and really get my life going the way I want it to go, I do the complete opposite and do absolutely nothing worthwhile and sit and chide myself all the while. I really wish I had somebody, perhaps a clone of myself, to get behind me with a cattle prod and force me to get things done.

78. I remember when toys used to be made of metal. Those were the days. Plastic was around in my youth, but not so widely used. Now it's about all they use. They're even starting to make the bodies of real cars with plastic. I'm not saying it's altogether a bad thing, but I've always felt that things made from plastic are cheap and can't last. I know that the plastics they're coming up with today are actually stronger than their metal counterparts, so it's just a psychological thing.

79. Sometimes I see how things can be better, but I rarely do anything about it. I figure someone else will see what I see and taken action instead. Ergo all these awesome ideas I come up with and tell people about in the hopes that they will follow through with it.

80. I'm afraid of heights. I helped a local carpenter do roof job, and even though I could have easily jumped off the roof of that house and hit the ground running, I could still scarcely get myself to stand at the edge and look down without getting butterflies in my stomach. I can't imagine those people that work on skyscrapers. That whole business just freaks me out.

Baja Amour

71. I once tried to recycle my own paper. I tore it up into tiny shreds, mixed it around in water until it was a mushy, spongy paste, and spread it out flat on the cement to let it dry. I should have added some bleach to make it white again, but I was in Junior High and didn't feel comfortable messing with bleach. I did manage to make a lumpy purplish semi-flat paperboard like material that was good for nothing. I think I might have added dryer lint into the mixture. I think there should be a place where we can take our dryer lint to put back into production.

72. I'm going to revolutionize the publishing industry. Somebody may beat me to the punch, but that's okay. I don't want to do this for my own financial gain. I just want to make books cheaper to purchase so that more people will buy them and hopefully read them. As a writer, promoting literacy is akin to job protection. The more people that read, the more people there are that might possibly purchase your novel and become a fan which leads to future purchases. The current book publishing method is retarded. Let's make books so freaking expensive that the few people willing to lay their money down will make up for ten or fifteen others who don't. That's why you're paying eight dollars or more for a mass market paperback book that probably only cost a quarter or so in labor and materials to make. And that also means that only ten percent of all books printed actually get sold and the rest are destroyed. And that only leads to killing more trees for no reason. I love print on demand publishing, but it still isn't practical yet because of shipping costs. But here's my idea. Bookstores/print shops that have printing machines and binding machines that can put together a book in minutes or seconds. The quality will be akin to mass market paperbacks and I'll urge them to be printed on 100% bleach-free recycled paper. So basically, you go into a bookstore that has a few copies of the more popular books they're selling and a long list of all the books they offer for shopping purposes. You decide what you want, have them printed, pay up, and go on your way. Everybody can still get paid this way. The publisher, author, and bookstore. And the books won't have to be that expensive. A dollar or two, really. And because of the cheapness and ensuing volume that will be sold, I believe that all parties involved will end up making much more money, and we'll have a lot more people buying books and reading and becoming fans and returning and buying more and more books. And because it's in a store, you don't have to worry about shipping costs. It's going to take a major startup event to get this going, but eventually, in time, I believe this can make things better for everybody. If you're reading this, and you have the means, mentally and financially to undertake it, please do. It will be a while before I’m up to the challenge myself. And I'm more of an idea man than a business man anyways.

73. I fall in love in the spring. Not every spring. It used to be every spring, but I didn't fall in love last spring for some reason. I think it was because I was coming off a bad relationship and falling in love was the last thing on my mind. I rarely engage with those my heart has fallen for, but it happens and I feel love sick for a few weeks before the heat of the summer saps it out of me.

74. I once got a free drink-size upgrade at Taco Bell because of what I learned in my high school Spanish class. When they came out with Baja gorditas, people kept pronouncing the 'j' in Baja, and when I came along and said it correctly, the dude running the register was so relieved, he upgraded my small drink to a large one. I knew those Spanish lessons would pay off just like my Spanish teacher said they would.

75. I used to be (still am?) really, really shy. I'm still shy in some ways, I guess, but once upon a time I couldn't bring myself to approach a complete stranger and converse with them. I couldn't order my own food or pay for my stuff at the checkout. I would have my parents or one of my brothers do it. This shyness really hindered me for much of my life, but I've snapped out of most of it. I can get along fine in society, but I still have trouble forcing my will upon others. I don't like to take charge or oppose anybody. I only want peace, and that only seems to happen when you let others have what they want. I was fired from a job once, and I could have easily proven my innocence from the blatant lies they were accusing me of. But I knew that they were making those things up to get rid of me so they could give the job to one of their buddies. So I quietly walked away and didn't make a fuss. I wasn't the model employee, but I certainly wasn't lazy and retarded as they were trying to make me out to be.

Employment Options

66. I suffer from shower amnesia. It's the weirdest thing. No matter how hard I concentrate and try to stay focused, I can't remember if I've shampooed or washed my face or soaped up the rest of my body. Usually, I wash my hair first thing. Then I grab the rag and soap it up and scrub my face. Then I take the bar and lather up the rest of myself. But when I'm done with those three things, I suddenly can't remember doing any of them. I used to use shampoo from a clear bottle, so if the shampoo was still rolling down the sides of the bottle back towards the bottom, as if it had been overturned recently, then I knew I washed my hair. I get a clean rag each time, so if the rag is still dry, then I know I haven't washed my face yet. But for the last part, I'm never really sure. Sometimes I try to smell my pits, but if it was a rather inactive day, then I can't tell. I think I soap up two or three times before I can remember that I already did that part. And the shampoo bottle I'm using now is a solid color, so that adds to the confusion. With everything else in life, I have a fairly good memory about it and I can stay focused. But surround me with water and my mind goes blank. I was almost late for work the other day because I somehow spent twenty-five minutes in the shower when it only seemed like five. But I sure get some good thinking done in the shower. It's probably because I forget everything else. I'll be thinking on a story or a new idea or just thinking about life or God and nothing else at all. It's like my fortress of solitude where I can escape reality and feel good for a while.

67. I am a night owl. I love being up when everyone else is asleep. I love the solitude of it. And it really gets my creative mind to boiling. I do my best writing in the depth of night. I love the utter silence. There are plenty of sounds going on at night. Crickets and the wind in the trees and an occasional car speeding by, but it's not near the racket of the day. I turn my music on the lowest volume setting and slip away into my quiet world.

68. I believe in taking time out for repose. I think it was the Greeks that were big on repose. They felt you needed a couple of hours a day to just sit and think about things. Sort of like meditation, but less focused. I love being in a quiet restaurant having finished my meal and just sitting there, sipping what's left of my drink and thinking about things. It makes me feel really good inside. Helps me keep things in perspective. Helps me remember what's truly important.

69. I have never drank alcohol. Not counting medicine. I've never drank beer or wine or liquor or anything like that. I did once put a few drops of it in my mouth. It was laced with some kind of lime salt and I spit it out. That's the closest I've gotten, and I've had plenty of opportunities. However, I don't believe it's a sin to drink alcohol. Just as I don't believe it's a sin to eat food. But anything in excess is a sin. Anything that damages the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is your body, is a sin. Anything that causes you or others to fall is a sin. And if you, as a Christian that does not believe drinking alcohol is a sin, drink a beer or a glass of wine or a shot of whiskey in front of another Christian, whom you know believes that drinking alcohol is a sin, then you have sinned. Paul talks extensively about this in Romans or Corinthians somewhere.

70. I went through a brief phase where I wanted to be a manual typewriter repairman. I didn't view it as a profitable business, but I did purchase around eight or ten manual typewriters at various garage sales to study their mechanism and see if I couldn't fix the ones that didn't work right. I didn't get very far with the venture, but it did give me an idea for a manual computer based on a series of pulleys connected with micro-thin wires. It would take some super genius engineering to make it practical and not weight ten tons, but I think it can be possible. Though I doubt it will ever be done.

Never pawned my watch and chain

61. I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong. But it takes a lot of convincing before I'll accept the truth sometimes. Speaking of which, there is a sign that clearly states the speed on that road where I got my first speeding ticket. I drove that route today and paid careful attention. And there it was. And now I remember that it has been there the whole time, but I somehow managed to block it out from my brain. Brains are funny like that.

62. I'm too trusting of strangers. I want to believe that everyone is well intentioned and has a good heart somewhere deep inside. But I know that isn't true. I've met up with pure evil and been burned. And more often than not by people claiming to be Christian.

63. I am the youngest of three brothers and no sisters. My mom wanted a daughter. After two sons in a row, she decided to stop having babies. Then along came Jones. Long, tall Jones. Smooth walking Jones. Cool talking Jones. My name isn't Jones, but my parents tried to prevent me from occurring. Birth control, condoms. After the difficulties of the second childbirth, not to mention some difficulties with the first, they feared if they tried again, it would be doomed to fail. But here I am, folks. In the flesh. I tell people that I worked so hard just to be conceived that I used up all my life's energy. That's why I'm so lazy and lethargic today. Okay, stop it. I know that's no excuse. I'm not that lazy, and I'm not really sure what lethargic means, so maybe I'm not lethargic at all. Maybe a bit apathetic at times. But now my mother has been blessed with two granddaughters, so she's happy. No, they're not mine. Hopefully I will be the first to give her a grandson. All I need to do is find a wife and do that thing you do that made me and you and all those that were and are to be. Except for Adam and Eve, of course.

64. I made the transition from cassettes to cds rather easily. Just as I am making the transition from vhs to dvd rather easily. I adapt easily to new technologies. I think the mini-dvd is coming soon. Though Sony's minidisc, which were supposed to take the place of cds didn't catch on quite so well. Someday we'll have these thin, transparent, indestructible strips of plastic about the size of a stick of gum that will hold about a hundred terabytes of info that we'll carry around in our wallets or on our keychains. Computers won't have harddrives anymore. We'll just drop our little strips of plastic into the back of a very small mouse, which will have about a hundred times the current processing power of the most expensive computer you can buy today, which will wirelessly connect to extra-super-thin flat panel monitors that you can fold up into your pocket if you want to. And the keyboard will be this thin, spongy plastic thing with little bubbles instead of keys that can be folded up as well. And batteries that last for days that you can charge up with your body heat by sticking them in your pocket or armpit while you're sleeping or working or going about your day or just let them sit in the sun for a while. And completely wireless networking and internet. They will become this totally portable self-sustaining mechanism that can be folded into the size of a wallet and be so completely durable that it would take a ton of bricks falling from a two hundred feet up to cause the slightest bit of damage to it. You may not even need the keyboard. It will probably be 100% voice activated, and alongside basic English, we'll start teaching our kids how to talk to their computers in preschool. This is the future I imagine, and I can see it happening. But hopefully Jesus will come back before then. And most likely, I'll be dead before the technology can be fully realized.

65. 'G' is my favorite letter in the alphabet. Don't ask me why. It just is. I think it's because it was my favorite capital cursive letter to make. And because I like many things that begin with G. Like Green and Grass, which is also green, and God, of course, and gold and good and gosh and grand and don't make me break out my dictionary.

Speedway

56. I was gonna say that I have never gotten a speeding ticket, but guess what? I got one today on my way to work. I won't whine and say that I wasn't speeding and I didn't deserve it. However, the speed is not posted on the road until you've already been driving it for about five miles. My assumption was that the eventual posted speed meant you had to slow down to that speed. I did not realize that it was the speed for the entire road. I turn onto that road after I've been cruising the highway for the last thirty minutes, so it's sort of a momentum thing where I eventually taper down as I get close to the city. Apparently the highway patrol has decided to start watching this particular road. I've been driving that road for a while and I’ve only seen a highway patrol once before, though he didn't stop me, and I've been speeding my happy self along that whole time. So really, this was an inevitable thing. But I chitchatted with the trooper while he wrote up the ticket and thanked him for correcting my ways upon leaving his squad car. It was really rather pleasant, except for the part of having to pay the fine. All the future nonessential purchases I had bouncing around in my mind suddenly vanished, and a commitment to work harder and stop piddling around with my life took its stead. So I guess that was okay.

57. I really think that computers will someday be liquid inside. As the transistor gets smaller and smaller, ever approaching a molecular composition, the only way to maintain it will be in some kind of electrolyte solution or something similar. Think I'm crazy? Just wait. You may be right.

58. I want to speak a foreign language. I really want to learn French, though I have a cousin who took it in high school and says it's really hard. I know a little Spanish, and I'm confident that I could eventually grasp the language. German would probably be the easiest, since English is a Germanic language and there are many, many similarities. But it would be awesome to tackle a language like Japanese or Chinese, though which particular dialects, I don't know. Mandarin Chinese is a sort of universal Chinese language that they use to unite all the Chinese dialects together. And I might want to learn Cherokee, since it's one of the few native American languages to survive, and a couple of pints worth of the blood that flows through my veins (and arteries, don't forget the arteries) is Cherokee. I've heard that you can learn a lot about your own language by learning a foreign one.

59. I really think I'm destined to live for a long time. Around 120 years or so. Do I want to live that long? Not really. But I'm afraid it might happen. I really think God has so many things planned for me to accomplish before I die that it's gonna take a long, long time. I heard a joke similar to that. That someone believed God had a certain amount of things set out for them to do, and at the rate they were going, they would never die. See, the thing is, God has a lot planned for me to do, but He also wants me to be patient in each endeavor. Honestly, I'd love to go to heaven today, this instant. As Christians, that is our ultimate goal. Our ultimate prize, rather. But we have an obligation to fulfill our duty on this Earth. And unfortunately, my duty is going to take me a long, long time. So I better quit procrastinating and get done what needs doing so God can take me home.

60. I love to pop the bubble in bubble wrap. I think a lot of people love to do this. Though I know some people that can‘t stand it when others are doing it. It just feels like an injustice to me for that air to be trapped in there like that. There's probably good, breathable oxygen in there that we're gonna wish we had someday when the air gets too polluted. I guess we can wait and pop them then. Maybe that's just it. Maybe bubble wrap is a secret government project to preserve clean, breathable air for the inevitably polluted future. Perhaps it's a federal crime to pop them. Perhaps...

Ben Folds

51. I don't like back pants. Nothing against the color, but all the black pants I have seem to collect lint like crazy. I can't wear them anywhere without feeling embarrassed. What is the solution?

52. I don't like to drink tap water. I'm not saying that I haven't, and I'm not saying that I won't. But I can't stand the taste of it. There's only been one place that I've lived where I can remember being able to stand the taste of the tap water. I buy the processed water by the gallon. I know it's more expensive, but its the only way I can get myself to drink enough water. Growing up I lived on pop and milk and gatorade and tea. Otherwise, I would have dehydrated.

53. I don't like comic books. I have quite a few comic books, but they give me a headache to read. And they don't compare to reading a novel. I really don't like any book that has a lot of pictures in it. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I'd rather have the thousand words.

54. I wish I could whittle. I'd probably end up cutting my fingers all to pieces, but it would be cool to make little wooden horse figurines and stuff. Those pictures whittled into boards look really hard to do. I could never get the depth right.

55. Sometimes I have dreams about things that just happened, but with a slight variation, so that I can't remember which version was real and which version was the dream. It really messes me up sometimes until I can talk to someone who was there to let me know which was the true account.

half past a monkey

46. I don't like the zoo. I always felt so sorry for the animals. And zoos always stink so bad. I can barely go into the herpitarium without gagging. And I know this isn't how the animals act in their natural habitat. They get used to being fed and they get lazy. Most of them nowadays were bred in captivity. They barely have the instincts their species is born with. I think Madagascar will be a really funny movie.

47. I used to have a 100 peso coin. I found it on the playground behind the gradeschool when I was in the seventh grade or so. I knew the coin wasn't worth much in U.S. funds, but it still looked neat, and I fancied a trip to Mexico where I could spend it. I thought it would really be like a hundred bucks in Mexico. But I think it might translate into a few dollars there even. Somewhere along my road of life, I lost it. Perhaps some other kid found it and had these same thoughts. Perhaps this coin has been passed on from kid to kid, spawning these same thoughts over and over again. Or maybe the coin is lost forever, it's special power going unrealized all this time. I must find it. I must free it.

48. I'm sure my chemistry teacher made us do something illegal in high school. There was this experiment where we dissolved all the zinc from the inside. And this one where we made the zinc and copper swith places. And this one where we fuzed the zinc and the copper together to make a sort of brass. We ruined a lot of pennies that day. And isn't it a federal crime to destroy money like that?

49. I forget to put on deoderant sometimes. What I really mean to say, is that I'm absent minded. I can remember in detail many things of the past. But it's the day to day things where I get lost. Tell me to pick you up at 8 o'clock, and I might forget. Ask me when I picked you up the day before, and I'll tell you at 8:03. That's just how my brain works. I constantly have dreams that I forgot to do something.

50. I really love the word rinse. I guess it makes me think of cool, refreshing water. When I was a kid taking a bath, I would take my rag and wet it and squeeze it out over my head and think of the word rinse. Or after I had brushed my teeth, I would rinse. Or I would rinse the dishes. I don't know why.

The Long Middle

41. I believe in recycling. I know that this is related to #37, but hear me out. I believe that recycling is inevitable. Eventually there will be a second generation type mining going on where we start digging up old landfills to recover all of those materials we threw away once upon a time. This is perhaps already happening to some degree, but eventually it will be full scale. I try to recycle aluminum cans as much as I can. I used to collect them when I was younger and trade them in for cash money. Once me and my brothers collected so many cans that we earned nearly five dollars apiece. We were living in the big time. I like the idea of living tree paper, where they cut branches here and there off the tree to make paper with, but they leave the rest of the tree alive. It's obviously harder to get the wood you need to make the paper than the normal method of buzzing down a whole forest at a time, but it's a sensible alternative.

42. I will kill any cricket I see, no matter where I see it, and I won't stop until I'm sure it's dead or pursuing it would force me to break and enter. My parents built a room or rather had a room built in what used to be the garage when I was in high school. I was tired of sharing a room with my middle brother. They didn't get the room sealed up very good and every night the crickets would drive me crazy making their noise. And somehow they know how to throw their sound and keep you off track. You know, like a ventriloquist can throw his voice so it sounds like it's really coming from the dummy. Crickets know how to make it sound like they are on the other side of the room.

43. I used to wish that I was native American. I would study up on the different tribes and how they made things and how they grew and hunted their food. I was really into all the native American culture stuff. Then I found out that I am part Cherokee and Choctaw (like 1/64 or less). I guess I lost my heritage to the white man.

44. I am not political. I think the two-party system we have going on in America is retarded. I know there's this independent party thing, but because they are so independent, they don't agree with each other much, thus retaining their independency. So they sort of cancel each other out most of the time. In order to affiliate yourself with either of the two major parties, you ultimately have to agree to agree to something you would otherwise disagree with. Agree? I know I'm probably going to offend some of my online friends when I say this, but I think that Bush II is a horrible president. And I solely blame him for having to settle for a job at the Evil Empire rather than a nice office job as I was destined to have if I had graduated a year earlier. I don't blame 9/11. I blame Bush. I really don't think there's been an all around good president in my conscious life. They've all lied or cheated or did some other manner of evil during their presidency. My apologies to any one I may have offended. Lord, forgive me.

45. I love the smell of gasoline. No, I don't mean that I huff it. But when I'm filling up my truck, I'll get a whiff of it, and it makes me smile. But there's danger lurking beneath that scent. I sense it all the while I'm smiling. Then the smell is gone and my head finally clears after a few more breaths of fresh air, and I'm left wondering what that was all about.

This is starting to get difficult

36. I used to play with matches when I was a kid. And I still like to watch things burn, though I'm not an arsonist. When I was younger, probably around 12 years old, my parents bought this huge case of matches. Rosette, or some brand. So I would sneak a few of the boxes and play with them on the back porch. My favorite thing to do was line them up in a row or in a circle, light one, and set it at the front and watch all the other matches burst into life. The flame would grow higher and higher as went down the line. If I'd set them in a circle, the two flames would travel opposite directions and meet on the other side and suddenly burn each other out. I would make small grassfires, always sure the hose was ready if it got out of hand. I would burn insects. I would leave breadcrumbs out for the ants to swarm around, then I'd set a match ablaze among them. It was really cruel and horrible some of the things I did. Once I took several boxes of matches and went on the small mountain near my house with my brother and a friend. It was summer and it had been hot and hadn't rained and a lot of the grass growing around the mountain was dead. We'd light a match, watch a patch of grass burn, and then we'd stamp it out. My brother and friend decided to be funny and started lighting matches very quickly and tossing them here and there. I would try to follow them and stamp out the fires before they became too much to handle. Well, they became to much to handle and we ended up burning quite a patch of grass and a few trees before the fire burn itself out. We were lucky the fire died before it could reach the house that wasn't too far away. Nobody ever knew who did it. It turned out not to be a big deal. But it could have been so much worse. I didn't play with fire much after that.

37. I am environmentally conscious. I'm not saying that everything I do is environmentally sound, but I think about it and see how I could have done better. I can see how eventually we're going to ruin everything we've got. But this is what I see happening, and it makes perfect sense. The degradation of our planet seems to coincide with the degradation of our society. Revelations speaks a lot about the end times. Are we living in the end times? People love to think that we are. But people have thought we were living in the end times not too long after Jesus ascended into heaven after the resurrection. Society just gets worse and worse. We can't even fathom what it will be like 100 years from now, just as 100 years ago, those people couldn't fathom how things are now. But I think the earth will have become so uninhabitable by the time Jesus comes back that after the tribulation and Armageddon, the destruction of the earth by fire will have become a mere formality. So am I encouraging people to go ahead and pollute all they want and not care so they can help fulfill prophecy? No! Because we still have to live in the here and now, and we should strive to make life as pleasant as possible.

38. When I was in the second grade, I really thought this high school girl was my girlfriend. I asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend, and she said yes. So what else was I to think. But when I saw her smooching on her real boyfriend, I got all mad and jealous. Then it became very obvious how childish I was. Gimme a break, I was like 8 years old.

39. I once thought that I could be a pitcher. I was in little league, and I'd begged and begged the coach to let me pitch. So he finally let me have a little tryout. After I nearly beaned him a couple of times, I gave up on the dream. I had no ball control whatsoever. I was a true wild thing.

40. I used to collect baseball cards. I don't know what happened to them. I think my middle brother still has them somewhere. I had a boxed set of some year or other and a bunch of cards that were worth a little bit even back then. I could have a small fortune by now if I looked up their value. But back then, all that money I spent buying the little packets, seemed like such a waste.

Coffee Stain

31. I don't like to diet. I tried the Atkins diet once, and it really did work. But after a while I began to feel really weird. And it doesn't let you drink milk or eat fruit. If God didn't intend for us to drink milk and eat fruit, he wouldn't have created either. But I do agree with cutting out all the processed sugars and high starch wheat products. That South Beach diet seems really good from what I've heard. But honestly, if you exercise a lot and don't stuff yourself at every meal, you'll do fine. Unless you've got some kind of disorder. Prayer helps, too. Let God guide your eating habits. There's a reason gluttony is a sin.

32. I've never read the book or seen the movie to Old Yeller. Once my creative writing teacher in college was discussing something and he was using Old Yeller as an example, and he said, "Of course everybody’s read or at least seen Old Yeller." And I raised my hand and said that I hadn't. He rolled his eyes and the rest of the class laughed. But I didn't feel embarrassed. I own the book. It's somewhere...perhaps I'll read it whence I find it.

33. I don't like pretzels. I don't really know why. I'm a very non-picky eater. A few things I won't eat are pickled beats, sour kraut, and pretzels. I'm sure there's more. I haven't tried every type of food in the world, but there's bound to be a few more things that I won't eat. Though it would still be a short list.

34. I love Taco Bell. It's my favorite fast-food place. I always go half and half on my drink with Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. It's just the best combination to me. But it only seems to come out right at Taco Bell. At McDonalds, I drink straight Dr. Pepper. Any other place, I try to get root beer. I really love root beer, too, but sometimes I get tired of it. I never get tired of Dr. Pepper.

35. I used to be addicted to coffee. I sort of go on coffee binges from time to time. I'll go a long stretch without drinking coffee at all. Then I'll sink down and chug, chug, chug every morning for a while until I decide I'm in too deep. This went on for a while. Back and forth from none to too much. I had my first cup of coffee this morning in about a month or so. I'm dedicated to one cup in the morning and no more. I broke my addiction, and I hope I've graduated to moderation. I'll have to stop myself the next time I grab for the big plastic insulated cup in the cabinet. Before I quit the last time, I was drinking two or three of those bad boys every morning plus three or four cups at work. And I have to have milk or some kind of creamer in my coffee. I can't stand it otherwise. And I don't like to drink it very hot. Lukewarm is perfect.

High five, more dead than alive

26. I wear contacts. I leave them in too long and my eyes get all dried out and bloodshot and people think I'm high all the time. No, I've never been high. I've never dabbled in drugs. I've never even had a sip of alcohol. Secondhand smoke is pretty much the extent.

27. I'm passive/non-aggressive. I think that's why I get along so well with other people. I don't mean that I'm particularly friendly, but I don't try to get in anyone's way. And everybody just loves me for it. Ha ha!

28. I rarely do my own laundry. I'm not saying that I can't or won't, but there just always seems to be somebody else around willing to do it for me. So I let them...

29. I only shave about once a week. I probably need to shave at least twice a week, but I only ever manage to do it once. I never really think about it much. I'll be getting ready for work or something, and I'll notice that I'm beginning to look a little haggard, so I'll shave. Some people have to shave everyday. I hope that never happens to me.

30. When I was little, I wanted to be a carpenter. I would hammer nails into any piece of wood that I could find, thinking that I was building something. My oldest brother told me that I could probably get a hundred dollars for building a house. A hundred bucks seems like an insane amount of money when your a kid from a poor household. My mom bought me some Legos, and I would build all kinds of things with them. I never liked following the instructions much. I could build better things from my imagination. I'm not sure if she bought the Legos before or after I decided that I wanted to be a carpenter. Needless to say, I never became a carpenter.

9 months...

21. I love football. College football mostly, but I enjoy all levels of it. I played in high school, and I guess junior high and grade school, too. I would have liked to play in college, but I lacked the physical ability.

22. I'm a perfectionist. I know I've mentioned this before. I understand that nothing done by a human can be perfect, but I try and try until someone finally comes along and tells me that it's good enough. This is why I don't like to clean. I can never get anything as perfectly clean as I know that it can be in my mind. So after sweeping the floor for an hour or so, someone has to stop me. This is also why it takes me a very long time to complete a story. And I've been recently working on a novel. It may never be completely finished. Someone will have to pull my fingers away from the keyboard and tell me that it's good enough.

23. I love thunderstorms. I feed off the energy of it and get all excited. And I sleep better when it's booming thunder outside my bedroom window. I don't really know why. I wake up at the first big boom, then smile and drift back to sleep.

24. I'm a dog and a cat person. I like them both equally well, though I don't have either one for a pet right now. I don't see why they can't get along. Well, some of them do, but as a species they don't. I almost had a dog, but my brother's dogs killed it when it was a puppy before I could get a pen built. So I gave up on the idea. I think it's cruel to put dogs on chains. But it's better than letting them run loose to bite little children. I'm not an animal rights activist, but I don't think humanity is in a position yet to have pets. We should make sure that our own kind are fed and clothed and sheltered before we start pampering our pets. The pet food industry generates over 13 billion dollars a year. That would easily feed and shelter most of the worlds starving and homeless. It's simple and logical, really. But I'm afraid it's a concept we will never quite grasp and put into effect.

25. I wasted about nine months of my life chatting on the internet. I substituted my chat life for a real social life. It was during my second year in college. It didn't affect my grades any, but I could have been doing so many other meaningful things. I actually met a few of the people I chatted with. Those were utter disasters. Nobody is who they pretend to be on the net. Now the only people I chat with are people that I met in real life first. Mostly family, in other words. A few friends. Finally it became summertime and I didn't have access to the net for three months. That's what it took to break me of my habit, and I'm forever thankful. But still, nine months...

cinco mas

16. I'm missing the tip of my pointer finger on my right hand. How did this happen? Well, I was making some homemade french fries. I was using a newfangled vegetable slicer. But it was getting my fries too thin, see. I like em thick. So I pressed down harder on the flimsy plastic to make the slices thicker. My finger slipped down on the potato as I approached the blade. I was really horrified at what I had just done. It didn't hurt all that much at first that I can recall. I remember thinking that I had chopped off a bit too much. It would have been okay if I'd just shaved a little skin. But no, I trimmed my finger down to the meat near the bone. I got dizzy from the blood loss. I had to sit down. That is probably the most mortal thing that has happened to me. I began to wonder if maybe I would die from this. Sounds ridiculous, but I was a little lightheaded at that moment. But I'm happy to say that my sister in law finished making the french fries for me with a regular knife after my brother tossed the veggie slicer in the trash. It didn't take as long as I thought it would before I could start typing again. For a while I would miss keys or type the wrong key because I couldn't feel with that finger anymore. The nurse said I probably wouldn't ever feel anything with it again. But I'm also happy to say that I have most of my feeling back in it, and I'm typing better than ever. I go days at a time without realizing the tip of my finger is gone. It's not ghastly. Nobody ever notices it. It's not like a disfigurement. I have to hold my finger up and mention that I cut the tip of my finger off before people even realize something is odd. So it's cool. It was a learning experience, and I came out clean on the other side. But in the moment, staring at the gouts of blood pouring into the sink, I really thought this might be the end of me.

17. I like to think that I am better than I really am. Maybe this isn't very specific. Maybe everybody thinks this way. But eventually I get back down to earth and realize that I'm not better than I really am. That's sort of an oxymoron. You can't be better than you are. If you were better, well, then would still be just who you are. You can improve yourself. Your future self can be better than your past self, but your present self can't be better than your present self. It would be like saying that this candybar that I'm eating is better than this candybar that I'm eating. It is what it is. You are who you are. Makes sense, right?

18. Growing up, I wanted so very much to be a child prodigy. I guess this is sort of related to #17. I wanted to be so smart that people would ooh and aah. I wanted to be so fast and strong that people would ooh and aah some more. I wanted to be this perfect being. But we all fall short of the glory of God.

19. I want everyone to like me, but I'm very aware that most people don't. I try very hard to keep people from disliking me. I give them no reason to, in other words. But you have to get to know me before you can like me. I'm just that kind of person. On the surface, I seem very unlikable. Quiet, withdrawn. It's part of my introversive personality.

20. A long time ago, I made a truce with spiders. I will only kill them if they are in my home. Otherwise, I leave them be. Unless they're black widows or brown recluses. I made no truce with those two.

memememememememememememe

I got tagged to do a book meme, whatever that is. I have to answer five questions, it seems, so here goes:

1. How many books do I own? That's a good question really, as I don't quite know. It's a number ever in flux. I would guess around 150 books that I have and intend to keep. That number used to be around 400, but I've moved several times and found myself short on cash and sold a lot of them. I used to have tons of books that I never read. I was probably hitting around the 10% mark of the books that I owned that had been read by me. What happened is I love books more than reading, as I may have mentioned. I would find a book and decide that I wanted it. This was not a commitment to read the book, in my mind. Having the book was good enough for me, so that if I ever had the desire to read it, there it would be.

2. What was the last book I purchased? That would be Ron Mclarty's "The Memory of Running". I bought it on ebay, since for some reason I could not find it in stores. Just when I had decided that I must have the book, it disappeared. And then the first person I attempted to purchase the book from on ebay never sent it. I was lucky to get my money back through paypal. I was really beginning to wonder if the book actually existed, or did I imagine it's existence. For the concept of the book seemed too good to be true. It seemed like exactly the kind of book that I had been waiting for someone to write, or trying to write myself. When I read the article about it, I knew I had to have it. But alas it slipped my grasp. So I tried at ebay one more time before I decided that I was legally insane. And it eventually showed up in the mail.

3. What was the last book I read? Well, wouldn't you know, I promptly read "The Memory of Running" once I finally got it in my grasp. And I'll tell you, it was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. Perhaps a bit too much cursing in a few scenes, but it was all character. It wasn't just Ron going off because he felt like going off. I would never use a curse word in my writing, however. At least nothing I planned to try and publish. I did use a curse word in a couple of my stories, but I edited them out eventually, once I came to my senses. The only part I didn't like about the novel was the ending. But I'm not hung up on endings, so that's not how I will judge the book. I wouldn't say it was a bad ending, but it was rather flat. It felt almost as if Ron was getting tired of writing his little novel, so he hurried up and got to the end. He's an actor, so writing isn't his mainstay, but he writes pretty well despite that. Parts of it are really touching. I'm not much for the touchy feely stuff, but I was near tears a couple of times.

4. What books mean a lot to me? Well, being a Christian, that one is obvious. The Holy Bible. It's a tough book to read sometimes. I've never made it all the way through. I haven't read most of the old testament. I've read very little of the prophets. I don't know why. I know it's all interesting stuff. I plan to get reading on them in the near future, though. Should I mention any other books? Can anything else stand up to the bible? No. But I will throw in a few books, or authors rather, that were instrumental in shaping me into the kind of writer that I am today. The main one being Bruce Coville. He writes children’s books. Very imaginative children's books. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, humor. I read "My Teacher Is An Alien" in the fifth grade, and I just knew that's the kind of stuff that I wanted to write. I already had the imagination, but reading his books really helped me put my imagination to use. I wrote two children's books in high school along that same fashion. And there's one more author I must mention. Brace yourself, first of all. And try not to gasp. And please don't take this out of context. Don't count me as a hypocrite when I mention this author's name. Stephen King. There, I said it. I read "Misery" in the seventh grade because my mom bought the movie, and since it was about a writer, I just loved it. Then over time, I ended up reading most of his books. Some of it's vulgar and blasphemous and lewd. I understand that. But I didn't let it influence me. As it says in the bible, it's not what you take in that makes you unclean. It's what comes out. But reading his works showed me how to be a good writer. I never cared much what the story was about or how it ended. He tends to have horrible endings. But he writes such great characters and makes everything feel so real. So honest. This is what I strive for when I write. I want good characters, and I want to tell the truth about life.

5. Okay, this last one isn't really a question. I'm supposed to tag five other people. But I don't know five people that have blogs who like to read. So if you're reading this, and you like to read, well, consider yourself tagged. If you happen to do the meme, leave me a comment and I'll come to your blog and read it. Sound fair?

Now back to my 100 things about me list. Let's see, where were we...ah, yes...

11. I don't like to smile. I'm not saying that I don't smile. It's just a rare occurrence. I especially don't like to be forced to smile, say for pictures. I don't have a good fake smile. That's why I don't like taking pictures. I wish we could take pictures like they used to in the old days. You weren't supposed to smile back then. You were supposed to keep a straight face and look serious. But what happened is some photographer was making wise cracks while he was taking the pictures and he happened to catch a beautiful woman smiling. Then he showed it around to all of his photographer buddies and they liked it. So from then on they would try to make everybody smile. Then somehow it became tradition. All traditions are accidents, I believe.

12. I don't want to be famous. Which also means that I don't want to be rich. I don't want to be famous because I'm shy. If I were famous, I would feel obligated to speak to everybody that recognized me. And I don't want to do that, so they would think I was rude. I would rather people not think I was rude, even though I am sometimes. My apologies. Now as far as the fortune goes, if I had all of the money that thirty people couldn't possibly spend in ten lifetimes (that's 300 lifetimes for you non-mathematicians), I would still be pursuing the same things that I'm doing now. I would still be writing. I would still be serving God. I would still be this same person. If anything, the money would seek to corrupt me. And being who I am, I would end up giving most of it away anyways. So why have it in the first place. Though I would be able to quit my job and focus more of my time doing God's work...hmmm...you know, God, that's not really a bad idea at all. But, alas, God's plan is to keep me humble. The last time I began to feel financially secure, my world was turned upside down. Perhaps I'll talk about that later.

13. I like to be alone. No, I don't mean that I like to be lonely. Though that tends to happen a lot when you're alone. I like my time to myself. I like to be able to write and think my thoughts without people interrupting me. But what happens is that I tend to distance myself so much from people that I do get lonely. I would so very much like to have friends and go do things with them and have fun and what not. My mom once told me (actually she told me several times) that you have to be a friend to have a friend. Who wants to be friends with someone who wants to be alone most of the time. Because two or more people really can't be alone together. It kind of defeats the purpose.

14. I'm a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy. No matter what the weather, no matter how hot or how cold, you'll find me most of the time in my t-shirt and jeans. And I love old t-shirts. The ones I wear most of the time when I'm not at work are like ten or more years old. And they haven’t fallen apart yet, despite constant use. I do everything in them. Some of them have a few holes and unremoveable stains, but I can still wear them in public. I do go through jeans pretty fast, though. Once the crotch rips out two or three times, there's not much left to patch.

15. I want to be a drummer. This would just be a side gig from my writing. I would tour with the band, and do my writing on the bus between shows. I would also write a lot of lyrics and come up with my own beats. I think it would be cool to play the guitar, too, but I just love the drums.