I Hold These Truths to be Self Evident

1) Bacon makes everything taste better.

2) Pancakes for dinner is completely underrated.

3) The Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever made...ps, "Get busy living or get busy dying."

4) Pennies, Nickels, and Dimes no longer have a use in our society.

5) Stephen Covey should have quit after the 7th Habit.

6)  Renee Zellweger has now become more annoying than her character Bridgette Jones.

7)  The most unbelievable part of Transformers 2 was not everything electronic turning into robots, or a pyramid hidden machine that will kill our sun, or even the 1 hour fight sequence where everything but the main characters die.  The most unbelievable part of the movie was that Shia Labeouf decides to move across the country, away from Megan Fox, to go to college. 

8)  Pie is way better than cake.

9)  Why is "betting" on a company's or commodity's performance in the stock market legal, but betting on a sports team's performance illegal?

10)  A list is not complete unless it has 10 items.  (Which is why I added this lame 10th item as I've run out of anything more interesting to say.)

Did Anyone Find My Titleist?

I'd like to believe that golf balls have ambition.  That each ball grows up dreaming of being the best in the world and having a chance at being tee'd up at a Major Championship.  But just as with humans, it's not possible for everyone to be the best.  There has to be winners and losers. There has to be haves and have nots.  For some, they are born into a certain class and have no hope for upward mobility.  Those are the driving range balls.  If you are a driving range ball there is no chance you can do anything else.  You've been branded by the double stripe that says you are only good enough to get the crap beat out of you on a daily basis by sub-par hackers trying to rid themselves of a slice.  Sure, some of them may work at an upscale Country Club where the double stripes are replaced with a simple "Range Ball" label, but your destiny has still be determined in advance.  The best case scenario for the driving range ball is winding up in a bag to be used on a water hole where the golfer doesn't want to lose one of his "good" balls.  Yes, the life of a driving range ball is the lowest of the classes with little hope of anything better.

Next is our working class of golf ball.  The Top Flite is the poster ball for this class.  There are many of these balls available and all at minimum wage.  They do their job, but certainly are not specialized in any way.  When used properly by a skilled laborer these balls can accomplish great feats, but none of the greats would dare to use them.  It would be akin to Manolo Blahnik using a ferrier to make their shoes.  You are working class.  You are the bourgeois of the golf ball world.

However, not every ball settles for mediocrity.  A rare few work a little harder or were born into better families and become Titleists.  The college graduates become DT's.  The MBA's become HPT's, and the PHD's become Pro V's.  They are the cream of the crop, envied by all in golf ball world.  And yet even those balls aren't at the top.  There can only be one ball that is played by Tiger Woods and the competition to get there is....

Oh to hell with it.  I've been trying to write this damn analogy since late October and it's simply not translating from my mind to this page.  I've given it all I can and feel I need to post this failure instead of simply deleting it.  I'm tired of this post starting at me in editing state every time I go to my dashboard.  I'm not even going to proof read for grammar and spelling.  Tonight, I'm going to celebrate my failure.  Tonight I'm going to be a Driving Range Ball.

Lost in the Desert

I once again find myself wandering through a creative desert.  My fingers are parched and crave a steady stream of words to quench their thirst.  Ideas and stories appear on the horizon, but they turn out to be nothing more than cruel mirages.  I don't know where my fingers will take me, but I trust their sense of direction, so I follow.  My creativity sustains life with small sips along the way, but I find myself returning to the same well again and again hoping this time it yields more than temporary relief.  It's easy to give up; to just lie down and let the vulchers take what remains.  Would anyone miss it?  Would anyone even know it's gone?  I suppose one or two people might send out a search party.  There are answers they seek that only my fingers know.  So I drink what I can along the way and forge ahead determined to find a destination that breathes new life into my weary hands. 

First Paragraph- The Curious Case of Joseph Johnson

He wasn’t exactly Benjamin Button, but it was curious nonetheless. It started small; so small in fact he didn’t even know it had begun. Only looking back did Joseph Johnson start to piece together the events of the past 6 months. It was the smallest toe on Joseph’s left foot. One day, April 30th to be exact, it just went numb. One of those things you never notice, until you notice it and then you can’t get it out of your mind. Joseph was working on a crossword puzzle and was stuck on the final 3 words. 37 across, “Latin for neighbor”; 78 across, “Chief Norse Deity”; and 22 down, “Word before many words”. Not the hardest crossword puzzle ever created; then again Joseph wasn’t exactly Stephen Hawking. No clue was the only answer that continually came into Joseph’s mind. He was in the crossword’s paradox; too stubborn to look up the answers and not smart enough to figure them out on his own. He was just about to fold up the paper and call it a day when it happened. Vacina was Latin for neighbor. How could he have possibly known that? Probably just a recall from a word of the day calendar or a ghost from crossword’s past. He supposed it wasn’t so strange to recall a word you didn’t realize you knew. And then it happened again. Odin was the Chief Norse Deity. What was happening? Five minutes ago he was barely sure what a deity was and would have thought Odin was Garfield’s nemesis. His thoughts were immediately disrupted when, without thinking, he began to fill in 22 down. Just as the final letter was being memorialized in the box and the crossword was completed, his toe went numb.

The next several days were pretty uneventful. His toe was still numb, but otherwise he was the same 43 year old man he’d always been. His greatest skill was being incredibly average at everything, but Joseph believed everyone was born with one incredible skill that set them apart from all others on Earth. He’d decided long ago that being pretty good at everything was superior in itself and he was okay with the notion he’d never be remembered for being abnormally unique. But he was wrong.

It was 17 days after his toe went numb that he noticed a disabled car by the local park. Joseph didn’t have a car; in fact Joseph had never driven a car in his life. The son of radical 1960’s Berkley parents, Joseph was raised to believe all things motorized were evil. He didn’t really carry those same beliefs, but never actually got around to getting his license. It was on his “to do” list somewhere between growing a vegetable garden and hiking in the Andes. He biked everywhere he went and was on his morning ride to work when he decided to pull over to help an attractive thirty-something woman in need of rescue. As it turns out, Pam was also on her way to work when her engine had sputtered to a stop. To say Joseph knew nothing about cars was a colossal understatement, but he was keen on impressing the pretty woman by at least pretending to be of help, so he asked her to pop the hood. A serial bachelor, Joseph had realized long ago the world’s smallest handcuff would never find its way on his left hand, but a beautiful woman could get him to do just about anything. The engine was a Rube Goldberg machine of metal and wire and the only thing he recognized was the oil dip stick. In the midst of his confusion on where to even begin, his hands started to move on their own and instantly the objects under the hood became as familiar as his own face. After 5 minutes of working like a one-man pit crew at Indy, he asked Pam to start the car. She slid into the driver’s seat and placed the key in the ignition. As the key turned and the engine roared to life Joseph’s entire left leg went numb and he collapsed on the ground.

First Paragraph- Trick or Treat

TRICK OR TREAT

Ben was out walking his dog long before most people had decided to pour their first cup of coffee. He liked it that way; much less of a chance to run into someone from the neighborhood. It was early in the morning and the path he took was littered with the misplaced bounty of last night’s trick or treat mob. Like modern day Hansels & Gretels, the masked kids had left a trail of Tootsie Rolls, Suckers, and Gum that could lead any abductor right to their front doors. Ben craved isolation and was a man who took great lengths to separate himself from those around him. The mere thought of Halloween made his pulse race and his blood pressure rise. The same children who routinely mocked Ben had come to his door in a steady stream asking for their unearned treats; they were all scavengers and beggars masquerading under the guise of a pagan holiday. It was his first year in this house and the previous owners must have been generous, for even a turned off porch light was not enough to stop his doorbell from ringing well into the night. His nerves frayed and his dog nearly hoarse from barking, Ben had retreated to his bedroom closet in a futile attempt to keep his anger in check. He had vowed this year would be different, but the mini Michael Jacksons and Candy Corn Witches just wouldn’t leave him alone. He had convinced himself the closet was a place of retreat; a place to regain the balance the doorbell had tried to upset. But this closet held more than clothes, it also held secrets. Ben had spent his entire life posing as someone else, so why did a day where others did the same upset him so much? He had known what would happen before the night was through, but still did his best to fight off the urge that had grown so rapidly inside him. Replaying the video of his memory, the sound of candy cracking under his step and his dog barking at a rabbit jolted Ben back to reality. He tried to pass off the horrific memory as a dream, but his blood soaked shirt betrayed him. If asked, he would simply state he hadn’t changed from last night’s costume party. In reality, there was one less heart beating this morning and Ben had no idea whose it was.

First Paragraph- Checkerboard Lawns

I’ve always wanted to be a writer and I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’m just not sure I have the patience for it. I’ve heard tales of great writers who spend an entire day on one paragraph. Or hours on one sentence. Meanwhile, I feel like a pit crew at Indy trying to get my prose on the race track as quickly as possible. I’ve started many works of fiction over the years and rarely get past the first couple of pages. It takes time for a story to develop; time that I’m not sure I want to invest. Possibly it’s the fear of failure. Possibly it’s a lack of knowledge on how to develop a story. Possibly it’s a lack of talent. Possibly it’s just my extreme lack of patience in general. Whatever the reason, I stall before I ever have the satisfaction of writing “Chapter 2” at the top of the page. Whereas most writers have trouble starting a story, I have trouble with everything but the start. Therefore, I will have a recurring post to this blog called First Paragraph. First Paragraph will be the beginning words of all the ideas I have for a book. First Paragraph will be the beginning of everything and then end of nothing. Without further ado, I give you the first installment of First Paragraph.

CHECKERBOARD LAWNS

The first lawn turned brown in the spring of 2008. Most of us didn’t even notice. Why would we, we had yet to been trained that lawn color was an indicator of financial security. Those who did notice figured the Lawsons had just forgotten to turn the water on after a rainy February. But even the observant couldn’t recall the last time they had seen the Lawsons. By May For Sale signs had popped up like zits on a teenager. Mission Springs Community had developed a serious case of real estate acne. By July the lawns of Tennyson Street were a brown and green checkerboard pattern. Brown lawns had become a modern day easy mark for squatters and the vacancy was seemingly endless. By September new faces had started to appear. Our smiles welcomed them to the neighborhood, but our hearts bred contempt for their part in our declining home value. We despised them for their low mortgage balances; our only comfort in knowing we’d pilfered from them before they had a chance to move in. We shook our heads when asked why there were holes where ceiling fans once thrived. We shrugged when they pondered why all of the hardware had been removed from their top end cabinets. Our only satisfaction was in making their purchases from the bank as incomplete as possible. For what is more frustrating, stealing both shoes or stealing only one? By December the lawns had all turned green again. We convinced ourselves the worst was behind us, but what the rain had temporarily hidden, time was about to expose.