Daily Doohickey #6

Welcome to another late edition of the Daily Doohickey. It is technically already the day for Doohickey #7, but oh well. Life, work, school; what's a guy to do? Today's doohickey is about humor. Developing your eye for the nuances of life and making insightful and humorous observations of them. My friends tell me I do this well, but I've really learned from the best. I soak up comedy. I study how comedians interact with the crowd, especially hecklers. I take in all jokes. I love quotes and snippets from comedians. Johnathan Swift wrote "I wonder what fool it was that invented kissing". Think about that for a second. Our mouths are pretty dirty. They're probably the largest opening on our body to our internal organs, and we go mashing our tongues together. It's pretty damn gross, really. Still, we do it. I might not have done it for awhile, but it is the natural place where we meet. Is it for convenience? That we can perform this expression of love by simply bringing our faces close? I should probably stop here before I say more.

George Carlin is another of my favorites. The man is off color at times, but has some of the most amazing one-liners. My favorites include; "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." "Have you ever noticed anyone going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" "The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live." "When you step on your brakes, you are putting your life in your foot's hands."

I have received some compliments on my ability to relate my observations on the subtle things in life that just don't add up when you give them thought. The 'activity' the book suggests for today is to observe the nuances of life, and compose a satirical story based from them. The one I had in mind stems from one of their examples, to observe dating rituals.

I'm an avid people watcher. I love just sitting and watching everyone around me. Malls are wonderful for this. I like watching the awkward teenagers, the pleasant older folks, the frazzled parents. I especially love it during the holidays. I've been shopping on "Black Friday". For non-Americans, that is the first Friday after our Thanksgiving Holiday in November. It is known as the day alot of stores have absolutely crazy sales. Point is they're trying to get their numbers for the sales quarter in the positive, or in the 'black'. Because if you're losing money, you would be 'in the red'. So there is your fact of the day.


Honestly, I'm far too tired to comment on these nuances. I'm hardly able to be bothered to look up pictures to toy with the ADHD population reading the blog. It's near 2 AM and I was up all night last night with a migraine. Good news is I finished writing something I'd been meaning to write for a long time. I'll post it here, eventually. For now, it is an early night for me. Thank you, and good night. Until then, remember to smile and laugh and don't take your life too seriously.

Daily Doohickey #5

This Doohickey (again, technically late because life and the works have kept me obnoxiously busy and will continue to do so until an event on November 6th is over with... and even after that, I'm sure I'll find something else to keep me busy) is about a topic of considerable interest to me: the inner workings of the human mind. The Daily Writer explains that many stories revolve around external events or adventures which the character(s) journey through. Sometimes, there are more events focused around "interior drama", that is to say, internal struggles.

The mind has been studied for centuries. The concept of neurology, brain science, kind of resembles physics to me. In physics I'm pretty sure it started out with that guy (was it Hook?) who figured out there were cells in that piece of cork. Then they broke cells down to different levels, and found out there was a whole bunch more there. Then they broke it down to particles, and even more so down to atoms now. And now I think they're saying they found a way to break down atoms? Point of my story is the deeper they dig, the more they find. I think the same is true with the mind. Our imaginations are very powerful and lead ultimately to the best of inventions and the most heinous of crimes. I am fascinated by the mind. I have an undergraduate science degree in Psychology with a neuroscience background, and I am in a Masters program leading towards a Counseling degree. I love to know what makes people tick, and help people understand their own thoughts -and how to correct them, if needed- better.

Exercise 1: Compose an interior drama from the perspective of one whose mental state is characterized by one of the following symptoms: paranoia, delusions of grandeur, phobias, OCD, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

I was literally rubbing my hands together when I saw this list, does that make me an awful person? I'm going to write a super quick segment of what could potentially be a larger story someday. So this guy has severe paranoia and is on meds for it, and has a restraining order against his wife! Here's the story....

I recited to myself the mantra my therapist had given me during my previous appointment, as my knuckles blanched on the steering wheel. “Reason with yourself. Calm. Cool. Collected.”

I was on the way to the hospital to see my wife which was technically a violation of two orders. The first order was from my psychiatrist, stating that I should not operate heavy machinery while I was on the medication. However, I hadn’t been taking the medication so I suppose I wasn’t really violating that order. The second order I was determined to violate was the restraining order my wife placed against me.

On the way to the hospital I had stopped at the local grocery store to get a soda from the vending machine, and it wasn’t the caffeine from the Mountain Dew making me lose my patience with this frail looking dinosaur crossing the crosswalk. My knuckles audibly cracked their displeasure with the speed –or lack thereof- at which the elderly woman was crossing the parking lot. My ‘Calm. Cool. Collected.’ mantra did nothing for me. The old lady had managed to edge her cart just far enough out in the road that I couldn’t maneuver my 1993 Buick Skylark around her, and she stopped for a few seconds like that, slack-mouthed. Her open mouth showed a lower jaw grinding against air in a counter-clockwise direction, as she began to slowly, inch by inch, venture further along in the crosswalk. Shuffling her bedroom slippers across the yellow striped asphalt. Every few shuffles she would turn and look ghastly towards me. Each time she stopped my annoyance grew exponentially worse, and I became aware that my face was contorting.

It had taken her almost a full minute to get her cart almost past the hood of my car, when she stopped yet again to stare through my windshield at me.

The snap came, as I satisfyingly floored the accelerator. The metal shopping cart scraped, bounced, dinged, and gouged its way along the left side of the aged body of my Buick. There was an instantaneous explosion of kitty litter, eggs, prune juice, and milk. I gave the car some gas and it rolled over the new speed bump, as I turned on the windshield wipers to get rid of the terrible looking mess. My hands comfortably rested on the steering wheel and I relaxed back into the seat. Once I was back on the highway I turned on the radio, turned the volume down a little, and held in the seek button until I found some easy listening music.

The hospital was at most five miles from where I had gotten back onto the freeway, but in suburban Washington D.C. five miles could take fifty minutes. It seemed like longer today, and I had only been in bumper to bumper traffic for seconds before I began to tense up. The smooth elevator music the radio produced began to bug me, and I pressed the seek button once or twice before becoming totally unsatisfied with the radio, shutting it off. I wound down my window and stuck my head out of the window. The stop was being caused by road construction, this three lane stretch of road was funneling into two lanes. I was in the middle lane, and I watched with growing frustration as the hesitant teenage male in the new-looking Honda Civic in front of me kept letting cars enter our lane. I honked my horn to voice my displeasure, before turning the radio back on. The Village People were belting out the “Macho Man”, I honked my horn along with the chorus, which seemed to further cement the Honda in front of me.

Twelve or thirteen cars had been let in line by this teenage pimple-neck that was having a hard time telling the difference between the accelerator and the brake. I’d had enough, I laid on the horn and accelerated with 1994 Buick-velocity directly into the rear end of his new looking Honda Civic. Staring a hole through his rear view mirror, I caught view of his face, frantic with startled eyes. At first, he held down the brake, and my Buick slowly began to out muscle the brakes of his Honda. I could feel the stares of onlookers, including the construction worker standing near the ‘lane closed’ sign. Suddenly the Honda stopped resisting, and as the teenager swerved to the right, the prune-juice, milk, egg, and kitty litter covered hood of my Buick Skylark wedged underneath of his demolished bumper, lifting the car for a moment before I floored it around him and cut to the shoulder, cruising past the construction site.

Comments:

Well, that was fun. Just a draft, didn't proofread much of it. In reality, you'd think cops would be called after Mr. Crazy just mowed down an elderly lady's cart of groceries (and the old lady too? perhaps), and his car would definitely be noticeable given the lack of 1994 Buick Skylarks on the road, and the prune juice, milk, egg, and kitty litter paint scheme on the hood. I can't imagine windshield wipers would do a fantastic job of cleaning that, either.

I have a special place in my heart for those who have mental illness, though. That can go from depression to addictions to more severe (but equally tragic, in my opinion) illnesses. The thing about mental health problems is many people who suffer from them tend to internalize and blame themselves. Afterall, it's all in THEIR head, right? It's not so simple, unfortunately. The good thing is, there's help. (Doesn't that sound like a magic-pill commercial?) Go get counseling. I'm serious. A good counselor. Everyone needs a counselor, just someone you can lay it all out for. Counselors don't solve your problems for you, nor are we advice dispensers like Lucy the Psychotherapist from the Charlie Brown comic strips. First, we charge a hell of a lot more than a 5 cent piece, and second what we do is equip patients with the tools to work through their own problems, and provide unconditional support while we do that.

I've learned alot about the word "unconditional" since beginning a counseling program. I have been blessed, I truly have been. I haven't struggled like alot of my friends. I have had help when I needed it. I don't have to worry if I will have enough money for food next month. I have unconditional support and love from my parents, and for that I have to thank them. It's always been there, but I haven't been the best at realizing it. It wasn't until working with people who really, really lack that support and that love, that I realized what I have available to me.

So, now that I'm off of my soapbox, go and tell someone that loves you that you appreciate it. Hug your parents. Hug your friends. Don't hug me, unless I know you, and even then just briefly. Not much of a touchy-feely guy, really. I might punch you if you linger.

Daily Doohickey #4

Good Morning. Today's Doohickey is about sorcery. Not the pointy-hat and finger-waggling sorcery, but the mysterious effects of art on the soul. Art, in its many shapes and forms, serves as a reframe of our world. We see things how they are seen by someone else, or how someone else wishes to see things. In this sense, art is all around us and the very essence of our being and relating. Public speakers draw on a unique skill-set to convey their beliefs to their audience in a convincing fashion. An artist who sculpts a statue creates from a block of some nonrelated material the likeness of a person or symbol. A painter puts to canvas a window to their imagination or a replication of their photographic memory. Writers rely on words to convey their message, or trans-locate their readers to their story. The list goes on.

Art is all around us, and the Daily Writer refers to the transforming effects art has on our lives as sorcery. For me, I often find myself watching youtube videos of inspirational sports moments. Underdogs coming out on top, or game winning buzzer-shots, even compilations of motivational speeches put to clips from sports movies. I get watery eyes sometimes watching sports movies, I'm not ashamed. Being someone who has never really had that "Yes!" moment through my childhood in sports, I feed off of the ones portrayed in movies and acted out in real life. I love sports like boxing and MMA, where it is one person against one person, no teams, just you against the person across the ring. You have a set amount of time to get your work done, and the only person you really have to beat is yourself. I just watched one of my favorites this morning, I'll see if I can embed it here.




So, the effects I feel from this form of art, this compilation of sports clips to 'epic' background music, and a clip of some guy getting the crap beat out of him and somehow coming back and landing a lucky punch to win the fight is 'sorcery'. [I haven't seen the movie most of the clip is from, but I'm familiar with all of the audio included in the clip.] For me, some pictures can evoke the same feelings. The sight of my alma mater's (undergraduate) stadium lit up for a prime time night game is awe-inspiring. Brings me back to the days of camping out on concrete for a week before the game in sub freezing temperatures with rain and naught but a thin tent and a sleeping bag, just to be three feet closer to the field. Then standing in line for 12 hours before the gates open, with no shirt, in the rain, fresh body paint streaking down my numb body. Brings me back to those days, when I knew if my parents had seen me they would have been shaking their head in disbelief.

Call me butter, cause I'm on a roll, but while I'm at it I will add that olfactory (smell) sense is the one scent highest associated with recall of an event or memory. I'm not sure about anyone else, but when I walk into a Yankee Candle store, it's like cruising at 120mph through memory lane. Mmmm Pumpkin Pie scent reminds me of watching my two younger cousins fight during Thanksgiving at Grandma's Community Center, this Berry Blueberry scent reminds me of picking blueberries at my Uncles old house in the mountains, this Peppermint Swirl scent reminds me of that one ex-girlfriend, and this Fresh Linen one makes me think of that first night crawling into bed with freshly washed and tucked sheets. (Photo courtesy of furrytalk.com)

Art is all around us, and the interpretations we draw from it, sorcery. So, put away your wizard hats and stop chanting your ancient spell-sage languages, and let's get down to the Doohickey.

Exercise 1: Write a Poem about the Sorcery you Detect in the Everyday World

Ugh, another poem? I hate writing poems. My poems always sound all gimmicky, or childish. I'm also uncomfortable writing poems that don't involve humor. Don't get me wrong, I have some angsty ones from my angsty years in high school, but I strictly write poetry for humor sake nowadays. I'm going to cheat. Again. Maybe someday I'll be comfortable putting one of my poems out there, or more frightening yet, writing a fresh one for one of these daily 'exercises', but for now I'll continue to borrow other peoples work. This one, from what I can find, is actually written by an 8th grade student in 2001. Now that my ego is all bruised, I'll add it is about a Norma Rockwell painting, "The Curiosity Shop", and is titled as such.

When children wonder and question things, That cannot be retorted. They turn to a place where strange contents rest, Where exotic objects are assorted.

All you need is a simple question,
And a dash of imagination on top.
Anything you want can be in your reach,
And it's called the Curiosity Shop.

One man's trash is another man's treasure,
That's the motto in this buisness.
Untensils, inventions, and gadgets galore,
Bought by the rich and even the poor.

Each treasure that ever exists in the store,
May have it's own special history.
Portraits of presidents and dolls made of porcelain,
Every crack and defect a mystery.

Young children escape to another world,
As they play with trinkets unassertive.
Adults look on and remember once,
That they too were once as inquisitive.

So when children are looking for an explanation,
Or dress up or spin a top.
they can skip on down,
To a world of discovery,
It's called the Curiosity Shop.

I like that this poem touches on that art of imagination, or 'sorcery'. I suppose we could view the 'sorcery' as how a person receives art. One sculpture, one speech, one novel, one painting, will all evoke different responses from different people. I personally know someone who owns their own perfume company, and she considers perfumes and oil diffusers to be art forms as well. Considering the duly noted importance of the olfactory sense in memory recall, I have to concur. We all react to art differently, so therein lies the sorcery, or magical property of art.

I leave you with this quote from Marcel Duchamp, a French artist. I liked the quote in the picture, as well as an additional quote I found on his wikipedia page. I feel this second quote speaks to the 'sorcery' component I have struggled to describe this morning. He says, "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the act." So, perhaps the sorcery is just the way we receive art, when we let down our barriers and let ourselves immerse in an open window to someone else's world, or take that window for our own world and see if it changes how we are looking at things. So, let a little sorcery into your life. I promise I won't track you down on a witch-hunt.

Daily Doohickey #3

It'll be a short one today, and by today, I mean tonight. I'd intended to write this morning, while my coffee pot decided if it wanted to make me coffee today. Guess what? It didn't. First, it helps to put coffee in the coffee filter. I awoke to a pot of freshly brewed tap water. Then I realized why I didn't have any coffee in the filter-- I didn't have any coffee at all! Some awful oversight on my part, as I just got groceries this weekend. I meant to pick some coffee up today but my day got so busy with work and school commitments, now tomorrow morning must suffer from the same lack of a caffeine jolt as this one did.

That said, on to the Daily Doohickey!


This Doohickey speaks of Autumn, the season. On a side note, I think Autumn is a beautiful name for a girl, but I'm not sure I'd ever name one of my girls Autumn. One of those things that looks nice on other peoples kids who you don't have to see everyday or yell at, but if I had to yell "Autumn!" everytime she did something, it'd probably get old pretty quick. Plus, being the snarky person I am, if she were ever late to something, I'd call her Winter.

According to the Daily Writer, the season of Autumn is associated with learning [maybe due to the start of traditional school years?] and with renewal. I don't see the renewal component as much, but I have my own reasons for enjoying Autumn. Also, I'm going to call if Fall from here on out because, like if I'd named a girl Autumn, I'm already tired of typing it. So, the Daily Writer concludes that Fall is the ideal season for contemplation and study. I'm sure doing alot of studying for my classes, and what spare time I have is spent contemplating matters for work, but anywho... I am exhausted and can not afford to drag this blog entry out.

Exercise 1: Maintain a List of Autumnal Images and Associations

I probably won't come back and update this list, but I'll give it as good of a shot as I can right now with a 5 minute effort.

• Crunchy Leaves
• Open windows 24/7 (I live currently in the southeast USA. When I lived in the northeast I wouldn't keep them open at night during fall).
• Heavier dew on my car windshield in the morning (reminds me I need to clean my wipers, something is all gunky on them... I think the stray cats that leave paw prints all over my car every morning might've peed on it or something. .... ... I'm serious.)
• Pumpkins.
• Christmas approaching
• Family (As a kid I only ever saw extended family on Christmas, and a few other family members only Thanksgiving... so I associate this time of the year with seeing family)
• Bedroom slippers (I inevitably want a pair around this time of year, and can't find my pair from last year, or wore all of the padding out of them, or stomped the heel of it down with my foot so they never stay on my foot right, or I worry they'll make too much noise and my downstairs neighbor will get annoyed with me trouncing around at 6 AM)
• Walking (I'm not lazy, but I don't often go for unprompted walks, except during fall)
• Camping (I haven't been in a long time but it seems everytime I've been camping, it's just been leaves all over the place making a mess of noise when the wind blows at night, scraping them up against the tent.
• Football. I can't believe it's this far down on the list, football consumes my weekends.
• Parties. It seems some parties revolve around football games, especially back in college, but even today football brings people together,

Well that's a 5 minute list of the things that come to mind first. I don't think a single person has viewed this blog yet, and thats fine, but if you do check this post out, feel free to leave a comment with some of your 'fall thoughts'. Or even your 'Autumn thoughts', if you prefer.

Exercise 2: Compose a Series of Autumnal Poems

Okay, my brain is running on 0 right now, and combine that with my general avoidance of poetry, and nothing good can possibly come of this exercise. I tend to have an insatiable itch to make my poetry rhyme in some way, shape, or form; and somethings rhyme trounces reason, and I end up with jibberish a 4th grader could have composed. I'll cheat here and look for an Autumnal poem that fits my mood.

I like this one. I'm a simple person, and theres something really nice about walking hand in hand wearing sweaters (or hoodies, whatever the kids are calling them these days) enjoying an autumn breeze. It is titled "My Autumn Girl" by Framarz Bagheri, from poemhunter.com

Your

Autumn lips

Autumn hair

Autumn eyes

Autumn smile

Autumn cheeks

I kiss God in autumn!

I'll add another here, so you are not left thinking I am some 14 year old boy all giddy about holding hands with a girl. This next one is by Mula Veereswara Rao, and is titled "Autumn Came"

By ripping cheeks,
with cold breeze,
with twitter of sparrows,
Autumn came!

Autumn came to cover
shivering earth
with colorful leaves carpet!

Autumn floats like
sun's epitaph

Autumn echoed like
farewell song of birds
in the evening!

Autumn touches the
breath of last leaves
on the verge of falling
with warmth!

Autumn challenges the
confidence of the tree
who hides buds in the heart

I like a few lines in that one, particularly how Autumn came by ripping cheeks with cold breezes. You know how everynow and then a gust of wind comes along during the fall and leaves you running for your hat, or pulling shut the jacket you were boasting unzipped? And I like the last line, Autumn challenging the confidence of the tree who hides buds in the heart. That could mean a lot of things, but Autumn is definitely a challenging season. Not many hundred years ago Autumn was all about preparing for the challenge of winter. That 'challenge' is more an inconvenience for us nowadays with our technical marvels, but we could do with a reminder of how hard it was before some great thinkers made things so much easier for us.




Now go out and enjoy Autumn with your loved ones! Especially if your significant other is named Autumn, it's her namesake afterall! And isn't that picture so gosh darn amazing? Go out and see if the buds in your heart will stand up to the cold breeze of Autumn and enter the challenging Winter season strong!

Daily Doohickey #2

This Doohickey is titled "Tell it Slant". The entry comes from an Emily Dickinson poem in which she concludes, "The Truth must dazzle gradually / or every Man be blind." The name of the poem, if you're curious, is "Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant". What Dickinson is alluding to is not beating readers over the head with the truths of our characters. I've read some pretty awful fiction, and I've personally authored some even worse fiction. I believe the highest compliment I may have ever been payed was when a writing professor from college wrote, in his comments on a short story submission, "We stay close to the narrator's thoughts and feelings, but you never hit us over the head with them, and the story feels as though it develops around his circumstances rather than at your direction--as it should."

What my writing professor was referring to was 'character driven fiction'. He wanted us to write stories not based around plots, but rather just around characters, and have us shine the characters true persona through the events occurring to the individual themselves. This was revolutionary for me at the time, as I had always designed my stories having in mind what I wanted to happen, and when, and who the character was going to be with when it happened, and how the character was going to react. Then I thought, where's the fun? It might make for an entertaining story in the end for the reader, if I am able to keep them guessing, but ultimately for me the fun of getting to know a character and developing with them as the pages turn was vacuumed right out of the entire writing process.

I went on a kick of two authors at this point in my life: the late J.D. Salinger, and Richard Russo. I believe both are amazing writers. Salinger a little more than Russo, but Russo still has time to get there. Russo is also fairly underrated and unknown of among my friends whom I have discussed his books with. Pick up any of his paperbacks next time you are in a store. I highly recommend Mohawk, Straight Man, and Empire Falls. The latter was made into an HBO series some people might have heard of. I never saw it, though the cover of the copy I have is apparently a shot from the film series.

Both of the aforementioned authors have immersive characters who you see develop, so naturally, you seriously feel like you're there. I know that's the way many people feel about their favorite authors, but I just for the life of me could not get into the Harry Potter series. I know about 50% of anyone reading this just squealed an obscenity and dropped your coffee on your keyboard. I'm sorry. I'm not a Harry Potter fan. I purchased and read through the first three books and I just couldn't get into it enough to get the other copies. I definitely dislike mass-media, too, so I've avoided reading the currently popular Twilight series. So I can't comment on Twilight, but the style Harry Potter was written in, I did not like. Predictable.

I should add, I'm not against anything that kids get into when it comes to reading. I know all too well that todays youth does not read, or if they do, it is cliff notes on their iPhone before their paper is due. So if kids go into Harry Potter mania and stay up late at night reading, that's great. I'd buy my kids Harry Potter books if they wanted to read them. Read something, anything. Just stop playing video games (so much-- I played video games as a kid and still do, but they shouldn't be the only activity the kids indulge in).

Well now that I'm off of my old-man soapbox, on to the 'activity' for this Doohickey, just one for this page.


Exercise: Outline a story in which your main character's true nature emerges indirectly, through his/her "behind the scenes" thoughts and actions, which contradict the public ones.

I'm going to cheat on this one. I already have a story, which is the one I was just quoting the comment from my writing professor. I re-read it as I was writing this Doohickey, so it is fresh in my mind. I'd been meaning to rework it anyway, so maybe I'll get around to that someday.

So, here's the gist of this story.... a 20 year old (Josh) is at a big university, dating this girl (Marie) from the next state over, roughly three hours away. They just started dating fairly recently, and we jump into the story just after their relationship has started. It's a weekend visitation sort of thing, not necessarily every weekend but they do what they can and they both work towards being patient towards travel limitations and such, and accommodating each others busy schedules.

Quickly we learn, from following Josh even when he is not with Marie, that he is living a sort of double life. He has quite the reputation as both a party animal and a 'ladies man'. So, the audience is thrown for a little bit of a loop when they learn that Marie is a very conservative Christian girl, a virgin to sex and alcohol, and a driven academic student.

As the audience is trying to figure out who to root for, the ladies man or the conservative girlfriend, we drop hints that Josh is looking for ways to change. He is a stronger, more confident person when he is with Marie. Though, after 2 weeks pass without being able to see each other aside from Skype Webcam calls, he starts to crack a little. Hopefully by this point the audience is starting to root for him to change, because then we go and have him go to a party, pickup a girl, and get laid.

Bombshell (Both the girl he picked up, and the effect of this well timed -though possibly expected- event in the story)! So now everyones all wondering whats going to happen, so we have Josh experience an emotion he has never felt before: guilt. I've felt guilt before, and I'm sure all of you have too, about something. You can think back right now to something you've said to someone, or done to someone, that you feel bad about and wish you could take back. I can think of numerous things.

We observe Josh battle with guilt, notice his change in how he is the next time him and Marie are together --probably roughly a week after this event. We see if he starts changing, maybe Marie's saintly patience and naive optimism gets the audience rooting for her and wanting her to give Josh a well deserved boot. Still, Josh will change by little events and little gestures over time. Surprise visits. Does he ever tell her about the one night stand? Yes, closer to the end, but not after the momentum and magnitude from that event in the story is lost. Then there would be another conflict, and Josh would have to convince us again that he is a changed man.


Comments

Change in character or moral usually takes lots and lots of baby steps. I liked what my writing professor said and I'd like to reflect back to that to conclude this, "We stay close to the narrator's thoughts and feelings, but you never hit us over the head with them..." Never hitting you over the head. Change is the 'nail', and you could picture a block of wood as yourself, your character, or your morals. If you try to drive the change (nail) straight through you in one big step (one stroke of the hammer) chances are you're going to split the wood or just drive it in wrong, and have to pull it out and start all over. You might even get real lucky and miss entirely, and be the new owner of an awesomely discolored and bruised thumbnail for the next month or two.

It's best to use tiny strokes of the hammer (tiny steps) to fit the nail (change) into the wood comfortably and securely, pointing in the right direction. I know this from my own changes I've integrated into my own life. I still struggle with some of them. I'm still tapping on that nail of Christianity, trying to become a more responsible and accurate follower of Jesus. I tried too many times to bring that nail in with just one swift stroke but that didn't work for me. Old habits die hard. To be honest, I'm surprised I managed getting a second daily consecutive post for this, and I'm surprised I went into this much detail. I think I'm going to like this blog, and I don't care if you stopped reading because you're a Harry Potter fanboy and can't believe someone doesn't like the series.

And remember, when you inevitably end up with a bunch of bent nails from life, stick them into mini-sausages and call them party favors!

Daily Doohickey #1

The Daily Doohickey. The first one of a possibly epic journey that might lead to me actually sticking with something long enough to get the courage to submit to a publisher. At the very least, these Daily Doohickeys should provide me with at least a diversion, a reason to get out of bed just a little earlier, and help wake me up. Give me something to do while my archaic coffee pot takes its time deciding if it will or will not brew me some caffeinated goodness today. [Ed Note: I have no idea why the word "caffeinated" is highlighted yellow. Maybe I spelled it wrong like I often do, and blogger autocorrected it but tattooed it yellow so the world would know of my heinous error. I really don't know and I don't know how to change it, and I don't know if any of you see it as yellow. Sorry. I'll randomly highlight some words in the next post to make up for it.]The Daily Doohickey offers comments on idealism vs. realism. The book suggests idealists are akin to optimists, while realists tend to see the world in terms of what really exists and what really -or usually- happens.

Exercise 1: Are you an idealist or a realist?

I'm not sure what I am. I would say idealism and realism should be viewed on a continuum. There are situations in which I am an idealist, like, not to be cliche but love. I'm an idealist to the point where I am so damn picky that I have been single for 23 years and 7 months of my 24 year and 1 month old physical self. That's without getting technical over the length of time I was physically alive when I was conceived. And just like that, TMI.

I am a realist in how I approach most situations in life probably. I can see where idealism can be seen akin to optimism, because that would indicate realism is synonymous with pessimism. I have been called a pessimist in my life, more than once. I was a realist when I said I needed a 'real' job from my college degree. I told myself, "I can write a book without a college english degree" When I pick up a book, the first thing I do isn't flip to the flap about the author and see what Ivy League school gave them their Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Literature. Infact, of all the books I've read, the only names that stick with me are the authors of classics (Salinger, Twain), or authors of series which I have read numerous times over.

Am I an idealist or a realist? I guess the answer is I am a dreamer trying to dream up a way to unlock the very real chains of the world that hold us to the ground. It seems some people have figured out a way to release those chains, or maybe they just don't care what society says they can and can't have, or what they can and can't do. Some of those people end up in jail, I bet. It all comes down to balance if what I'm driving at. Like the yin and yang, they complement each other. I think our society has a place for both idealism and realism. Having either in too much focus would lead to trouble, me thinks.

Exercise 2: Outline a Short Story in which a realist, through some fascinating series of events, becomes an optimist-- or vice versa.

Well I've never done outlines, it's not really my thing. Still, if I had to, I would take a realist and turn him into an optimist. Just a happier story. Who wants to read about a great dreamer/idealist who never gets off the ground?

So, there would be this guy, we'll call him James.

James has come from a very traditional family, raised with the 'traditional American values' that the man will work a 9-5 to support his family. I would have him be in college, going through a business program so he could satisfy those extrinsic desires of his family.

Intrisically, he is craving to shake loose all that he has ever known, being raised with very realistic values. He meets a girl. Don't all good story have a boy meeting a girl? Or a girl meeting a boy? Or a boy meeting a boy, or a girl meeting a girl, if that's your cup of tea. The girl, or young woman I should say, is from a family fostering creativitity, dreaming, shooting for the moon and landing in the stars, all of that.

I truly believe to have a character, or a person in real life, change values, even if just moving along that continuum of realism vs. idealism, it involves love. Love for a 'greater power', love for a person, or even I guess love for a 'cause'. I guess if I wanted James to change due to a 'cause', we could have some terminal illness befall him, but he fights back out of it and devotes his life to living the way he wants to, shaking free of his familys constraints as he realizes every day is a precious gift to be lived as YOU want. We could have James come to find God, in one way or another, to make him change for love of a 'greater power'.

Perhaps it is just the style of myself to make James want to change for this amazingly awesome girl he meets. If this is an indication of my personal preference, it is probably because I have not yet met (or I don't know I have met) an amazingly awesome girl yet myself. So in writing this it would give me some fun to toy around with just how awesome this girl would be. Maybe, if I were like 75% of my friends and already married, I might have a different change in mind for James, like the spiritual change or the changing for a 'cause'.

Anyway, James is going to meet this awesome girl, and there'll be fights and she probably won't get along with James' parents because this is the girl they warned him about before they sent him packing for college. James is going to grow up and start thinking for himself and begin to take the world as his oyster (within reason). He lives happily ever after with the girl. The End.

Comments

Well that about brings this first edition of the Daily Doohickey to a close. It took longer to write than I thought, I've already had three cups of coffee and now my attention span is comprable to that of a goldfish (3 seconds is what I've heard). I think it was interesting to realize, probably not at the intent of the 'exercise', that we write what we know, and we write what we want to find out. Hence my reason for chosing to have James change for a girl. It's the phase of life I am in, and that is reflected in my writing. I would like to broaden my scope of context, and dare to write about that which I do not know much about, or that which I am afraid of misrepresenting.

Introduction to Doohickeys

( Top Google Image Result for "Doohickey"-- An engine idling mechanism for Kawasaki motorbike)

I figure that -if through some miracle- I maintain this blog unlike the dozens which have fallen before it, someone may stumble upon it in all of its glory someday. That person might wonder, "Wow! What inspired this person to undertake this writing project?" If I were that person, I would go to the first post on record. So, if I were that person, I would be reading this. Right now. Thank you, for reading, and bearing with me through my comma splices, sentence fragments, and cyclical story-telling tendencies.

I used to write, pretty frequently. If I put all of my writing I have ever done in creative fashion not related to school activities, I would probably have at least a 10,000 page manuscript. I'm not saying any of it was good, but there was a ton of it. Anywho, when college came, all of my writing sort of fell by the wayside. I realized I wanted something more 'practical' than being a writer to base my education on. So, my college years were filled with large boring research papers, advocacy projects, and semi-frequent binge drinking.

The golden years. I've moved on now, and I've tried to write again as I settle into a Masters program. Ever feel like you're just staring off into the distance, and everything has paused in time and space? That's what happens now when I sit down to write. I ask myself, did I turn 24 a month ago, and lose my creative mojo? Did I drink away those brain cells in college?

I bought a book a few, well, years, ago. See? See those commas? I know they shouldn't be there, but it's how I talk/type/write. You see what comes out of my head, in that order. The "Backspace" key on my keyboard doesn't get much love. The book is called "The Daily Writer" by Fred White. It contains 366 "Meditations to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life". I'm curious as to why there is 366, but obviously through the years I never stuck with it long enough to find out what day they accidentally doubled up on.

So the purpose of this blog is daily writing devotionals. They are random prompts, asking for a description of a character, or a design of a struggle, or a very short story about a certain topic. It's all to jog my noodle a little. Not that noodle, perverts.

Eventually, I might add some devotionals of a spiritual sense. That's something I really need to start working on too, but I'm one of those people who can't change everything at once. If I do that, nothing sticks. I do things gradually, and after months of consideration, here is my first step.

So, thank you for reading this, and thank you for putting up with my comma splices, sentence fragments, and cyclical story telling practices. And thank you if you at some point offer me praise, critique, advice, or a good kick in the ass. I know a lot of people who need a good kick in the ass.