Posted on September 29, 2024
Through Fire and Fluff: How I Survived a Kitchen Calamity
The flash point for your average marshmallow is 200 degrees Fahrenheit. I know this because my wife attempted to burn down our house with marshmallows a few days ago.
I was in our office when the cry for help came. My wife has very distinct tones for different scenarios. There’s the “standard operations” tone for normal situations, the “I’m tolerating this because for some reason I still love you” tone for when I go hard on puns, and my personal favorite, “Mama Bear is gonna’ cut you” tone for when she thinks someone has mistreated our son.
This time, however, it was the “things have escalated” tone. Given how competent my wife usually is, this tone is used as often as a hurricane alarm in North Dakota. I jerked upright and ran to the kitchen, ready for anything from a knife wound to an intruder soon to have a knife wound.
Fortunately, there was no blood or intruder. Unfortunately, our oven was on fire. On the top rack sat an entire tray of marshmallows, burning merrily away as though an entire Boy Scout troop had set up shop in our kitchen. I was torn on which hurt more, the potential loss of our house or the sure loss of whatever my wife had been baking.
My wife and I made eye contact. This is one of those moments where two people who know each other well can have an entire conversation in the single beat of synchronized hearts without saying a word. Ours went something like this:
“What did you do?” I asked, knowing the answer but needing to have it confirmed anyways.
“Does that really matter right now?” she countered, as the kitchen began smelling like a campfire gone horribly wrong.
“Fair. This would be an excellent time to know if our homeowner’s insurance covers marshmallow-based arson.”
“Or you could just focus and put the fire out before that becomes an issue.”
“Ahh, that makes sense. I’ll get right on that.”
“Wait!”
“Yes?”
“Try and save the marshmallows—I need them for a recipe I’m trying.”
I looked at the roaring flames in our oven, then back to my wife. “Yeah, I don’t see that happening.”
Plan of action in hand, I leapt to my wife’s defense. Luckily, we had prepared for just such a culinary emergency by buying a fire extinguisher. I threw the sink cupboard open, grabbed the extinguisher, and rose like a 90s action hero ready to save the day and win the girl. I aimed at my adversary and uttered my catchphrase: “You’re fired.”
I pulled the trigger. But instead of a white fountain of justice, all I got was a soft click. Looking down, I saw that the safety pin was still in place. “I can salvage this”, I thought to myself. “Just think how cool this will look to my wife when I pull the pin and toss it across the room like a matador twirling his cape.”
Alas, it was not to be. You know that little plastic tab that they helpfully put on fire extinguishers to ensure the pin doesn’t fall out in transit? Yeah, that was still locking in the pin. The phrase hero to zero crossed my mind, and I considered whether or not throwing the extinguisher at the fire would be a suitable last act of defiance.
Thankfully, my wife recognized the problem and intervened. She whipped out a pair of junk drawer scissors like a sheriff facing down a desperado at high noon pulling out her six shooter. The tab got cut, the pin got removed, and I was back in the fight.
I turned to face the foe once more, and started with an updated catchphrase: “If you can’t handle the heat…”
“Put the fire out!” my wife yelled.
“…get out of the kitchen,” I muttered under my breath as I pulled the trigger. White foam covered the luminous marshmallows, and the crisis was at an end. I stood there, triumphant in my moment of victory, prepared to humbly receive my well-deserved accolades.
Instead, my wife went over to the tray of marshmallows and prodded their charcoal husks with a fork. “I think I can salvage these.”
Maybe I needed a better catchphrase.
Updated on September 15, 2024
Yellowstone and Grand Tetons: A Haiku-tiful Experience
My wife and I decided life wasn’t challenging enough, so we decided to do a five-day road trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons with our toddler. Remarkably, he took mercy on us and behaved like a champ. While a pleasant surprise, the unrealized emotional tension snapped back into my eye like a misfired rubber band. Instead of focusing on taming the toddler, I had only one item to direct my attention towards: the endless, all-consuming expanse that is Wyoming.
If you have not driven through Wyoming, don’t—they have airports. If you insist on doing so anyways, you must prepare yourself. Otherwise, you will find your mind wandering far afield from its usual haunts. In will plumb the depths of untrod neural pathways, seeking desperately for some relief from the monotony of endless brown.
In my head, this settled onto one phrase: the Haiku Review. Why haikus? I have no idea. Why a review? Because I knew I needed to do a Wandering, and why not talk about two of the most beloved national parks in America.
Without further ado, please enjoy the first iteration of the Haiku Review: Yellowstone and Grand Tetons edition.
Vast plains stretch ahead,
Endless sky, road never ends—
There are no bathrooms.
Who needed the stop,
Toddler or grown man? Who knows—
Dinos thrill us both.
Cautionary sign.
Child slips, geyser erupts—
Oops, there goes the kid.
Pretty pool bubbles.
Fingers itch, a dangerous game—
Ouch, hot, 9-1-1.
Bison, lone and wild.
Other animals missing—
Must have missed memo.
Old Faithful erupts
Two minutes behind schedule—
Got my money back.
Massive log cabin,
Majestic, peaceful, serene—
Tourists everywhere.
Gorgeous waterfall.
Toddler tried his best to jump—
No swimming for you.
Grandest of Tetons,
Peaks scrape the azure above—
Switzerland got lost.
Milky Way, so bright.
Mosquitos, pesky, buzzing pests—
Stars obscured by bites.
Beaver’s grin calls you,
Pilgrims gather, carts in hand—
Gas station or cult?
Road trip, finally done.
Miles traveled, memories made—
Home sweet home at last
Posted on August 26, 2024
War is Gardening by Other Means: My Battle with the Weeds
I have never had much of a green thumb, but Colorado has done its best to remedy that. Unfortunately, its tool of choice has been weeds. It also decided to get a head start, with the weeds in our yard well-fortified and prepared to resist a ground assault weeks before we moved in.
Having already dealt with the wasp menace, I now had the maneuver space to take on this next foe. I went out, reached down to grab a weed grown to hip height, and promptly let go as its thorns plunged deep into my flesh like a rabid rat going after a slice of three-day old pizza.
“A general should never take too much on his own shoulders,” I said to myself. “What I need to do here is delegate.”
“That’s a great way to rationalize laziness,” I replied.
“How much blood do you want to lose pulling these weeds?” I retorted.
Internal rhetorical battle won, I lit the beacons and called for aid. Then I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Little did I know, yard work is a hot commodity here in the local area. I had multiple companies tell me they were too busy for new clients, and others apparently too busy to even pick up the phone. Meanwhile, I watched the weeds complete their hostile takeover of my exterior yard. They named their new territory Weedlandia and established a rudimentary form of governance that would be impressive if not for the aggressive posture they established on the borders of my lawn.
Then, as all hope seemed lost, a light. One company I had reached out to days earlier finally heard my call for aid and chose to answer. Plans were made for a walkthrough to provide an estimate. I mocked the weeds and told them their days were numbered. They waved back in the wind, unconcerned. I should have seen that for the sign it was.
The day of the estimate arrived, and my ally appeared. I knew at once that this man, no, this hero, would restore balance in my life. He got right to business, assessing the battlefield like Napoleon atop his steed. I could feel the weeds quiver in fear at his passing, and I reveled in it.
The landscape legionary finished his walkthrough, then turned to face me. “We can do it for seventeen sixty,” he said.
My first thought, I’m shamed to admit, was joy. A mere $17.60? Has righteous judgement ever been delivered on such an efficient budget before? I think not!
Then the rest of my brain caught up. “$1,760?” I clarified.
“Yep,” he said.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not have a large yard. It is by no means cramped, but it is also no Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Twenty good steps will take you from one end to the other, and most of that is grass the weeds have yet to conquer.
Let me frame it another way. If I went to the bank and asked for 1,760 dollar bills, I would have more than enough to sew together into an awning I could use to starve every weed in my yard of sunlight, killing them just as well as my so-called hero might have done had I delivered those dollars to him instead.
I thanked the man for his time, said we would not be needing his services, and sent him on his way. The weeds—already familiar with landscaping economics on the Front Range—rustled with laughter.
The next day, I dug through a tool box and found a pair of gloves. I then spent an hour pulling out the vast majority of weeds in my yard, save for a few I elected to keep alive as test subjects for an upcoming round of chemical warfare.
As I stood upon my porch looking out over the devastation of my enemies, I felt mixed emotions. On one hand, there was the satisfactions of seeing my foe brought low, their few ragged remnants twitching halfheartedly in the wind as they stared in shock at the results of what their pride had brought them.
On the other hand, tearing out the waist high weeds really accentuated how half of my lawn is dead or dying. But that, dear reader, is a war I have yet to fight.
Posted on August 11, 2024
A Man, A Wasp Nest, and a Lesson in Critical Thinking
I have a swollen lump on my thigh about the size of a tennis ball. It’s red. It itches. All in all, an unpleasant experience—zero stars, would not recommend. Why, you ask, do I have a red, itching lump on my thigh? Because, I answer, I am a man. This means I am large in stature, but occasionally stumble when it comes to critical thinking.
Three days ago, my son and I decided to spend some time in our backyard together. He loves to run and I love to watch him run and tire himself out before bedtime. Everyone wins. After a solid round of wind sprints, he decided to take a rest on one of the patio chairs near our propane firepit.
Enter the wasps. You see, at some point during the previous owner’s tenure, a horror of wasps decided to nest in the interior of the firepit where the propane tank goes. I have no evidence that this is why they left it for us, but you could say the circumstances kindled my suspicions. Regardless, I was well aware at this point in time that they festered within the dark crevices of the firepit, awaiting the smallest of provocations to unleash their fury upon the world.
This is where I blacked out. I have spent the last three nights staring at the ceiling, wondering what could have possibly possessed me to do what I did next. I have no answers. Were I in the court of law, I would claim temporary insanity. Given that I was tried in the court of marriage, I claimed temporary stupidity. My loving wife is convinced of the second part, but has her reservations on the first.
Regardless, what happened next is I stood up from the chair, walked to the firepit, and threw open the propane tank access door. Upon opening it, I discovered the largest wasp nest west of the Mississippi hanging off the inside of said access door.
The wasps, needless to say, were upset. They charged out to do battle like the Mongol hordes across the Eastern European steppes, their multifaceted eyes filled with rage and bloodlust. I, being a man, did the age-old dance of men who have startled dangerous insects—a graceful combination of flailing arms and high knees while executing a slow to moderately paced rotation.
Midway through my first rotation, I realized that my two-year-old son was well within the blast radius of the wasp apocalypse. This is when I experienced my very own “suburban mother lifts car off child” moments and threw caution to the wind as I leapt to his defense. I swatted one wasp away from him, swept him off the chair, and sprinted with him back to the safety of the house held over my head like a thirty-five-pound Simba getting presented to the animals he would soon eat.
We made it inside and shut the glass door, a barrier wasp-kind has yet to figure out how to overcome. I hugged my child close, checked him for any bites or stings, then set him down and turned to face my judgement at the hands of my wife. I had one move to make at this moment, and I made it:
“That was incredibly stupid of me to do,” I said.
She opened her mouth, closed it, looked at me. “Yeah, that was dumb.”
It was at that point I looked down at my thigh and saw the rapidly swelling red spot. I had saved my son, but the Gods of Stupidity still demanded their pound of flesh. All I can say in my defense is that the wasps may have won the battle, but a can of Raid and a size ten boot ensured that I eventually won the war.
Posted on July 28, 2024
Violence Is the Last Refuge of the Incompetent
I am fond of a saying Isaac Asimov coined in his Foundation series: violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It’s used as an insult towards those who jump to violence because they cannot—or will not—work through their issues otherwise. As our country grapples with the ramifications of the attempted assassination of former President Trump, my thoughts turn to Asimov’s line and what comes next.
It only took hours after the assassination attempt for both sides of the political spectrum to point the finger at each other as the root cause. Meanwhile, you have elected officials calling for a civil war if their guy loses the presidential election, and the Republican presidential nominee refusing to discount political violence if he loses. These are not actions to make one comfortable with the direction things are going as we head towards November.
As violent rhetoric increases, it leads to despair. Why should we try to be peaceful if the other side refuses? What’s the point in the rule of law if the other side willfully denies its existence? We may not be over the edge yet, but we are certainly flirting with it.
Political violence, however, is never the answer. In fact, we should use the proper definition for it: terrorism. Too often we disregard terrorism as something that happens “over there” but the reality is it happens here in our country as well. Anytime someone uses violence (or the threat of it) to pursue political goals, they are engaging in an act of terrorism.
Attempting to kill a presidential nominee. Naming half of the nation evil murderers. Calling for a civil war if your side loses an election. These are acts designed to stoke terror and fear. While we don’t know the motives of the shooter, we do know the motives for the violent rhetoric that has followed—political sway.
Political violence has no positive end state. Its results sit on a spectrum of bad outcomes. The best case is that no one dies, but the rule of law is weakened as people feel justified in undertaking terrorist actions like that in the first place. The worse case is an escalation spiral that leads to major conflict, like how the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked off World War One.
The following months will likely fall in the middle of that spectrum. I doubt the nation will snap out of its fever dream of partisanship anytime soon, and I pray that things have not deteriorated to the point where we have a modern-day Fort Sumter event. That said, there is plenty to be concerned about regardless of where the final political violence tally lies.
For one, it hands Russia and China golden material for their global propaganda campaigns. Every moment a democracy looks chaotic is one authoritarian regimes happily use to push why their system is superior. We also should worry about how extremists on both ends of the political spectrum are inspired by such acts to carry out terrorist acts of their own.
This is generally where people say, “Sure, violence seems bad, but what if there’s no other option? Are we supposed to just accept [insert political bogeyman here] ruining our country?” To that argument, I have two counterpoints. First, the data clearly show that nonviolent campaigns to enact political change—even in authoritarian regimes—were ten times more likely to achieve their goals than violent ones, even if the initial campaign initially seemed unsuccessful.
Second, law only exists because we believe in it. There is nothing written into the fabric of our genome that dictates whether or not I will jaywalk, shoplift, or commit assault. I follow these laws because I believe they are right and just, and because they align with my values. If someone starts believing that the other side are all evil murderers, that sending death threats to the family members of people with different political beliefs is an acceptable weekend activity, or that assassinating elected officials is the only recourse to fix what they perceive as a problem, then they have allowed their values to shift so far off the mark I can’t help but pity what a dark and twisted world they have created for themselves.
When President Reagan was shot in 1981, he is purported to have said to the surgery team “I hope you’re all Republicans,” to which the lead surgeon—a liberal Democrat—replied “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.” Americans can be better than this current atmosphere of political vitriol. We should be better than this. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, and there is no rational eloquent enough to hide spilled blood.
Posted on July 14, 2024
My Son Is Not A Terrorist
Terrorism is defined as the use of violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political goals. This comes shockingly close to the experience of living with a toddler. Toddlers embrace violence, be it hitting, kicking, biting, or any of the myriad of ways a small child lashes out with malice or glee. As for political goals, what toddler does not envision him or herself as the divine monarch of their household? In their minds, they are the state, ergo their wants are political wants.
This leaves the parents as hapless civilians under threat of constant terror. My wife and I were two such innocents recently, as our toddler has realized something chilling: his vocal cords possess strange powers capable of making his parents react in new and interesting ways. What’s truly terrifying, however, is that he listened when I jokingly talked to him as an infant about military strategy to exasperate my wife. He listened, and he learned.
We set the battlefield for this encounter by taking our son out on what we call ‘adventures’—any occasion when we leave the house, whether it be heading to daycare, the park, or his personal favorite, Costco. After the usual amount of wrangling an enthusiastic sack-of-potatoes sized toddler into a car seat, we set off. All went well at first, but we could see as we began heading home that something had changed.
His eyes took on the glint of madness we’ve come to associate with troubled waters. My wife was sitting in the back seat with him when he turned to her and let loose with a shriek so potent, nearby car windows shattered. Not content with just an opening salvo, he fired off another three in quick succession. Each assaulted our eardrums with that special resonance only toddlers are capable of, leaving us broken and afraid.
Though taken by surprise, we rallied. We are grown adults, we thought to ourselves, my eyes meeting my wife’s in the review mirror. We’ve led hundreds of people, traveled to dozens of countries, and know how to spell Roth IRA. What could this tiny human throw at us that we are not prepared for?
We centered ourselves, took a breath, and retaliated with a parent’s most devastating tactic—we ignored him. My head stayed forward, my wife turned hers away, and our toddler shrieked with growing impatience as he failed to get the reaction he craved.
He grew silent for a moment, then uttered a soft “I love you, mama.” My wife turned, her eyes glistening with tears of maternal affection towards her life’s purest joy. I gave a fist pump in the front seat, certain that our firm discipline had won the day. Victory was at hand. But the power of the toddler cannot be denied.
Sun Tzu teaches that all warfare is based on deception. Our son demonstrated his mastery of this principle as he looked my wife in the eye, smiled, and shrieked directly into her face. You could see the betrayal ripple across her features, the loving adoration turning first to shock, then despair before she hid her face away in shame from the now laughing toddler. His laughter was that of Niro, fiddling on while Rome burned.
Knowing that our retribution would be swift, our execution just, our son then implemented phase two of his plan. As a student of Clausewitz as well as Sun Tzu, he knows that the best form of defense is attack. So what does this toddler strategist do?
The exact same thing. And like fools, we fell for it. Again.
It was at this point that we realized we had but one weapon left to us. As piercing as his shriek might be, as devastating as his laughter was after seeing ourselves get fooled by a two-year-old twice in as many minutes, he has short pudgy arms incapable of reaching the front seat to adjust the volume knob.
I took that knob and cranked it. The audible assault now went in the opposite direction, Taylor Swift now our Rider of Rohan coming to aid Helm’s Deep. Paired with this came the most intensive ignoring yet, one so palpable he could not help but know we focused our efforts entirely on him. Our son’s efforts collapsed into a complete rout—blessed silence for the remainder of the car ride.
We enjoyed that silence like the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo or General Washington at Yorktown, but we knew it would not last. As every parent knows, there is no true victory against a toddler. There is only surviving until the next battle.
Updated on June 30, 2024
House Hunting: Amusing, Odd, and Criminally Inclined Homes
If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a whirlwind of stress as you grind through a slow, agonizing death march of compromising on what you thought you held most dear, house hunting would be a fantastic activity. For one, not being homeless is a huge win. You can’t take that for granted these days, especially given the Supreme Court’s latest ruling on the matter. It’s also nice to play an adult version of “house” as you walk through potential homes, pointing at blank walls and making pithy comments like “Yeah, I bet a couch could totally go there.”
The best part about it, though, is getting glimpses into the lives of the current homeowners. Sure, you’re getting a sanitized version of what their day to day is like, but that makes it even more fun to guess. We’ve toured dozens of houses the past few weeks, and three really stand out as windows into the amusing, the odd, and the criminally inclined lives of local homeowners.
First, the amusing: Cat House. We loved this house, but sadly it wouldn’t have worked out for us given a few externalities. Nonetheless, touring it gave my wife and I each a sense of connection to the owners. For my wife, it was the multiple closets and/or rooms stocked with Christmas decorations. I kid you not, these folks had more Christmas décor on standby than Russia has functional tanks built in this century.
My enjoyment came from a more mobile source. The entire time we toured Cat House, a giant Siamese cat followed a few paces behind, waiting for scratches. This feline friend is the reason behind the name Cat House, which I took great joy in ensuring was the sole way any of us—including the realtor—referred to the home from then on.
Second, we had the Vegas Retirement Home. This house had a great location, a view second to none, and a wonderful backyard. It was also themed after a 1980s retirement home on the outskirts of Vegas, the kind of place where washed up off-Strip performers go to live out their last years in complete obscurity. I’m talking off-tan walls, fake wood paneling stained the color of mediocrity, and an alarming dedication to backsplash tile reminiscent of straight to DVD set design for Stereotypical Alien Mothership. It was the sort of place you knew from the moment you stepped in you’d never buy, but you couldn’t help yourself from walking through it to get the full experience.
Finally, we come to my personal favorite: the Russian Mafia Safe House. This was a charming home in a desirable neighborhood that, at first glance, met most of our requirements. But as we toured it, more and more items popped up that felt off. Eventually, they painted a picture that I’m convinced implies shenanigans of a less than legal nature. Allow me to elaborate.
Point one: the external camera system. When I say this, you probably envision the cameras Silicon Valley has been introducing the past decade to “disrupt” the home security scene. You know the ones—cute and sleek with minimal functionality. These were not those. These were the old guard of security cameras, the kind that make professionals think twice and small children uncomfortable. One pointed directly at anyone approaching the front door, its malevolent glare reminiscent of the Eye of Sauron as it silently asked How dare you enter these hallowed grounds?
Point two: the door. Most houses have a deadbolt and a door lock for the front door. For some security conscious folks, a chain lock may be added for peace of mind. These homeowners felt the need for something with more heft. They ripped out the entire door and replaced it with a modern day portcullis that, when engaged, shot at least eight solid steel bolts into the door frame. It’s the type of door that laughs in the face of a local police department’s battering ram.
Point three: the master bedroom. Many of the homes we toured had connections for TVs in the master bedroom. While not something we want or need, I can understand why many would. At first, I took the wiring on the wall here to be another one of those set ups, albeit an incredibly robust one. A second look—followed by a third, and a question to our realtor—revealed that this was no simple cable TV arrangement. It was the nervous system for a full security suite without the screens installed, a panopticon of integrated surveillance appropriate for federal prisons or the average Chinese living room.
Point four: the AC. Colorado being a hot place during the summer, AC units are quite common. Significantly less common are two full, separate AC units for one house, particularly with one of those systems feeding solely into a single room. That leads me to said room in Point five.
Point five: the server room. I don’t know for sure that this room held servers, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what else it might have been. For one, there’s the aforementioned dedicated AC unit. Servers run hot and need significant cooling, so unless they were aging meat in a carpeted basement room, I don’t know many other reasons for dedicated temperature control of that level. The room also was ready to rumble when it came to wiring, with outlets every two feet or so along its wall for electricity and dedicated Cat7 (yes, Cat7) ethernet cabling.
Oh, and did I mention that the entire thing was maybe the size of two closets slapped together width wise? With two separate doors to enter? When I asked the realtor for what she thought the room’s purpose was, I got a puzzled brow, a few sentences aborted halfway through, and an eventual shrug. It reminded me of a line from the show Resident Alien: “I’m getting a whole lot of random **** from this area right here.”
One of these points by themselves wouldn’t have meant much. Heck, even two probably wouldn’t have resulted in more than a raised eyebrow. But all of it together screams shady shenanigans, so I’m sticking with my original theory of Russian Mafia Safe House.
Obviously, we put an offer on it. A very nice man named Vladimir called to let us know it was no longer on the market. Shame, that.
Posted on May 19, 2024
An Empty House
An empty house is an interesting thing, particularly one you have no intention of filling. I have had six major moves in my life and we are in the midst of number seven. Movers showed up this week to grab all our stuff, which led me to two conclusions. First, with creative arrangement, air mattresses can make great couches. Second, we have way too much stuff.
As I sit here on the floor, I’m amazed and somewhat disgusted at the sheer number of things that have accumulated around me over the years. I remember my first move consisting of a single trunk and a few duffel bags. The next got packed up in a single crate. This time? Seven. Seven full crates. Who knew owning furniture was so volumetrically challenging?
Furniture aside, there’s comfort in having a purge release valve built into your life. Having mandatory moves across the world every few years serves as a forcing function to take a look at what detritus has a swirled around the eddies of your life. Having the requirement to sit down and sort through everything you own into separate keep and discard piles is liberating.
It can be difficult to let go, though. Sure, I bought this tube of nutmeg five years and two continents ago, but what if I need it? And these flip flops have been with me for over twenty years now! Yeah, there’s a massive hole in one of them and they somehow hurt more to wear than walking barefoot, but can you put a cost on emotional attachment?
Which brings me to the non-tangible debris. Getting rid of physical junk is hard enough. Tossing out the mental baggage is even worse. With boxes, you can see whether or not something has been opened from move to move. What we carry around in our minds and souls has no easy classification. It waits and grows where we plant it, often in the dark recesses we prefer to avoid.
Again, this is where these moves—with all their hassle, their stress, their chaos—are a blessing. Each time we uproot our lives and move to a different place in the world, we are plunged into a new environment. Our jobs change, the people around us shift, our hobbies adjust; everything becomes something else. In that sea of change, it becomes easier to toss a few unwanted packages over the side. Easier, not easy, but easier nonetheless.
So as I sit on the floor of this empty house, having put in the time to separate what will come with us across the world, I will take the time to think about what will stay behind. And I will feel all the lighter because of it.
Posted on April 23, 2024
Get Off My Lawn
Watching a toddler grow fascinates me. Every day seems like it brings new developments, especially with physical skills. Our son has two new favorites: the headbanger, and the butt-first stair slide. Admittedly, these skills aren’t anywhere on the milestones provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, but he has mastered them regardless.
Today, though, I don’t want to talk about my son’s newfound talents. Instead, I want to talk about how watching him exercise those talents pains my aging body just by association. I have never truly felt old until I started watching my son do things to his body that would put me in traction for a month.
Take the stair slide. He enjoys sitting firmly at the top stair, shouting “Bum!” at the top of his voice, then slamming his butt down on the next stair with the force of a sledgehammer. Rinse and repeat for the rest of the staircase. My spine weeps watching him. For the headbanger, he will repeatedly rear back his head as though crying out to the heavens for absolution before slamming it down onto a convenient pillow and/or stuffed animal like a starving hyena cracking open an elephant’s rib cage. Just typing that made my neck cringe.
Let me really sink this home for you. As I type this, I have a heat pad on my lower back to help it recover from an injury last week. What did I do to hurt it, you ask?
I attempted to put on a sock.
I have spent years playing contact sports, lifted weights for decades, and have a deep respect for warm ups, foam rollers, and yoga. My body has now decided that bending over while lifting one leg is an abhorrent practice that must be punished like sinners in the Old Testament—swiftly, severely, and without mercy.
Laid low by a sock. Pack it in boys, we’re calling it. It’s time to buy a bag of Werther’s, bust out the shuffleboard, and join the AARP.
Posted on March 24, 2024
Promises, Progress, and Payoff: Earning A Story
Developing a skillset often comes as a double-edged sword. You may have more ability, but you also recognize flaws where previously you had only blissful ignorance. As I learn more about writing and the storytelling process, I see its effect trickle into everything story related. One unfortunate casualty? Movies and television shows. In particular, movies and shows that don’t earn their story. Let me explain.
I’m going to steal liberally from Brandon Sanderson’s teachings here, but seeing as he’s one of world’s most successful authors, I feel it’s appropriate to crib from him. At its core, a story needs three things: promises, progress, and payoff. Promises are what you layout at the beginning to hook the audience, progress shows the characters and plot working towards those promises, and payoff is when we get the reward at the end. Simple, right?
Simple, yes. Easy, no. After all, we don’t consume media for simplicity. We consume it to be entertained. If your promise is too modest, the progress unchallenged, or the payoff anticlimactic, your story flops onto the deck like a dead fish, one glaring eye staring upward as if to say “Why, brother?”
This understanding, I’m beginning to realize, is ruining media for me. Take the new Percy Jackson show. [Fair warning, spoilers for episode two ahead]. There is a scene where he beats three children of the god of war, Ares, in a sword fight. It’s supposed to be a triumphant scene, but instead it made me roll my eyes so hard I got nauseous. Let’s break it down with the three steps: promises, progress, and payoff.
We see Percy get bullied by the lead Ares kid early in the episode, then again midway through. The inherent promise is that eventually, they’ll have a confrontation and—since we’re rooting for Percy—it’s one he’ll win. The payoff is the conflict itself, in this case having Percy defeat the bully and her thuglets. Connect those two dots with some progress and you have a nice, tidy moment for the audience to celebrate.
There’s only one problem: the show does nothing to show any progress. In fact, it does the opposite, spending significant time showing Percy failing miserably at every skill he tries his hand at. But then—out of nowhere—he can hold his own with a sword he’s barely touched against three children of Ares who have clearly trained for fights like this. No lead up as to how he could do that, or where those skills may have come from, or any sort of progress that would cause a reasonable person to think Percy would do anything but get his teeth kicked in fighting these three. Instead of triumph, dead fish flop.
These moments pop up everywhere for me now, and it’s both satisfying and frustrating. It’s satisfying because I can see my own ability to recognize the tools of storytelling better, which hopefully translates to my own writing. It’s frustrating because most shows and movies are littered with these dead fish flops, and it’s hard to unsee rotting Pisces.
It’s easy to be an armchair writer critiquing a story from afar. It’s much harder to pull off good storytelling. I imagine it gets even more difficult when the writer doesn’t actually have the last say in things like is the case with visual media. But it can be done, and it should be done. My hope for future Netflix binges depends on it.
