Author: Gary

Finding something to write about can sometimes be difficult.  There are times when inspiration strikes and I can’t wait to sit down at my desk and start writing.  More often than not, however, I find myself sitting in front of my computer, looking at an empty white screen, and wondering how I am going to fill up all that blank space.

I once wrote a short story about an author that couldn’t think of an idea for a short story.  It was called “Deadline,” and it was 2,000 words of random thoughts that came to me while I was trying to piece together something worth reading.  I guess it worked out okay, because it was one of the first stories I ever published.

Twenty years later, I’m still trying to make something out of nothing.  With … rather mixed results.

And the problem gets compounded when I have to do it every week.  When I am writing short stories, if I don’t feel particularly motivated I can stand up, walk away from my desk, and go reward my failure with ice cream or, as is more often the case, copious amounts of alcohol.  There are no expectations, so there is no real pressure to perform.  With a weekly blog, I can’t walk away.  I have to find the motivation to create something, or risk losing my faithful readers.  Both of them.

I often write about things that happen to me during the week.  Unfortunately, my life is not exactly eventful, and it isn’t very exciting to read an article about what television shows are on, whether or not Cool Ranch Doritos are better than Nacho Cheese, or how comfortable the couch is for taking a nap.

During those weeks when the most interesting thing that happened to me was running over a pile of dog poop while mowing the lawn, I still need to find something worth documenting.  And, even harder, it has to be something I haven’t already done.  The only thing worse than being boring, is being repetitive and boring.

I keep notebooks all over the house, so I can jot down ideas as they occur to me.  Sometimes, when I read them later, they will trigger an idea for a story or a blog post.  However, while it is usually entertaining to me, most of the stuff I write down in my notebooks turns out to be pretty useless.

For example, these sorts of beauties usually occur to me at two o’clock in the morning when I can’t sleep:

I had a girlfriend years ago, and every time she slept over I would wake up freezing in the middle of the night because she had stolen all the covers.  I finally had to break up with her.  It got too expensive buying new sheets and blankets two or three times a week.

Or:

I finally discovered the one true path to happiness.  Unfortunately, I lost it again when I wandered off the trail to take a leak in the bushes.

If I were putting together a standup act, those kinds of thoughts might be more productive.  For writing a blog, they would only come in handy for something like … well, … something like this, I guess.

For any writers out there reading this and hoping for tips on how to come up with great ideas or how to push through a writer’s block, I’m sorry.  I don’t have any magic words or tricks that will guarantee a prolific outflowing of prose.  I’m still struggling with the whole process myself.  All I can do is pass along the words of wisdom others have given to me:

If you want to write, then write.

I know that sounds simplistic and ultimately not very helpful, but I promise you it is the only way to move forward.  Write something, anything, every day.  Even if it is terrible and you wind up throwing it in the trash, you are training yourself to devote time to the craft.  You are learning what does and does not work for you.   And, most importantly, you are creating a starting point from which you can only improve.

As far as coming up with ideas about what to write?  Every writer is different.  Every writer is interested in different things and finds their muse in different places.  That is up to you to discover.  Some days, you will look out your front window, see a flower growing out of a crack in the sidewalk, and you will have the idea for the next New York Times’ best-selling novel.

Other days you will stare at your computer or typewriter, and you will struggle for the motivation to string eight hundred words together in some kind of coherent order.

Seven hundred ninety-eight … and … done.

At what point do the adult children in your house stop being welcome guests and start being squatters?  I would really like to know the answer to this question because I believe my children are coming dangerously close to this break point.

My youngest, EM2, recently turned 18 years old, and she will be moving into a dorm room to attend college next month.  She is by all legal accounts an adult, and yet this is the same child that will set her alarm clock for 11 o’clock in the morning so she does not “oversleep” and miss lunch.  This is the same kid who, last week, wandered into my bedroom in the middle of the night to wake me up and tell me that there was a large bug in her bathroom and I needed to go kill it.

Of course, to be fair, my wife does that to me, too.  But, I digress.

Last month, when we bought a new television set for the living room.  EM2 asked me if she could have the old set in her bedroom.  I told her, “No, you can’t.  The only time you ever come out of your room is to grab food or watch tv.  If you had a set in your room, I would never see you.”  Before the words were completely out of my mouth, she was dragging the tv into her room.  Of course, I let her do it, because … I’m not an idiot.

I haven’t been able to get my hands on the tv remote for the last five years.  Finally, I can go an entire day without having to watch K-Pop videos.  I’m going to call that a win.

Recently, my wife left on a work trip to Texas.  She left me alone with the kids and the dog for five days.  Before she left, she told the girls that they were responsible for taking care of the dog; feeding her, letting her outside to go to the bathroom, and just generally paying attention to her.  Of course, we all knew how that was going to turn out.

The first morning, EM1 and EM2 got up and went to the State Fair to hang out with friends.  I decided to sleep in since I had nowhere I needed to be that day.  When I woke up, I wandered out to the kitchen to make some breakfast and I noticed the dog was still in her kennel crate.  She was staring at me with a look that very clearly stated, “What the hell, man?  Am I really supposed to be in here?”

I texted my daughters and asked if they had fed the dog.  They texted back, “Sorry, we forgot.”  Then I asked them if they had at least let the dog outside to go to the bathroom.  They said – to absolutely nobody’s surprise – “Sorry, we forgot.”

I opened the back door and let the dog out of her crate.  The draft from the dog running past me almost sucked the couch right out of the living room and into the back yard.  When the dog squatted on the lawn to pee, she continued sliding across the grass for about twenty feet from her own momentum.  About five minutes later, still squatting, she looked over her shoulder at me and said, “You gotta talk to those kids about this, man.”  (I don’t know why the dog talks like she was raised in the 1970’s.  She just does.  Get over it.)

As the girls have gotten older, I have asked them to take on a little more responsibility around the house.  I asked them if they would like to start helping with fixing meals at dinner time.  They both said that they would, but apparently their idea of “helping” is to go hide in their bedrooms until food is already hitting the table.  The same is true with cleaning up afterwards.  As soon as they have finished eating, they are back in their rooms and I have dirty dishes to gather up and wash.  And that is assuming that they bothered to hang out with the family while they ate rather than just take everything with them into their bedrooms.  On a good day, those dishes might make it back to the sink.  On a bad one, they will disappear altogether, and I won’t find them again until a week later when they start to smell.

I don’t want anybody who reads this to get the impression that my children are completely useless.  I mean … they are completely useless.  I just don’t want anyone to have that impression.

My hope is that by the time EM1 and EM2 have finished college, they will be able to get jobs, find their own places to live, and become productive members of society.  If not, then my hope is that I will be able to throw them out of the house without involving the police.

I am trying to keep my expectations realistic.

Last week, I went camping with the family along the shores of Lake Don Pedro in Northern California.  It sounded like a great idea while we were planning it: enjoy the scenery, eat some junk food, hang out on the shoreline with our feet in the water and watch the water skiers and fishing boats go by.  Unfortunately, the reality of the trip was something quite a bit different.

When we arrived at our campsite, it was early afternoon and it was already a hundred degrees outside.  I stepped out of the truck and I noticed a small bird sitting in a tree branch nearby.  It opened its beak as if to warn me about something, but then burst into flame.  I should have taken the hint and just climbed back into my vehicle and driven home.  But we had only just arrived, and I am by nature far too stubborn to admit a mistake.

And it was a mistake.

By the time I had unhooked the trailer and set up our camp, I was dripping with sweat, panting to catch my breath, and about three seconds away from heatstroke.  For the first few hours that we were there, all I was capable of doing was lying down on the trailer’s linoleum floor and trying to die.  However, despite my best efforts to end my misery by melting into a primordial puddle of ooze, I reluctantly accepted the fact that I was going to survive.  When it became clear that the cool release of death was not in my immediate future, I decided I should get up and fix some dinner.

Not wanting to use the small stove in the trailer (because the last thing I wanted to do in an already miserably hot trailer is light a fire) I stepped outside and set up the tiny portable grill I had purchased a few days before our trip.  I attached to the grill one of the two propane cylinders I had packed, then pressed the ignition button.

Nothing.

After a little bit of fiddling with various knobs and dials, I realized that the propane canister was completely empty.  I unscrewed the cannister from the grill and grabbed the second propane tank.  I attached it, turned on the grill and….

Nothing.

It too was completely empty.

Here is a little tip to all the people out there that like to camp.  If you have been storing cylinders of propane in your garage for three years without checking them, you probably shouldn’t get your hopes too high about still having any propane in them.  Over long periods of time, they leak.  Who knew?

With no way to cook our meal that evening, and not relishing the idea of eating raw hamburger, I suggested a short field trip.  Not too far from our campsite was one of the lakeside marinas.  The faded copy of the campground map I had received when we arrived advised that the marina had a small store and café that provided ice, propane, and food.  These items seemed the perfect solution to our current dilemma.

The map showed that the marina was only a five-minute walk from where we were currently situated, so, of course, we all piled into the truck.  If God had meant for me to walk in ridiculously hot weather, he would not have put air conditioning in automobiles.

At the marina, we found the general store and café and tried to go inside.  Tried.  We did not succeed.  It was only six o’clock in the evening, but there was already a large red and white sign on the side of the building announcing that the store was closed.

Strike three.

There was nothing left for us to do but to go back to our trailer and break into our emergency supplies; and by emergency supplies I mean several bottles of wine.  In all honesty, I do not recall much more of that first day, and I am thinking that is probably for the best.

My next conscious memory of the trip was staggering down to the campground bathrooms the next morning.  The bathrooms had running water toilets (which was surprising) and they were absolutely filthy (which was not).  As I stood in the bathroom looking around, something banged on the tin ceiling overhead and then skittered along the roof before falling to the ground somewhere outside the building.  I like to think it was a pine cone falling out of one of the trees growing nearby, but I couldn’t help feeling like I had just walked into a scene from every horror movie I had ever watched in the 1980’s.  All that was missing was some dude wearing a hockey mask and carrying a machete.

What I recall most vividly about that bathroom, however, was a cloud of the most aggressive flies I have ever had the misfortune of running into.  They were everywhere, and it was clear that they considered me to be the intruder in this scenario.  Fortunately, they seemed to have more pressing concerns than me at that moment.

The flies and the spiders in the building seemed to be engaged in some kind of active dispute, like miniature gang members involved in a violent turf war.  I watched three flies rush at a spider who had made the mistake of hanging out alone in his web.  I can’t be sure, but I think I saw the glint of a tiny knife.  They all suddenly scattered and the spider fell limp onto the floor clutching its chest.  I thought about calling the police, but the flies were still somewhere in the area and I figured the smartest thing I could do was just get the hell out of there.

Snitches get stitches.

I retreated to the shelter of my trailer, grateful to have survived such a harrowing ordeal.

Still with no way to cook meals, temperatures climbing back into the hundreds, and the wine supply growing desperately low, I decided that, as the man in charge, I needed to find a way to provide for my family.  I mentally reviewed all the survival training I had ever undergone and then made the tough decision.  If we were going to make it through the week, there was only one way it was going to happen.

After a leisurely lunch in the nearby town of Sonora, we did some shopping at Walmart then caught a movie.  Theatres have amazing air conditioning and Walmart has ice and quite an extensive assortment of junk food.

Dad: 1

Wilderness: 0

Apparently, some of the best camping trips involve very little actual camping.

I was out of town all week so was unable to find the time to write a new blog.  Fortunately for me (and all of you) Wes Blalock agreed to step in and take care of this week’s blog post.  I am one of Wes’ biggest fans and also fortunate enough to be able to call him my friend.  So without further ado….

G.-

 Wes Blalock, Author

CHINESE LINE DANCING

A while back, my best friend and fellow author, G, asked if I could write a guest blog for his webpage. Being the dinosaur that I am, I asked what does it need to be about? Are there any criteria? What are my boundaries? Deadlines? G refused to give me a straight answer on anything. Whatever you want it to be, he said, casually, like that meant something. No boundaries and no deadlines. Perfect. Six months later, here we are. But I have a story to tell. An absolutely true story. Believe it or don’t.

Many years ago, I was providing a police presence at a sporting event on the University where I worked. I know that it was a Pan-Pacific tournament between the USA and China, and I remember it being a women’s volleyball event, mostly because my memory of the time is filled with young women in shorts and kneepads; I don’t really know what that says about me. Anyway, this was a day-long event with multiple games on multiple courts; I couldn’t begin to tell you how many games were actually played, but it seemed like a lot.

In between each set of games, the arena floor was cleared, country music would play, and a group of middle-aged, Chinese women in jeans and yellow T-shirts walked out onto the hardwood floor and began line dancing. I heard Achy-Breaky Heart way too many times (two?). After the second or third time they appeared, I moved close enough to read the red lettering on the shirts and was not significantly surprised to see Chinese Line Dancing Association of San Francisco. I asked one of my co-workers if line dancing was a fad in China and this was some way of honoring them for their appearance at our campus.

My co-worker simply replied, “Wes, I’m Korean. Why are you asking me about Chinese culture.”

I tried to explain that I wasn’t asking her as an expert on all things Asian, but I gave up, recognizing the playful dig for what it was, albeit a little late. We actually engaged in conversation with many other employees in the arena that day about the oddity that was the Chinese Line Dancing Association and why they were appearing at this particular, University hosted sporting event. Was it a fad (already discussed)? Was someone in the Association related to someone producing the event? Was it an organized crime thing (you want the event to be safe, you take my mother-in-law’s dance group)?

Finally, near the end of the day, I happened across the University building manager who worked directly with the production company managing this Volleyball Tournament.

“Hey, so why is the Chinese Line Dancing Association of San Francisco performing between each match? Is it a fad or does someone in production owe money to a loan shark?”

The building manager looked me in the eye and said, “The production manager told his assistant to find Chinese Lion Dancers.”

Thank you and enjoy.

  San Francisco Chinese Line Dance Association

 Chinese Lion Dancers

I have started running recently.  I realize to the casual observer that it may appear that I am merely walking at a faster than usual pace while bouncing up and down a little bit, but in my mind at least … I am running!

I don’t go very fast, and I certainly don’t go very far.  I would use a tortoise vs. the hare analogy, except to be completely honest, this is more of a tortoise vs. a fatter, less motivated, much slower tortoise.

With asthma.

I started running because I wanted to lose some weight, build a little muscle, and get a bit healthier.  Although, the more I run, the more I believe that running to get healthy is a bit of an oxymoron.  Running hurts.  Plain and simple.  Every time I do it, I feel like I got run over by a truck and I want nothing more than to just lie down in the middle of the street and let the buzzards finish the job.

How is this healthy?

If seems to be on the same level as saying I hit my hand with a hammer for an hour every day so I have stronger hands.  Or maybe: I bang my head on the wall to get smarter.

But still I do it.

I have talked to friends about running, and I asked them how they find the will power to get up every morning, crawl out of a comfortable bed, and punish themselves like the masochists I know them to be.  They responded by telling me about something called a “runner’s high.”  They described this condition as a feeling of euphoria that suddenly comes over them just as their body begins to fail and they believe that they could not possibly take one more step.

One moment, they feel like they are going to collapse, then the next they are ready to run another ten miles.

I think they are insane.

I have never felt this “runner’s high,” and I am strongly beginning to suspect that it doesn’t actually exist.  When I run and push myself as hard as I can, I also reach that point of absolute exhaustion.  However, it is usually followed by a brief period of blackout and waking up a few moments later with bits of asphalt and gravel embedded in my palms and knees.  I wouldn’t exactly call that a “high.”

I have started to suspect that runner’s high is not a possessive statement (as in the high belongs to the runner).  I think it is a contraction of “runner is high,” because I think you have to be crazy or doped up to submit yourself to that torture day after day.  That feeling of euphoria that has been described to me is actually nothing more than the mind-altering cocktail of psychotropic and hallucinogenic drugs bathing my friends’ brains before they ever leave the house.  Running simply circulates the blood and pumps those pharmaceuticals through their heads faster.

Maybe I am pursuing the wrong activity.  Some people are built to run; they just have the right body type for it.  I am not one of those people.  I was clearly built for other purposes.  My body type is ideal for events that involve prolonged periods of inactivity and motionlessness, followed by additional periods of inactivity.  Marathon television binging and napping would be good examples.

Swimming might work for me.  Exercising in the water puts very little stress on the joints and is much less likely to cause injury.  Besides, my kids have told me that I have the ideal physique for swimming.  That wasn’t a compliment, by the way.  What they meant was that I was too fat to sink.  It’s tough to drown when you’re bobbing on the surface of the water like a cork.

It doesn’t matter, anyway.  I don’t have a pool, so swimming is not an option.  At the moment, my choices are keep running or do absolutely nothing.  While doing nothing is tempting (after all I am really good at it) I think I will do the running thing just a bit longer.  And to be honest, I do think I am seeing a little bit of progress.  This week I managed to run a tiny bit further than I did last week, and I find those results promising.  Next week I am hoping to do even better.

So, if you are out driving around and happen to notice me wheezing and sweating on the roadway while trudging along at a blistering three mile-per-hour pace, give me a wave and say hello.  If I have enough strength left in me, I might even wave back.

If, however, you come across me lying motionless in a ditch by the side of the road, keep driving.  Leave me where I am.

I am probably just enjoying my runner’s high.

It has been suggested to me that my view of the world can be a little bit negative.  It has been said that instead of finding the joy in life, I always seem to focus on the little things that irritate or annoy me.  I have been called a pessimist, although I don’t think that word truly applies to me.  A pessimist is someone who believes that given any set of circumstances, the worst possible option will always happen.  This isn’t my belief.  I believe that good things do happen, I just know that something stupid is always coming hard on its heels to screw it up.  Life is sort of a shit sandwich, with really good quality bread.

A perfect example is yesterday.  I went out to lunch with a few friends that I had not seen in a very long time.  I had a wonderful time talking, catching up with their lives, and enjoying a good meal.  I drove home in a pleasant mood, and when I walked in the door, my daughter asked how my lunch was.  I told her I had a good time.

She smiled, and said, “Great.  Hey, by the way, something is wrong with my car.  It stopped running.”

Shit sandwich.  Really good bread.

My wife has told me that I always see the glass as half empty.  This also is not true.  The glass, in my opinion, is completely empty.  The rim is also cracked and chipped so when you try to take a drink you cut your lips and all you can taste is your own blood.

Okay, perhaps that analogy went a little darker than I intended, but you get the point.

I think my basic lack of faith in humanity began at a very young age.  I recall being lost at a supermarket and wandering the aisles, crying.  A man stopped and asked me what the problem was.  I told him I couldn’t find my mother.  He knelt down beside me, put one hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.  He said, “And I can’t find the baking soda, so I guess we’re both out of luck today.”

I learned a very valuable lesson that day: nobody cares about your problems when they have problems of their own.  I have taken that ideal to heart and I have happily shared my insight with anyone who has ever sat down next to me and attempted to start an uninvited conversation.

On a side note, I do find it interesting that when I was in my twenties I had the exact same outlook on life, but I was described as brooding, deep, and intense.  I was considered thoughtful and profound.  Since turning fifty, the vocabulary has changed drastically.  Now I more commonly hear the words: cantankerous, grumpy, or crotchety.  Not quite so flattering.  Pretty accurate, I must admit, but I liked the brooding comments better.  It isn’t as much fun being the angry old man that everyone points to as a cautionary tale for their children.

Anyway, back to my original purpose for this rant.  In answer to those closest to me that continually tell me that I need to cheer up, and that I need to focus on all the good things that life has to offer, I have a simple response:

Not gonna happen.

I tried to be positive for a while.  I really did.  I tried to do one act of kindness for another person every day.  It wasn’t always easy, but I did it.  I discovered that it was a lot more work than I expected.  On the other hand, the petty acts of mindless retribution just seemed to happen on their own.  They take no effort whatsoever.

I’m too old to change, now.  Too stuck in my ways, you might say.  I don’t really worry too much about it, though, since my closest friends and family are still willing to put up with me.  And if they haven’t bailed on me yet, they probably aren’t going to anytime soon.

So, I will continue to gaze up at a cloudless, blue sky, and while others enjoy the view I will think about skin cancer.  I will hear the laughter of children at the park, and I will check my watch and wonder how long it will take before one or more of them begin crying.  I will gaze out over the endless horizon of the ocean, and I will ponder about how much it would suck to get eaten by a shark.  And my friends and family will stand next to me, pointing out the way the sunlight dances on the water, trying to get me to cheer up.

It won’t work, but they’ll keep trying.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go outside and chase some kids off of my front lawn.