i have no idea what i like

I always like a good TV show, and I love when I get really wrapped up in something. Even if I don't have any kind of personal connection with it, as in the case of my all-time two favorite TV shows Twin Peaks and Friday Night Lights. I just like what I like, you know? And I hate what I don't like and I won't watch it.


The bizarre thing, and I think it's bizarre, is that there is honestly no template for what I like and what I don't like. I have no way to determine if I'll like something. For example, you would expect me to like Glee or Smash, wouldn't you? All those drama people and singing and learning special lessons. Sounds right up my alley! But I hate Glee and Smash.

I have forcefully declared in the past that I refuse to watch any show about doctors, lawyers, or private investigators. I still hold to that refusal. They are all basically the same show, right? Sometimes they even switch actors and nobody even notices! I won't watch them. I get that these characters have important jobs, but I want to see something sexier and more compelling. Like ad agencies! From the 1960's!

That brings me to my next point. I should love period pieces. I love Mad Men and The Americans, even though everyone on The Americans looks 1980's except the two lead actors. But I'm theatrical, so I should love all the clothes, wigs, and cars. So why don't I love shows from the future? Those are period pieces, right? None of it makes sense. I also dislike shows about the Wild West.

Here is a list of things I don't like:

I don't like any sitcom that has a laugh track.

I don't like shows where someone is about to shoot someone, but when you hear the gun go off the person drops dead  - and you realize that they had been shot by someone else standing right behind them!

I don't like shows about fancy rich people who don't acknowledge that they are rich or fancy.

I don't like shows that feature and/or showcase unattractive people. I want good looking people only. (I learned this from my wife, who boycotted TV when we lived in England)

I don't like action shows that just have people running around a warehouse.

I don't really love zombie shows and I don't think they are very scary.

I don't like meeting characters' parents on sitcoms, because they are always old has-been actors and it makes me feel old.

I don't like shows where they make us hunger for two characters to finally kiss. Kiss or don't kiss! Figure it out!

I don't like shows with Miley Cyrus dancing around like a golden retriever.

I don't like when shows have a very special "musical episode."

Here is a list of things I do like:

I like reality shows where sexy housewives fight!

I like shows where people talk the way people really talk, and don't just say awesome ironic things all the time.

I like shows where I can't figure out who the bad guys are, and maybe they are right under my nose!

I like shows that are a half hour long. I can't stay awake for an hour, TV!

I like shows that addict me through fascinating plot lines and shocking conflicts and people who work outside of a law office.

To be honest, I have no idea what's coming up in the Fall TV Season. To my friends here on Part Time Authors, this is redolent of the same people who complain "I haven't seen any of these movies!" at Oscar time, which drives me crazy. I'll watch whatever Lisa tells me to. But I can't promise to like it! I'm an American, and this is my TV, and so help me I'll watch Nashville if I want to!

Me and My TV

Here’s the thing about TV. I hate it. 

I really do. 

It’s like I’m in a bad relationship with it.  I get all excited then I’m getting ready to spend time with it and when things get rolling everything is fine and we face each other and I listen as TV talks and we get into a rhythm and then I think, “I need some cereal.” (cereal: another thing I love that I hate) and soon the dog is licking the last of the milk out of the bowl on the floor and I am totally engrossed with everything TV is saying.  I’m like, ‘You are kidding me?!” and TV’s all, “No, for reals.”

Then it’s 2:30 in the morning. 

“Son of a pistol, those stinkin’ kids are gonna wake up in 5 hours regardless of what Senator Underwood is gonna do now.”  So I make a vow.  Never again. And the shows almost over and I hate myself for doing this, I’ve got TV on my body, on my body like a tattoo and then…HE KILLED THE CONGRESSMAN!! You are joking me?!!

Then it’s 3:30 in the morning.

“I WILL KILL YOU!! I hate you so much for doing this to me TV! I have to work in 3 hours I will never get this sleep back! YOU DON’T EVEN CARE!  This is always your plan! Whether I sit down at noon or a midnight you goal is the same, never ever let him leave that couch*.”

And so it goes.  I have canceled the cable and found myself at 4:30 am waiting to see how much this lady’s grandmothers candlesticks, which she found in 1921 next to a dead hobo in upstate New York, will now fetch at auction. 

It literally doesn’t matter. Golden Girls? Love ‘em, I know every name. Nashville? Check. Glee? Okay…well?...okay fine.  Frasier? Oh you bet! Scrubs? Yes, but not the ninth season. Arrested Development? Duh. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? There has never EVER been a better show to grace the frame of my television. Freaks and Geeks? Own it.  It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Filthy! Fine I’ll watch…oh, love it.

I have horrible taste in TV and that’s because I have no hang ups. I’ll watch whatever as long as I keep liking it and as long as TV keeps pumping it at me, with that said, here are my recommendations for this Falls line up:

First: Get off the couch and play with your kids, because guess what, they canceled "Happy Endings" which is real sad to me.

Then watch: 

The Mindy Project

The New Girl

Modern Family (forever and ever!)

Community

Scandal (Lindsay's)

House of Cards (very...let's say grown up)

and probably Nashville and Grimm (but don't think it's Buffy, cause it ain't.)

Have fun! 

*Excepting collusions with cereal.    

Parental Discretion Advised

Can you smell it in the air? Season premieres of all your TV stories. They are about to launch. You can almost feel it. Of course nowadays we have the luxury of DVRs. Could you imagine how laborious it would be to try to watch all these shows live or record them on a VCR - like ANIMALS?!

As a child it was more visceral. Nobody really informed me of season premieres or reminded me what the cliffhangers were from the season finales. (It's like my parents completely ignored their civic duty all together of keeping me up to speed on what happened on Mork & Mindy.) I could just kind of sense when it was happening.

I do remember that when I was younger my siblings and I were forbidden to watch the television phenomenon known as Three’s Company. Probably for the same reasons you were forbidden to watch it. (Too many pratfalls.)

It was not uncommon for youth my age to be banned from Three’s Company. But my television restrictions did not stop there, ladies and gentlemen. My parents also forbade me to watch such popular small screen sensations as Diff’rent Strokes, Happy Days, The Dukes of Hazzard, and The A-Team, among others. And it wasn’t due to the violence, language or suggestive subject matters. You want I should tell you why I was not allowed to watch the Dukes and Boss Hogg squabble over bootlegged moonshine in Hazzard County? “Because those shows are stupid,” said my dad, laying down the law.  (How Mork & Mindy made it through the approval process remains a mystery. Child Protective Services is still investigating.)

That’s right, not because these shows were inappropriate, but because Dad thought the writing on these shows was sub par. We had one TV in the house, and we were going to watch what Dad wanted to watch. What’s interesting is that my parents were not overly moral about television. They were not the type to threaten to throw out the television or unplug it. They didn’t lecture us about mindlessly spending hours in front of the TV (because we didn’t, because there were only 13 channels). My dad’s legitimate concern was that these shows were not entertaining to him, but were, by his definition, dumb. And he would not expose his children to such drivel.

What DID we watch? M*A*S*H, All in the Family, Rockford Files, Magnum PI. See, it wasn’t that he didn’t like television in general, he just didn’t care for specific shows. 

In fact, to illustrate my dad’s appreciation for television, I will share with you a quick story. We were moving across town, and everything we owned was loaded into the moving truck, including the TV. We couldn’t unload the truck until the next day. It was a Thursday.

“Dad,” I began, as we sat, eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on the furniture-less kitchen floor, “it’s Thursday, and we’re going to miss Magnum PI.”

“I’ve thought about that,” he said, searching through the bucket for a leg. “And I think I’ve figured it out. The furniture section at JC Penney has their couches facing their new, color televisions. We’ll just go down to the mall and make ourselves comfortable.”

“That’s brilliant,” I said, marveling at his ingenuity.

“Not completely,” he said. “JC Penney closes at 9 p.m., and that’s when Simon & Simon comes on.”

Yes, my dad had discriminating tastes. And now that I have children at that same age, I totally get it.

I don’t want to brag, but my kids watch pretty awesome shows, and Katie and I have successfully steered them from watching the Disney Channel as well as other twaddle and rubbish. And that’s my contribution to the world. Uh-you’re welcome, Society.

Nanu-nanu, and good day to you, sir or madam. 

Here's proof I was an idiot in high school

I'm 42. I was 16 once. When I was 16, I thought I was pretty cool. In fact, for much of my life I thought that I had things pretty well figured out. It's just been the last 10 years or so that I realize I don't. We're all just doing the best with what we've got, right? But I digress. My point is I was a stupid teenager.

In my 11th grade English class in 1988, we were required to keep a journal. Here, to prove my point and for your reading pleasure, are some of those journal entries with grammar, spelling, and stupidity left alone. Some have been shortened for time:

1-25-88 Why America is Awesome

"America is a great place to live because of our rights. A lot of countries don't have rights or freedoms. We basically get to do what we want when we want. I enjoy not having an army always patrol the streets. I like going places without the government knowing my next move. [Author's note: Hahahahahahahahaha! Good one.] I like living where I want, talking with who I want and saying what I want. America is the best place I could live."

1-27-88 The DQ Incident

"Last night was not my night. At work everything was fine until I had to empty the fridge. I was taking the unfrozen ice cream mixture out and the top crate came off. The whole bag of total liquid ice cream splashed all over the floor. It took me at least a half an hour to clean it all up. Then I emptied the fryer. But instead of only opening one valve I opened one to many and both the fryers emptied. We had not hot grease. I then had to put the grease back in so we would have hot grease. It hurt. Then I spilled chocolate all over my shirt and pants. I got out of there at 12:15 am."

1-29-88 Smoking

"Smoking really sucks. Not that I do, but I have friends and friends parents that do. I'll admit I've tried it. I'll also say it sucked. The smell that gets on you and clings there. ... The kid in front of me has a pregnant cat. I don't see how anyone could enjoy killing themselves slowly by smoking. There is a dance tonight." [Author's note: I smoked on and off from 2000-2005. I should have remembered it sucked.]

2-4-88 When I'm 75

"The kind of life I want at 75 is an active one. Of course I don't think the world will last that long but I'll pretend. I'd like to still be living an enjoyable, active life. I want to be vacationing, retiring from the business world. On a cruise one week, Italy the next. ... That is all I'd like to be doing. Relaxing away, soaking up some rays, etc. There is nothing more that would be best to be a 75, besides being 50 or 30 or 20."

2-26-88 Decisions, Desisions

"I think I should be allowed to make the decisions of when I go somewhere and when I'll be home. I usually do. I know I'm not going to be out partying so, I must be doing something constructive. My mom trusts me. I like that. Another desision I should be able to make is if wheter I want to work or not. If I don't want money that's my choice. My mom still wants me to be a slave to DQ forever."

I could go on. In fact, maybe throughout this year I'll post more of my high school naivety. It's sort of fun to remember these moments. I'm thankful I'm less stupid today. Just a little.

Goodbye, comments!

Does it make me sound shallow if I say I do things mainly for praise and recognition? I am not someone who wants to labor silently in the shadows where someones "smiles are thanks enough." If I do something awesome I want people to tell me loudly and boisterously how awesome that thing is.

I served my LDS mission in Rome. (The one in Italy, not Idaho.) And while I was there, I learned to make a pretty killer lasagne. (Yes, it should be spelled with an "e." Lasagna with an a is singular and would refer to one lasagna noodle. It why you say you ate spaghetti and not spaghetto.) The sauce has three kinds of meat and cooks for a minimum of 5 hours. The noodles are made and rolled by hand. And the creamy beschamel sauce (where your mom would have used cottage cheese) is lightly seasoned with black pepper and nutmeg. Even old Italian women have told me my beschamel sauce is amazing. It's topped with freshly grated parmiggiano and baked to perfection. And while I enjoy making it, it is definitely a labor of love. It takes pretty much and entire afternoon.

Over the many years since I have been home, I have made this lasagne for various friends, family and loved ones. Some are kind enough and say "Thanks" or "This is good!" but you can tell they would be just as happy with a frozen Stouffer's Lasagna. And others rave and sing praises and go blind with happiness. They proclaim that this is the greatest lasagne they have ever eaten. They never want to eat anything ever again. Surely the very angels in Heaven wept at the creation of this masterpiece and their tears are what give the lasagne is subtle umami flavor. Guess which group I am more likely to make the lasagne for a second time?

I'm not saying this is something I am proud of. I recognize that it is a character flaw. You should do nice things for no reason at all. And I try to. But, boy, is it more fun when there is a lot of praises sung after you do a nice thing.

As a writer, you do most of your work in anonymity. While we know a lot of the people who read this blog (Thanks, Connie!) many of you we have never met. And it blows my mind that there are people in the world who have no personal connection too who take time out of their day to read this blog. It's flattering and humbling and lovely. We have received nice messages, emails and comments over the two years we've been doing this that have been incredibly heart-warming. So thank you for reading and thank you for sharing. You are all great.

This blog has never been a great generator of comments. (Not to be confused with generator of great comments. We've have plenty amazing comments. We just don't get that many.)  We've even tried begging people to comment, and it worked somewhat. And truthfully, I don't know why we have been so desperate to get people to comment. On most websites the comments are full of trolly statements, meanness and bad spelling.  They are the last things anyone wants to read. I guess it is because as a writer you want to know someone is listening. So you put up your post and you check a couple times throughout the day to see how many comments were made. And then you do math and calculations in your head. "Well, I did get this up later than usual, so maybe people didn't read it in the morning and had to read it on their phones and it is harder to comment on the phone so..." or "Well, my post last week got 3 comments and I didn't spend hardly ANY time writing that one, but THIS on was a real labor of love, so SURELY it will get lots of comments!" It's silly.

So, as of today, we are shutting off the comment section. Mainly so I can stop measuring my self worth that way. But also to consolidate the effort. A lot of great comments are being left when the post is shared on Facebook. So rather than having the comments in two places, we are shifting them all over there.

Also, some people have asked where the "like" button has gone from the bottom of the posts. It has something to do with Facebooks new graph search feature and blah, blah, blah...Basically I need to write new code to get it back up and I haven't been able to figure out how to do it yet. So, hopefully it will be back soon.

So, what if you were a regular commenter (Hi, Seashmore!) and you still want to share the love. What can you do?

1. Like our Facebook Page. We try and post links to all the new posts there. And you can then just comment on the link. 
2. See those little social media buttons at the bottom of the post? Click on those. You can tweet about us, share this on your own Facebook page, +1 us on Google+ (sidebar: $10 to the first person who can explain Google+ to me.) And we would LOVE if you did that. Help us spread the word about this little labor of love.
3. What if you are not on FB, don't have Twitter and don't believe in social media? First of all, I applaud you. Surely you are writing the great American Novel or curing cancer with all the time that you don't waste liking photos of people's food. And secondly, feel free to click on the picture of an envelope at the top of the page and send us an email. We've gotten a few lovely emails over they years and they are truly wonderful and moving.
4. Lastly, just keep reading. As I said, I'm working on not being validated by praise, so if you don't do any of these things, that's OK too.

If you like this new policy, please share in the comments below!! Kidding...Old habits...there are no comments below. 

movie cheating

By now I know you have all watched and memorized Episode One of Season Two of my wife's web series Pretty Darn Funny. It downloaded on Monday so it's all you can talk/think about! So now I thought I would give you some "behind the scenes" info! You know, stuff from the stars! Actually just me.

Step One. Watch the episode:

Step Two. Read what happened behind the scenes!

0.09: "Pearly Gates Nursing Home." I thought that was the most awesome name ever for a nursing home! Also note the "Humor She Wrote" banner. These things only pop up very quickly but they're funny and worth noting.

0.11: Why did we decide to shave my beard like that? I had scruff, but no beard. So we decided to make it look like I had a beard, when I clearly didn't. This will bother me (and no one else) through the remainder of the episode.

1.33: We had to do this scene in one take. Lisa is losing her voice. We kept messing up our lines because we had to change her out of her Batman suit, move to the car, and talk super fast. We shot this scene about fourteen times. You would never guess there were about 25 people standing around watching this and eating giant cookies. Also, I got stung by a bee in the rose bushes.

1.45: This is a movie theatre in American Fork. They call it the "Sticky Shoe." It's really gross in there!

1.52: Read that funny sign on the door! It references not one but two jokes later in the episode!

1.54: That's the director, Jeff Parkin.

2.20: That's Jeff Blake, who is kind of a genius. He made us laugh a lot and we had to keep starting over.

2.38: That was really some kind of car spray or something. It smelled disgusting! We had to fumigate between takes. I was still super tempted to eat that popcorn, though.

3.55: The light on our faces was from a TV monitor, showing endless clips of the "Great Pit of Carkoon" scene from Return of the Jedi. I saw Princess Leia in her bikini one hundred times and it never got old!

4.35: Lisa looks really pretty in this scene.

5.00: My kids did this once. Do they need a shot?

5.28: Note Lisa's voice. She hated screaming. Also, what's going on with my "beard?"

6.05: Lisa really does put that much cheese on her nachos. It's so gross. You have to wade your fingers through inches of muck just to find one lonely, sopping chip. It's what the lady likes. So this is drama in real life. Also, I am a total movie cheater.

7:03: I've never watched Duck Dynasty.

7:33: Sometimes I dance when I talk.

8.08: Oh, man. This voice was way funnier on set! I promise! It was totally funny!

8.38: Empire Strikes Back in-joke!

8.50: Weird to kiss your wife on camera.

Thanks for watching - and five more episodes to come!!!

A Little {but true} Story.

I was sitting in Taco Bell on 14th street in NYC, too full from over ordering, reading a book.

I looked up
and a Nun was standing at my table
with a little wooden bowl
with money in it.

I thought she would sit down.

"St. Joseph's Orphanage?" She held out the bowl.

"I'm Sorry?"

"St. Joseph's Orphanage...Yes or No."

"Oh.

No."

She looked somewhat surprised for less than a second. Then she said,

"God Bless you, Ma'am."

And she moved to the next table.

I felt it was calculated.

~P

School & Rites of Passage

When I was a kid I seem to recall school starting in September. But more and more it seems the beginning of the school year has crept further and further into August. (Thanks Obama!)  Anyway, around this time of year, I inevitably remember my youth and feel all the feels that accompanied starting school and entering autumn. The new clothes, the shorter days, sitting by new friends, comparing teachers – and of course the rites of passage that came with each year. For example, I was seven years old the first time I was left at home by myself. An experience I have always associated with school, as that is where it all began.

It was October of 1978, in a small suburban town in southern California. Abba ruled the airwaves and Star Wars ruled my dreams. Mr. Schwamm was my second grade teacher, and though his teaching abilities were called into question more than once by my parents, I enjoyed Friday afternoons when we had “dance time.” What a festival it was each Friday, full of music and courting. As long as you kept your finger out of your nose, pretty much anybody was willing to dance with you. There was no social awkwardness in second grade.

This particular Friday morning, on my way out the door, my mom kissed my cheek, handed me my Mork & Mindy lunchbox, and reminded me that when I got home that afternoon she wouldn't be there. She was taking my brother and sisters to the dentist, and she would be back shortly after I got home. She carefully explained that she would leave the door on the side of the garage unlocked, and I could enter through that door and then take the connecting door from the garage into the house.

I was never a big fan of the garage – what, with the darkness and dampness and the hideous child-eating hobgoblin that lurked there on the off chance I was stupid enough to go into the garage by myself. (I was never that stupid. Before going into the garage, I would usually organize a posse of family members to accompany me.) But I was also excited for my bachelorhood and all that it would entail. Let’s see, drinks at 2:30, a light supper at 3:00, and the dancing that started in Mr. Schwamm’s class that afternoon would then continue at Casa de Kenny Craig.

This is what the house looks like today, says Google Maps. 

And it looks pretty much the same as it did 34 years ago. 

I nodded to my mom that I understood how to get from outside the house to the inside, and I headed off to school. As soon as I got to school I began to imagine our house. I knew my mom was still there, but in my mind, it was already sitting there, empty and silent. I thought about it on and off throughout the day, and each time I did, I imagined myself walking into this house that had been left alone for hours. Abandoned, really. It was a little unnerving.

I casually walked home from school that afternoon, not in a hurry to make any kind of destination. Kicked a pile of leaves or two, inspected some bugs in some trees, hummed the Peanuts theme song. I eventually arrived at my house and stared at it from the sidewalk for a few moments. I walked to the door on the side of the garage, and turned the handle. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and tried to casually walk through the garage as if the whole world was grading my performance of bravery. I stepped into the house…and it was even more still than I had imagined. It was an eerie quiet. I could almost hear myself sweat.

Once you entered the door from the garage into our house, the master bedroom was off to the right, and directly in front of you was a bathroom that you could enter from the hall, where I was, and that also lead into the master bedroom, so if you were sitting on the throne, you would be looking right into the master bedroom.

Relieved to finally have some much-needed peace and quiet for such an occasion, I dropped my little Levis and took a seat. It was then that I noticed my dad’s rifle, lying on the bed. I had seen it once or twice before, but it was a rare sighting. As children, we were generally discouraged from even looking at, and had never been allowed to touch it. The fact that it was so brazenly lying there almost startled me, and my first thought was “Ooooh…somebody’s in trouuuuuuubllllllle.” Taking my time doing my business, my eyes began to wonder around my parents’ room, and I started to take notice of how untidy their room was. Drawers pulled open, items from said drawers thrown about the room and covering the floor. I decided right then and there that I was not going to listen to even one more lecture from them on the state of my own room.

I completed my business, finished the paperwork…and flushed the toilet. At that precise moment, I heard a stampede of hurried footsteps right…over…my…head. My flushing had alerted intruders, who were now trapped upstairs, that somebody else besides them was in the house. Still not completely clear on what was happening, I ran alongside the footsteps above me until I saw three individuals run down the stairs and out the front door. Shaken (not stirred), I looked around the house and discovered that most things were in disarray – tipped over, emptied, broken, out of place. I was suddenly not so interested in being home alone, and I ran across the street to the safety of my friend Jeff, or more precisely, Jeff’s mom. We waited together until my mom came home. When I looked out the window of Jeff’s house and saw my mom’s car in the driveway, I walked over. She came running out of the house, looked right at me and said, “Kenneth Quentin Craig – what have you done to this house!?”

I explained, she apologized, and a few weeks later the men were apprehended. Surprisingly, I was not scarred by this experience. And apparently, neither were my parents, who promoted me immediately to the position of Babysitter and left me in charge of my brothers and sisters on most Friday nights. And the position of Babysitter has its perks, to be sure. For example, I could assign somebody else to retrieve things from the garage.

The best quotes from the books I've read this year

I think I've mentioned in a post or two this year that I'm reading more. It's been great. I read novels, business books, self-help, and non-fiction. I like the variety. I think it's helped me with my writing too. Not here, obviously, but at work and on other projects.

So I thought it would be fun to gather some of quotes from most of the books I've read this year and put them here for all of you. Maybe they'll inspire. Maybe they'll make you want to read. Maybe they'll give you a peek into my psyche.

Who knows?

“I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“My daddy always told me to just do the best you knew how and tell the truth. He said there was nothin to set a man’s mind at ease like wakin up in the morning and not havin to decide who you were. And if you done somethin wrong just stand up and say you done it and say you’re sorry and get on with it. Don’t haul stuff around with you.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“The story is not in the words; it's in the struggle.” ― Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy

“...being happy and fulfilled is probably one of the most attractive traits you can offer a partner.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love

“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“He was there for you, and yet at the same time he was inaccessible. You felt there was a secret core in him that could never be penetrated, a mysterious center of hiddenness. To imitate him was somehow to participate in that mystery, but it was also to understand that you could never really know him.” ― Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy

“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images ... Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.” ― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.” ― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“Anyone too undisciplined, too self-righteous or too self-centered to live in the world as it is has a tendency to idealize a world which ought to be. But no matter what political or religious direction such idealists choose, their visions always share one telling characteristic: in their utopias, heavens or brave new worlds, their greatest personal weakness suddenly appears to be a strength.” ― David James Duncan, The Brothers K

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“Logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.” ― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

“Basically, secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving; anxious people crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back; avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.” ― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love

“[On having a rival] Women intrinsically understand human dynamics, and that makes them unstoppable. Unfortunately, the average man is less adroit at fostering such rivalries, which is why most men remain average; males are better at hating things that can't hate them back (e.g., lawnmowers, cats, the Denver Broncos, et cetera). They don't see the big picture.” ― Chuck Klosterman, Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things - that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It's a discipline; you have to practice it. [Steve Jobs]” ― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing toward the horizon.” ― Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

“One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. [Steve Jobs]” ― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.” ― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. ... How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

What are some of your favorite books this year? Do you have a favorite quote you try to live by?

Life Lessons

Every summer, my family spends a couple of weeks in Bear Lake. It's lovely and peaceful up here and in the past we've spent most of our time sitting on the beach reading while the kids play in the sand. My goal is always one book per day, and I usually do pretty well. But the kids are a little older, now, and they actually want to do stuff. 

My middle boy is a tough one to understand. He struggles with anxiety and everything scares him, but strangely he loves roller coasters and things that go fast. And lately he loves going in the boat. He sits in the bow and screams for the boat to go faster and faster. 

The other day he was riding with my brother-in-law, screaming for more speed, when he witnessed him look around, lean forward and spit right into the wind. I don't know what he thought would happen, but I guess kids do stupid things to learn lessons. And sure enough, that blob of spit splatted right back on his ear, trailing glistening streamers behind it.

He didn't say a word, just quietly tried to clean it up and then went right on enjoying the ride. My BIL laughed quietly, and was grateful that the spit didn't make it past my son's head and find him, or the windshield of the boat. 

I'm glad my son had had a fun week. And I'm glad he's conquering his fearsand trying new things. And I'm glad he's literally learning life's valuable lessons, like how spitting in the wind is never a good idea.