Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 717

Johnny Depp, again, and again, and again

Did you hear about the upcoming film Alice in Wonderland?

It stars Johnny Depp, reprising his role as Edward Scissorhands in an adaptation of Jack Sparrow's Willy Wonka.

Does this guy ply the same character in every movie or what?

    

Hes not OCD. Hes just like me.

In discussing SOMETHING MISSING with a book club last night, the subject of my protagonist's obsessive compulsive disorder arose, as it tends to do.  I was asked if Martin's OCD was difficult to sustain throughout the novel and if any research into the condition was required.

As I often tell people, I didn't know that Martin had OCD until much later on, after people began reading the book and saying, "Wow.  That poor guy has a serious case of OCD.  Huh?"

"No," I would think.  "Martin...

Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!

A couple weeks ago I wrote about a dream in which I experienced my eminent death from a nuclear explosion. The dream was so realistic that I questioned if the experience was an accurate portrayal of how I might react to a similar experience in real life.

Last night I had a dream that someone poisoned my cat, Owen. I knew that he was dying, and as I took him in my arms, I wished and hoped that when he died, he would somehow be reunited with his best friend, Jack, who we lost last summer...

Make your voice heard!

Did you enjoy SOMETHING MISSING?  Perhaps you'd like to nominate it for the NAIBA Book of the Year.  If so, click here.

And thanks!

Stand up for your food preferences

Okay, I know I've been harping on food preferences, poisonous broccoli, and even vegetable-based aliens in recent weeks, but here's one more thought on food.  This is actually something I wrote a while ago, updated for the current discussion. 

My wife and I asked a couple over for dinner.  The couple had recently begun the South Beach diet, and worried about what we might be serving them for dinner, the husband sent me an email regarding his dietary restrictions.

When his wife saw the...

In favor of life coaching

One of my New Year's resolutions is to find one paying client for my life coach business.

When I tell some people about my desire to be a life coach, they laugh, finding the need for such a person to be ludicrous.  To be honest, when I first heard about the career of life coaching, I thought it was a little silly, too.  The person to whom I was speaking had just completed training as a life coach and was looking for her first client, and while I'm sure that she turned out to be an excellent...

Broccoli is poison. Seriously.

And another thing about my genetically superior taste buds:

A new study takes this argument one step further, providing evidence that broccoli (and its leafy cousins) are actually toxic to more than a billion people worldwide because of a component inside the vegetable that inhibits thyroid function. Thanks to evolution, individuals to whom broccoli is toxic also find the vegetable and its cousins unpalatable.

You can read more about this study here or listen to the podcast that summarizes...

Gender gap

On Wednesday evening, I was invited to attend another book club that was gathering to discuss my book.  I've always found these opportunities to be interesting and fun, but on the drive home, I realized something:

I've attended about half a dozen book clubs since SOMETHING MISSING was published in July, and I have yet to see a man at any of them. 

My own book club consists of three men and three women, but otherwise, I know no other man who participates in a book club.

What gives?

Huh?

A woman overheard that I had tickets to the Patriots-Ravens playoff game this Sunday. She asked, "You like football?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I love it."

"But aren't you a writer?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh. I didn't think writers liked sports."

While part of me wanted to explore this woman's line of thinking, I decided to change the subject. Some statements are simply too indicative of a person's mental prowess to proceed.

Its not my fault that Im genetically superior

I don't eat a wide variety of foods, including many leafy, green vegetables, sushi, mayonnaise, most fish, all shellfish, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Thai cuisine. I'm also allergic to mustard and can't stand any salad dressing, which is fine, because I don't eat salad, either.

Despite the opinion of many of my friends (who often feel the need to act like my mother at the dinner table), my food preferences are not made by choice. I am often called picky, but again, picky implies that I...