U.L. Harper's Blog, page 4

Be Your Own Genre

Okay, I'll admit it. I got hung up. Look, I've touched this subject before and I'm going to revisit it because, well, why not? It's still pertinent. At least that's what I think. Here's the thing. I have this novel I'm working on. A sequel to--get this--the original. I'm telling you, when I finished the original I didn't know it was a horror novel. Swear to everything, I didn't know. However, several beta readers and plenty of reviews have since convinced me that I in fact wrote a horror novel.

One might ask the obvious question--how could you not know you wrote a horror novel. I'll tell you how right now. It's because I didn't write a horror novel. Just because it might be scary or heavily bloody and violent doesn't mean it's a horror novel. Or to quote Fight Club. "Sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken."

In other words there are horror elements but it's not horror. It has thriller elements but it's not a thriller. There's even a few moments when boy meets girl and girl notices boy and I'll tell you right now, this is no romance. Not even close. All the main characters are barely eighteen and, man, this is not a young adult novel. God no. It's just not.

But I got hung up. I've been trying to push this bad boy as a horror novel, looking to dial in on my "audience". Yes, I put audience in quotes because it's not like I'm moving these books uncontrollably. I'ts not an audience I have; there're just people reading it. Let's keep it simple why don't we.

I was even told it was science fiction. I believed it too. There are aliens and spaceships and so by all means I added the sci-fi label. Now, I'm not saying it's not sci-fi. But enough of what it's not. In a minute we'll talk about what it is.

Here's the point. We were told by plenty of seasoned and wise people, publishers, agents fellow writers and even readers that a person needs to identify their audience. Some will go as far as to say you should write for a specific audience. Others will go as far as to say that if you don't have an audience in mind then you're making a big mistake. Well, here goes my mistake laid out for everyone to see, then.

My newest novel is a sci-fi/horror mystery with a partial J.D. Salinger narrative paying tribute to Vonnegut. You can find that section anywhere in a defunct Borders Books and Music and somewhere where no one is looking at any Barnes and Noble, and if you google this genre, one wrong word will probably take you to a porn site. I truly hope I'm wrong but I'll sell more books if I'm right, unfortunately.

The point is we have to stick out and be original. Is it cliche to say this? Yes. Do people want to be original? For the most part, no. Because how are you going to market yourself? You going to invent a market? The answer should be yes. But like I said. I got hung up. I tried to fit my key into somebody elses keyhole to open a door to a room that is full.

So here's the name of my genre: sciller-horrornneguttery. Yep, read it and weep. This will adequately fulfill most of the elements I mentioned above. Sciller-horrornneguttery. So, I guess, you can even call this blog post that. Sciller-horrornneguttery. This is the genre and my audience for my newest novel In Blackness. $16 and change as a paper book and $2.99 in its electronic glory.
In Blackness

U.L. Harper Revealed...Again

Okay, I’ve tried being professional with this bio stuff and it just doesn’t work. I’m simply not that professional. So let me really tell you about me.

If you know me none of this will be too new. Here goes anyway.

First off I write books. I write science fiction and fantasy based in reality. Think Vonnegut meets Mccarthy. My stories are never straight forward. My novels are basically devoid of romance. Love, yes. Romance, no. I don’t believe in romance, a lie a man tells to a woman’s reality. I have no business writing it. One thing all my novels have is that they take place in the immediate future or a slightly facetious present. If that doesn’t make sense then, damn. Leave me a comment somewhere, I guess.

I started writing when every other author starting writing—at about 12 years old, with a pencil and a spiral bound notebook. Had no idea I was writing stories. On any level, I finished my first novel at about 23 years old. It was a handwritten manuscript and all of it was in pencil. It was called The Nothing Bottom and nobody will ever read it, because I lost it right after I wrote it. My next novel I lost on a floppy disc. It simply disappeared from off the disc. I had to reimagine the entire thing. The current version is called IN BLACKNESS. Anyone willing can purchase it from wherever books are sold. It’s a good time. If I were to choose between that book and Disneyland I’d just kick Mickey in face and then go read my book.

I’m a native to Long Beach, California and attended Long Beach Poly High School and then Cypress Community College where I became Editor In Chief of the Cypress Chronicle (in the good ol' days).

I took all of my college skills and became a movie theater manager, because everyone knows how much high school and two years of college prepares you for success in the world. What I won’t tell you about is the small amount of time when I was homeless and sleeping in my car, in which officers wouldn’t let me sleep in from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. because it was against city ordinance. Hell I won’t even mention how bad the public treats homeless. I mean, I had no home but I was in school full-time and had a job. Where the system failed, my friends helped me out.

Now I run after-school programs in Long Beach. Over three hundred students attend my programs. Nope, this wasn’t my first choice for work. My first choice was to be a professional tetherball player. Then I wanted to be a journalist. Actually, I wound up succeeding on a small level with the journalist thing. It’s just that $8 an hour will have you finding another job pretty quick. That bicycle wasn’t working for me, wasn’t getting me anywhere so to speak. That paper closed anyway.

Side note. This is how you know you’re a good friend of mine—your parents kick me out of your house for writing something so bad that I need to get kicked out. “Someone needs to put the mother back in fucker” and “Someone needs to put the God back in damn” will get you vanquished from households. A proud and sad moment of mine. That’s actually when I started reading the bible again. See my friends dad gave me one so I could get better but, I don’t know. Am I better now? After enough searching in the bible I found all these stories of what might have been visits by aliens. I used a bunch of this information and put it in my novel IN BLACKNESS. If you so wish, you can purchase it wherever books are sold and on all electronic devices.

Last thing until I say more—I’m realizing I’m closer to forty years of age than thirty years of age. It’s friggin weird. I’m not saying I’m old. I’m saying I’m now truly aware that I’m aging. Are my ideas getting any better? No. Do I feel or seem wiser? Hell, no. Technology is leveling out the wisdom playing field. I just don’t know shit about shit, but now I can more easily find out…so I hear.

I’m going to exit this bio with a quote. I use this quote to explain my general stance on life, love, hope, the future, family, and even finances. “A wise man once said…fuck it.”

I’m active on goodreads.com and twitter or contact me at ulharper1@gmail.com

In Blackness

U.L. Harper: Publishers Fail at Book Fair

So I got off my ass and stopped by the West Hollywood Book Fair. I have a hard time getting to events like this because in my experience the authors are mentally there but the publishers mentally aren’t. The few publishers who are there are drab and boring people who deep down want to complain about being there. This was no different.

Don’t get me wrong. I love visiting with fellow authors and running into serious readers. It’s great to talk with readers about their favorite bookstores. Or it's cool to hear readers from afar yelling, “Oh I love that store!” And it's pretty bad-assed watching someone walk through a crowd only to hear someone reading a book on stage and then immediately decide to stop what they’re doing to listen. Great stuff.

I even purchased a few books. I love PM Press.

I looked for P.I. Barrington but could not find her.

With all that being said, us authors have to work on our game plan when we do these public functions. You’d be surprised how many authors don’t know how to do this. They bumble around their themes and their points and can’t seem to figure out how to use their precious seconds with you. Or maybe I’m just intimidating with my jeans and sunglasses and bag full of recently purchased books. Just a note, us authors can probably do better with presentation. This includes myself. After today I realized how much work I need to do to separate myself from the average authors and their books. Let me tell you, there is some seriously average shit going on.

We need to do better. I’m not offended but better is what we need.

At this event, some of the panels could have used some mphh too. I don’t know, more entertaining, more informative. I’ll give an example. I left several panels because I was simply thinking, could you please just shut the ____ up! And then at others, the questions that were asked were insidiously boring. One moderator asked one of the authors this amazing question: Do you have any major influences? I answered the question in my head: I have a major influence. These nuts.

I did not drive all that way just to have an author be asked that lame question. But everyone else seemed to be having a good time, so it must have just been me.

But back to the publishers.

At several publisher’s booths that I walked up to, at least two or three people at each of them flat out ignored me. I mean nobody addressed me so I had to walk away. They literally talked among themselves, not even thinking about me. This happened more than one, two, or three times. Listen people. The whole thing about being in person is to be at least sort of charismatic and make an impression. Just to let you know, your independent book publishers are horrible at this. These people couldn’t sell cheese to a hamburger. I hope that makes sense. Independent authors seemed to be on it a little better. At least they tried and cared. Independent publishers? Meh. Once again, maybe it was my jeans, sunglasses and bag of recently purchased books that intimidated them into ignoring me.

Eventually, I went downstairs, sat in on a pretty good discussion on some new publishing company that was coming out soon, left there, went back upstairs, just missed being bit by an invisible dog (the owner pulled it away just in time), and then I decided to get out of there before I had to buy more books, or get ignored.



Feel free to check out U.L. Harper’s new novel In Blackness for .99 cents on smashwords or Amazon.com. He is also the author of The Flesh Statue, and the short story book Guidelines for Rejects. Don’t forget to follow on twitter @ulharper

U.L. Harper Joins .99 Cents Club With In Blackness

Well, I’m going to do it or did it, whichever way you want to look at it.

I had been holding back but I’m just curious. What happens to my novel once I start selling it for .99 cents? And I am selling it for .99 cents now.

Honestly, I have reservations about selling it for such a cheap price. At $2.99 I’m going to get my share of sales. If for no other reason, it’s because it’s $2.99. Quite the affordable price. I’ve even experimented with the .99 cents price on other titles, but I didn’t bother to tell anyone I was selling those titles. I was already pushing my new novel In Blackness for $2.99. And who wants a distraction?

To be real, I have two basic thoughts on selling my books for .99 cents. First of all, I worked too hard on them to sell them for such a small price. That’s a simple enough idea. Second of all, I have the same fear of selling my electronic book for .99 cents as I do for giving it away. Deep down I believe there’s a good chance that people are downloading it out of convenience and then not reading it. The same people who download mine also download dozens of other books for .99 cents. In other words, the real fear is that they’ll never get to mine. Or they will a year or so from now, after I get hit by a car or catch some disease or the Earth blows up, or something like that.

One more fear. I’m scared to death that readers reading books for .99 cents are looking for quick pulp reads. I’m not necessarily ready to submit In Blackness to the genre of quick pulp reads, hell, even if that’s what it is. I’m not saying it is or isn’t by the way. I’m saying I’m not necessarily ready to put it there myself.

With all that being said, this is the real world. An author has to find their market, and right now I can’t say I’ve experimented with everything yet. I truly thought In Blackness was merely a literature novel with sci-fi/horror elements spliced in. I’ll stick by that thought. However, judging by reader reviews, it’s clearly the opposite—a sci-fi/horror novel with literary elements. So keeping that in mind, I may think my book is clearly meant to be sold for $2.99, but for all I know, electronically, it might just be .99 cents.

At least through October and November.

So here goes.

In Blackness is ready to download to your favorite electronic reading device at Smashwords.com for .99 cents. In a few weeks it shall be available to wherever Smashwords.com distributes, for the same price. Even now it's equally as cheap at Amazon.com, specifically for the kindle. One could always buy the paper book for $16 and change but I’m sure that’s a whole other conversation.

Now let’s have some fun. Stop by the In Blackness page on Goodreads.com and check out some reviews and what not and then decide if you want to splurge and pick up my book for a dollar. In case you didn't know, In Blackness is about two young adults trying to overcome their parents’ sudden death but find themselves on a journey to discover more than they could possibly imagine. On their trek, they discover something that will change the paradigm of how the world thinks, and they discover it, In Blackness. On my goodreads.com profile page or at ulharper.com you can check out the promo video.

And for all of you who have read it and enjoyed it, if you could just like this post or leave a comment of some sort, well, it wouldn’t hurt.

Thanks and best wishes, U.L. Harper.

U.L. Harper: Content Without Words

Sometimes you get so hung up in making your story exciting and appealing for the readers that you forget to satisfy yourself. Uh huh, I said it. I mean, put it this way: What’s the point of writing a novel if no one is going to read it? It’s too much work to not be read. With that, obviously you think of your readers and potential readers. You think about the genre, the tone and do they match up. You think about the similes and the timing. Does it work? No, but really, does the tone and the timing work? You have to know. If you’re me you forget about elements you once strived to execute the best as possible.

But there is one element that I want to bring back into my writing—not that the element is absent all together—layering. I still try to do this, but at one point I was simply dedicated to it, not that anybody else cared but me.

So what do I mean by layering? Well, let’s see. In any scene there can be a multitude of layers. Most people mention the layer in the dialogue. You know, what the characters say. Another layer obviously is in the exposition, or can be in the exposition. And let’s not forget about the inner narrative. Oh yeah. That’s a biggie. I used to love to this type of narrative.

But this is where I ran into problems. There is a layer of a scene that really good authors can pull off well. These authors are sometimes considered boring or quite misunderstood. These authors write scenes about what characters aren’t saying or doing. That’s right. Really good authors will have a number of scenes in the novel where the characters don’t say what is actually going on. It might sound like normal talk to the average or below average reader and the well-read might not be impressed but I love it. It’s something I once strived for but have somewhat gone away from. Being misunderstood can only take you so far.

So maybe you’re wondering when you might have read something like what I’ve mentioned above. Think Catcher in the Rye. Most of the story is about what’s not actually being said. Holden Caufield seems to gather his observations from more places than just his eyes and ears and he talks about his observations in subtext, plenty of times. It’s why some people like the story and just don’t know why. Vonnegut layered his stories pretty well too. In one of his post humus short story books, Armageddon in Retrospect, he talks about war but always from a different angle, always with a different meaning. What that meaning is, you can’t easily shrug off, but it’s there. You know it’s there because when you talk about the story, it’s that layer that you’re trying to convey.

In my writing group, I regularly tell the writers to stop telling me everything. Let me figure out what I’m reading. Let me be creative. Let me connect the dots. Let me read and think and surmise, all the good stuff that comes with reading. But many choose to turn to adverbs and basically explain the story for me because, you know, why trust the reader?

Unfortunately, I’m no better most of the time, because, well, like I said, you want to be liked and understood. Let’s just say that I’m the only one of my friends who likes Cormac Mccarthy. I thought The Road was great. Apparently, it was just stupid and made no sense and had no chapters.

Apparently.

For me, it’s all going to change, I think. I don’t think characters need to respond to one another in dialogue. They need to respond to the scene. Sounds funny, but isn’t it an illusion that they’re speaking to one another in the first place? Let’s play with the idea. I don’t think characters should do what they’re expected. They need to do what’s in their heart, as cheesy as that sounds. You just have to make their heart make sense. It’s time to rerecognize that the most exciting part of the story, the most lasting elements are what’s not expunged or figured out in dialogue or exposition or even action but floating in the air, waiting for the reader to grab it.

A tough sell, I know. At the same time, it’s too hard to write a book to not even like it when all is said and done.



My new novel is called In Blackness check it out when you get a chance. Or take a look over on Goodreads.

U.L. Harper

Review: Ania Ahlborn's Seed

I recently learned that I tend to write in the horror genre. I don’t read horror so it really didn’t cross my mind. So I did some research on the subject and in my research I stumbled across Ania Ahlborn’s Seed. I thought it had a cool title—Seed, and you can just keep saying it, “Seed, Seed, Seed, Seed.” It’s always cool. And unlike other horror covers, it didn’t look cheesy, stupid, forced or anything else that might make you not pick it up. And, oh, yeah, it was .99 cents.


Here’s my thing with horror, or my preconceived notion of horror—I don’t like that it tries to scare you. Because I just don’t scare. And this book was no different. It didn’t scare me but it did something better—it got me involved in the characters and when it needed to be creepy it was a deep creepy that I had to think about.

There were a number of places where I paused and put myself in the room with the characters and understood the moment whole-heartedly. It’s simply a good piece of writing that doesn’t let up.

The story goes like this: Jack has parts of his past that he’s forgotten because of trauma or other forces. Either way he’s forgotten it and the story slowly bleeds this information out nicely. He truly starts to think about his past when the same type of events that happened to him begins to happen to his youngest daughter, Charlie.

The story stays away from an intricate arc and instead focuses on tone; mood, you know, stuff to mess with your head. Real fun stuff.

Jack’s wife Aimee is great throughout. You just buy her, and believe her. Period. Outside of Jack being haunted he plays the male role in the house with his wife and two daughters well.

The younger daughter, Charlie, who reminded me of the little girl from Poltergeist, is great as the maybe possessed younger daughter, only sometimes she has shark teeth and a lot of attitude. The bummer is that she won’t hesitate to string you up to a tree by your intestines.

Anyway, the point is the story is worth reading. There aren’t any road blocks for the characters to get over, not really. There is a very clever illusion that there is but it’s not really there. Jack is in a band. Not so much a hurdle. They could use more money in their life, but you don't get the sense any decisions is going to be made on this fact. Rather the story goes through where it should go through, the demon of Jack's past that is following him from childhood.

It’s not to say I would have made every decision as far as story went. One thing I might have done different towards the end is make Aimee closer to Jack. Would have loved to see her and Jack team up and handle their business when the climax finally comes. The results wouldn’t have mattered and I don’t think it would have changed the story but it sure would have brought an extra sense of purpose and empathy.

I read this on my kindle and it is well formatted and also not too long. Buy this book. Read this book.

U.L. Harper was here.

U.L. Harper is the author of several books including In Blackness which you can find at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and smashwords.com for $2.99 and everywhere books are sold. Or join the hundreds on the goodreads.com giveaway.

The Answer to Why We Read/ author of In Blackness

I know it’s not just me who has figured that reading is absolutely archaic. I mean I love doing it, but it’s archaic. We still consider people who read smarter than someone who doesn’t read. Is that really true? Do we really think the romance novel with the guy with the glistening pectorals is making those who read it smarter or better? Well, I’m not going to speak to smarter, but I will ask the question again. Why do we still read?

What is it that makes us want to make words into pictures rather than just look directly at the pictures? In today’s world we have 3-D, high-definition, streaming, cartoons; reality TV and so on and so on. We have documentaries, hell, claymation, whatever it is, it’s easier than reading a book.

For me to read, I have to clear my plate of almost everything. I work about forty hours a week, something like that. I have a pretty significant other and I like to at least pretend I write novels. I’ll admit it—I make time to read. I’ll read wherever, in line at the super market, on the toilet, driving (if no one’s looking), on lunch break. I even read in theaters while waiting for my movie to start. I love reading.

Doesn’t answer the question though.
Speaking of movies, we seem to think that plenty of books would make a better movie or at least we find that the movie makes more money on the story based on the book. What do you think sells better a $5.99 book or a $14 movie ticket? I’ll give you one guess. I’ll just say that by the reported numbers, I’d say it’s a nod towards watching rather than reading. Still, no one is saying we don’t watch movies because we surely do. However, we read too.

Let me tell you why we read. You don’t have to agree with me, and you probably won’t but I’ll tell you why we read anyway. Because deep down, generally speaking, at least a large number of us have an urge to work out a muscle that can only be worked out by reading.
Whenever someone says something blasphemously idiotic like, “I didn’t read the book but I saw the movie,” I cringe in disappointment and want to spit. Reading a book means you’re relating to the author and his/her voice and then creating a place that is solely yours in your head. A good book doesn’t just move across your eyes like an action movie; it resonates through your body. Now I’ll concede I’d rather watch a bad movie than read a bad book, but many times an amazing book is a so-so movie, by no fault of the director, actors or producers. It just doesn’t have all the elements.

Do me a favor and nod to yourself if you’ve ever read such a great line that you kept reading it over and over. Then you stopped reading just to take it all in. Nod to yourself right now if you’ve ever read such a powerful book that you just knew that it was written for you personally.

Yeah, reading is like the Force and it’s strong in this one here. Nod if you got it in you, deeply, like you seriously don’t know what you’re going to do without books, because for some reason, after reading a good book, you just know you have a place in the world, because you feel like you understand something, like those vampires have somehow taught you life lessons, as if everything makes sense and you’re in line to further your understanding by telling…somebody, anybody about how Jorge Lazer was in space saving the world. No, he was really in space!

You guys might not know this, but now you will—the mere fact that we have to try harder to process the happenings in a book, means we are closer to those events. Reading is simply not the same as watching a picture go by on a screen. It’s harder, and this difficulty brings us closer to the events and emotions involved much of the time. This is why we still read—the inert drive to further our creativity and therefore our empathy for the world around us as we become closer even to places we may never see.
Reading may be archaic but it’s also human. And those people who don’t read, they don’t need to, but they want to, and wish they would.

U.L. Harper is the author of The Flesh Statue, Guidelines for Rejects and In Blackness

Goodreads Giveaway Scam?

I have mixed feelings about my current book giveaway for my new novel In Blackness over at Goodreads.com. Or better yet, I have a bad taste in my mouth from the last one. I liken it to how if you get mugged by a midget, the next time you come across a midget you get kind of scared. You build up that prejudice. Well, my last book giveaway had midgets in it.
Keep in mind I’m all about a book giveaway. I love’em. Just can’t get enough, really. Because a giveaway reaffirms that somebody wants your book. It doesn’t matter if they don’t quite get around to reading it. Not really. A giveaway says, hey, world, I’m out here and for a brief time I’m new and relevant. It invites quality people to come and play, make them part of your dream of being a successful author, whatever that means to you. For a time, your book sits next to a number of promising other books and it’s not a competition; it’s a brotherhood or a sisterhood. Giveaways are great.
With the online book giveaway, you see people from all over North America gently scrambling to discover you. They’re looking and they find you, one by one, independently.
So in 2009 I had a giveaway on Goodreads.com. Goodreads is great. It’s all free and I got the exposure I wanted. By the end of the giveaway, I had sent out about 15 books to Australia, Canada and all over the United States. Because of the giveaway I got some reader reviews, which is always an adventure, and made fans. It all seems positive right?
So after the “hype” died down I decided to order one of my books, The Flesh Statue, from Amazon. I wanted to see how long it took for my book to get from Amazon to my house and what it was like paying online, the whole thing; I wanted to know what it was like to be a consumer from an online source. I was learning this process that I was putting people through, because my book was print on demand.
So my book that I ordered comes in the mail, looking flawless. I was impressed.
But when I open it up I notice something. It’s autographed…by me.
That’s right, somebody won my book through the giveaway, received it and without even opening the cover (because, I mean the flap wasn’t even bent) and finding it had an eloquent message inscribed to them personally with my signature, they posted it on amazon.com to be sold.
So my first thought was negative. I thought that people didn’t want to read a book from a giveaway, they wanted to sell it. On Amazon, it didn’t even say it was a signed copy. Some guy won it and was like, fuck U.L. Harper and his stupid assed book. Then it hit me, that, wow, how many of my books had been sold or were for sale, with somebody else making a profit? I was completely disillusioned.
I was bamboozled into buying my own autographed book…in great condition. So it originally arrived on my doorstep, I paid for it to get to wherever. Far. Then once it got there I had it shipped right back to me and I paid for that postage too. Anyway, I read it from cover to cover. Killer friggin story. Don’t sleep on it. It’s great.
Anyhow, stop by my current giveaway for In Blackness over at goodreads.com. And don’t get any ideas.

Vonnegut: While Mortals Sleep

If you like Vonnegut these little ditties are worth a looksee. I purchased this copy on the kindle. I originally found it at one of those Borders stores that was closing, but it was still too expensive, so I downloaded it. I mean, the guy is dead and they basically dug around somewhere and found work to publish that would only be published if he were dead. Why the hell would I pay $20.00, right?
Like many others, I went into reading this book thinking that certainly this wasn’t going to be the best stories Vonnegut has put out. And they’re not. Without doubt these are entertaining, if not well thought out. With that being said, realistically, my only knock on them is that some of the endings simply aren’t there. After a few of them I wondered if he had any intention on an ending.
On the other hand, a number of them ended so superbly and the build in action was so hilarious and introspective that I found myself laughing out loud or clapping, which you can do if you’re reading on a device.
I will definitely say The Epizootic was a highlight as well as Jenny. These pieces were spliced in back-to-back and a great way to start. Money Talks offered the look at love and money and the anthology ends strong with The Humbugs. This one had me going, thinking I need to read more Vonnegut than I already have.
Since I’m not one to read only one book at a time, I noticed that as far as entertainment value, this was still more entertaining than most junk on my shelf. Every story catches you by the first or second line. There’s no waste of time in any one story that I can think of. Regardless of length, these bad boys get right on down to the point.
Although I got this book electronically, I would want it on my shelf with the rest of my rare finds that are worthy trophy status.

Don't forget to check out my new novel In Blackness

Does What frustrate Me Frustrate You

I woke up this morning, thinking, oh crap, it’s today again. You know how it is. My ankles were stiff and my mouth tasted like somebody urinated in it. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice day outside. The problem was that it wasn’t a nice day inside. Immediately, I made a list of things I was just sick of, as far as life went. I mean shit that I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life, that you might have to deal with for the rest of your life.
Here goes:
• I’m tired of using the restroom. It just stops my day. Seriously, you run out of things to do when you’re in there. Haven’t you been in a hurry and barely on time and then out of nowhere you have to make a decision—hit the pot or be late to work. And nobody ever uses the excuse, “Oh, I’m sorry I was late, I had to drop a load.” It doesn’t work. I’m tired of it, but it’s going to happen for the rest of my life. The rest of my life.
• I hate doing laundry. Nuff said.
• I have to curse a lot for this one. I’m tired of hearing racist shit from racist mother fuckers. I’m over it. Just admit you’re a fuckin nazi and get your ass kicked so we can all move on. There, I said it. I know, deep down, that for the rest of my life I’m going to deal with these boneheads. Over it.
• Buying clothes. I hate being in clothing stores and trying on clothes. I don’t care if my shirts and pants have holes and have been eaten in parts by small animals. I don’t like shopping. Those bastards selling me clothes always look at me like I need some new clothes, which I usually do, but still, don’t look at me like that…punk. This will happen for…the…rest…of…my…life.
• I’m even tired of getting hungry. Again, it’s one of those things that stops your day. Do you know how much time you’d save if you just didn’t eat? And I don’t mean skip lunch here and there. I mean don’t eat. You’ll get at least two hours a day back. Two hours a day. That’s 14 hours in a week, an entire awake day, which leads me to my next point.
• This is going to sound silly, but… Sleeping sucks. You miss, if you’re me, at least four to six hours a day because you couldn’t man up and stay awake. I know some people who sleep as much as seven to eight hours a day. Just sleeping their life away. People say they love sleeping but how would they know? They were asleep. If you seriously need to get time back in your life, try sleeping less, and stop urinating. Let’s do the math. Between
sleeping and eating you waste about 10 hours a day. If you add urinating time, moments for yourself get less by about a third. In other words, it’s better to not do shit with your time.
• Trying to make sense gets to be out of control. Have you ever said something and then everybody thought you said one thing but meant something else. And you’re like, “No, whatever I said is exactly what I meant.” And they’re like, “No, you meant something else.” So it kind of makes you not want to talk? I say I’m going to the bathroom and they think I’m going to go do heroin. I say I’m going to read and they hear me say I don’t really like them as people. I say I don’t want to go out because people suck and they hear, oh, you’re broke. I say shut the hell up and sure enough they keep talking. This is going to happen for the rest of my life. I will be a bitter old man. Very bitter.
• People are going to hate me for this one. Tipping. Here’s a tip. Get a different job. Do you know that if I signed up for a job that paid me less than minimum wage, people would think I was an idiot. I certainly can’t go home after work and complain that all the families that I help every day didn’t give me extra money, because that’s what it is, extra money. Yep, I’ve been called cheap, because I am. It’s how I can afford to have someone design my blog, something the waiter or waitress isn’t going to do for me. Yep, I’ve been called not grateful for the service they provide, because I am. I’m not grateful. I just don’t think you deserve an additional three dollars for saying hi and filling my glass of water. Really, a glass of water for $3? Where would you go and think a glass of tap water for $3 is justified? Someone suggested I don’t eat at those places. I suggested he stop tipping, so we were at a standstill.
Anyway, I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff that you don’t like about life. Go ahead and comment about it.

U.L. Harper