Adam Oster's Blog, page 12

How I REALLY Feel About Christmas

Hey, Christmas is here, folks, and in Wisconsin, we’ve had quite the bout of weather to prepare us for it. Not only did we end up getting dumped on with snow just a few days ago, but then shortly afterward, we had a day of 57 degree weather, followed immediately thereafter with 55 mph winds, and devastating tornadoes for surrounding areas. And that was just over the course of a few days. When we talk about it beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, here in Wisconsin, that could mean anything when it comes to the weather.

But when it comes to feeling like Christmas for me, I guess I have a ton of conflicting feelings about it. I remember being a kid waiting for Christmas to come around. Seeing all the presents piling under the tree as the days inched closer and closer to the big one. And I remember working really hard to try and hide my excitement over all those presents to keep up my stoic appearance so no one would ever have to know how ready I was to rip that paper off the boxes and figure out what sorts of goodies hid inside. I remember the tears that would fall off my sister’s cheeks whenever she got a white box, which inevitably meant clothes, which then led to a competition over who could get the most white boxes and therefore win Christmas. I remember the sheer anticipation throughout the entirety of performing at the annual Christmas Eve pageant at our church, trying to do my best to sit still and remember the passages from the Bible while knowing that once we got home, we would finally be able to see what gifts our parents and family and friends had gotten for us. My parents had long ago given up on the idea of waiting until Christmas morning to open presents. Probably due to the much younger me being absolutely unbearable as he eagerly awaited the present-opening, but probably even more due to their realization that opening the night before allowed for a less-early wake up call the following morning (or dealing with us kids at church having not opened our presents yet).

Christmas was always about anticipation, about the excitement of what was to come. Christmas felt a lot like anxiety…but an eager anxiety, I guess?

Nowadays, things are actually pretty similar, but in a completely different way. As the days tick closer and closer to that big event, I find myself getting more and more anxious about completing all the things that need to happen before the big day arrives. Not only is there the effort involved in trying to make sure all the presents are here and wrapped on time, but we also throw the Christmas Eve party for my in-laws at my house, which means there’s tons of cleaning and food preparation (that one’s mostly on my wife, if I’m being honest) on top of trying to get the kids to chill out long enough for us to be able to run out to do some last minute shopping for something we forgot. There’s all the Christmas movies we want to watch, the trip through Irvine Park to see the lights, the putting up of our own lights, the constant battle to get the kids to go to sleep as they get more and more excited about what’s to come, and the early morning terror as I realize that the stupid elf is still in the same spot he’s been in for the past two days and the kids are sure to finally notice.

Sure, I get a little excited about what might await me under the tree, but there’s very little for surprises there. And in the event I don’t get what I really want, well, I’m an adult now, I can just go buy the thing I’ve been holding off on buying in case it’s what my wife decided to get me.

And after Christmas there’s the excitement of multiple additional Christmas parties, house guests, and the kids home from school while I still have to work, all leading up to New Year’s Eve, when we realize that we didn’t actually prepare any of the things the kids expect for that event, and we have to determine how many bottles of champagne will be enough for me and my wife to share as we put the kids to sleep at 9pm after watching old footage of the Times Square ball dropping.

Christmas, I guess, really just feels like hustling to get all the things done so we can get through Christmas and finally take a break. And that break, of course, is just finally having the kids back at school so I can work from home in peace.

And maybe somewhere in there I manage to fit in a nap.

So, really, it’s not all that different from the Christmases of my youth.

And it’s really beginning to feel a lot like Christmas right about now. I’m hoping Santa put a Xanax prescription under the tree for me this year.

The Adventures of Luke Starkiller

One of the first movies I remember watching is The Empire Strikes Back. It was playing on the TV at daycare and although I was definitely interested enough in it to remember it being on the screen ~35 years after the fact, I also seem to remember not really paying attention to it. The Battle of Hoth is what sticks out in my mind, so I’m guessing the big ol’ AT-AT walkers were what drew my attention away from whatever toy I was playing with long enough to make a lifelong memory, but outside of that, I don’t remember much from that early viewing.

The truth is, although I remember watching the Ewok made-for-tv movies as a kid, and certainly seeing Return of the Jedi, I don’t really remember having much interest in the series until high school. It was there that I first became aware of how much people were absolutely in love with this film series. And it was there that I first remember actually sitting down and watching the original trilogy as a single saga and becoming fully immersed in all that is the Star Wars fandom.

Not that I’ve ever been a super-fan or anything. I may have been to the opening night showing of Phantom Menace (and the other two prequel trilogy films as well), but I didn’t show up in costume. I didn’t own a lightsaber until after I had children. And although I was in love with characters like Han Solo, Star Wars had become, for me, something that extolled the pinnacle of sci-fi action in film, but not something I felt I needed to exactly devote my life to.

All the same, one of my favorite things as a father has been introducing my kids to the film series. Watching as they become enamored with all of the majesty of the Jedi and the depths to which the Sith can fall. Having lightsaber battles with them on our front lawn as my phone plays Duel of the Fates. When we visited Disneyland over half a decade ago, we went during Halloween, dressed as Star Wars characters, and I, being dressed as Han Solo, had an amazing moment with Chewbacca as he wondered why Han now had a beard.

To be completely honest, though, none of the new Star Wars movies have quite held the same magic for me as the original trilogy did, even back when I wasn’t exactly paying attention to them at daycare. It’s probable that this is because of the lens of childhood playing a bigger role in the whole thing, but I think it actually has something more to do with the scope of world building that occurs in the first movies. Where the Millennium Falcon can land in a seemingly innocuous asteroid only to find out they’re hanging out on the head of some giant space worm. Or the dianoga hiding just under the water in the trash compactor. In fact, there are so many moments in those first movies where the background suddenly becomes a living character that you feel the actors are completely immersed in this far away galaxy, as opposed to pretending they aren’t standing in front of a green screen.

Which is why I’m so excited for the moment I get to take my kids to Star Wars Land at Disney World some day. Galaxy’s Edge is this ridiculously immersive experiment in theme park design where although you’re not being taken to a location available in any of the films, you literally feel as though you’ve stepped into a Star Wars movie. My wife and I had the opportunity to visit sans-kids (quick note to make me feel less guilty: this was an anniversary trip for the two of us, and it was during that brief period of time during the summer where it really felt like we had this whole pandemic thing in the rearview mirror) and it felt like every corner of this place had something new to find, even if it was just some nod to some little moment in a movie that only the nerdiest of the nerds would understand, including a dianoga hiding out in the water tank for a water fountain where he only appears as you’re taking a sip.

Standing underneath the Millennium Falcon is such an incredible moment, but I think turning the corner to see a full-sized TIE fighter (I guess, according to the Internet, it’s actually a TIE/ES Assault Shuttle), was the moment in which I first felt as though I had arrived somewhere new. It was almost like experiencing the original movies again for the first time, where although maybe my full attention wasn’t on the story being told, I kept being completely stopped in my tracks to experience the things around me.

And then there was the showstopping ride, Rise of the Resistance. If you’re like me, you’d probably expect the chance to drive the Millennium Falcon in the other ride in this park, Smuggler’s Run, to be the end-all experience for a fan of the movies, however, considering that was little more than another Star Tours, but with more button pressing, it wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped. But Rise of the Resistance makes you literally feel like you’re in the movies, being captured by Space Nazis and having to escape through a series of chaotic action which includes lightsabers cutting through ceilings, watching blaster fire overhead, and coming face to face with a full-sized AT-AT (which, as you might remember from a few paragraphs ago, is one of my earliest memories of anything). This ride is not only the next step in themed entertainment from the fact that there are three different rides stacked into one ride experience, but also because of the emotion of it all. You’re not just standing in line after the pre-show waiting to be loaded into the ride vehicles, no, you’re lined up by the First Order, waiting to be loaded into a prison transport, standing next to a wall covered in flashing buttons that simply beg to be pressed whenever your captors turn their backs.

They made a movie that you can ride. And all I wanted to do when I got off it was to ride it again because it all happened so fast (although it’s an 18 minute ride) that I simply knew I had missed at least half of what was going on. You weren’t an actor in front of a green screen, you were a traveler to Batuu in a scene in which anything around you could suddenly jump to life and take you on to the next part of the adventure.

And that’s pretty awesome.

I’m writing this while watching a Star Wars cartoon, thinking about how amazing that experience of a few months ago was. It has held on to me for almost half a year already, and all I want to do is to find the time (and money) to take my kids down there to experience it with me, just like the first time I put on Episode 4 for them. And I think that’s a pretty incredible thing to come out of any ride.

And while I know the above sounds like it might be nothing more than a sponsored post trying to get you to give Disney more of your money than you already are for things like Disney+ or the latest Marvel movie, or whatever else you’re giving them your money for, the truth is, I just really felt the need to express how impressed I was at the storytelling played out in this new area of a 50 year old resort.

That being said, if Disney wanted to throw a few park tickets my way or something, I wouldn’t be opposed. Heck, I’d dedicate a lot more time on here to them just for some more time in their parks. Maybe I could write a follow-up sharing how once I finally took my kids to this park, they just shrugged at me afterwards and asked if they could go swim in the pool now.

The Urge to Quit

Rehearsals for my newest play started recently. And I was convinced to not only act in it, but also to play the top billed character. A character who is written to be absolutely obnoxious. A character whose dialogue is intentionally bland and terrible. And as we went through the process of the first read thru of the script with the cast, I spent the entire time wanting to hide in a hole, feeling absolutely self-conscious over this script I wrote and now had the audacity to allow myself to be a central figure in the production of it.

As the director would constantly ask me what my intentions for a specific scene were, noting how he saw things differently, I kept thinking how much I wanted the focus on how this script was written by me to be downplayed. How I wanted to deflect the attention off myself as much as possible because I felt embarrassed.

Now, I want to note, I know I didn’t have any real reason to feel embarrassed. The cast was laughing throughout the entire read thru. They were having a grand old time going through the exploits of this goofy cast of neighbors as they work to find out who killed the HomeOwners Association President. Based on the response of these cast members alone, I shouldn’t have felt embarrassed.

Yet I did. And I often do whenever I hear my own words spoken out loud. This is at least half of the reason I’ve never done a book reading. Although I typically consider myself a good writer, and I’m confident enough to put my stuff out there, I don’t really like being around when it’s being spoken.

In fact, I generally like to downplay my efforts as a writer in general because I often feel like I’m playing pretend, even if I have readers across the globe and an ever-growing pile of people who tell me they absolutely love my writing.

The bottom line is, although I feel I’m a competent writer, I’m not a very confident writer.

And it’s times like this, times where I should really feel as though I’m finding success and people are appreciating the stuff I’m doing, that I most feel like it’s time for me to quit this whole mess.

For serious.

In fact, I did basically quit writing at the moment my books were most popular, worried that people would judge me and my writing poorly somehow.

And what’s stupid about all of this is that I typically have a pretty thick skin when people tell me about issues they have with my writing, especially when workshopping a script for the stage. I think my response in situations like this is due to an absolute fear of rejection of my writing. Like, I can handle a reviewer telling me how much they hated my books, but, I can’t handle the fear of people telling me how stupid my writing is.

So, here I’ve been for the past week, thinking about that first read thru, fearing for the second rehearsal, knowing that the cast was having a fantastic time working through this script, but also knowing that if I had had some more time, I could have really polished up the dialogue even further and made it into something even more awesome.

Which always brings me back the thought that I should just quit writing altogether.

I love writing. It’s my passion. But it’s a heartbreaking task. And it’s a heckuva lot of work, which is an especially important point to consider at this time in my life where I’m way too busy to do most of the things I want to do.

And so, I consider quitting, knowing that even if I do take some time off, I’ll always come back to it because I have so many stories I still need to get out of my head.

One of my sons recently plowed through the two books in The Defenders Saga, my superhero series. Since he started reading them, he continually commented on his favorite parts, but more importantly, now that he’s finished, he keeps telling me how excited he is for the next book in the series. A book that I’ve had basically plotted out for nearly a decade.

And a book that I don’t even have in the schedule for writing right now.

But also, a book I feel I need to put more toward the top of my writing list simply because I do have a rabid fan whose ready for the next installment.

Which is where the real weirdness of this whole funk I’m in comes in. At the same time that I’m seriously considering quitting the whole mess of writing anything, I’m thinking about how I really want to work on another book in that world that I built.

Because the truth of the matter here is that no matter how much I find myself struggling with my self-confidence when it comes to my writing, this is my passion.

And I’ll probably keep doing it forever. Even if the simple act of someone reading my books is both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

My Battles with Segregation

I never really had a real concept of the existence of laundry until high school, when I was finally on my own, and that pile of stinky clothing in the corner of my room didn’t magically disappear and reappear folded in my dresser. Suddenly I was in this position where an entirely new task that I had an incredibly minimal concept of, was my responsibility.

To be fair, my aunt who lives in the same town as my high school came by and took my laundry off my hands for a few months. But I started feeling bad about that, because I was usually too busy to hang out with her while she did it, which meant that she was just doing the same magical thing that happened when I was still living with my parents, where suddenly the clothes were clean and folded and everything was easy.

I still remember that first time I decided to do laundry on my own. I lugged my clothes up the stairs of the dorm to the floor where the laundry machines were, and, well, first I realized that all four of the machines in that room were making noises, and when I opened one of them, I realized that meant there were still clothes in them, so, I lugged the laundry bag back down to my room to try again another day.

When I finally dragged my increasingly large bag up those stairs to find that the machines weren’t making all those loud noises, I had a new issue: which machine does the washing?

No, I’m kidding. I had enough knowledge from seeing the machines as a kid to know which one did the washing and which one did the drying. But I also knew there was this concept of separating colors or something. In the end, I dumped the entire pile into the washing machine at once, used some laundry detergent I found already hanging out in the laundry room (which I later found out wasn’t communal detergent and that I had to provide my own cleaning product and that we shall never let the person know that I stole approximately $.27 worth of detergent from them back in 1995), and begged for some quarters so I could get the machine to start, which still didn’t work, so I had to ask around for someone who knew the process and finally got the machine running before standing in front of it wondering what to do next.

And so began my lifelong affair with the terrible process of cleaning clothes.

I still don’t separate colors. And the process of actually cleaning the clothes is barely something that registers on my mind as it’s little more than dumping clothes and soap into a machine and hitting start.

But folding clothes is where I get to truly shine.

Well, I don’t know about shine, but I’m the only person in my house who actually does the work of folding clothes, which means that every Monday, I sit with a pile of laundry and turn it into several categorized piles of clothing while I watch approximately an hour’s worth of television.

It’s not my favorite, by any means, but at the same time, it’s probably the most relaxing task I have in my incredibly task-filled life. And, it’s the one time I get to choose what I want to watch without worrying about whether it serves any interest for anyone else. This means I’m finally watching the cartoon Star Wars: Rebels, which is a show that my kids never seem to actually want to spend any time watching.

So, right now, laundry means more Star Wars, and that’s alright by me.

And look, I wrote an alright post about laundry. I knew I could do it. Want to suggest my next stupid topic to tackle?

The Challenge of Writing Prompts

Something I consider one of my personal skills is that I believe I can write up to 1000 words on any subject. In fact, it’s a little secret of mine that that’s often one of the things I challenge myself with here in this space. I once gave myself the challenge of writing a love letter for comic sans, a reviled font that I honestly have no real feelings for or against, and came up with something I believe to have been clever, funny, and somehow a little bit endearing, ending with a call to action of calling your mother.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t really have enough to say on a daily basis in this space, and while I’ve often considered going down to a smaller number of posts a week, I also like to have this little bit of writing exercise to keep my fingers nimble and my brain working through how to talk about things. And so, as it is, I write a little bit of something on whatever it is I can first come up with that I think might lead to something interesting.

They’re not all successful. Not only are plenty of the things I publish on here simply lame, but I write plenty of draft posts which end up being completely deleted. I have three drafts right now that are pretty similar to other things I’ve written recently, but are just not as good, that will probably be deleted soon after I finish my writing today. But the point isn’t that I’m always writing gold, it’s that I’m always writing.

With how busy my life has been of late, I don’t always have the time to kick back and work on a long form story. I don’t even always have the time to work on flash fiction, as that takes a bit more effort and detail work. But I can usually find the space to sit down and write a quick rant about whatever might be of slight interest to me on a given day.

Of course, more often than not, I find myself getting completely off track and what I started writing about isn’t at all what I intended to write about. For example, this post right here was initially going to be something about laundry. I don’t know what exactly, that was just the writing prompt I gave myself to work with because my office is also the laundry room and that’s what I came up with when looking around the room for ideas. As I started working on it, I decided instead that it might be interesting to give a little insight into my writing process for these blog posts.

And the insight I’m giving to you is that I honestly have very little of a process. I try to come up with something I think I can write something interesting about, starting by looking around the room I’m in before going to the social medias and/or news to see if there’s anything there that piques my interest.

And finally, if none of those work, I start working through completely random words in my vocabulary to see if something comes to mind. Luckily this last step rarely has to happen, although it is what got me to the comic sans post, which, as noted before, I’m pretty proud of. Maybe I’ll have to dig it up from the archives and post it out here again just to show you how alone I am in my love of it.

However, the real point here is that I often get asked about how to find success as a writer. And as someone who doesn’t sell a whole heckuva lot of books, I can only assume they’re asking about actually succeeding with writing something. And the only answer I have to that is to just write. As often as possible. For as long as possible.

My kids have taken to writing in recent years, and they usually like to talk to me about the process, and this is the same advice I give them. Just write. It won’t all be worth reading, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth being written. I learn more about my writing through the things I don’t feel are worth publishing than I do about the things that I decide are just good enough to make it through my editorial process for this space.

So, I guess that’s my little inspirational piece for today. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be graced with my surely amazing article about laundry.

‘Tis the Season…for sickness :(

Perhaps the one silver lining in the whole issue with 2020 being shut down from the world was that it was the first year in I can’t remember how long that I didn’t get a cold. The older I get, the worse my colds appear to be, so I was incredibly excited when I made it through last winter and realized that I didn’t actually get sick. It was beautiful.

And over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had both a cold and a stomach bug flying through the house.

And I’m not super excited about it.

Since having kids, it has been nearly impossible to keep those little schoolroom bugs from inundating the household, so last year, while the kids were still barely in school, and when they were, they were far more separated from each other and classrooms were still being cleaned on the regular, we lucked out and not only didn’t get the big C-word sickness, but also didn’t get the little c-word. Having a year off from sniffling, sneezing, and all the other stuff that comes along with it was a (literal) breath of fresh air.

Having the little-c enter our house has me wondering what that might mean otherwise for our family who has been lucky enough to avoid the big-C. While we’re now all vaccinated, I know that this isn’t enough to keep us completely free and clear from becoming yet another number on the charts, and therefore becoming a number which could possibly make other people into numbers. And so, I’m finding myself a little nervous about what this might mean for our holiday season.

If little-c is going around, that means that big-C certainly has an opening to get in, especially with the hip new Omicron fad going around. And I don’t want that. Not that I’m concerned about being sick (I mean, I hate being sick, but I’m not, like, worried about it being a big deal), but I’m still as concerned as ever about getting other people sick. And one of the downsides about the vaccine on that front is that if you’re sick, you’re less likely to even be aware of it.

You’re also less likely to pass it along, so that’s something.

But, of course, now we’re dealing with yet another dangerous variant being passed along, putting us into yet another holiday season where things are already being cancelled (not as much stateside yet) and people are looking at having their second holiday season become a stay-at-home party where they miss out on getting to see family and friends.

And I’m also not eager for that.

Yeah, sure, I may have been a little overly optimistic that we would be able to convince folks to actually get vaccinated quickly enough to nip this whole thing in the bud. I knew that we’d still struggle with getting enough vaccines into those less-fortunate countries to keep this thing from mutating, but I had held out hope that we might be able to find a way to make our country, at least, a place where people could feel a bit safer.

Instead, I’m sitting here with a cold wondering what else might be coming down the pipeline.

I should also note that although I personally have not been tested for COVID since this cold reared its ugly head, my family members who passed this thing along to me were, and we’re clean.

That doesn’t mean that I’m not working really hard on keeping from passing this little-c on to other people. Because I think in general, we’re all really sick of being sick or of getting other people sick, or of worrying about who is going to get us sick.

But I’m also really sick of just waiting to see when we can be done with being sick.

I’m sick.

And drugged up on cold medication.

Which means I should probably stop writing now…

Have fun out there. And don’t get sick!

My Thoughts about Mondays

Probably my most unpopular opinion is my attitude toward Mondays. There’s a part of me that actually likes them. That statement really undersells it. Mondays might be my favorite part of the week.

Don’t get me wrong, before I had kids and while I still had to work in the office, Mondays were the worst. The whole idea of coming off from a weekend of doing whatever the heck I wanted to getting dressed into something uncomfortable and putting on a friendly face to sit somewhere I didn’t want to be for 8+ hours was not my thing.

But I work from home.

And having kids means that my weekends are exhausting noisy affairs where I have to constantly come up with new ways to amuse my children without allowing them to sit in front of a TV all day because that will lead to explosions of crazy from a couple of boys who can’t contain their boundless energy.

Which means that Mondays for me, right now, especially Monday mornings, are this lovely little quiet time where I can slowly read through some emails, see what the world has been up to since I last checked in, and enjoy a coffee without someone bouncing around trying to spill it all over me. Where I used to be able to consider my Saturdays and Sundays the relaxing part of my week, I think Monday morning is actually the one moment in my week where the world feels almost peaceful.

While I miss those lazy Saturday mornings where I could sleep in, instead of being woken up as soon as the sun starts shining because of a couple of boys who simply can’t get enough enjoyment out of life, I’m glad to know I still have that little moment of peace to myself to enjoy yet.

And, oddly enough, those moments are Mondays.

Sorry Garfield. You and I aren’t on the same page about this any longer.

But I still love lasagna.

‘Adulting’

Although I like the fluidity of the English language and how it allows us to easily turn any word into a verb. I love how doing so causes absolutely no issues in translation and turning any noun into an action can be immediately understood by whomever we are talking to.

However, there’s a word of this type which has been incredibly popular in recent years that I simply struggle with.

‘Adulting’.

I know you’re familiar with it, and even if you’re not, you probably have a pretty good grasp of what it means when someone says, “I’m adulting today.”

I’ve long not been able to fully comprehend why I dislike this word so much, so I figured I would finally sit back and take a moment to really understand my own qualms with this particular denominalization. And I think my real issue with is it simply with how often it is used as a complaint.

The most common utilization of this word has got to be along the lines of, ‘I can’t adult today!’ And it’s used to complain about needing to do laundry or having to pay bills or some other lame task that responsible people have to do. And I think I dislike this usage mostly because it sounds far more like what I’d hear my kids say when they are given a chore than they are about anything which relates specifically to being an adult.

And look, I’m not saying I don’t have similar issues with ‘adulting’. I often look at the pile of things I need to get done in a given day, throw up my hands, and say ‘F that BS!’ before deciding that video games would be a far more appropriate use of my time. Between school, work, parenting, and trying to convince people to read my books, I simply don’t have the mental bandwidth some days to anything more than stare at a blank wall (or a phone screen) when it comes time to make dinner.

There are far too many times I simply can’t ‘adult’.

I know that a part of my issue is the popularization of complaining. Although I complain plenty (this article being a great example of it), I really hate it. It’s probably partially that being an old man causes me to cringe whenever I hear the kids today whining about having to call someone to make appointments, even though I whine about the exact same thing. Maybe it’s the drama of it all.

But I think even more than that, it’s the guilt associated with this concept. When I choose to not do something, I don’t want to feel like I’m in trouble, I, instead, like to think of it as a terrible prank I’m pulling on future-Adam.

Something about this whole ‘adulting’ concept feels so weak, like we, as adults, aren’t allowed to decide that today isn’t a day for responsibility. Like, this very concept of “I can’t ‘adult’ today” feels like something that isn’t a very adult thing to say. It sounds like a kid, collapsing on the floor dramatically because they don’t want to have to go to the grocery store with the parents. Which, I guess, in a lot of ways, does showcase that you’re not adulting at the moment.

But as adults, haven’t we finally gained the empowerment to choose to not do the responsible thing at any given moment in time and just give ourselves some me time? When we were kids we had all the free time in the world and not being willing to do that one chore was bratty. As an adult, we spend so much of our time being responsible that to decide we’re done with all of that shouldn’t have to be something we feel guilty about.

I think my biggest issue is, in fact, that we’re appropriating adulting as an action incorrectly. It should be, instead, that we’re adulting when we’re choosing to leave our laundry spread out all over the floor for weeks on end, because who the heck is going to tell us we can’t?

That’s right, I’m adulting. I’m taking the power I have as a grown man to decide that I’m not going to call the restaurant to make my order and am, instead, going to pay the premium to order online because I don’t want to talk to anyone on the phone today.

Adulting should be a lot more powerful.

And it’s not. When we use it today, it feels so darned weak. And I’m tired of feeling weak. So, instead, when I’m ‘adulting’, I’m going to think of it more as pulling out my Adult Card to say that I have every right to choose not to take out the garbage right now. Sure, future-Adam is going to be really pissed when the garbage man doesn’t take the garbage away in the morning, but I’m adulting and deciding its his problem and not mine.

I Find the Talkers

As a young man, I didn’t really have that many friends. It wasn’t until I went to high school that I finally felt like I actually found myself, and at least partially because of that, finally found friends. It was at the same time that I learned people like to tell me stuff.

By that, I mean that people, completely random people, literally sometimes people off the street, will strike up a conversation with me in which they will tell me everything about their lives, sometimes even their darkest secrets.

I remember vividly the first time this happened. It was my freshman year in high school, I was hanging out in the lounge at school, not really knowing anyone yet because I had just moved across the country to go to this new school, and feeling as though I was even more of a fish out of water than usual. And this girl, a year older than me, came and sat on my lap (which was a pretty exciting moment to my 14-year old self), introduced herself to me, and then went on about everything in her life, which went into a pretty deep focus on how she had been sexually assaulted.

I, being a person who at that time didn’t have a lot of experience in conversation, especially with strangers, and definitely didn’t know anything about how one is supposed to react to stories like this, was stunned. I attempted my best to console this person who was now crying as she sat on my lap now having revealed this truth about her own life which I was now fairly confident was never revealed to anyone before that moment, and I had no clue what to do.

The truth is, I’m still not sure I would have known what to do at that point. I would have had a few more suggestions to give her on how to move forward with this knowledge, but what I learned in that moment is the same thing that I try to remember today: Sometimes it’s not about getting help, it’s about being heard.

And so I try. I try to keep my big mouth shut and let these people who come to me in some sort of weird confessional moment be heard. When they tell me about how their drug addiction has caused them to be separated from their family, or how they have been hiding a secret relationship from their wife, or even when they tell me about how they are homeless and are struggling with old glasses which aren’t their prescription any longer as they wait for their disability benefits from their time in the military to pay out so they can finally get a new pair.

That’s not to say I don’t get anything out of these moments. As a writer, hearing the stories from people who work as strippers and all the struggles they have with trying to make sure they make enough money while also having to pay to dance at the clubs they are at, leaving their children at home with their new boyfriend so they can somehow manage to pay their bills gives me plenty of insight into the human condition which certainly informs the creation of my characters. Sure, none of these people have directly made it into any of my stories yet (although there are a few who have done so indirectly and a few more that have inspired stories I’m ready to tell), but just getting these moments of people breaking down their walls to tell me their life story, well, it really gives me a far better glimpse into the reality of what makes people tick.

But that doesn’t answer the question of why.

I’m not complaining, mind you. Although sometimes it can cause me to be late for whatever I’m trying to be doing at a given moment, or tears me away from the people I’m currently out in the world with, I like being able to be an ear, while also getting to gain insight into the human condition. I like helping. And very rarely are these stories actually boring.

I once had a man tell me his entire life story over the course of five minutes while I waited for a taxi to arrive. He spit out everything from the moment he got married, to having kids, to losing his job, before finally finding what he actually wanted to be doing with his life and reconnecting with his family, over the course of five minutes. It was impressive. And a true indicator of how compulsive this reaction to my presence appears to be.

It’s almost like it’s my superpower. Like some sort of super-priest who can get you to confess all your sins. I guess that’s just what happens when you get bit at a young age by a radioactive pastor, huh?

Can we Just Talk for a Moment about The Adventures of Pete and Pete?

While watching a documentary on the early years of the cable network Nickelodeon, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite shows, The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Sure, there’s a whole ton of shows that Nickelodeon produced during this period that probably did more toward defining me as a human than I should admit, like Hey Dude, Salute your Shorts, and You Can’t Do That on Television, and if I’m being honest, I don’t know that Pete and Pete necessarily impacted how I interact with people, but it is most definitely the show that has had the most lasting impact on my thoughts.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, the basic concept is that this is a show that follows the adventures of two brothers, both named Pete, as they navigate childhood and, more importantly, growing out of childhood. They’ve got their own superhero, Little Pete has a tattoo of a dancing girl which nobody knows how it got there, and, well, these kids lived their summers like I envisioned every kid who wasn’t as weird and awkward and lonely as me did. But…cooler.

There was an episode dedicated to trying to locate the missing mascot of a ice cream company, where they would track sightings of him all across the nation, which, I’m remembering from memory instead of looking it up so I could be wrong on the specifics, but I remember this being such an amazing piece about, well, holding on to your childhood. There was an episode where their superhero had to say goodbye so he could go be a different kid’s superhero because Little Pete didn’t need him anymore. There was an arc between Big Pete and his best friend as they realized they were in love with each other and worked through the idea of dating.

This series told these incredibly big stories that I didn’t even realize how big they were and how much they really tried to work through some of those iconic childhood issues through this lens of absolute absurdity until much later in life. Every time I remember this show exists, I spend a crazy amount of time thinking about every single piece of it I can and thinking about how I should probably spend the next week binging through all the episodes.

And the music! There was so much amazing music in that show which really make the show stand out as something special.

But more importantly…Nobody ever seems to talk about it. I know it had some lasting power, as my wife, who is five years younger than me fully remembers the show, but for whatever reason, it almost feels like some weird dream that the world forgot about.

Possibly because it’s impossible to watch without pirating it off of youtube or some other such obnoxious way. It’s not a part of our world anymore, not through reruns, not through anything outside of if you know about it, remember it, and hunt it out specifically.

Which is really sad to me, because this show might be the best thing that has ever been written. And it looks like it’ll be lost to time.

If you haven’t seen it, you should probably hunt it down. If you have seen it, do you remember it nearly as fondly as I do? I might need to find a group of people to talk about this show with. Maybe as I watch through all the episodes on Youtube…