Adam Oster's Blog, page 7

It’s a B…

For the past few months, my wife and I have been holding on to this big secret. Something huge. Something exciting. Something which will ultimately send our lives into an entirely new level of chaos that we can’t possibly comprehend at this point.

And, I’ve been using this secret as a way to troll my friends and family on Facebook.

You see, it’s incredibly easy to mislead people, even when you’re telling them that you’re being dishonest. And so, starting with an image of a bun in an oven, I told people I had a big secret that I’m not allowed to reveal yet.

And the crowd went wild. This post is my second-most-reacted-to post on Facebook for all time. And for all the wrong reasons.

But I continued. So, the next day, I shared another image, one of a photoshoot that we held for us to get some pictures for the actual big reveal, and the one hiding up there near the top of this post. While we were doing this photoshoot, knowing my plans for trolling my friends and family, the people I love most in this world, I turned my wife to face away from me, and placed my hands around her belly. This was the second post I shared. With a whole lot of commentary about how I still couldn’t reveal the truth yet, but how excited and terrified we are for it, and, well, a whole bunch of additionally misleading (but entirely true) statements.

This, my friends, is my first-most-reacted-to post on Facebook as of this writing.

And again, all because of people being absolutely certain of what the reveal is.

No, we’re not having a baby. We’ve got too many kids already. We’re buying a bakery.

And as of yesterday, my wife made the official announcement to the world on her Facebook, and the reaction to her announcement completely dwarfs either of the posts I had on the event. I like to think I can take a little bit of credit about that.

And while I may have had a little bit of fun playing around with my friends and family, the truth of the matter here is that I really couldn’t contain myself to want to let the world know about this new addition to our lives. We’ve been working on this for years, and this specific sale for months. Well…my wife has. I’ve been supportive and all, but this has really all been an act of hard work on my wife’s part while I try to cheerlead as loudly as possible. Because I honestly believe this is what my wife is meant to be doing. She is not only an amazing baker, but also a shrewd woman who knows how to make things happen. And now she finally has her own place to showcase her skills and share them with the community. And I couldn’t be more excited for her to be able to do so.

So, while a baby might be cute and all that, this is the culmination of a lifetime of desire. And I’ve been force to hold back from telling everyone about it for months now.

But now that it’s all official and everything, if you find yourself in the Chippewa Valley, you should definitely make your way out to The Nostalgic Bean. Especially after March 10th, when this place will be ours, and we’ll need all the money to pay back the loan sharks we had to convince to give us enough money to make this happen. I’m not ready to have my legs broken quite yet.

I Have Absolutely Nothing Worth Talking About…

Life has been obnoxiously busy over the past few weeks. Between waiting for grades, work, kids, and one big thing that I can’t quite announce yet, on top of the normal life stuff, I feel like I’ve been running from place to place non-stop, and even today, while I write this post, I’m sitting here thinking about all the things I need to get done yet today without any real ability to think of any other random thing to talk about.

I’m in this weird high-functioning form of brain-dead causing me to have absolutely no thoughts outside of this constantly morphing list of tasks that never actually feels like it gets any shorter.

And all I really want to do is to wrap up inside a heated blanket and wait until the world gets warmer again.

And maybe have a drink… or three.

I’m even sitting here trying to find some way to make this post into some clever commentary on something, like a metaphor for living in a pandemic-filled world that is anxiously awaiting more information about the new variant coming down the pipeline, but, well, I just don’t have it in me.

What I have in me is an attempted minute-by-minute schedule of my day for the rest of the day, and a vague concept of how I’m going to get through the next few days, which are filled with all sorts of crazy activities that all hang in the balance of a pandemic threatening to infect my home and possibly take away my ability to complete any of these necessities…which, to be honest, I’m a little on the fence about whether that’s a bad thing or not.

So, instead of anything clever, I’m leaving you with this message of nonsense. I’m not complaining, not really unhappy, just busy, and mentally taxed, and at the point where I really can’t wait until I get through some of these big tasks sitting on my plate and actually have the time to sit back and enjoy life a little bit.

And maybe have a drink…or three.

But I’m Just So Dang Tired…

Alright, so, I promise this school-related talk stuff is going to end soon…ish. But here’s the thing. I’m sitting here with all my classwork done, just anxiously waiting to hear back on grades. And I had made a promise to myself that once I finished my schoolwork, I would take a long nap.

However…things have not worked out in my favor on this so far. I’ve been done with classwork for the past 3 days now, and not one single nap has happened. In fact, I’ve actually found myself also staying up later than usual, and getting terrible sleep, meaning I’m farther away from the rested feeling I wanted than I was three days ago.

I actually was going to take today off from work, but couldn’t because my counterpart on the job had taken it off, and one of us has to be here. However, that was also going to work in my favor for a nap, because if he’s gone, no one generally bugs me, so the idea of an extended lunch break/nap was calling me. Until everything broke at work and now he’s not actually taking today off.

I’m not saying this for any form of compassion. It’s a ridiculous thing for me to even complain about. And I really don’t mean to complain at all. But, the thing is, I’m so tired right now that all I can think about is napping, which means that when I sat down to try to do some writing, no matter what I started writing, it just came out about naps.

So, yeah, I’m exhausted. And I’m going to find a way to nap. And it will end up not being enough. Especially since I have a friend coming to town this weekend, which will certainly mean I’ll be up too late and will need to find another way to get myself a nap.

Nap.

Nap nap nap nap.

My brain is a skipping record at this point.

So, if you talk to me, and I get any words out that aren’t nap, just know, that’s by accident. Because a nap sounds so dang good right now.

Finding Your Voice

As a writer, one of the things you probably hear the most is about how you, as a writer, need to find your voice.

And as a writer, one of the things you’ve probably asked yourself the most is, “What the heck does that mean?”

This very concept is quite confusing. And I have struggled with its meaning a lot over the years. And there’s this additional piece that causes me trouble, it’s that when you talk to people in the industry, or read their suggestions on how to sell books, it becomes incredibly important to consider your marketability as an author, possibly more so than it is to actually write something good. So, at the same time that you’re hearing about needing to find your voice, you’re also hearing about how you need to do X and Y and don’t forget about good old Z in order to be a writer.

But, do you know what finding your voice truly is? It’s knowing that X, Y, and Z don’t matter.

I’ve been asked countless times by young writers (of all ages, young referring to how long they’ve been writing) what it takes to be a writer. Now, what is typically actually being asked here is “What can I do to make money as a writer?” And in that case, it might be important to follow X, Y, and Z. I honestly couldn’t tell you, because I don’t make money as a writer. But I do know folks who do, and they generally follow all the rules. They do so to such a degree that they will discount anyone who doesn’t follow the rules.

And, between you and me, their books are usually incredibly lame. Like, they might have exciting things that happen in them, but their characters all feel like the same characters we see everywhere else, their plot points are revisions from famous movies and tv series, and, most importantly, there are almost no surprises to be had when reading them. That’s not to say that the books aren’t exactly good…they’re just not that much fun to read. There’s nothing new. Nothing truly unique.

Because that’s what finding your voice is. It’s finding what makes your writing uniquely you. And generally, you’ll find out, that’s not going to involve X, Y, or Z.

And I’m going to tell you right now, I think X, Y, and Z are the worst things that have ever happened to any artform. Some of the most amazing pieces of art, whether writing, music, film, visual arts, or whatever, are the ones which ignore the rules and forge their own paths forward. This is what art is supposed to be, an expression of oneself. This is what your voice is, it’s you learning how to express yourself through an artform. And considering those rules were written for someone else’s form of expression, that means it’s highly unlikely that those rules will mean anything for your own expression.

So, if your self-expression is full of adverbs, use as many damned adverbs as you want. If your self-expression is to tell a big crazy story of exposition that explains every single thing that has happened up until the point your story begins…well, Tolkien has your back on this one.

The point is, it doesn’t matter what the rules of any artform are, because the best versions of any art we have today broke those rules to exist. They were purely extensions of the creator themselves. Their voice.

My books don’t sell and I’ve struggled with that over the years. I know a part of it is because I’m terrible at marketing, but another part of it is because I’ve long since given up on following the rules. I write what I feel. I write stories that express a part of myself. And it is so much better for my mental health when I do that than when I try to write something that fits into some other mold.

That doesn’t make it that much easier when someone comes back and tells me “You’re not supposed to do this in a book”, but also, in some ways, I guess it makes me feel that much more punk rock about the whole thing.

Screw the rules, screw writing for money, write to create. Write to express. Art is your way of letting the world know who you are. And yes, it can be scary to make yourself that vulnerable and possibly face rejection from the people who read your books and decide it’s not good enough, but those people suck.

Don’t let them ruin your own pride in your own self-expression. Because you did it and they’re too stuck in the rules to notice how awesome that is.

Create for yourself, not for others. And maybe someday, you’ll be one of the lucky ones who has people realize just how awesome your creation is.

This message brought to you by an author who kinda likes breaking the rules.

The Idea of Actually Being Done

By the time you read this, I’ll have been done with my coursework for over a week. I considered putting this post up immediately, but I feel like I might need this to mellow a bit before I actually put it out there for everyone to read. Because, today, which happens to be February 16, 2022, is the first day in over 2 years that I haven’t actually felt like I needed to do anything for school, because yesterday, I actually managed to complete all the assignments necessary to be able to graduate.

With that being said, because I’m still waiting to submit some things, and there are a ton of things that have yet to be graded, I don’t quite feel out of the fire yet. As I mentioned previously, there’s this part of me who feels like there’s still a very real possibility that the rug will simply be pulled out from under me and I’m just going to absolutely fail.

And I simply can’t shake it. No matter what I do.

Which means I’m not quite to the point of celebration. Not yet. But I am, absolutely, 100%, to the point of feeling a large warm hug of relief. Because whether or not I’m actually able to graduate, because whether or not something absolutely stupid happens where suddenly graduation just can’t happen, today, I don’t have to do any homework. And that’s an amazing feeling. Especially after the last two weeks of burying my head into homework and feeling as though I’ll never get out.

In fact, I’m honestly considering trying to find some way to fit in a nap today, just as a little form of celebration.

But…it won’t actually happen, because unfortunately, regardless of being done with homework, I still have actual life to deal with. I was going to try and take a day or two off after completing my coursework as a form of celebration, but work has been quite busy as of late, and I just don’t think I can actually do it.

But for right now, I’m sitting on my couch, taking a slow approach to the day, and really feeling happy with myself for getting through the ridiculous task I’ve given myself, even if I’m not quite feeling safe yet.

And, that still feels pretty darn good.

And tomorrow…maybe I’ll actually sit back and do a little bit of real writing for a change.

Or I might put it off for another day yet…who knows. I’m really freaking tired.

Managing to Escape

This past weekend, my family and I did our second-ever escape room. Do you know about escape rooms? Those weird little things where they lock you in a room and you have to solve a bunch of puzzles to find the key so you can actually get back out?

We did one in the midst of one of the rougher periods of the pandemic, because it was one of those things where we could actually get out and do something without being all that close to anyone outside of ourselves, and we had a ton of fun, but came out of it feeling like we should have done a lot better. Although we never asked for any hints, our game master gave us a ton and we still only barely managed to squeak out a successful escape.

This time, we had zero clues, and we got out with over ten minutes to spare. And this room was supposedly much harder than the one we did last year.

The reason for our success? Because we actually had some level of concept of what these things were about.

Because, although there are definitely a ton of clues you have to hunt down and puzzles to solve, the reality is that these things all seem to run a pretty basic course. When you realize that they designed this room purely for the purposes of the game, you start to see clues in everything. In fact, at one point one of our kids pointed out this incredibly innocuous-looking thing as a clue, which me and the wife both denied as being a thing, until I found another similar clue elsewhere. But then, it turns out, we had already solved that puzzle because they had another clue for it elsewhere because that one had been too hard for most people.

All the same, you start to pick up on the little hints and take them to new directions.

In fact, there was really only one moment in the whole thing in which we were completely stumped, and that’s when we couldn’t find the last piece of the puzzle. We scrambled around the entire room trying to figure out what we had missed. And what we had missed was this key which magically appeared in a place where it most definitely hadn’t been before. (I’m convinced the game master somehow snuck into the room when our backs were turned and managed to place it there).

The point here is…I don’t really have one. I had a ton of fun working through the puzzles. Each one of them, although ultimately feeling simple after the fact, were a ton of fun to work through and hunt for the answers. An escape room is almost like a little scavenger hunt, where you have to hunt down all the clues so you can get the absolute final answer.

But…I think I might have to find a harder one next time. I was still working with only half a brain, and really I think the only reason things took us as long as they did was because this room had over two dozen locks we had to unlock in order to get an answer. We didn’t pause to figure out how to solve the puzzles nearly as much as it took us just to do the work to actually get to the answer. If we had been rushing it, we could have easy done it in half the time.

So, next time, I might have to put some sort of competition in it just so we can feel as though we’ve accomplished something just due to the speed in which we finished.

Or something.

I don’t know. It’s Monday morning when I’m writing this and my brain is soft and I don’t have much to write about. So, I’m just telling you about my weekend and pretending its a blog post of worth.

The end…I guess

Let’s Talk About Social Media

I don’t want to get all hipster-braggy on you here, but I was one of the earliest adopters to social media. Like, I just so happened to be going to college for a semester at the exact same time that Facebook launched at the local university, back when you could only get on the site if you were a student at one of the universities they had launched at.

I’ve had accounts on social media sites across the spectrum, especially back before I had kids, just to see what they were all about. Goodreads, Twitter, Reddit, Myspace, Instagram. Yeah, they’re all older sites and there’s good reason for that.

I’ve never really found myself caring all that much for them.

Sure, when I first got onto Facebook and started finding my friends on there, I definitely spent a far too much time trying to find ways to interact and amuse my loved ones. I was even worse about the amount of time spent on Myspace back when people cared about that one. There also was this one place called StumbleUpon which was really just a place where people could share links, and I wasted years of my life just clicking the button to see the next random thing people wanted to share with the world. And when I was first able to link up my phone with Facebook and Twitter, I excitedly shared all of my comings and goings around the world with everyone.

And actually…that might have been right around the time that social media died for me.

Sure, it might have died a slow death, and I definitely still get online daily, just to see if anything is going on that I care about, or to share little things about my life. But, I really just don’t care to spend any time thinking about clever things to do on those sites. And I think the reason is, it’s too damned ubiquitous at this point.

When I first started using Facebook et al, it was something I would do when seated at a computer. It would be something I could keep track of fairly well because I had just a few friends who were using the site and I could see everything they were doing and they could see everything I was doing, and I’d ultimately be all caught up with what was available on the site with about 30 minutes of wasted time. And the second I stepped away from my computer, I was away from Facebook. If people wanted to interact with me through there, they’d just have to wait until I got back.

It was, in many ways, a slower method of communication, because it had some pretty strict limitations.

And then the good old smart phones came alone, which I absolutely adore. I was watching this technology for years, back when they were talking about these cool tables that would do all the things that we now hold in the palm of our hands. But these devices also mean that things like Facebook are now constantly available. They mean that if I were to post something to Facebook right now, all six hundred of my friends could, in theory, see it immediately and then all start commenting and liking it and then I get a notification for every single one.

Every single post now is just a huge distraction waiting to happen.

And while I love the attention and being able to communicate with friends and family in this kind of way, I also find that it can get pretty exhausting. I can’t imagine I’m the only one. Like, it’s so great to be able to connect with people I haven’t seen in 20 years, and act as though nothing has changed since we last talked, or to have regular conversations with people I’ve never actually met before who live on the other side of the world. I love the communication that we are provided through things like Facebook. The quick-fire way that we can congratulate someone on something they’ve done, or show our likes and dislikes for things happening in the world. It’s made it where we are all very much a part of each other’s daily comings and goings, and I think in a lot of ways, it has made us much closer as a people. Especially when you take a second to look at how much we are willing to share our religious and political beliefs in such a public forum. Although, I suppose those beliefs have also done a lot more toward separating us from each other.

I hear a lot of people complain about how Facebook and company are causing us to interact with each other less and less, but, at the same time, if it weren’t for this crazy platform, I wouldn’t have ever learned that my friend from 10 years ago became a grandma a few years back, or a second time just a few months ago. We didn’t have that level of communication. But then when I saw that friend again for the first time in 10 years, I could say, holy crap, you’re a grandma, right? And they could go on to tell me all about their grandchildren, bringing us into this whole new level of conversation that might not have happened if we had had no connections over the past decade.

So, I’m torn. Obviously companies like Facebook are not the greatest in the first place, and I really dislike a lot of what they do. Also, I struggle with posting anything just because I have a hard time keeping up with all the notifications as well as trying to come up with some way to react back to the people who are showing their support or whatever.

But I love how much closer I feel this has brought us to each other. Where friends from years past could go forgotten, we now have a way to be a part of each other’s lives on an incredibly regular basis. And, if I’m being honest, that’s kinda cool.

The Problem with Superhero Movies

There’s been a bit of talk recently, mostly from filmmakers who don’t make superhero movies who would appear to be a bit jealous by the amount of money superhero movies make, about how superhero movies are ruining the film industry. Notoriously, Martin Scorsese called them not-films, theme park rides, and candy. Recently Steven Soderberg talked about how he could never make a superhero movie because they are too far detached from reality, specifically in how infrequently these characters appear to have sex.

As someone who has had a lifelong obsession with comic books and superheroes in general, I find myself cringing at these big name directors talking smack about superheroes. Oddly enough, I also find myself talking a lot of smack about them as well, finding myself in arguments with people because of how although I found Thor Ragnarok quite funny, I really hated it because of how much it avoided the emotion that Thor should be going through in that film. I was quite happy to see him finally dealing with his emotions (through avoiding them) in Endgame, still through the humorous lens of him gaining weight and not leaving his house because of playing video games, but we still saw Thor absolutely depressed.

Similarly, with Spiderman No Way Home, we got an incredibly fun film that gave us all the fan service we could have asked for, returning to beloved characters and storylines from Spiderman movies since he first hit the big screen. But, while we were dealing with a big storyline for Tom Holland’s Spiderman, the reality is that we spent the majority of the movie dealing with resolving storylines for …ummm…I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie yet so we’ll just say “other characters”. Characters whose storylines resolved as far as we needed them to already. And these were all distractions from the main character who really had a lot going on, who ultimately got his storyline brushed under the rug and completely ignored the actual issues set up by the previous movie by basically making them all go away through some plot points that don’t exactly make sense.

These were amazing spectacles, but ultimately, when it comes to storytelling, I found them lacking in their character developments.

I also struggle with the fight sequences in these movies, generally going for splashy moments instead of any form of real exciting fighting. When you have huge battles going on that end up being CGI’d fights in a blank netherverse that look like they should have been a short cutscene in a video game, it really feels like someone wrote the equivalent of “big fight sequence here that our computer nerds will make” on the script page for this piece.

Of course, then we finally get Shang-Chi, which gave us some of the most amazing actual fight sequences where we could see some true talent on display…which still ended with a CGI battle in a netherverse…

But the truth is, I can gripe about most movies, if I really want to. While I complain about Thor Ragnarok’s lack of character depth, I’ll still watch that movie whenever its suggested. I cheered and cried numerous times during the new Spiderman. Because these movies do what cinema was intended to do, give us an amazing thing to watch and talk about afterwards with our family and friends. Things that surprise us, even if we’ve watched every trailer and read every rumor. They’ve given us an experience.

While Marvel definitely has a roadmap it follows for most of its movies, I can still go into them and have actual physical or vocal reactions to what happens on the screen. And although Scorsese has made some of my favorite films of all time, his most recent movies seem to follow his own road map, but lack those big amazing twists and turns that make them feel fresh. And Soderberg…I mean, look, I loved his Ocean’s Eleven, even if it was a remake of an old flick that was actually more faithful that I would have expected to the source material. But the dude made two sequels to that movie. And yeah, Traffic was eye-opening, but the dude’s currently working on a third Magic Mike movie as well. If he wants to talk about the detachment from reality, it’s the idea that we need yet another Magic Mike sequel without Matthew McConaughey.

As a writer, I often find myself wanting to talk down about the current biggest thing. While I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series, I think the fandom for that series takes things to a level I just can’t understand, which I also know is at least in part due to my jealousy of the success of the series. But the reality is that to talk down about something that people enjoy as being something that is ruining the industry, this is just the old guard getting mad about things changing and them being left behind. It happens constantly in music, where musicians who defined a genre get pissed at younger musicians for evolving the genre into something new. It’s this gatekeeper aspect which, if people actually listened to it and changed their mind because of it, would mean that our artforms would absolutely stagnate.

While I think Marvel Studios hardly needs anyone to stand up for them, as the new Spiderman movie is poised to take over Avatar in all time money making, I do think there’s something to be said for telling these old men to shut up when they complain about the newest fads and interests. Because even if some of this superhero cinema is nothing more than screen candy, we also get films like Joker or Logan which have something much deeper to tell.

Not to mention, these are all an homage to America’s first and greatest art form, the comic book. An industry that would have died if it hadn’t been for the modern love of the superhero movie. And an industry which has been telling some of the most creative stories which push the line between reality and fantasy for far longer than people like Scorsese or Soderberg have been doing so.

Living in a Post-COVID World

So, as you may be aware, my wife and one of my children came down with the novel coronavirus that we’ve all been hearing about for the past two years.

You may also be aware that I’ve long held the thought that I’d rather just get sick with it and get it done with so I can at least have a brief period of feeling secure in the idea that I can go around in the world and not be infecting everyone after the infection runs its course.

And…you may also be aware that although the sickness was in my house, I did not get sick.

Neither did 2/3rds of my children.

There is this weird thing out there where there are certain people who simply don’t get COVID. There was an experiment recently which actually directly infected people with COVID and they found that nearly half of those people who were given the virus, did not actually become infected. Meaning, there are people who may quite literally be immune to COVID.

Maybe.

And maybe, just maybe, me and 2/3rds of my children fall into that boat.

Maybe.

But there is much stronger evidence to suggest that for approximately 30-45 days (possibly up to 17 months) after getting COVID, you have what’s called super immunity against getting sick again.

This is less of a maybe and far more of a probably.

Which means that my wife and son are both in this place where they can pretty confidently go out into the world for the next month or so and live as though COVID isn’t really a thing. They’ll obviously still be cautious, but, well, they don’t exactly need to be.

And here’s the big point, folks. For the last 2 years, all we’ve wanted to do is to travel. We’ve cancelled two big trips because of this pandemic and our wanderlust is huge. And now, two out of the five of us have a month in which travel is really an option. And I’m not one of those two. And I’m really disappointed.

But, I have been suggesting to my wife that she should find some tropical location with pool boys now that she’s got the super protection. I’m not sure how I’ll feel if she actually follows through on that suggestion, however.

My Personal Issue with Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise has been a pretty integral actor for most of my life. His first film credit actually happened the same year I was born, and it would only be a couple years later when he would strike it hard with films like Risky Business. The following years would give us iconic films like Rain Man, Top Gun, Cocktail, Days of Thunder, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Mission: Impossible, and Jerry Maguire, just to name a few items quickly.

These are all films I’ve seen. When it comes to movies like Rain Man, Mission: Impossible, and Jerry Maguire, they are films I’ve seen countless times.

And I remember almost nothing about them.

I have this really weird block in my mind whenever it comes to films starring Tom Cruise. Like, with Rain Man for example. I absolutely love that movie. I’ve seen it more times than I care to count. This is the only film out of Cruise’s filmography that I remember anything from, and it’s still only bits and pieces, and honestly, nothing to do with Cruise himself, but Hoffman, which should be expected.

I guess the film I actually remember the most of, in spite of him being in it, would be Austin Powers 3, but since he only makes a brief cameo in that flick, I don’t know ii should count.

But, I remember the first time someone told me about the homoerotic volleyball sequence in Top Gun. This sequence that is supposedly iconic and difficult to forget. I, having watched Top Gun tons of times as a kid, to this day have absolutely no memory of that scene existing. In fact, when I think about the movie itself, all I get are blanks and the theme song. Well, that’s not entirely true, I often get memories of scenes from that movie only to realize that they are actually scenes from Hot Shots.

Mission: Impossible was a huge movie during my high school days, and there were a couple years there where you couldn’t down the hall in the dorm I lived in without hearing the memorable music from that movie playing from someone’s room. I know I’ve watched it numerous times. I remember going to the theater to see it even. And I couldn’t tell you a single thing about that movie outside of the sequence where he hangs from the ceiling because they’re trying to be sneaky about something. Was that the one with the noise level needing to be extra low?

I’ve watched whole movies, like Minority Report, before getting toward the end and going, hey, I’ve seen this one before.

Because, for whatever reason, my brain decides that it shouldn’t keep track of this information. Because, for reasons I absolutely can’t explain, my mind needs to block out Tom Cruise from itself.

Which causes me countless questions of why? Is there some sort of multiversal paradox that could occur if I were to remember Tom Cruise outside of anecdotes told to me outside of my actual viewings of them? Is his middle-of-the-face tooth too much for my feeble brain to comprehend past some short term memory?

Why am I forced to live this life where people want to talk to me about Tom Cruise movies I’ve seen and I have to act as though I’ve never seen them before?

At least I don’t feel like I’m missing out on much from them. I’ve never come out of one of his movies thinking that they were the most amazing thing ever. But with his connections to Scientology, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some sort of Thetan symbiosis where Xenu simply doesn’t want me to know that Tom Cruise exists because our alien spirits can’t know we’re on the planet together.

That’s probably the most sensible answer, right?

But seriously, I can’t be the only person who has this issue, can I? Maybe with Tom Cruise, but surely someone else has some famous actor that they have seen in tons of films and can’t remember a single thing about them. Please? So I don’t have to feel crazy?