The Writer's Poke

Who cares if I don’t? Students spur me to pierce their unresponsiveness.

Put on your coat now – The calendar says May, but Minnesota laughs.

Bed, I’ll see you soon. The day without you is long, And I dream of you.

Guilleabeau is a world traveler who has been to every country in the world. He's also a pretty good writer, and this, his third book, is his best to date. I think a lot of people are happy to live routine lives; maybe some in that category would still be inspired if they read this book. I'm sure many people happy with their routines would not be inspired, because hey... thinking that you can have a non-routine life, if you really wanted it, is kind of threatening to some people. Anyway, Guilleabeau is quite clear: If you want to go on a "quest" in your life, the only limitation to what you can accomplish if your own imagination. Some people just aren't that imaginative. Their loss. If you are the imaginative type, and if you're willing to make sacrifices to live your dreams, read this book. It will help you focus/refocus on what you need to be doing with your life. http://www.amazon.com/The-Happiness-Pursuit-Finding-Purpose/dp/0385348843/ref...

Sometimes the past smarts. We pledge to “never forget,” But what have we learned?

Afternoon sleep mode – Recharging for night warfare, a blessed way to live.

The large lady slurped Coke, ate chips, filled out puzzles -- Her heart beats, for now.

Is it at all possible to have a meaningful, purpose-driven, organized life? I've been working on that for years, and I'm not sure I'm any closer to the goal. I suppose life is just about trying to move forward, but I'm no longer sure that "moving forward" and "progressing" are the same things. Ever feel like you're moving forward only to find out you're on a treadmill?

Squirrels recognize Fall. Running here and there, searching for nutty goodness.

Twenty years ago, I had a roommate named Larry. Larry was a full-blown southern-Illinois cowboy. He wore the cowboy hat around the Eastern Illinois University campus, and he knew hundreds of different line dances. I was into Megadeth and KISS at the time, but it was the era of grunge, and metal seemed like it was dying, if not already six feet under. So, thanks in part to Larry, and in part to Kurt Cobain, I decided I'd give Country a shot. Country didn't stick me for long, but I did manage to give it a fair shot -- at least a few months. I even joined Larry and the girls of 8J at a honkytonk in Champaign, Illinois, before finally admitting that Country was not the uniform for me. In a certain sense, music is a sort of uniform, and it's easy to define yourself (or to allow yourself to be defined) by the type of music you listen to. Even today, I'm sure people label me as a "Hair Metal guy," although I'm not really sure what that label means in 20...

Could a computer write a hit pop song? Why not? The Australian comedy trio Axis of Awesome demonstrated that many pop songs follow a basic four chord formula. If that’s all it takes, then certainly a computer should be capable of reproducing the formula. For all I know, maybe computers already generate all pop songs already. If computers did produce the music you love to listen to, would it bother you? Maybe pop music doesn’t qualify as “art,” but what about traditional European classical music? Bach and Beethoven and Mozart were all geniuses, right? And their music isn’t just simply the equivalent of disposable plastic eating utensils; it’s the fine china of the music world. If a computer could compose original classical music, that would be a feat indeed, wouldn’t it? Would it at the same time diminish the genius behind the original human creations of the past masters? The problem with computer-generated music – pop or classical – is that it’s all derivative. But perh...

Does failure result solely from the lack of will to succeed? That’s a rather provocative question, and to fully understand what it means, perhaps it would be a good idea to examine a few examples. Let’s just brainstorm and randomly see what develops. 1.  The War on Drugs. Pretty much a failure, right? Why? Too much money in the drug trade; too much consumer demand for illegal drugs. 2.  The War on Terrorism. Failure? The use of force exhibited in Boston after the Marathon bombings was impressive, but the lack of intelligence needed to prevent the bombing from occurring in the first place is less than impressive. 3.  The War on Poverty. “If people are poor, then they should working harder and do something about it. It’s not my problem.” The lack of success resulted from the inability to overcome an entrenched attitude.  We like to declare war on problems. No one ever declares peace on problems. “War” indicates we mean business, but unfortunately ...

I’ve been reading student essays for the past fifteen years, and I wish I knew how many times I’ve read students write the following: “We, as humans, ….” Most of the times I just mark out “as humans” and go on reading. Quite honestly, I probably haven’t given the phrase any deep thought, but the qualification does seem to imply that the “we” the students speak of could be something other than human. What exactly could “we” be, if not human? Perhaps an examination of this question has merit. Take, gender, for example. One feminist writer described gender as a copy without an original. Essentially, gender is “prescribed” – by culture, or religion, etc. What it means to be “male” or “female” are simply ideas, and all of us pick up on the particular ideas created by the group(s) we belong to. Assuming this is true, it makes sense to suggest that what it means to be human works the same way. What does it mean to be human? Homo sapiens belong to the animal kingdom, but wh...

In high school I didn’t know much about Shakespeare, and I didn’t care. If we did read any of his work in any of my English classes, I’m sure it was Romeo and Juliet , which is probably one of his most “accessible” plays. I don’t recall if we read it or not, though, as I’ve done a fairly good job of blacking out all memories of English classes from high school. My freshman year was my last year in Honors English. At that point in my life, I didn’t know the meaning of homework or studying. If I didn’t know something immediately, it probably wasn’t worth knowing, or so I thought. Besides, each English period was a perfect opportunity to work on my novel. I called it a novel, but it was actually just episodic scribbling. I spent an entire year working on my writing, but I have to admit it was crap. I wish I would have had more direction on how to write, but like I said, I wasn’t in the mindset to study craft. That wouldn’t happen until college. By the time I reached colleg...

  Murders are rare in Rochester, Minnesota. To my knowledge, only one has occurred in the past two years, and it took place in my neighborhood – about a ½ mile from my front door. My neighborhood loops in a circle, and the backside of the circle is a crappy road surrounded on both sides by brush and woods. A few houses sprinkle these woods, but it’s basically an isolated spot. Sometimes in the summers, we’ll walk the loop. I’m not paranoid, but every time I walk this section – even before the murder – I find myself wondering what I’d do if a car drove up, and the occupants inside started to mess with me. Would I stand and fight? Would I try to flee into the brush? Or would I just stand and wait to see my fate? I feel safe where I live, but I try to be conscious of my surroundings at all times. When the young man was murdered – apparently the victim of a drug-related crime – no police officers swept our neighborhood looking for the suspects. In fact, we ...

One of my fantasies is to visit India in July. I dream it to be, well, hotter than hell. The upside to that, of course, is less tourists. I dream it to be dirty, and I dream it to be crowded, and I dream it to be poor. On the other hand, I dream it to be the opposite of those things, too. I dream of India because I have never been there, and I honestly have no idea what it’s like. Why dream of India? Fair question, dear reader, but do you have control over what dreams invade your sleep at night? Neither do I, and neither do I have control, really, over what I dream about when I’m awake. It’s a cliché to say that life’s a dream, but behind the cliché is at least some truth. While I dream of India from miles away, other people have taken the leap to experience their dreams in person. What do they see when they arrive in the place once only dreamt upon? Does the reality live up to the dream, or is the reality simply an extension of the dream – experienced a...

I like to think I’m special, but if forced to examine what makes me special, I might have to be honest. I’ve had a lot of breaks and opportunities. You have, too, right? People that have had a chance to explore their specialness have been blessed with a luxury that other people all around the world have been denied. Human potential. I strongly believe in it, but I also recognize that most people do not live in circumstances that allow them to realize their potential. I’m sure that many – probably all –   kids born on May 24, 1973, have talents, skills, perspectives, etc., which make them every bit as special as I am. How many of them have already died before figuring out what made them special? How many continue to live in developing countries, spending most of their energies finding ways to survive from day to day? At this point in my life, I don’t feel like I’ve reached my potential. I’m nowhere near where I’d like to be in that regard. I keep studying, and I keep ...

  Frank and Louie is a two-faced cat. Or, to put it another way, Frank and Louie is a cat with two faces. Seems pretty freaky when you first see it, but my thought is simply this: Does it know how to use a litter box, and does it use its litter box each and every time it goes to the bathroom. If so, then that cat’s alright with me. We’ve been keeping our cat, Turkey, locked up in the basement because she keeps peeing on our beds when she’s upstairs. She’s literally lived in a barn for the first few months of her live, and I suppose you can take the cat out of the barn, but you cannot take the barn out of the cat. Last night I felt pity for her and I let her out of the basement. She was good all day yesterday, but this morning as I was running around getting ready for work, she peed all over my comforter. Maybe it was a relief for her, but it didn’t provide me with the same feeling. Needless to say, Turkey is now back the basement and will be for the foreseeable future. ...

  So how often do you lie? And what do you lie about? 1.       “How are you today?” “I’m fine, thanks.” Maybe you’re not fine at all, but the social convention is to say that you are. It’s a friendly gesture, and it’s almost the equivalent of shaking hands and saying “hello.” But if you say you’re fine when you’re not, are you lying?   2.       “Do I look good in this dress?” or “How do you like the meal?” “You look good” or “It tastes good.” If these responses are not true, what is the benefit to telling the person the truth? Is it worth hurting someone’s feelings? Sometimes we lie to protect people we love from being hurt. Is this really a bad thing? After all, we know when the people we love want to know the truth, and we also recognize when they don’t want to know the truth, don’t we? The above questions may be examples of when people don’t want to know the truth, or at least don’t mind if w...

Sometimes change is thrust upon us, yes, but I'm much more interested in the changes we initiate ourselves.   Why do we initiate change in our lives? We can walk in the same direction for years, but then all of a sudden, we decide to walk in a different direction. It’s likely that there’s a build-up leading up to the moment we make the decision, but the moment itself “clicks” us in. After the clicking moment occurs, it will take another series of events to ever cause us to change direction again. Sometimes the clicking moment occurs because we’ve experienced a significant event. For example, I stopped biting my fingers this year; that wasn’t one of my planned goals, but after getting a bad infection and having to visit the ER at 2 a.m., I discovered it wasn’t all that difficult to stop. Most clicking moments don’t include a visit to the ER in the middle of the night; most changes we make originate from more subtle origins, and sometimes the reasons behi...