things

TEN THINGS

This week’s entry marks an entire year’s worth of Weekly Post-Eds. It’s quite the milestone. To commemorate the 52nd entry, I made a list of things I learned whilst writing them. Without further ado, here’s 10 Things I Learned Writing Weekly Post-Eds.

1. I’m Not Sure I Learned Anything at All.

It’s true. When thinking about this list, my first thought: what was it that I was supposed to have learned with all of this? The process for writing Weekly Post-Eds is the same as it has ever been: Frantically jotting down whatever smorgasbord of stuff I could think of and cut what isn’t working. That’s about it. I’m sure there was something meaningful or poignant I was supposed to learn throughout this process, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Which leads me to the second item on this list:

2. [LEAVE THIS SPACE BLANK FOR SOMETHING MEANINGFUL]

I’m sure that meaningful lesson will occur to me at some point. I’ll reserve this space for when I think of it.

Oh: maybe something about sex comment bots?

3. Failure Leads to Somewhere

This is more in line with my belief that writing is the only pure form of magic out there, but despite weeks where it appeared there wasn’t anything to write about, merely sitting down to write something led to Weekly Post-Eds getting written. It was oftentimes awful material, and painful to write, but something always appeared on the page despite the critic in my head lambasting the quality of the words.

If you’re failing, remember: At least failure gets you somewhere else.

You may still be failing, but at least you’re in a new spot to do so. I always enjoyed the change of scenery.

4. Never Make Promises You Can’t Keep

I’m a great planner, not so much a doer. So, when one is confronted with the prospect of writing creatively on a personal website in order to entertain, one wants to dream about all that it can ever be. Projects are conceived, and the end result of finally showing them to the world was addictive to think about.

You know, sans the actual hard work to complete said projects.

Long story short: I often announced projects that weren’t close to being finished without following through. Half-finished essays promised within a week’s time, and entire ideas for projects (such as a series chronicling all my online dating adventures) never materialized. Of course I wanted to come through on projects and bigger ideas; I just tripped over bad habits at every turn: Procrastination, rationalizing myself out of any responsibility to readers, even if their numbers were so few.

A favorite rationalization was this: ” Hardly anyone comes to the website anyways,” which meant the few readers I had would leave with relatively little fuss, or, as it did happen, never say anything. This was a pleasant defense mechanism…until I realized how I was treating anyone who happened upon my website. It was a huge punch to the face of anyone visiting in hindsight.

It turns out the solution to all of this is not to make promises you can’t keep. So, until things are ready, my lips are sealed.

Either that or I hire someone with a very critical stare to guilt me into working harder.

Nah.

5. Writing About Personal Stories Was the Most Enjoyable

In this quest to stand out from other writers on the internet, I struggled to come up with what differentiated my writings. I found that writing about personal stories was the closest I’d get to solving the riddle. Not only did I enjoy telling embarrassing stories about myself and sharing them with whomever might read them, but strange things happened frequently in my daily life and were easiest to write about. I had a constant stream of oddball memories and strange encounters during my weeks, of which there is still more to unpack. I’m excited to keep writing about more episodes from my past in the future.

You should definitely come back for that. It’s going to be a great time.

(Unless I just broke Number 4 from this list and promised something I won’t adhere to…)

Nah.

6. Comment Bots Are Aggressively Sexual

Most of the comments I received and moderate on this website are from bots, sadly. As far as the internet underbelly is concerned, I’m inexperienced in recognizing all the different types of phishing schemes out there. However, I’m amazed by this wave of bot comments that are overtly sexual towards content creators. Are comments such as, “I want you come over and f*** me, right now!” supposed to warrant some kind of desperate reaction to click on a link?

Secretly, I was flattered that anything I wrote evoked any sexual reaction, even if from a bot consisting of a few lines of code. If you can pique the sexual interest of some defunct phishing program, you know that you’ve made in your heart of hearts.

7. Don’t Come Up With Large Numbered Lists When You Don’t Have The Material Yet

This lesson occurred to me while making this list. Sorry, it’s a fresh one.

This is more of a lesson for me, not you.

Anyway, what else…

8. Try Not to Write About People in a Way You Can’t Defend

On a few occasions, I wrote about real people in my life. It was likely a story or conversation that later I embellished (creative license, they used to call it), or portrayed them unflatteringly. In each case, I heard back from someone specific who was not pleased with what I had written.

And I felt awful: Not because I didn’t like what I wrote, but because I used their words or actions for entertainment’s sake.

If someone enjoys what is written about them, it’s easier to dip into the well of real-life experiences without thinking twice–they liked it, all is well. However, when you receive negative feedback or that this person was embarrassed, it hurts as a writer. The point is to entertain, to use the guise of someone in order to reveal something greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes, you can’t help but write in a negative light, no matter what the intention.

I’ve since learned to weigh seriously if I should write about someone who is bound to read about themselves.

I’ve considered complete strangers, too. But they often say very little about my having written about them.

9. Don’t Be Afraid to Change Your Mind

Along with the previous item on this list, there were times when I wrote about something from my week and I realized I no longer agreed with my take a few days later. At the beginning of writing Weekly Post-Eds, I’d struggle with deleting sections because it was difficult to think up replacement material. I’ve found that it’s more important to evolve with your ideas than stick to what was safer to write about.

People change, so should your writing and ideas about life. It’s a sign of being sane…to a degree, anyways.

10. Was Any of This Worth It?

Without specific numbers, this website is relatively niche and unknown. After 2.5 years of attempting to write content and garnerng a handful of loyal readers over that span (my mother included: She’ll be reading this later; she’s my favorite of my readers), I’ve often questioned why I did any of this. Was the point to become a successful commercial writer? Was the intention to make a name for myself in the freelance industry, or to write stories and build a small Patreon community to pay for my writingly lifestyle? Over the course of 2.5 years, I’ve considered all kinds of solutions to these problems: Either step up my social media/marketing game, produce a hell of lot more content, or bust.

And yet, each time I’ve thought about this path, I sink back in my chair, and retch inside. There’s something about this model to “internet success” that is inherently against why I made all of this to begin with.

I’m not here to push my prodigious writings or become famous (my god, I could care less about that). I’m here to chronicle what my life is like, a living journal/record in the wrapping paper of a guy who likes to make snazzy graphics to go along with the writing.

That’s. About. It.

And maybe stumble across something profound from time to time.

To really know if any of this was worth it, you’ll have to answer for yourself. Perhaps in the comments below.

And when I later read, “I want you to come over and f*** me, right now”, from a fresh batch of sex bot spam in my comments inbox, I’ll know it was all worthwhile.

I like to keep my readers titillated. Even the fake ones.

***

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

It began with a string of bad ideas: don’t feed the crying baby, kick the dog who is always sleeping in the narrow corridor, break the alarm clock that never turns off. After laughing at how ridiculous they were, Stripford thought of many more bad ideas. Why not put one pantleg in his suit and walk out the front door to work? When backing up his car, why grab the steering wheel at all?

These were the kinds of ideas he thought of when nothing was working in his life. The argument always ran thus in his mind: if nothing was working right, why do anything the right way at all?

This was the day when Stripford decided to act on this impulse.

When the alarm clock rang, he threw it against the bedroom door, smashing it to pieces. His wife bolted upright in bed at the commotion, and the baby began crying in the next room. She asked him to tend to the little one. He didn’t reply and put on his suit for work and let the baby wail away while he nibbled on leftover cupcakes in the kitchen.

The Pomeranian, Benny, slept in the lone corridor of the cramped apartment, ready to stir at the exact moment that Stripford stepped over. With a shrug, Stripford landed a buckler of a kick into the dog’s ribcage. The mutt half-yipped, half-barked and raced around the apartment to escape further punishment, which was quite amusing.

He dented a neighbor’s car parked under the carport of the apartment complex, having refused to steer when backing out. On the highway, Stripford didn’t look to change lanes and ran a minivan off the road. The subsequent beeps and threatening gestures that reflected in his rearview might have been menacing the day before, but Stripford shrugged. He mentally checked the box of the list of Bad Things in his mind: reckless driving.

At his dental practice, Stripford merely glanced at decaying molars and glazed over at dentures in need of polish and refinement. He told children they might as well eat as much candy as they wanted so he could stay in business when they next visited for cavities. Mothers scorned his terrible attitude, threatening to complain. His dental assistants festered in the breakroom after lunch, each sharing one of Stripford’s suggestive innuendo about their fitted scrub uniforms, and each agreed to complain or file suits to HR.

Stripford was to pick up his eldest from school at 2:30, but he never showed. Passing by the school, he saw his little boy sitting on a bench outside, overlooking the parking lot for any sign of a silver sedan rounding the entrance. This was a particularly unforgivable Bad Idea that required more effort to perform for Stripford, and so he next stopped at a fast food restaurant to order a tripe deluxe Piston Burger, one so drenched in fryer grease that the inevitable uptick in cholesterol would surely befuddle the family doctor come his next checkup. His intestine churned noisily as he drove to the beach to stare at the weekly gathering of recreational women’s volleyball. He unapologetically parked as close as possible and ogled them; the games didn’t last long.

At the end of the day, Stripford parked his car in the adjoining parking lot to his own apartment complex. It was nighttime and the visitor spots in front of his home were occupied with his wife’s parents and friends, each certainly called to comfort and console why Stripford would ignore their crying infant, or kick the family dog, and even refuse to pick up their 10-year-old boy from school. He had ignored all phone calls, even the 3 voicemails left by HR from the dentist office. He checked off the box in his mind that read: Successfully completed list of Bad Things.

But he had so many more Bad Ideas, ones that were even more creative and realistic. Why not abandon the family? Why not take his savings to Vegas and bet big? Why not travel the interstate to that tiny diner off the highway and meet up with – what was the name of that waitress? – Molly…something?Stripford considered all the Bad Things that could still be done and found the list endless. He was gripped by dread knowing that an eternity could be spent checking the boxes on every heinous act.

He would never be done, never be rid of all the wrongness in his life.

Unless, he decided, to check the final box on the list of Bad Things this very night. The Bad Thing to end it all.

It would require heading inside the apartment, attempting to calm and explain his streak of reckless behaviors, apologizing profusely for his brief day of madness and stress. After they all had gone – still angry and bitter, to be sure – Stripford would excuse himself the bathroom for a long shower, turning on the water. Instead, he would dig underneath the sink for a hidden pack vintage razor blades he had received from his father a long time ago. His father explained that one blade was missing and never found. Stripford knew where it was, at the end of his father’s list of Bad Things.

He took one step forward and something stopped Stripford. He stood still, still enough to cease thinking for a moment.

The cool summer evening dropped below 60 degrees and he began to shiver. He wanted warmth, like cuddling up to his wife, even after an exhaustive day of tending to a newborn, she was still the best comfort of all on nights like these.

He listened to the sound of distant traffic on the highway some two miles away and how lonely he felt in its wake. It was calmer outside and Stripford found he didn’t prefer the calm. He much preferred the irritable cries of his newborn son and the bips and beeps of his 10-year-old’s video games that he played late into the night when Stripford needed sleep.

The parking lot was vast, and he could go anywhere, but why did he want to? There was always the cramped corridor of the apartment where the dog always waited for the opportune moment to awaken each morning to surprise Stripford. He nearly stepped on the mutt a hundred times over, but the dog was the happiest creature in the world to see him each day.

The night was hazy, but not enough to hide the twinkling stars above from shining down. They might have been brighter in the countryside, perhaps on a vacation somewhere next summer when the kids could see the world for what it was. He had heard of a place from one of his dental assistants, the ones he had made suggestive comments about.

He exhaled, and the breath of his day plumed out into the crisp night air like car exhaust.

Stripford began thinking again.

No, he thought, the razors were packed in the medicine drawer, not underneath the sink.

Weekly Post-Ed #52