The IWSG has rolled around again just in time for America's 250th birthday.

Happy 250th Birthday America. It's also time for the July 2026 edition of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. This blogfest takes place monthly, and it has a lot of participants. If you'd like to sign-up for it, go HERE and add your name to the list. There are lots of people you can get to know and network with who participate in the IWSG, and they have a lot of information regarding how to get published. The TL;DR version of what I just said is that it is worth your time. Here's a little more about the Insecure Writer's Support Group:

What is the Purpose of the IWSG?: It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do participants post?: It happens on the first Wednesday of every month. This is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day.

What can I talk about?: Basically, anything about writing. Some examples include posting your thoughts on writing, talk about your doubts and the fears, discuss your struggles and triumphs, and offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Barring all of that, you just answer the monthly question like I do every month.

How do I maximize my experience with the IWSG?: You visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers. You return comments and link to the IWSG sign-up page and display the badge in your post.

Do you have any tips/tricks/hacks?: Make certain that your avatar links back to your blog. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

The X "formerly Twitter" handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the July 1 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Cathrina Constantine, and Jacqui Murray!

July 1 question - Is there anything you'd like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?

Yes. I wish I could go back to the days before Ai was invented. I liked the fact that I didn't have to question whether or not a book was written by a real human or not. I don't like that people's writing was stolen without their permission to train these large language models. I also don't like that the art is getting to be such high quality that it's making it difficult for real artists to find work. It takes years and years and years of learning and practice to paint a human face and get it just right, and Ai just does it in fifteen seconds. That doesn't seem fair at all. So yeah...I'm anti-Ai. 

Anyway, thanks for visiting.

In my last IWSG post for 2025 I lay out all the weird assumptions I made about what being a writer was like.

Hello everyone. This is going to be my last post for the year of 2025, and I wish you all well. But before bowing out before the major holidays, I wanted to drop my final Insecure Writer's Support Group post for the year. If you haven't heard of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, it is a monthly blogfest that was started by Alex Cavanaugh many years ago, and it's still going. You can sign up for it HERE.

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: It's to share and encourage others. The IWSG is a place where writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do you post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting. Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

The "X" (formerly known as Twitter) handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the November 5th posting of the IWSG are Jennifer Lane, Jenni Enzor, Renee Scattergood, Rebecca Douglass, Lynn Bradshaw, and Melissa Maygrove!

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional.

November 5 question - When you began writing, what did you imagine your life as a writer would be like? Were you right, or has this experience presented you with some surprises along the way?

I had all kinds of weird ideas to be honest. Here's a breakdown:

I thought landing an agent would be easy for some reason.

I thought that writing the book was 90% of the process, but then I discovered that it's only 10% of the process lol.

I thought that I'd never get sick of my own writing. This was completely wrong as rereading and rereading the same things I've written (to look for errors or inconsistencies) started to make my eyes glaze over.

I thought because I got "A's" in my English courses and was a fantastic speller, that I wouldn't make spelling errors. For example, there's no way I would confuse the words "bare" and "bear." Only idiots do that, right? Well, I guess I'm an idiot then, because I made those self-same mistakes in my written works.

I thought that (for every single book) someone else did the blurb on the back of the book. That's definitely not true (although there are those that do have this privilege).

I didn't know that word count was so important.

I was oblivious to marketing. I thought people just "found" books the same as I "found" books in a bookstore and that there would be all of these eager readers.

I thought that writing a book was a rare thing. It isn't. Everyone (and their dog too) is writing a book. The rare thing (it turns out) is readers. For every twenty people writing a book, there's probably one part-time reader out there.

I discovered that men as a gender have almost completely abandoned literature. That was a real wakeup call.

So...to answer the question...I guess I imagined my life as a writer as having to deal with none of the above. I would have been ensconced in a narcissistic bubble of privilege doing a rare thing and celebrated for my talent. This just isn't how any of it works. I quickly came to understand and appreciate writing in a different way. I should be grateful for the stories that have entertained me all of my life, and that if I truly love writing...my role should be to read what others have written because people are so desperate for good readers. It's like an attention thing. Give it a go, and if you aren't someone who has "whatever it is that warrants attention" then maybe you should try your hand at showering your attention on someone else. Making someone else's life better, whether or not they even know what you did, has its own rewards.

Happy Holidays and have a fanciful New Year! I do hope that 2026 is a better year. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Go see Wicked because it's great. It also tells you a lot about some people who are obsessed with it.

Like most queer people in the United States over December, I saw Wicked. I thought it was a great movie, and I enjoyed the singing. However, I was unprepared for how much of a cultural touchstone Wicked happens to be with other queer people. I just thought it was a musical, and I'd seen the Broadway show (which also featured good music). My eye-opening moment arrived during a brunch, when a trans woman "splained" me on why Wicked made her cry. All I could do was sit there, like a deer stunned by the headlights of an oncoming truck, and listen to the splain.

So...it turns out that Wicked at its source is just a story of two witches. One is treated badly yet has all the talent. The other is treated grandly, and she has no talent. And mixed in with all of that is the fascist metaphor of demonizing the talking animals and taking away their rights to pretty much just exist. I got all of that in the one viewing of the show. But it wasn't enough that I got all of that. It needed to be "splained" to me because I clearly did not understand, as (unfortunately) I didn't cry during the movie. I guess everyone who sees this thing cries because "Elphaba is me, dammit!"  "I AM ELPHABA! I AM UNDERAPPRECIATED! I HAVE BEEN WRONGED AND I HAVE ALL THE TALENT." Okay then...but just maybe you don't have all the talent, and maybe you weren't wrong. Only...that particular message doesn't resonate as well with a lot of attention-seeking people.

For those who haven't seen this thing, the character of Elphaba is an empty sleeve for any person with narcissistic personality disorder to try on like clothes. She's judged heavily because she is ugly and green. Yet, she's the most powerful magic user that the country (realm?) of Oz has ever seen. There isn't anyone who can do better magic...they don't exist. She is like a goddess among muggles. Yet...she's looked down on and stepped down on and crushed beneath the heels of people who are so stupid and ignorant that it's just plain tragedy. It's the worst of injustices. Sound like a narcissistic dream? Yup, it sure is. I myself know a handful of people who feel like this, and they aren't even close to having the greatest talent in an entire realm. Now just to be clear...I'm not saying that Elphaba is a narcissist. I'm saying that narcissists will be attracted to Elphaba's character, because she's like a mirror to them of all the things they feel. And yes, it makes them cry.

So, you might think that the next logical step in engaging a person who is obsessed with Wicked might be to say, "Oh...well...thank you for sharing. Elphaba must be who you want to be." That's when the real surprise happens. "Oh...I'm a Glinda. Everyone thinks so." Then they get their buddy to weigh in. "Oh...she's definitely a Glinda...all the way." This is fascinating until you realize what's really going on. Elphaba is ugly and black. Glinda is an attractive white person. So...yeah...racism. They super relate to Elphaba, but they don't want to be Elphaba because they are a Glinda.... Okay then. Yeah...you've just showed me that you are both a narcissist and a closeted racist. Thanks a lot for that.

Wicked...what a great story. It tells you so much about some people and is a reflection of our modern times. I honestly wish I wasn't as smart as I am sometimes. I just see way too much truth. What's the old saying? Ignorance is bliss? Yeah...how would that be?

Private Equity is bad but it isn't the only villain of the housing crisis story.

With Salt Lake City hitting the top 10 list of the most expensive cities to live in that are within the borders of the United States, I think I'd like to weigh in on the housing crisis. So, the narrative around housing from Republicans and from the news is always around "high interest rates" and "private equity is buying up all the property" and "immigrants are stealing housing from people who were born in the United States, making it impossible for them to live in the places they were born." Here's what I think is actually what's going on.

A company or a person in American capitalism is always going to charge whatever they need to in order to increase profits as much as possible. Everyone likes money, right? If a person or a company ever charges less for a thing, it's only because they believe it will lead to more sales which will make up for the lower revenue. That's it. That's the only driving factor of capitalism. In such a thing as housing where you don't have a huge supply of things, this is your first problem. And it is as true today as it was in 1950. There was never a time when the country was full of George Baileys, lowering the prices for the good of the consumer. People never have done the right thing, and you shouldn't expect it. In the United States, it is and always has been done...for profit.

I've read comments from people who believe that sellers are raising prices in a coordinated way, so that they all make more money be agreeing not to undercut one another. I think that this depends on the market. In a market with relatively few sellers, this absolutely can and does happen. In a highly competitive market where buyers have a lot of sellers to choose from...not so much. Rents are too high and landlords are absolutely making too much money off tenants, but there's another problem here, and I'll diagnose it for you.

The problem is that housing supply is very low compared to demand. Home builders are not meeting demand because we've made it illegal for them to build new developments where they're needed. And any time people try to fix the problem, rent-seeking property owners show up to Zoning Board of Approval meetings to shut it down. The reason? None of them are good at saving money, and they have become rich over the values of their homes and that wealth allows them to sit around and do nothing and complain that "people just don't want to work anymore."

The property owners don't want to let go of their dollar signs that reflect off their retinas. They've seen their property values double in recent years. Is this enough? Nope...they want more. Making housing cheaper necessarily means giving up wealth. So they have a vested interest in keeping the housing crisis going. This group includes not only corporate landlords, but regular landlords, and family home owners as well. These are all of the people who got in the boat and then pulled the ladder up right after them, even if it stranded their own kids. People do not give a crap about anyone but themselves. This is very American.

I'm not sure what the solution is. I feel like there needs to be a fundamental change in the attitude of people. But barring that, there needs to be laws and consequences that force people to be good and moral because they won't choose this if left to their own devices. And in the current fascism wave that's sweeping the country, it feels a lot like the collapse has already started and the wolves are in the house. Trying to assess what paint you want on the walls while the roof is on fire seems...I don't know...a bit useless. So I guess we'll see where it all ends up. But really...you can blame private equity all you want for the housing crisis. I just don't think that they deserve being labeled as the only villain of the story.

In which I spill the tea on the creative activity I work on (when I'm not writing) for the November 2024 IWSG.

This is my last post for the year. I hope that those of you who are working hard on your novels this month are proceeding nicely. As for the rest of you, may you have a holiday in which Mariah Carey doesn't scream too much "All I Want for Christmas" in your ears. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Today is post-election day aftermath. It is also the first Wednesday of November 2024, and this means it is time for our Insecure Writer's Support Group posts. If this is the first that you have heard of this blogging phenomenon, you can read and sign-up for it at this LINK.

What is the Purpose of the IWSG?: It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do y'all post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. So, on that day you should post your thoughts on your own blog. Some ideas for what those posts could entail are 1) you could talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered, 2) you could discuss your struggles and triumphs, and 3) you could offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Being a part of this blogfest means being involved. So, you should visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writers. A good rule of thumb is to aim for a dozen new people each time and return comments. This group is all about connecting. Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

The X (formerly Twitter) handle the Insecure Writer's Support Group uses is @TheIWSG and the hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the November 6 posting of the IWSG are Diedre Knight, Lisa Buie Collard , Kim Lajevardi, and JQ Rose!

Now, every month, the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. If this is what you want to write about, you should include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

But remember, the question is optional :)

November 6 question - What creative activity do you engage in when you're not writing?

When I'm not writing I write things for my homebrew setting in Dungeons & Dragons. Over the years, I've built a secondary ruleset that overlays the primary rules of 5e+, and these books contain all the flavor of my homebrew world. I've also digitized maps to make them available to display on 32-inch monitors, and I've come up with all sorts of spells, abilities, classes, and you name it. It's fun to just sit and watch tv and think over a new ability and write it down, revise it, and then think about what it might look like with someone playing it. I think that's where I get the most enjoyment: in the theorycrafting. It is my jam.

Thanks for visiting my blog this year. I will be back for the January 2025 edition of the IWSG. Hopefully (by then) things have settled down a bit politically in this country. But I'm honestly not counting on that.

Did George Lucas invent the Prequel?

Did George Lucas invent the prequel? I remember when he announced that there would be prequels to his iconic Star Wars trilogy way back in the mid-90's. It was one of those rumors that grew and grew until you started seeing chatter of it on the primitive thing we called "the internet." I remember seeing the first trailer for the Phantom Menace and how Apple's website was the best place to go to view them in a thing called "Quicktime." But I honestly don't remember if there were such things as "prequels" before The Phantom Menace. Now, of course, they are everywhere.

The latest thing that I saw that is getting a prequel is the movie/story of It by Stephen King. I kind of wonder why they are doing a prequel. The latest adaptation of It was successful. I've seen the first one but avoided part 2 simply because I don't much care for scary movies. However, I kind of wonder what could possibly be told in a prequel to It other than "more of the same." From what I understand of the monster, it reappears every 27 years or so (I can't remember the exact timeline), kills a bunch of kids, and then goes dormant again. So, in an It prequel, I'm guessing we shall see more kids being killed and an attempt to fight back at some point that doesn't go well because It survived (obviously). I may not be seeing this prequel though from the correct vantage point. Maybe the fact that it is a retread of the story is the point. Folks want "more of the same" but maybe just slightly different enough that there can be some surprises.

My blogging friend Alex over on his IWSG post for the month of October said that prequels are kind of an odd thing because you always know how they will end (he was specifically talking about Rings of Power). And you know what? He's right. They are kind of an odd thing. I mean...we knew that the little kid named Anakin had to turn into Darth Vader at some point. But seeing it happen on screen was kind of fulfilling. I really liked Christensen's performance (to be honest), and I liked how pouty Anakin was. I think it actually made Darth Vader a bit more menacing, because you just know he's not altogether a sane person who is just choosing to be evil. He's kind of crazy, and was pushed into that by trauma that he couldn't deal with properly, nor did he have access to any kind of mental health care that might have helped him to deal with it.

Obviously, nostalgia is an important reason for why prequels exist in the first place. But it may also be due to the structure of storytelling. Oftentimes in traditional storytelling, you have the bulk of the tale that leads to a climax, and then once that is over, the story quickly ends. With a prequel, you can still have that very satisfying ending way off in the future, but now you've got more ground to develop different characters, and to set up what may have led to that really satisfying conclusion in the distant future.

Anyway, I guess when I started writing this post, I wanted to know if George Lucas invented the prequel. I don't know for sure, but I do know that if you "Google" the term prequel, you come up with nothing but links to articles discussing the Star Wars prequels. That might be reason enough to say that he invented it. If so, I think that's pretty neat. George had a lot of great ideas (obviously), but inventing "the prequel" has affected movies in such a way that it honestly is comparable to someone inventing "color for film." Like...I'd compare it to being on that big of a scale. It's like someone taking the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and inventing "the Uncrustable."  You just don't know how good the idea is until its suddenly there and you realize that you can't live without it.

2025 may be the most interesting year of our lifetimes and not in a good way.

 As I watch yet another car drive down the street with a huge flag duct taped to the side of it, all black, with huge white letters that say "F*CK BIDEN" but without the asterisk...it's almost hard to believe that any of this is real. People being nasty has always been a thing, but I have a co-worker who is scared to drive on the street now because of a road rage incident where a guy wouldn't let her into a lane and when she forced the issue, he revved his engine and laid on the horn for ten seconds.

I myself have survived several road rage incidents, each one leaving me shaken with an adrenaline rush. People passing me, then slamming on the brakes to stop in the middle of a road, forcing me to skid to a stop, then rolling down the window to give me the finger. Another guy nearly sideswiped my car with his trailer by passing super aggressively (I ended up on the side of the road). A third person actually did hit my car with theirs in a sideswipe, scraping all the paint off my mirror, and they just kept rolling down the street with their finger out the window. I guess I should count myself lucky. There are many in my area who have just been flat out shot and killed on the highways in Salt Lake.

And then there is the weird and almost surreal income inequality that I now see everywhere. I hear of pig-butchering scams that have robbed people who are into crypto of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I see these people who are on the news and saying, "I first started noticing things when I couldn't get an address or a return call for the $700,000 that I wired to XXX." Then the report continues with other testimonies of various sums, all in the hundreds of thousands.

No one ever stops to say...whoah whoah whoah...you had hundreds of thousands of dollars that was just lying around and you only noticed it when something happened with say...$700,000...that seemed iffy? What kind of money are you talking about here? How much money is actually out there? It turns out...a ton (read this as millions and millions) of Americans are really wealthy. Yet, all I hear is bitching about the economy. Why are so many people bitching about the economy when they literally have hundreds of thousands of dollars to lose to scammers? It doesn't seem real...but it somehow is.

I guess the most shocking thing to me is how different these people are from me. I remember decades ago someone asked Bill Clinton a question about the liberal mindset and he offhandedly said that when you write everything down that liberals believe in it all sounds good, and that he actually didn't understand why anyone didn't think the same thing. But I think it's safe to say that he was ignorant in the same way that I was ignorant. There are millions of brains out there that actually like the idea of unmarried teenage pregnancy, that actually like the idea of slavery, that actually like the idea of having only one religion and no other beliefs to challenge them in any way, and that actually like the idea of forced birth, women being paid less than men for doing the same job, and yes probably concentration camps too. Yes, they like all of that. It's been a very successful trick to gaslight ourselves that these people are outliers. Now, with election day next week, I wonder where it all ends. I think 2025 is going to be a very interesting year, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I want to tell you about my retinal tear experience.

Sometimes I feel like I'm falling apart in my fifties. Last week (keep in mind that this was after I had the kidney stone fairy visit which occurred after I had the covid fairy visit), something weird happened with my vision. I was downstairs in my house, and I thought that the cat was hiding behind an ottoman because I saw its orange-ish tail flicking back and forth. But when I checked, there was no cat there. A moment later I saw it again behind another thing, and that's when I realized...the cat isn't in the room. However, there is something in my eye. It was a strange floater, but it was darker than any floater I had ever seen. Almost like a reddish and black spot just off center in my vision, shaped like a mouse, with a tail that flicked around. I joked with my friend that I had "Muad'dib" in my eye, because of a line from the 1980's Dune movie where Paul Atreides asks, "What do you call the mouse shadow in the second moon?" And Stilgar replies, "We call that one Muad'dib."

The next morning, it wasn't any better. There wasn't any physical pain, but I started to worry that this "floater" might be something more sinister. So, I went to the eye doctor, they ran me through some tests, dilated my eyes, and took photographs of it. My doctor said, "That floater is blood. I can't see where it is coming from but I'm concerned. I need to send you to a retina specialist." Well I went and saw the retina specialist, and they also dilated my eyes, injected a special ink into my arm that would highlight any bleeding areas in the eye, and then put me in front of another machine to take photographs. The doctor came in, took a look at them, and said that I had a tear in my retina, which is the photosensitive layer of cells that gives you vision. He said that he wanted to operate on it within ten minutes.

I asked him how these things happen, and he said, "A lot of the time it is just age. But there are other factors like diabetes and other such conditions that can create retinal tears. It might be that the fluid in my eyes is a bit stickier than normal, so when it pulls away from the retina, it might try to suck some of the retina with it like a suction cup." He also said, "Retinal tears in people your age is fairly common." So yeah, I guess that happened. Anyway, I did go through with the procedure, and I didn't like it. But it's not like you have much choice when the other option is to just eventually lose your vision. The procedure is to basically staple the tear back into place using a pulsating laser that makes a hammering sound and creates a hammering pressure on the back of your eye (and maybe a faint smell of burning flesh but I might have imagined that). I thought it was quite painful, not to mention the fact that you just completely lose vision in that eye. My left eye was black.  I could see nothing, which was scary.

After the procedure my vision slowly came back in that eye over the course of the day. I took some Ibuprofen and by the next morning, I could see normally. I still have that mouse-shaped swirly thing of blood floating around in the vitreous, but I've learned to ignore it for the most part. The doctor said it will go away over the next few months as it gets reabsorbed. So anyway, that was health issue number three in so many months. I'm hoping that this is the end of them for a while. But if it isn't, at least I've met my deductible on my health insurance until next July. So any procedure I need, I'm just going to have done. If I have to go to the emergency room for any reason, I'll just go. Might as well, since it will be free. I guess I should be grateful that we have the technology to fix things like retinal tears. It actually is pretty amazing if you think about it.

My roommates have taught me a lot about the behaviors of all people.

If we were to pretend that people were plants, then I'd say that economic conditions in 2024 leave a lot of people "root bound." They cannot grow, and they enter a period of sameness that can last years or even decades wherein no change happens. However, this also makes it easier for other people to find and befriend them.

 I have now lived with other people (roommates) for a year and a half. When I first started this "experiment," I didn't know if I could actually live with people. And it turns out...I absolutely can! But I now understand better than I ever did why there is a loneliness epidemic in this country, and I think I can understand why we are as divided as ever on issues. At the end of the day, I believe (despite my small sample size), that a large amount (huge amount) of the population is actually unfit for human cohabitation. But this isn't an essay that backs up that hypothesis. Rather, it is one of those wherein I muse about the different behaviors of my roommates that I shall call "Alpha" and "Beta."

Both Alpha and Beta are men from the millennial generation. Alpha (the younger one) has literally no observation ability. This was an incredible thing to realize. If a rattlesnake was shaking its tail and wasn't hidden by bushes and was clearly seen in bright light on a trail...I think Alpha would step on it. He doesn't notice anything. If a burner is going on the stove, he doesn't see it. If there's a bee in the room, he has no idea that it is buzzing around his head. If there's a pile of shit in the middle of the floor, he doesn't smell it, and will step in it because he doesn't see it. That's how bad his observation is. It also impacts his ability to budget and save.

For example, Alpha buys these premixed honey butter things that come in a plastic container. My process is to watch him buy one, then watch him put it in the pantry for whatever "sweet thing" that he wants to use it on. When he finally gets around to using it, he puts it on the shelf in the fridge. He doesn't use it again, and then it slowly drifts to the back of the fridge where he forgets about it. I continue to observe it for a few months until it gets frosted over (this sometimes happens with the cold spots in the fridge). By then, Alpha has bought another honey butter that he intends to use on another sweet that he places in the pantry. And then I throw away the old honey butter that he no longer even remembers. Now...you may think that this is "normal behavior." But it happens with clothes too. He had a hoodie that he started leaving on the coat tree by the door. I noticed that month after month it lingered, until a year had passed, and I saw him wearing a new hoodie. So, I quietly discarded the old one that he must have forgotten was his. There's no permanence of memory.

My other roommate, Beta, has extremist conservative views that he gets from watching a lot of Andrew Tate videos. But aside from being an incel (he's not all that bad after you get to know him), he harbors some very strange ideas of what is smart and what is stupid. For example, when I use the term "genius" thinking of musical talent, or art talent, or athletic talent, or creative talent...Alpha doesn't recognize any of these terms. To him, "genius" only applies to someone who can do math. If you can't do complicated math, you aren't a genius. Also (as a caveat) he's very good at math. So, I think he views himself as a genius and just thinks everyone else is stupid (this may be a kind of personal empowerment in the absence of any other kind of evidence that proves that he is not a failure). But at the same time, he's unemployed and is struggling to find a job with his credentials. So he's kind of this "disgruntled man" who thinks he's a "genius" and he comes up with all kinds of reasons as to why he isn't getting hired, including "woke" hiring practices and whatnot. It's all just a conspiracy holding him down. He's also declared that he doesn't believe in the concept of wisdom. In other words, you are either smart or you're not. But in demonstration of this, he has so little wisdom it can fit into a thimble. Some of this manifests in buying a new car right before getting fired and then realizing he has an $800 a month car payment to make and rent to make as well. Not a very "genius" move if you ask me, but I digress.

One of the things I find so fascinating about both Alpha and Beta is that they are not "static" people. And by virtue of this small study group, I think all people share this same trait. When I met them, they just primarily ate one kind of food and did one kind of activity (play Dungeons & Dragons). Their lives were pretty much "work" and "play," in other words they lived binary existences. They moved in with me, I charged them reasonable rent, and here they are staying for now (I do hope that they move on sooner rather than later as my observations from month to month are only so entertaining). However, because I charge them reasonable rent, they are exploding at the seams in attempts to flourish. In America, we call this act the "pursuit of happiness." It's like watching a plant grow in a garden. Given room, it tries to spread. That's what's happening here at my house, and yes it surprises me. I thought they'd be static...fixed in time...people who just did their thing and paid rent. Was I naive? Probably. So it was a good thing to get roommates. I wonder if there are any other naive people out there? If so, it would be better for society if they did what I did and educated themselves.

But no, people are not static, if you give them room to grow. Beta in particular is trying to become a bodybuilder. I never would have seen this coming. Gym membership, ski passes to the mountains, working out, swimming, trying to lose weight to climb Mount Fuji in Japan, and you name it. There's so much protein in my house that it's honestly kind of gross to think about all the protein drinks, shakes, etc. that get mixed in the sink everyday, with protein splatter that ends up all over everything. I've read online before that scientists believe there is way too much protein being consumed by American men. Well...if you take a look at my house...there definitely is, and it's honestly not transforming Beta's body in any way that I can notice. Suddenly...all of the pizza boxes I'd noted in his previous apartment disappeared. Now Beta uses the stove daily, trying to meal prep, eating salmon and rice and oatmeal and doing all of these other things while watching Andrew Tate videos (yuck) but whatever. Sometimes, Beta takes time out of his day to rant about how stupid women are. And then he goes and does the very thing he rants about, not realizing that he just comes across as misogynistic. Self-awareness is not common with many young men I've decided.

Alpha, with access to top-end appliances and soft water and other things, now does his laundry twice a week to stay on top of his hygiene (I don't think this was a thing before he lived with me). So I hear the rumble of the wash on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. Combined with Beta's wash habits, sometimes it feels like the laundry machine never stops working, despite this only being a household of three. He eats at home a lot, and as cheaply as possible in order to save money for little vacations he takes with his non-binary friend to their cabin in Idaho and other places (like a game convention in Arizona). So there's always stacks of tin cans that need washed and recycled from all the cheap canned food he buys, and there's an entire freezer filled with chicken fingers just waiting for the air fryer. It's that plant just trying to grow and take up the extra space that's available in the garden. Nothing...no one...is a static thing. Every single person when you meet them is not actually who they are. They are only that person in that one slice of time, and tomorrow their desires and their goals will change. This is an important concept to master whenever you meet (and decide that you like) a person. They are different tomorrow!

It's actually amazing to me that relationships of any kind can actually happen in this world. With everyone constantly striving to change who they are, then the person that you get to know isn't the person you will end up with at the end of a year if they aren't "hedged" or "boxed in" to prevent growth of any kind. I think (unfortunately) this happens with a lot of people because the economics of rent and food and daily living rise to such a pricey extent that it saps all of their money. Then they just refer to themselves as "surviving." Their world becomes static and small. There is no bodybuilding. There is no traveling or expanding hobbies to things like woodworking. It is these people who don't change. Day in, day out, what they do remains the same because they have no other choices. Maybe this is the reason as to why it is easier to make friends when you are young: you don't have a lot of other choices of things that you can do to improve your life. You are kind of stuck and dependent on your family to live and you just don't get to do anything that your family doesn't allow. So you're like a "root bound" plant. However, the silver lining is that because you are root bound, you don't grow, and your "sameness" makes it easy for others to know you and befriend you. Once you escape the "root bound" condition and turn into a kudzu vine that goes every which way it wants and crushes everything in its vine-like tendrils...then that is a plant that is much harder to get along with and so...fewer friends if any. I mean...who wants to be in a relationship with a kudzu vine? People like stability, sameness, and you just don't get that from young people. Maybe...just maybe...you can get it from people over fifty, because by then, we can assume that they are many years into their kudzu growth and are now approaching a vine that won't grow all that much in the remaining years it has left. That stability seems to be why so many people can find a much more fulfilling "second act" later in their lives.

Anyway, these are just my observations based on living with people for the first time in decades (a choice I made a year and a half ago to answer burning questions and to make some money while I was at it). Remember, my roommate "Beta" doesn't believe that "Wisdom" actually exists. So don't take this essay as "wisdom" if you happen to agree with him. Maybe it's just the observations of a person who likes to "people watch" while trying to ascribe meaning to whatever it is that he sees.

I kind of miss gatekeeping.

With Rings of Power finishing its second season in a spectacular fashion (I really enjoy this beautiful show), I started to think about all the review bombs and the multiple ways in which internet trolls tear down these kinds of programs. Oh how far we have come since the early 90's and late 80's.

We live in a time where the worst people have internet access and dwindling, bordering on non-existent, levels of shame. Back in the day, if some sad sack loser wanted to vent about Spider-Man getting married, that dude had to write or type a letter. Then they had to address and stamp an envelope, and then mail said letter to an editor, and then wait months to see whether anyone read their deranged ramblings (or whether it was even printed). This is how things were done.

Now? Not only can the same type of loser set up multiple alts to review bomb a show they haven't seen 50 times before breakfast, but said loser has successfully lost the ability to understand how incredibly weird and damaged that behavior actually is.

I didn't realize at the time (as I was living through it), but there was a ton of gatekeeping in just about every aspect of life (and maybe that was a good thing). A lot of it was unintentional gate keeping. Things were difficult to get done (and expensive) because we simply didn't have a better way. If you wanted to publish a manuscript, it needed to be typed on paper. Once you did that, you needed to find an agent, because an agent was the only way you were ever going to get a thing published. Once you had an agent, then you could get in front of a publishing house. They wouldn't publish your work if it wasn't "good" and it was up to the agent to figure out if something was good enough to warrant a look at. There are tons of other examples of this kind of gatekeeping.

If you wanted the news, there wasn't 24-hour news. You just had to tune in to channels 3, 6, or 8 (out of a maximum of 12-13 channels) on an old tv, and you just had to consume what was told to you by Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow. Once the news hour was over, that was it. You could get some news out of a printed paper, but that required a delivery person and a subscription. My dad would go to the library once a week to read The Wall Street Journal to get the news from New York and see what was happening in the world of stocks and bonds. The writing in the journal was always fantastic, and they always had pictures of people they were talking about made in curious black and white pixelation. Knowledge came from textbooks and encyclopedias, and not from iPhones. If you didn't have an encyclopedia, you had to hit the sidewalks to go to the library and look up things there and take notes. You might be asking: Mike, why was this better?

Well...it wasn't better in the sense that knowledge was hard to obtain. But forcing people to jump through hoops to get a thing also ended up making it much more difficult for everyone to start hating each other for "reasons." Having a filter that only allowed some things through would also set up those who made it to the other side with reasonable incomes. If you were a writer and actually got published by a big publishing company, you could make a career out of that pretty easy. If you were a person that actually managed to get some music published, you would probably be setup for life doing music as your career. If you studied art in high school and college and somehow got hired to do a book cover, you could actually make a career of being an illustrator and gain some notoriety and fame. In a time when people couldn't just blather whatever madness is going through their minds, things like debate and debate performance actually mattered. If you did poorly in a debate, then you probably wouldn't get elected. Nowadays? I don't think that debates actually mean anything. It's like a parade or a show...it's pure entertainment and that's it. Nobody cares. People have already decided long before a debate who gets their vote. Back in the day...being an expert in something actually mattered. But in our land of "everyone has the same platform and can say whatever they want," the experts get labeled as "well that's your opinion," and then some jackass can say whatever they want to say and "this is my opinion and it carries the same weight as yours because I too can publish and make a video."

Now, I totally realize what I'm saying here, and it actually goes against what I would ideally want. As a person who typically gets the short end of the stick, I love that I can actually publish whatever I want and not have to be gate kept by someone (and prevented from having my expressions read). But because I can do this, everyone can. And maybe this is kind of bad for society. Gone are the "water cooler" type discussions I had with people in the past about books I've read thinking that someone else has read the same book. I very rarely come across anyone that has read the same books I've read because there is no central authority telling you what books are good and forcing people to read those books. People no longer know how to structure a sentence. I see grammatical errors and spelling errors all the time, and no one cares because the gatekeeping is gone. There are no consequences for being a bad speller or using improper punctuation. The consequences used to be that maybe you'd get a terrible grade or maybe you wouldn't get published. Well, there are so many people with degrees these days that its hard for any of them to find a job. And if a publisher doesn't publish a book, who cares? You can just go on Amazon and publish away with ai artwork for a cover. It used to be that you could have a certain kind of respect for "knowing things." These days, you can be a complete ignoramus and just use google and know things the same as someone who spent four years studying a subject.

Before this "rant" gets too long in the tooth, I want to end by saying that none of what I might miss from the days of yore actually matters (as we live in 2024). Access to all information whether it is truth or lies is there for anyone to consume. So it doesn't matter what I think. However, I kind of see modern society as a huge pond now, whereas before it was separate rivers and canals that you had to try and get access to. Because it's a pond, there aren't any preferential areas where the water is clean and pure. If a person on one end of the pond pisses and poops in it (or pollutes it with gasoline), then you eventually get to deal with it on your end. There's no "jumping to another water source," and its actually impossible to keep your side of the pond clean. No matter what, the filth gets in, and whether you like it or not this is the water you drink now. It doesn't feel like this is a better way.

I think people would stop pirating things if they had enough money to legitimately buy them.

I just read a short while ago that Disney+ plans on actually enforcing its prohibition of sharing a password with someone else in the near future. This disclosure then led to a way in which you could still get away with sharing a password, and that was to bring your device over to the original WiFi that houses the account, stream something for a few seconds, and then you should be good to go for another 30 days as the device gets registered with the service. And then people started weighing in about torrenting and pirating, and how people will just go back to doing that so that they can just watch the things they like for free.

This got me thinking about pirating music, movies, television, comic books...and you name it. The first service I remember that allowed people to pirate things easily was Napster. I remember using it for the first time and thinking... "wow, I get all of these things for free?" Eh... it was all stolen, yes. But you didn't feel like you were stealing because you had the anonymity of the internet, so it's not like you walked into Sam Goody or Musicland and just walked out with a CD. But...essentially...it was really kinda like that.

I have a friend who still pirates, but he also struggles to pay his bills, and he doesn't have health insurance from his employer. He's the same age as me. I haven't pirated anything in decades. I basically pay for everything, but here's the thing: I had the money to pay for everything. That simple truth gave me an idea that I want to share. I think that the rise of pirating decades ago should have woken people up to the fact that people weren't making enough money, i.e., that wages were too low. It should have been "the smoking gun." There's lots of talk about this now in 2024. But there wasn't talk about this in the late 90's, and there should have been. All those years ago, people were struggling. That's why they were pirating things by and large. These people wanted better lives, access to things that brought them joy (like music), access to television shows and movies that they couldn't afford to see. I remember reading somewhere that the guy who created Napster did it so that he could have access to music that he didn't have the money to pay for. I don't think you can spell it out any better than that.

In 2024, I see article after article and news report after news report about how the American Dream is dead. The new generation of people are depressed because home ownership isn't realistic and costs are too high. Wages haven't kept up with prices, and on and on and on. The truth of all of this is that it isn't a 2024 phenomenon. For a really long time, many people haven't been making enough money to get by, and I think that the clearest indicator of this is in the rise of pirating videos, songs, books, and other such things. People actually would pay for those things if they could. I don't know why economists never looked at pirating and said, "You know...what we have here is not a theft problem. It's a wage problem. I bet pirating would go way down if people just got paid a living wage." But all you ever heard was "piracy is bad" and "you're stealing from artists" and other such things. What if instead of "piracy is illegal" running ahead of a video you're about to watch you (instead) got a message like "Not paying a living wage to your employees creates crime"? How do you think that would have reframed the discussion around piracy?

I feel like the United States solves things by reacting to them. If there's a fire you pour water on it to put out the fire. If you are overweight then you take a semiglutide or you go on a diet. Our system never looks at the causes of things. Oh there's a fire? Anyone see if there's an electrical problem that needs fixing? Oh we have an obesity problem? Anyone look to see if people actually have access to low calorie nutritious food and access to exercise? Oh there's a piracy problem? Anyone want to look and see if people are not making enough money at their jobs? Oh there's a fascist candidate running for president? Anyone want to look and see if the people who support him might also be authoritarian and fascist? It's like we are stuck in this never ending cycle of "treat the symptom" but don't "treat the disease." I'm not sure why we do this. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. If you have any comments to add, please do so.

I'm skipping Monday, but I'll be back on Wednesday with an IWSG post. See you then.

What is fandom?

What is fandom?

I started pondering this question, because I live with some gamers. They both are fans of a game called Warhammer 40K and are playing the new game Space Marine 2. I'm not interested in playing it, but I do know from interacting with other Warhammer fans (not just my roommate), that many fail to see the satire in a story about genetically bred superhumans enforcing a strict imperial rule...and then dying...for a literal corpse on a throne (the Emperor is essentially dead or it is strongly eluded to that he is a corpse that is falling apart). It seems obvious to me, but satire takes critical thinking ability to suss out and not everyone is capable of doing it. So you end up with large swaths of people who get excited over this grim dark world and believe that fascism is actually the "true way" to live. It's really weird.

The same thing happens in Star Wars and in Star Trek and in Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien fanbase doesn't like anyone even messing with Tolkien's notes, which he was using to create the story that he wanted to tell. But establishing all of those things with the Silmarils and the Palantirs and ancient Numenor and the Maiar and the Istari and etc. were all things that he wrote down in notebooks to help him (as an author) world build. It's completely arguable that the character of Tom Bombadil is just a silly stand-in for the author himself, much like the character of "Dungeon Master" in the old 80's cartoons of Dungeons & Dragons was just a stand-in (a wink and a nod) to the actual story teller that hosts a game. If this is the case, in the author was poking fun at himself, is it really so egregious to say that the character of Galadriel was a kick-ass warrior or that mithril contains within it the magical and undying light of a silmaril?

Here's my point: fandom at its most fundamental level is not about anything real. What it does do is it sucks people into it (the fandom) to such an extent that they end up spending a lot of time and energy pursuing a fantasy that comes at the very real cost of the time, energy, and attention they could be applying to their own lives. Some even neglect to make friends, further their careers, or take care of their own health. These people can also get caught up in fights where one person is a problematic fan because their fanart or fanfiction isn't popular, or their particular take shines a light upon unsavory traits (like racism and sexism). 

There is also (I think) a lot of mental illness in a fandom community, and the people who are part of a fandom could be trying to cope with said mental illness via some form of escapism. In a fandom, even mentally ill people can find a community, constant mental excitement, and the chance to explore something you don't have access to in a vicarious way. So what can happen is you get access to everything else that you can't get anywhere else. However, all of this comes at a cost: you end up with a bunch of maladjusted people collecting together, and in many ways, this isn't good because some illnesses like personality disorders can be somewhat contagious.

A lot of times too, a fandom can result in groupthink, sometimes quite negatively. People can literally be doxxed and have their lives ruined simply because they don't like the same thing as most of the rest of the fandom. Anyway, no matter what I think, fandoms are here to stay for good or for ill. I only recently started really thinking of them in this other light as I've been enjoying Rings of Power on Amazon. As a result, I've looked to understand more than what I already knew (which is considerable as I've read a lot of Tolkien), but the fandom is so utterly toxic. They say, "This is just fanfiction!" as if that were some kind of insult when really...anything not written by J.R.R. Tolkien himself (who has been dead for decades) is "fanart" or "fanfiction." What are they going to do when the entire thing eventually passes into the public domain? Have a complete and utter meltdown?

I guess the only thing I can do responsibly is to manage my own role in fandom, and that is to be as self-aware as possible and to not become some kind of gatekeeper touting the phrase: "This is the only correct way to do this." But as I've gotten older, I've realized that most people do not have open minds even if they say that they do. Those doors got closed a long time ago for whatever reasons, and it would benefit all of us to keep this in mind when becoming a fan of anything.

Are movies obsolete?

I never thought that I'd be saying this, but here we are. Do we actually need movies anymore? I went to the theater three times thus far this year. The first was to see the Dune sequel. The second time was to see Deadpool & Wolverine. And the third movie I saw on the big screen was Alien: Romulus. I used to love going to the theater and seeing movies. However, now it just seems more comfortable to watch them at home. At least there, I can control the subtitles and when I want to go and use the bathroom. I guess I might be showing my age here too. But...here me out.

Let's take a look at my beloved Star Trek. First off, Star Trek TV looks amazing, and it borders on movie quality. If I didn't know that I wasn't watching a movie, I'd assume that an episode was a movie. That's how good it looks. The same goes for Star Wars, Foundation on Apple TV, and Game of Thrones as well as its spinoff, House of the Dragon. All of these shows look ridiculously good, and by having a greater length (cut up into bite-size snippets of one-hour), you end up with a much larger canvas on which to tell your story. By contrast, it almost feels like "movies" with a run-time of two hours have become...obsolete...is it cruel to say that?

Anyway, I'd like to pose that question to you, if you want to answer it in the comments. Do you think movies have become obsolete? What was the last movie you saw in a theater, and was it worth the experience and the expense? What do we lose as a culture if we all agree that the common experience of attending movies in a theater is no longer worth it?

Let's talk about A.I. for the August 2024 Insecure Writer's Support Group post.

Hello everyone. It is time once again to air the insecurities and fears that we all have that comes from writing. But first, a little housekeeping with regard to the Insecure Writer's Support Group. This is a monthly blogfest that was started by best-selling science fiction author Alex Cavanaugh over a decade ago. It is a popular touchstone with writers, and if you are interested in participating in it, you can go HERE to sign up. And now, to answer a few questions that you might have....

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance.  In other words, it’s a safe space for insecure writers of all kinds.

When do you post?: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. On this day, you should post your thoughts on your own blog. Some ideas include 1) talking about your doubts and the fears you have conquered, 2) discussing your struggles and triumphs, and 3) offering a word of encouragement for others who are struggling.

To get the most out of your participation in the IWSG, you should plan on visiting others in the group so that you can connect with your fellow writer. A good rule is to aim for a dozen new people each time, and you should comment on those blogs and return any comments you get on your blog. This group is all about connecting. Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

The X (Twitter) handle that is used by the group is @TheIWSG and the hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the August 7 posting of the IWSG are Feather Stone, Kim Lajevardi, Diedre Knight, C. Lee McKenzie, and Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen!

Every month, the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional!

August 7 question - Do you use AI in your writing and if so how? Do you use it for your posts? Incorporate it into your stories? Use it for research? Audio?

I don't think that I use any a.i. in my writing. However, I'm not so sure anymore as it has infused just about everything that I research online or look at online. But I certainly don't cut and paste from one thing to another. Now, where I have used it is for short snippets that I read out loud in my D&D game that runs on Saturdays. This is not something I consider writing. One such example might be a dream sequence that one of my player's wants for their character. Usually, I'm not too interested in the weird character choices that other people make, so pretending to have interest and just have a.i. write it up so I can read it out loud is a good way to make them happy and to make me happy at the same time. For example, I have one player who is a furry in my game (she has a fursona) and wants to have a romance with another rabbit person. 

That's not my cup of tea. But a.i. doesn't care, so I prompted it to write three paragraphs of a nice clean dream of the two rabbits chasing each other and being all rabbit like. I read it out loud and she really liked it. Cost me nothing, and I moved on with the game. I could give you a dozen or more examples of this kind of thing where I'm not interested at all. But, in 2024 I don't have to be interested. It takes ten seconds through ChatGPT and it sounds "good enough." I think that this is really where a.i. shines: it allows you to generate content that you would find exceptionally boring or uninteresting that another person really wants.

Artists have always been at the whim of their patrons in many ways. I imagine that quite a few artists over the years and centuries have needed to draw and/or paint things that they didn't find interesting at all just to get the money that they needed to be able to work on the projects that they really wanted to see to fruition. This is kinda what I'm talking about here. Artists no longer have to do that. A.I. is there to pick up the slack whenever there's a need for something that no one wants to do. That is its true strength. But yeah, I have never used it for my official writing.

Thanks for visiting my blog. 

Here are three answers that surprised me when I saw them online.

There are a lot of weird answers to situations I've come across lately that took me by surprise. In this post I'm going to share three of them with you.

1) I come across an opinion that "people who are economically challenged (read as poor) may not be the best people for leadership." My take: This sounds ridiculous, and it sounds like it is also discriminatory. But...what answer do you have for this statement?

Their answer: people who have experienced poverty long-term probably have suffered a lot of trauma. Trauma over time rewires the brain. You can have personality disorders and other things as a result of trauma. If the trauma was severe enough, that person may not be the best to select to lead others. My take: Uh...damn...this caught me by surprise, and it actually makes sense. But can it be backed by evidence? I have no idea. But it still shocked me that the answer was so coherent.

2) Another opinion: do you want to know if someone is wealthy? Do they have a clean house? This is a better tell than their Gucci handbag. My take: wait a minute? I would think that conspicuous wealth is the Gucci handbag or the expensive bling. Explain yourself. 

Their answer: it takes a lot of work to keep a house clean. If they aren't doing it themselves, then they probably can afford a cleaner. Cleaners these days (just for one day a week) is about $800 a month. So, if they have that kind of extra-spending cash, it's probably a good sign that you're dealing with someone who has wealth to spare in order to hire help. My take: okay, I wasn't expecting that. But it seems like a good "tell" to see if a person you are dealing with has some extra resources lying around. Do they live in a clean house? Interesting.

3) Here's another opinion I read online: homeless people in Salt Lake City are getting more aggressive and it is making me afraid. Does anyone else notice this and offer an explanation? Here was my take: personality disorders and stress combined with low ability to emotionally regulate can make anyone aggressive (as well as hot summers). I think this is probably normal, but I haven't noticed an increase in aggression. 

Their answer: people are inherently tribal. The thing that keeps people civil is civilization. When civilization breaks down, people form tribes as small as two, and nothing else matters outside that tribe. That's the way people are. What you are seeing in homelessness is the breakdown of a society. Civilization isn't working for those folks, so being civil is also out the window to anyone who is not part of their tribe. My take: damn...once again...this answer surprised me. But yeah...you can see this in war-torn countries where warlords rise up or where gangs take over when a state fails and collapses in on itself. People are tribal.

What do you guys think of these answers? Any of them shock your previously held beliefs?

I'm in my fifties and I've learned that having people in your life is a luxury requiring both money and hard work.

I'm in my fifties now, and I think I want to share some of the things I've learned about people in my home state. I'm zeroing in on it like this because I don't really interact with any people who aren't in my home state, so painting with a broad brush is not something I want to do. Anyway, here are three things that I've learned (you can call it wisdom if you like) regarding my interactions with folks in my locality:

1) People are really difficult to live with. There is so much mental illness now, that I don't think I can even understate this. I don't know if there is more now than there was a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago. But right now in 2024, everyone has got some kind of disorder, and it is used to explain unpleasant behaviors galore. "Oh that person is a complete asshole? It's because they have PTSD due to microaggressions around gender ideals and patriarchy. That's why they broke your coffee pot, didn't tell you, and left it for you to discover on your own."

However, none of this "knowledge of whatever disorder you have" ever helps. The unpleasant behaviors continue until you kick that person out of your life. You just know that the reason you kicked that person out of your life is because they had "this and this disorder." Or...whatever. Calling a toxic waste dump by its name does not make it any easier to live with that specific toxic waste dump, and people (in general) are really difficult to live with if they have any of the many personality disorders or dementias identified by the DSM. Finding a person who doesn't have some kind of damaging personality disorder is like finding a flawless diamond sitting on the ground.

2) Entertaining people for a night in your home is really expensive, and its a ton of work. First off, you need a place that's big enough to entertain a handful of people. Houses work well, but I've come to realize that not everyone owns a house and they are becoming rarer and rarer as the price of housing soars due to people squeezing every last drop out of everything so that they can "have enough money that the many problems created by living in our society no longer apply to them."

But if you are fortunate to have the space (I am one of those people), a lot of the times, the friends I invite over are clumsy (and I assume that this is probably the case with other people who "dare to entertain." These "guests" aren't aware of their flailing limbs when they are excited, or they aren't aware of their environment. These are just a couple of examples.

The result is broken furniture, broken glasses, broken plates or bowls, loud crashes as trays come plummeting to the ground, pictures hung askew because someone's backside was too large, stains and spills, couches that can't put up with the weight of obese people, and other such nonsense. In the end, it costs lots of money, and things need to be replaced or repaired, and its on you to replace them since "you were the one to have people over." Furthermore people don't seem to be aware of how much things cost. Someone admired my dining chairs and asked how much I paid for them. I replied, "800 dollars." They asked, "for the whole set?" I said, "No, $800 a piece." My desk chair over there was $2,500." That's when they kind of blink, stunned, and then maybe treat something with a little more respect.

I will say this, I'm glad I invested in quality furniture because it has gotten hammered over the years, and it is still holding up. A lot of people wouldn't be in this situation, and their furniture would just be a pile of garbage at this point. And my friends that I invite over just play Dungeons & Dragons. It's not like I'm hosting an indoor hockey tournament.

3) I think that the loneliness epidemic in the United States can be attributed a lot to the fact that no one wants to entertain anymore because they can't afford it, they don't have the space, and it's a lot of work to clean up after people. So they just choose to go it alone.

I remember from my youth that people always had my parents over or I went to places that entertained. But those days are gone. They don't exist unless I'm the one putting it together. I'm fortunate to have the space and the money to be able to entertain, and because of that, I have a pretty good social network. But the work is pretty intense. Cleaning up after people consumes probably six to seven hours a week of just constant toil (this on top of my forty hour work week). Washing things, putting away things, organizing things, repairing things, etc. There are times when I think: it would be so much easier just to not ever invite anyone over. But there would be nothing else that fills the vacuum that I fill in my friend's lives. In other words, I think the social aspects of the community I belong to would probably just fall apart.

TL:DR: Having people in your life is expensive (having friends is a luxury?) and takes a ton of work. If you aren't willing to do the work and you don't have the money to clean up and repair everything that gets broken, then you're probably going to be lonely. Anyone else discovering this truth about being an adult in the United States?

I'm taking a blogging break for the rest of May. I shall see you in June for the IWSG post.

I'm taking the rest of May off from blogging. Life has gotten a bit stressful, and I have some roommate issues that keep cropping up (living with people is challenging but I did sign up for this...willingly I might add). So, I'm going to take a bit of a blog break and see you guys in June. Perhaps by then things will have returned to normal, and I can concentrate on plodding along in my life. Right now, it feels like a new hurricane of chaos lands about every week. That's part of the issue of living with someone who has severe ADHD I suppose.

I plan to return to blogging for the Insecure Writer's Support Group in June. See you then.

Jerry Seinfeld says that the movie business is over. Do you agree?

Jerry Seinfeld has a new movie out that I probably won't go and see as I was never a big "Seinfeld" fan. But he did say something in the news this week that caught my eye. Here's the quote:

"They [people who make movies] don't have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea."

When asked to elaborate, Seinfeld then said, "Film doesn't occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we're walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see."

So, I think I understand what Seinfeld was getting at here, but the comparison or use of the "fire hose of water" metaphor has got me a little confused. What do you think he means? Here's my take: a fire hose throws out a ton of water, and what he's saying is that there's too much volume coming out and too many options for people to watch. As a result, everything is just getting sopping wet and there's no rhyme or reason for what gets produced and what doesn't get produced and because of that, no one cares. Does that sound about right?

But even if I don't understand completely what Seinfeld is getting at, I do want to say this: watching shows (for me) has never been so fulfilling. Here's a slice of what I rate as "incredible" that has come out in just the last ten years:

1) Breaking Bad

2) The Mandalorian

3) Game of Thrones

4) The Expanse

5) The new Dune movie and its sequel

6) Foundation on Apple +

7) Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Endgame

I feel like I'm living in the golden age of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. However, is Seinfeld right? is the movie business over? Is he being literal about "movies" as opposed to "television", which I'm lumping together as synonyms of each other? A show is a show, right? And show business is show business? 

A.I. is everywhere now.

Watching a.i. take over everything that I see has been really weird and unsettling. Whenever I spot it "in the wild" as it were, I know that the people who used it are just "phoning it in." Here's some examples.

1) Recently, Wizards of the Coast who owns the Dungeons & Dragons intellectual property had to fire an artist because they had hired the artist to produce illustrations for one of their books called Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. The reason? They had used a.i. to produce more than ten images for the book, and they hadn't disclosed that at all. The images look great by the way. However, there was an uproar once it was "discovered" by a clever spot person who knew what to look for when it comes to a.i. images. What's the fallout going to be over this? Well, in the short-term the company fired that artist and ordered the digital version of the book to be redone with art from another artist. However, this is simply a company choosing to do the right thing. I mean...the a.i. art was good, and it passed in front of a lot of eyes before it was caught. I also understand why the artist chose to do it: money. Imagine getting like ten to fourteen images done in a single night and then just collecting a big paycheck from a company that just wants to do the right thing. But the message is also clear on this one: why do companies even need artists anymore? If they chose to do the wrong thing, then they'd just end up with more money in their pocket.

2) I see books all of the time on Amazon or on Reddit or on Facebook and the art for the covers looks really great minus maybe a few tells: an extra finger that most people might miss or a dragon's tail that is duplicated. Click on the comments and you see people asking why the self-published author used a.i. art for the cover. Well...I'll tell you why. It's because it actually does look professionally done, and if the author had even a smidgeon of talent at photoshop and also had attention to detail, they could have corrected that extra finger and then it would have been indistinguishable from a piece that might have cost $2,000 to have done by a real artist five years ago. What's the fallout for this? How do we know that half the book (or more) wasn't also written by a.i. if the cover was done that way? And why should we be concerned? Because there's no effort in it. The person is just phoning it in. This is the way our society is going: low to no effort and people are phoning things in from their place on the couch and expecting to get paid. Maybe the late Janet Reid (from Query Shark) passed away at the right time as it's obvious that the literary world she so loved has gone into the toilet. Also, I mean no disrespect to Janet Reid by making that comment. She was a titan among literary agents out there and did a lot to help struggling writers who legitimately weren't "phoning it in." I've heard stories where she attended writer's conferences and sat outside the conference hall to hear pitches from every single writer who wanted to pitch something to her before she left.

3) Real Estate Agents who saw their commissions cave-in within the last year (and who have dangerously bloated lifestyles) have turned to consulting as a gig to try and replace some of that lost $40,000 a month they were used to for basically doing nothing. Consulting (if you don't know) is one of those jobs that really appeals to narcissists who want big bucks for low effort stuff, and there's always a sucker willing to hand over their money because they followed/benefited from one of the four rules of getting wealthy in the United States:

1. You inherit the money. If this isn't an option see number 2.
2. You are smart and clever enough to be a really successful criminal. If you are too stupid for this see number 3.
3. You have a good idea and then you take that idea and you outwork everyone else. You don't let any single person outwork you, and you sacrifice everything to keep working on it. If you don't have the spark and the drive for this see number 4.
4. You are pretty enough that people will give you money for your favors. And yes, "favors" is a euphemism.

So what do consultants do? Well, they used to try and offer some wisdom into whatever their specialty is. But I know a few of these former real estate agents who turned to consulting and their websites are all a.i. garbage with things posted on the blogs they threw up there that clearly were written by ChatGPT. How? I can spot the tells. So basically, they are phoning it in too and hoping that ChatGPT is good enough to land the big whales who want to benefit from ChatGPT wisdom. But what could possibly be the fallout for this? As soon as those "whales" with money find out that it's just ChatGPT, they may (in fact) decide to take the advice of ChatGPT instead of paying a consultant fee.

This is just three examples of how a.i. is really saturating everything. But I'll hand you a few more. It's difficult to find actual art anymore. Everything you google is just a.i. art now including things I see a lot on DeviantArt and Artstation. I read more and more articles everyday that seem to be written by a.i. appearing on Facebook. How do I know? There's no depth. There are just so many people using a.i. that I wonder if any of it has any value, because it is so easy to get your hands on a.i. stuff. Adobe Firefly has advertisements that tout the built in a.i. features that allow you to be a "better illustrator." Give me a break. Having a.i. draw the picture for you is just a gussied up paint by numbers. I think the biggest thing that is shattering in my head about this whole a.i. takeover is that the caste system of the United States no longer makes sense to me. It used to be that I'd do this little trick in my head and convince myself that rich people were people who had talent. That little trick is dying because of a.i. and now all I see are people who were just lucky. That's it. Luck. And that's a bad reason to use to explain to a struggling person why they are struggling. "Sorry man, you just drew the short stick, you know what I'm saying? Bye, Felicia. However, you are in my thoughts and prayers." This is basically the new reality of America, and I wonder if anyone is going to do anything about it, or are we all just going to start accepting this new reality as a group and just phone in everything from now on?

So many avenues where people used to be able to make money are going to dry up from all of this. And the irony of it all is that this is probably the worst time for something like that to happen, because everything is just costing more and more and more.

Driving a car in America is becoming a luxury.

I don't like to drive, because it has become more dangerous to drive. The more time you are on the road, the more exposure you have to things like road rage, and the more time you have to get into an accident. One type of accident I'm acutely aware of is turning right on red. Not to minimize pedestrian traffic in smaller towns, I'm going to just say that it's challenging to monitor a stream of cars on your left (while waiting at a stop light) and also be aware of pedestrian traffic on your right.

This is particularly true in areas where there's a high homeless population, and homeless people seem to mill around the intersections of busy roads. Because I'm on the road so much, I usually witness an example of someone almost being run over because a driver is monitoring the oncoming traffic on the left, waiting for the break in flow to gun the engine and turn right, only to immediately slam on the brakes as someone screams that was trying to cross the street. They weren't there a moment before, but they hurried up to the sidewalk to try and cross the street before the signal changed. And meanwhile, the person turning right has been under some pressure to get going from the impatient people behind them, who are now backed up on the street.

This is just one example of a terrible potential cost to operating a car in America, lawsuits not even being counted in this statement with respect to auto/pedestrian accidents. And I say this provided that the accident in question isn't just a flat out hit and run, which is extremely common in my city. I would say anecdotally that hit and runs are probably on the rise (and this is due to personal experience where I've counted a growing number of adults who lack personal accountability of any kind). It feels a lot like people are stressed to the max, that they cannot add one more thing to their plate, and something like an accident is going to cost both time and money. A person who feels like the accident is their fault is going to take option "B" more these days. I think the reason for this is that "catch me if you can" actually does work and is a viable strategy for living successfully. It just sucks for everyone else who can't catch you.

Other costs of operating a car in America are also soaring. I remember not too long ago when the price for a new vehicle was around $25,000. Now, the average price of a new vehicle is $50,000, and there are only three cars that (brand new) cost below $20,000. They are the Kia Rio (a subcompact sedan), the Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback, and the Nissan Versa sedan. These are all Asian cars. Anything that white people make costs about twice that.

And there's also the rising cost of insurance, the cost of gas, the cost of tires, and the cost of repairs. I had to repair a head gasket in one of my vehicles, and it cost $3,500.00 after all was said and done. And then my insurance bill (which is just liability only) inexplicably jumped at the beginning of the year. I have a friend who drives an electric car. For years she was so proud that her solar panels paid for the electricity to charge her vehicle. Recently, I asked her why she's driving her gas guzzling Dodge pickup truck around town. She told me that the batteries in her Leaf were dead. The cost to replace and recycle them? $10,000.00. Considering that she's only owned the vehicle for eight years, that's a big cost. At least I think it's big. Maybe to other people, wiping their ass with $10,000 is completely doable, and so it doesn't mean much. But I don't think that kind of behavior is common. I read just this morning that incomes in America need to rise 55% from where they are now in order to restore affordability in housing. Sure, that's "housing" and not "cars," but it's been my experience that what goes on inside the housing market actually touches everything.

So, what's my point? Maybe it's that this is issue 300 of a complaint about modern society and how it's breaking down. Sarcasm aside though, I think it's all being presented here in this blog post so that I can make a statement about cars that I never thought I'd make: owning and operating a car is becoming a luxury.

But maybe it always was. I've heard that statement before too. But I want to push back on it for just a moment, and say, "Historically, I disagree, but something is changing in America, and I don't like it." I think that owning and operating a car wasn't a luxury. I grew up in a small town and everyone I knew in that small town owned and operated a car, and these people weren't rich. It wasn't a luxury. I learned to drive a car at thirteen, because I needed to know how to do that in order to help out on the family farm (agriculture was a big industry for my small town, and we even had a scheduled week-long break from school to help out with the harvest).

There were even laws back then that said if you were "this young" you could drive a vehicle as long as it wasn't nighttime. Sure, back then we also weren't required to wear seatbelts, and there were no airbags in cars, but everyone had one. I knew dozens of families that took road trips in their cars, and they did this to "save money." And this is because owning a car gave you independence, and it also didn't have the tremendous costs associated with operating a vehicle that we have today. Having said all of this, it is weird to wrap my head around the idea that owning a car now is a sign of wealth. It's a sign that you can afford the various "costs of operation," and it is indeed a luxury, just like owning a mink coat might be considered a luxury or wearing expensive perfume. If you live in a city with hostile parking infrastructure, operating a vehicle says that you have the money to pay parking fees.

I guess I don't understand why this is happening, or why we (the collective "we" here) are allowing it to happen. Cars are still as important today as they were fifty years ago. Anyone that has had to navigate the public transit system can tell you that it can take hours to get to where you are going if you have to make three different transfers to get there. And many rural areas don't even have the option of any kind of public transit. Why have we allowed the costs of operating a vehicle soar to unaffordable levels? Does anyone have an answer to this? I'd sure like to hear what you have to say. And meanwhile, the list of people I know who do not drive, do not know how to drive, and do not own a car of any kind just continues to grow. The reason why? They cannot afford to operate a car.