Time to Take Off the Training Wheels

Thirty days ago, I gave myself an ultimatum: Write more. With this in mind, I gave myself the goal of blogging, Facing, and Twitting every day of January. How did I do?

For me, Twitter is like that person whom you get along with well enough, but every conversation is laden with semi-awkward silences because you have nothing in common. Yeah, I made it one week. I also missed three other days later in the month. Not a stellar effort by any means (especially if you take a look at what I had to say), but far better than I thought I'd do. Twitter, I'll see ya when I see ya.

I technically missed one day on Facebook, but that was because I didn't manage a post till midnight. It was before I went to sleep, however, so I'm counting it.

As for here on The Wheel? 31 days, 31 posts. Sure, two were photo collections, and a few others were thrown together just to keep the streak going, but I made it. For much of the month, I didn't feel my posts quite reached my blog's standard level of quality,¹ but I began to hit my stride this past week. The stories themselves were merely okay, but the spark had returned. I began to feel good about my posts consistently. And that's exactly what I was hoping to get from this whole endeavor.

So, starting tomorrow, I head back into the word mines.² That's right, other than the occasional blog post, I'm back to writing about attempted political assassinations and invisible monkeys. I'm closing in on the end of my first draft, after which I get to undertake a major rewrite. It's going to be a lot of work, but to tell you the truth, I'm kind of looking forward to it.³

Wish me luck.


¹ As measured by creativity and/or number of footnotes.
² They're a real thing. Authors head underground for a spell, and resurface with brand new words (if their genre is sci-fi) or brand new combinations of words, hewn from the earth itself.
³ Well, except the part where I have to sort through 70+ pages of (sometimes contradictory) notes I wrote myself. Stupid brain, couldn't you have come up with all these ideas the first time through? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean you're actually stupid. It's an expression. No, really, I didn't mean it. Where are you going? No! No no no! Come back! Please come back! Damn it.

The Footnight Fortnote

With this post, I have now written twice as many blog posts in 2016 as I did all of last year.¹

¹ That's right, people. For me, 2016 is all about quantity, not quality. And this quantity-over-quality quality is one I've been employing in all aspects of my life. Blog posts, obviously. Grammar, check. (Who employs a quality? Seriously.) Parenting: I've spent a lot of time with my son this year... watching television. Facebook and Twitter? Goes without saying. Saying stuff that goes without saying? Yep, plenty of that, too. Come to think of it, the only thing I've done this year with more quality than quantity is eat ice cream. I simply haven't eaten enough ice cream.

I'm going to fix that right now.

I'm Not Doing This For You

For the second straight night, I'm blogging only because my wife is making me.

Both yesterday and today, I was happy to skip a day, and keep doing what I was doing rather than head upstairs to write. Since I'm ostensibly doing this one-post-a-day thing for my own benefit—to get me back into a rhythm and some semblance of a writing schedule—I figured no one would really care if I missed one.

As usual, I was wrong. This may be a goal I set for myself, but my wife isn't about to let me fail.

That's right, she's a bigger supporter of me than I am.

A post every day in January may not seem like much, but it's more about what it represents. Once we're through to February, my next goal will be a finished novel. And I know she won't let me fail at that, either.

Thank you, Denise. Never stop pushing me. (Except literally. I bruise easy.)

Crossing the Streams

It's late, and I don't know what to write about. I think I'll just start typing and see where it leads.

That's a horrible idea.

Um, what? Who said that?

Me. Your blog. And don't you dare start unleashing your blather on me unedited. I've worked too hard to be a bastion of hope in this uncertain world to have you tear everything asunder in a fit of fancy.

You? You're nothing but a conduit. Besides, blogs don't talk.

Normally, no. Either you're having a psychotic episode, or you're simply projecting a combative personality onto an inanimate object.

That doesn't sound like something I would do.

Right. Like you don't talk with food and furniture all the time.

Yeah, but that's different. They have physical form. You're just a bunch of ones and zeroes assembled into coherent fashion by circuitry. I'd never pretend to talk to something like that.

If you say so, Mr. Blogtalker. But back to my original point: Stream-of-consciousness writing is a horrible plan. It's an idea generator, not something you'd actually let other people read.

It's a blog post. Who cares?

Excuse me?

Sorry, did I offend you? Of course not. Blogs don't have feelings.

That hurts.

Can it. All I'm saying is if the overall quality of a blog is good, no one's going to care about one subpar blog post. And I get to continue my goal of posting every day this month.

Yeah, but the overall quality of your blog isn't good.

You can't mean that. You said you were a bastion of hope.

I made that up. Just like you made me up.

Oh, okay. I guess I understand.

Hello? You still there? Blog?

Damn.

The Resolution Will Not Be Televised

During 2015 I was mostly absent from all forms of social media, which I know disappointed my biggest fans¹. My total output: Seven blog posts, and few tweets or Facebookian interactions of any substance.²

I haven't made a New Year's resolution in ages — I make promises, not resolutions — but this January I decided to go one step further. This year, I'm giving myself an ultimatum:

Write more. Or else.

I have no idea what sort of crazy punishment I've concocted for me if I fail. But knowing how my imagination works, it can't be good. So I will indeed write more this year. Way more.

There will be more posts here and on the Book of Faces. Extra tweetering over at that other place. My goal is at least one per day per site in January, and then semi-regular output from there on.

Why am I doing this? In part to make up for last year, in part to get me back into a rhythm. Because rhythm is what I'll need once I launch myself back into my novel.³ It's time to finish that puppy up.⁴

That's my plan for the year. What's yours?


¹ A 20-inch box fan and a 4-ft tall oscillating number.
² And that's even with my overly generous definition of "substance."
³ Not literally. Ow.
⁴ Note: Not an actual puppy. Though once it's in book form, I do hope many of its pages are dog-eared. (Belated bad pun alert.)

Pop Quiz

1. What is the proper response for someone upon first seeing I have a new blog post?
   
   
   1. "Excellent! Some Nately humor is exactly what I need today. Make me laugh, you crazy monkey."
   2. "I'll click, but there'd better be some pictures and stories of his son." [clicks on link] [scans post] "Great. That's ten seconds of my life I'm never getting back."
   3. "Wait — people still have blogs?! That is so 2011. Get out of the stone age, you troglodyte!"
   4. [keeps scrolling through feed, looking for cat videos]
       
2. This is my first blog post in three months. Why haven't I blogged at all during this time?
   
   
   1. I've been lazy. I mean busy. Or in a coma. Yeah, that's it: a coma.
   2. I haven't had anything interesting to say. Sure, that never stopped me before, and it's not stopping me from writing this post, but... um... I had a point. No matter, it's obvious this is the correct answer.
   3. I've been working on a top secret project for the U.S. government. I can't share the exact nature of my work, but I will say it involves weapons-grade plutonium and ten dozen free-range chickens.
   4. Other: ____________ (insert answer in the comments)
       
3. After this extended hiatus — the longest I've ever taken — why did I choose to return to blogging?
   
   
   1. Blogging is fun! Wheeeeeee!
   2. I figured I should alert people to that fact that I still have a blog, seeing as how I'm going to announce a new haiku contest next week.
   3. Revenge. Revenge on whom, you ask? Oh, you'll find out soon enough. Yes you will. Mwahahahahaha!
   4. I could no longer stand idly by while the world suffered through such a horrifying shortage of footnotes.¹
       

Okay, pencils down. Now tally up your scores and consult the chart below to see how you fared.

0-3: You sicken me.
4-12: You were just guessing, weren't you? Admit it.
13: You win!²
14-18: Ooh, you overshot the mark. Stop trying so hard.
19+: Damn overachiever.


¹ And with this meager offering, the Great Footnote Famine of 2015 officially comes to an end. #NeverForget
² What do you win? This magnificent footnote! (To place it in your trophy case, simply chisel it out of your screen.)

My Bi-Monthly Post to Prove I'm Still Alive

I haven't written anything here in a while.^{[citation needed]} Thus, by now a good number of you have surely come to the conclusion that I'm dead. I assure you I'm not. As proof, I offer you this: I am writing this post.

Okay, fine. Technically I could have written and scheduled this ages ago. I assure you I didn't. As proof, I offer you this: I don't plan ahead; I procrastinate.¹

Anyway, here is some of what's happened over the past few months:

• My wife officially beat cancer a second time.
• My improv group had its debut performance. We rocked.
• My son became fully potty-trained. It rocked.
• I made umpteen repairs to our house with my own two hands.²
• One of my photos was used in a Buzzfeed article. (It's #3.) I only found out after my friend Scott (the pinchee) was asked if it was him or his doppleganger.
• For Halloween I dressed as a Disney lawyer for a Disney-themed party, handing out cease-and-desist orders to everyone else there.
• I read over 100 books.³
• The National Science Foundation asked to use haiku from my 2012 Robot Haiku contest in an upcoming campaign. (I'll post a link once the campaign launches.)
• I went for a jog today.⁴
• I wrote this post.⁵

So there you have it. I'm alive.

Probably.


¹ Note to self: Write this footnote before posting.
² "Umpteen" means "innumerable," or in other words, "unable to be counted," so technically what I said is true. (It turns out I'm much better at doing repairs with my father's own two hands.)
³ Almost every one contained pictures of trucks.
⁴ This is more impressive than it sounds. Not much more, mind you, and it really depends on your interpretation of the word "impressive," but still.
⁵ This is far less impressive than it sounds.

Getting Back to My Roots

Astute readers of this blog will have noticed my writing has fallen off of late. Not only am I blogging less, but my posts have become very photo-centric. And though photographs and stories of my son are fun, I think we can all agree something has been missing.

By something, of course, I mean footnotes.¹

After all, footnotes are the bedrock of what makes this country blog great.² In fact, back when I first invented The Wheel, I named it after a footnote.³

So that's my goal. Cut back on posts written solely to accompany photos. Get back to writing things of substance.⁴ Sprinkle in a liberal amount of footnotes.⁵ Bake for thirty minutes.⁶

Sure, I'll probably give up on this goal⁷ within a couple weeks, and again resort to posting cute things my son says. But the important thing is I pretended it was a goal in the first place. Because it's good to have goals.

It's fun to pretend, too.<sup>8


1</sup> Kind of like this one. (But only kind of.)
² Great. Now that I said bedrock I can't stop thinking about the Flintstones. You know, because their beds were made of rock. (To find out what that would feel like, find your local quarry and take your soft mattress for granite.) Note: This bad pun alert arrives a sentence too late.
³ What, you don't believe me? Come on, not everything I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Especially since it's such a pain to eat salt one grain at a time. Just do what I do: Down a tablespoon of the stuff before you read anything I've written. Go ahead, grab a spoonful and then read my blog's origin story.
⁴ Of course, my idea of substance might differ from yours. I'm talking about sarcasm. Because that totally works in print.
⁵ To balance things out politically, I'll ensure such footnotes are right-leaning.
⁶ No, that's not a reference to smoking pot. It's playing off the "sprinkle" in the previous sentence as if it was part of a recipe. Didn't you know? Cooking humor always trumps drug humor. #hashtag
⁷ Except the part about the footnotes.
⁸ I'm even pretending people will read this post when I didn't include a photo. Wow, I am so naïve.

So You Think You Can Blog

Forgive me, Father,¹ for I have sinned. It has been five weeks since my last post.

I can cite various reasons for this lapse — laziness, extra quality time with The Professor, blogs are soooo 2011 — but the main one is this: I haven't come up with anything worth sharing.

But Nate, you might say (because you're prone to talking out loud to blogs), you still haven't come up with anything worth sharing, yet here you are screaming into the void for all the denizens of the interwebs to hear. To which I say: I'm not screaming. You can tell I'm not because I have yet to use one exclamation point or put any words in all caps.² Also, this is written, so if net denizens are hearing it, they should probably start taking their meds again.

So why, you may ask (because you're still under the delusion you're talking to me), am I blogging now if I have nothing to say? You'd just as well ask why the sky is blue or why babies are cute. Because no matter what your question is, I'm not going to answer it. If I did, it'd mean I actually had something to say, which would mean I'd be contradicting myself. And I may be a lot of things — overburdened web designer, light-hearted rogue, the hero that Gotham needs right now — but I am no hypocrite.

You may be asking yourself (because you've given up on me, but haven't yet shed the habit of talking out loud), what does this mean for my blog? Will all my new posts be this void of substance? Well, if you look at my archives, you can see that, yeah, they will be. That's pretty much how I roll.³

Welcome to the Wheel: All flash, no substance.

Oh, and I lied about the flash.


¹ ...of the Internet, Al Gore.
² Okay, technically the word "I" is in all caps, and I've used it repeatedly, but that's being rather literal, isn't it? Who do you think you are, me? I hope not. If everyone starts thinking they're me, I'll be beside myself. (Belated bad pun alert.)
³ Okay, technically I roll by tucking my knees into my chest and going ass over teakettle, but that's being rather literal, isn't it? (Except for the part about the teakettle. That's metaphor, or some such nonsense.)

I'm Not Here

Sure, it may look like I'm posting inane drivel to my blog, but I'm actually working on my novel right now.

No, really.

Don't believe me? Feast your eyes on these killer lines I just wrote:

And there, in the middle of it all, Lou. Doing not a goddamn thing.

That's some fine prose right there, isn't it? No, of course not. It's utter rubbish.¹ But this is still the first draft, so I'm allowed to churn out line after line of horrendously horrific garbage. I'm the only one reading it, after all.

I won't get away with it for long, however.² I'm inching — or rather, millimetering — toward the novel's stunning conclusion³ as we speak.⁴

That's right, the end is near(...ish). Sometime this year, I'll put the finishing touches on Chapter 40, sit back, give a little smile and say, "Shit. I have a lot of editing to do." But then I'll begin the edits, and the second draft will go faster, because I've always found editing easier. I'll remove all the trash from this draft, or at least polish it up so it's another man's treasure, and then finally start to let people read it.

That's right, you might actually get to read my novel sometime soon(...ish).⁵ Now, aren't you glad I'm not here? Instead of entertaining you for a couple minutes now, I'm working on something that you'll never read could keep you entertained for hours.

That is all. Now just carry on, and pretend like I was never here.

(Because I wasn't.)


¹ Yep, two straight sentence fragments. Coupled with casual profanity. My writing's classy as all fuck.
² Some shaggy fellow has started snooping around with his dog.
³ What's stunning is it may actually have a conclusion.
⁴ Note: We are not actually speaking. These are words on a page. Er, screen. Unless you printed this out. You didn't, did you? If you wasted paper printing out my blog, we are going to have words.
⁵ Assuming you're a person. As I said, I'm only letting people read it. If you're an animal, you'll have to wait for my next book, Thank You Furry Much. If you're a robot, in 2014 I'll be doing Life Sentience.

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Baked Beans, Spam, Spam, Spam, and Spam

Yep, that's pretty much what I've been getting for blog comments lately. Only without the baked beans.

I last posted three weeks ago, though if you've been anywhere near as busy lazy as I have, you may not have noticed my absence. The anonymous spambot peppering my comment section sure hasn't. In the past week, I've deleted 24 spamments, including 8 today.

This spamming is getting out of spamtrol, and I tell you I won't stand for it.¹

When the spam first started spamming in, I replied to the spammers, which was kind of fun. Then I tried spamming the spammers on their own blogs, which was even more fun.²

But as I've stated many times in recent months, I no longer have time to do things such as... things. So instead, I'm stuck despamming random spamlinks to U-haul and some Tulsa Dog Training Academy and information about Dred Scott.

I'd turn off anonymous comments, except I do have a few friends who still make them on occasion, and I'd rather inconvenience me than them. I'm just too spamming nice. And that's how the spamming spammers win.

Wait, did I say that's how they win? Because I meant that's how they incur my wrath. Because I'm not about to take this sitting down.³

Let this be a warning to all you spammers out there in spamville. This is not a spamocracy. You won't find your spamtopia here. The next spammer who spams my spamming site will spamming live to regret it. I will hunt you down. And I will do... something.

Possibly involving baked beans.


¹ That's why I'm sitting.
² As an added bonus, it looks like that same spammer spammed its own blog post from a year ago. When did that happen? Today. It's not a coincidence, people. This is fate.
³ Now I'm on the floor.

I'll Take Blogging for 200, Alex

Wow. Two hundred posts. That's either the start of a really long fence, or a middling output for a blog. And I already have a fence.

Although most bloggers have churned out two or three times as many posts in the same span, for me this is quite the accomplishment. In fact, I'm rather surprised I've reached 200 already. Have I really written that many things worth sharing?¹

I originally started The Wheel as a way to entertain friends and family without having to share my novel with them before it was ready.² Unfortunately, with The Professor watching over me these past five months it's become harder to find much time to write at all. Not only have I been ignoring my novel and expending less effort on my blog, but I've also been visiting other blogs less. I'd feel guilty, but just look at that face. You can't say no to that face. Especially since he doesn't know what "no" means.³

Anyway, thanks in part to the motivation techniques of one Joseph Selby, I'm now back on the wagon. That is to say, I'm headed west with enough bullets to smite every buffalo between here and Oregon, and I should make good time as long as I don't get dysentery. Also, I'm writing fiction again.

In the past week, I've touched up a short story I hope to get published, and started working again on my novel. Though I have less free time than I used to, I hope to manage it more wisely, so I can continue to entertain you here, but also push my novel toward completion. You know, the one with the invisible monkeys. (Don't worry, it's better than it sounds. Even if you already think it sounds awesome.)

Anyway, I should finish up this post so I can do something more novel. Like play peek-a-boo with The Professor.


¹ No, no I haven't. Two of my posts were complete rubbish.
² It's still not ready. But hey, you can't rush genius. Nor, apparently, can you rush mediocre wit with an abundance of adverbs.
³ Usually, no means no. But sometimes, no can mean "Yes, but I'm not about to tell you that," "Maybe later," or "Holy cheese biscuits! I don't believe it!"

Search Me

You may have noticed my time here at The Wheel has been sparse in recent weeks. In my defense, I've been working on a writerly pursuit far more important than my blog.

No, not my novel; don't be silly. Someone else's novel.

I've been beta-reading my friend Jen's manuscript, and I take my job seriously. Plot holes, stilted dialogue, info dumps... I ignore all of these and focus solely on characters' names.¹

Anyway, today we'll be talking about how people get here. No, not how the birds and the bees have crazy monkey sex to make babies. How people get to my blog. Specifically, how people who've never met me, or who didn't find their way here through another blog, found their way here.

I'm talking search terms.

The top two picks, as you might expect, are ninja haiku and horrible puns. There are also variations on my name and my blog name, and the recent addition of zombie apocalypse christmas. All of these make perfect sense. More surprising is the number of people searching for fire puns, wheel puns, doorstep puns, and horrible fire puns.

But in my opinion, the ones that follow are the best of the best. The most amusing, the most bizarre, the most awesome. If I've figured out what page they ended up on, I've included the link.

Top 10 Search Terms That Led Someone Here

1. cat bile too much water
   Judged on its own merits, this isn't even worthy of making the top 10. But if you consider the context, then what it means is I probably saved a cat's life!²
2. Justice League belly-dance
   But really, who hasn't searched for this?
3. how does aeneas charachter develop in book 7 in the aeneid show a change in tone, style and direction from the previous books
   My blog never provided the answer to this question... until now! In Book 7, I believe Aeneas was getting older, so therefore his tone became more curmudgeonly, his style more rife with flexible waistbands and oatmeal stains, and his direction more lost.
4. humbert: i wish i knew how to quit you
   Oh, Humbert, you sexy beast.
5. i am a ninja sometimes i walk on my toes
   Sorry, buddy, wearing tights and walking on your toes doesn't automatically make you a ninja. You're still a ballerina.
6. daugher young lolitas
   Come to The Wheel for all your pornography needs! Get 'em while they're young! Get 'em while they're... your daughter?! WTF!³
7. significant weakness in the lead up to feb 24th when it may back off
   Hold on—when what might back off?! And what weakness? I have no weakness!
8. фильм колесо огня
   If I still had my Uzbekistani cat, she could have provided a translation for this. But alas, it's all Greek to me.⁴
9. ninga ball on fier.com
   What the hell? How come I wasn't invited to the ninga ball?!
10. sometimes...hello
    And, sometimes not.

Goodbye.


¹ "Edward sounds like a wuss. What if you named him Capt. Nathaniel von Doppleganger instead? And hey, Natilda would be a wonderful choice for the heroine."
² Which would make it two saved cats! After hearing my story, a co-worker brought her cat to the vet, and his kidney failure was caught while still in the early stages. He's already been put on a kidney-friendly diet. I still miss Marcelle, but it's wonderful that through her death others will live!
³ Wow, That's Funny!
⁴ Yes, even the letters that are Cyrillic. Which is all of them.

I Wish I Knew How to Quit You

Denise says I spend too much time on the blogs.

Not writing them, clearly — this is only my third post this month — but reading them. And she isn't entirely wrong; by my estimate, I'm currently following 8,157 blogs.¹ Her argument is that all my time spent keeping up with those other blogs is keeping me from working on my novel. She isn't entirely wrong about that, either.

But I am not, as she asserts, addicted.

I'm not. I can quit whenever I want to. Not that I ever would, because everyone knows quitters never win, and winners never quit. Except for that one winner who did quit since he'd already won. Or maybe he just quit while he was ahead. Either way, quitting worked out fine for him, so obviously, I could also—no, that's not right. Let me start over.

I can quit whenever I want to. Not that I would, because quitters never win... unless they're competing in a quitting competition, in which case it would depend on how fast or how impressively they quit, and—crap. That's not it, either.

I can quit whenever I want. Not that I would, because quitting is for losers, and I'm not a loser, despite what that one commenter said on my blog. In fact, I highly doubt his credentials as a "Loser Expert," and if he ever comments again I will totally have a better comeback for him than "Nuh uh, YOU'RE the loser." And I certainly won't avoid the internet for a month and cry myself to sleep each night, like I—

Sorry, I got a little off track there. One last try.

I can quit whenever I want. But I won't quit, because quitting is stupid and because I am a WINNER. Are you a winner? I don't think so. You're a—wait, you are a winner? Can there be two winners? Are you sure? Huh. Guess I'm not a winner after all. No, wait. I AM a winner. I'm at least a second-place winner. And I will stand up tall and show the whole world that... that... um...

Aw, screw it. I give up.


¹ Actually, it's probably closer to 8,152. Yeah, I never learned how to estimate.

The X-Man: Origins

This (and when I say "this," I mean this right here (you know, these words I'm writing right now (or, more accurately, these words I've already written but which you're reading right now (yeah, that's better)))) is my 100th post.

Since I ran a contest for The Wheel's one-year anniversary, this time I thought I'd offer up something more valuable than Amazon gift cards: information.¹

So today, on this auspicious occasion, I will tell you why this blog is named Sometimes, the Wheel is on Fire. I'll give you a hint: It has absolutely nothing to do with Bob Dylan.

Let me start you off with this (anonymous) entry from my most recent contest:

A Conn College student late one night
Of Ixion did inquire
Turns to the footnote and there finds
Sometimes the wheel is on fire

Confused yet? Well, let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

You see that guy up at the top of my blog, the X-Man? That's Ixion. I know some of you are too lazy to look, so here he is again:

Anyway, a while back, two friends were reading about Ixion for a course on Greek mythology. A king of the Lapiths, Ixion murdered his father-in-law and later lusted after Hera, causing Zeus to expel him from Mount Olympus.

Now, this was one of those text books rife with footnotes. And not the kindly, sometimes humorous footnotes you find here. These were academic footnotes, meaning references to source material or long, boring passages providing further background.

As a result, neither of my friends had read a single footnote so far that chapter. Yet both friends — independent of each other, I might add — felt compelled to flip to the back of the book to see what more there was to say about Ixion's punishment.² You see, as retribution for his actions, Ixion is bound to a spinning wheel for all eternity.

The footnote adds these six little words:   ⁸² Sometimes the wheel is on fire.

So there you have it. Two friends stumble upon a bizarre and amusing phrase, and a decade later I commandeer it for my blog. Actually, they were happy to let me have it, especially after they saw the fiery Ixion logo I'd designed. And even more especially once they learned he isn't always engulfed in flames.³

Plus, I love that my blog — which practically runs on footnotes — gets its name from a footnote. I'd write a footnote about it, but I don't want to be too cliché.⁴

One hundred blog posts. Wow.


¹ I never said it would be more valuable to you. It's more valuable to me, though, since I value my money.
² Yes, since the notes are at the back of the book, they're technically endnotes, not footnotes, but no one cares. So shut your face and pay attention.
³ Refresh the page if you don't believe me. One out of five times, the Ixion in the top banner will be mercifully extinguished. The rest of the time, I'm not nearly as merciful.
⁴ Thus, I will instead write about yetis. Although this is the first I've mentioned yetis here, theirs is a cause near and dear to my heart. Much like Muslims, yetis are characterized as violent and hateful, when the vast majority are compassionate, peace-loving individuals. Don't persecute all yetis because of the actions of an abominable few. Please, in this time of need, pledge your support to I SAY, the International Society for the Advancement of Yetis. Tell 'em Nate sent you.

A Tough Act to Follow

As proud as I am of my initial post — particularly that part about how I didn’t die — it begs the question: What do I do for an encore? After all, I did set the bar a bit high.

Short of finding that second gunman on the grassy knoll, or perhaps wrastlin’ a bear to death with one hand tied behind my back, there’s no way I can match the emotional impact of that first entry. And now that I have a new lease on life,¹ I’m not about to go throw myself off another cliff just to produce an exciting follow-up for your reading pleasure. I have no interest in tempting fate a second time, and even less interest in subjecting myself — or any of you — to a horribly contrived sequel.²

So, back to that original question… what do I do for an encore? The answer is deceptively simple:

I lower your expectations.

If you don’t expect me to run with the bulls in Pamplona, you’ll be amused, rather than disappointed, when I prance with the kittens in Verona. Not that I’m going to do this, per se, but I definitely would, if given the opportunity. Wouldn’t you? (People with cat allergies are exempted from answering this question.)

So far, I only have a vague idea of what I’ll be writing about in this blog, but I don’t foresee many more posts about death by moss or hurtling into the abyss. All I know is that no matter what topic I choose to prattle on about, I shall do so with my own twisted sense of humor on full display.³ Hopefully, that’ll be enough to keep you entertained.

And if it isn’t, at least you can take solace in the fact that it’s enough to keep me entertained. And when it comes right down to it, isn’t that really all that matters? <sup>4


1</sup> No money down, $295/mo. for 36 months.
² Almost Died II: Electric Boogaloo
³ Also, footnotes.
⁴ Yes. Yes it is.