I've Been Tagged!

Sarah Dooley tagged me in this post. We'll get to my task in a sec, but first, let's talk a little about Sarah Dooley's blog. Sarah just recently added a following option to her blog and I highly recommend you click on it. Why? Because unlike the frivolous nonsense you get here at Murphblog, Sarah's posts have meaning. Her blog positively drips with significance. It is near to bursting with poignancy. Her words have resonance. And it's well-written. Here's an example. Read it and weep.

So, the meme. For those of you who did not click the earlier link (slackers), it is called...

Sinful Nature

And is thusly described:

"Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this Meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each deadly sin) and hope they can lie."

And now, my lies:

Pride: What is your biggest contribution to the world?

I would say my back hair. My back hair is revolutionary. It is thick, lush, vibrant. I have recently taken to styling it. Yesterday, as the mercury hit 80 degrees, I pulled off my tanktop to fully reveal a perfectly coifed pompadour of back hair. My plan is to take pictures--my back hair in a 1960s bouffant, spiky cornrows like Coolio, bleach blonde and feathered like Farrah--and post these pictures on highly trafficked websites with the purpose of inspiring all men who have been lucky enough to be so endowed to fashion their own new styles and display them proudly at public beaches, local swimming pools, and in the centerfield bleachers of baseball stadiums across this great land.

Envy: What do your coworkers have that you wish was yours?

My coworkers-- teachers, you will recall-- are mostly older ladies. They are all in possession of some fine sweaters. Mrs. Worthington owns a black sweater with a large snowman running down one side and blue snowflakes dotting the other. Mrs. Patrick often dons her Halloween sweater--there's a huge, frightening jack o'lantern on it--on Fridays, no matter the time of year. Similarly, many of the ladies wear thematic socks. And let us not forget their fine selection of tote bags. DARE tote bags, science conference tote bags, "To Teach is To Touch a Life Forever" tote bags. I am drowning in my own envy.

Gluttony: What did you eat last night?

As always, I ate words. I devoured words. Last night, it was James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I didn't read it of course, much too challenging with all the references to Irish society and whatnot, but I did eat the book, page by page. It tasted vaguely of oatmeal. (I sprinkled the pages with cinnamon.) It was not the most satifying meal; that honor still belongs to The Order of Odd-Fish. Delicious words in that one. Ever dined on calumny? Exquistite.

Lust: What really lights your fire?

The unstoppable combination of holiday themed sweaters and tote bags.

Anger: What is the last thing that really pissed you off?

I have a cowlick in my back hair that causes me endless frustration.

Greed: Name something you hoard and keep from others.

My genius. Here's the truth: I have ghost written the following novels, perhaps you have heard of them: Love in the Time of Cholera (I was nine at the time), Atonement: A Novel, Siddhartha, Angela's Ashes, and Of Human Bondage (for which I ask your forgiveness). This blog and the pedestrian "humor" it contains is merely a front, designed to keep my secret from a suprisingly fragile world. My genius, if found out, could destroy nations. It could topple regimes. It could consume itself, thereby creating a black hole of creativity that would suck all original thought from the planet. What would we do without Dilbert?

Sloth: What's the laziest thing you ever did?

While lying on the couch, I once attempted to turn on the television with only the power of my mind. But once I got a headache, I gave up and took a nap... Actually, that may not be a lie.

I now tag the following people, people who I know to be accomplished liars:

Ben Esch
James Kennedy
Anita Laydon-Miller
Monica Murphy
Big Plain V
Kelly Polark
Rod Blagojevich

It's a Dad Thing

I have become my father.

My father is a man who cares about his lawn, has always, so far as I know, cared about his lawn. In my younger and more idealistic years, I would question this not-quite-obsession. Why spend money on lawn care products? Who cares what the neighbors think? If the neighbors are going to look down on you because of the state of the grass in your yard, then doesn't that make them precisely the type of people whose opinions you should not care about? And what about all that wasted time? Why bother edging? Who looks at the edges of a lawn? We once had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Why don't you cut it shorter? (I wanted it to be like a fairway. Or even better, a putting green.)
Dad: It's healthier to keep it longer.
Me: But then you have to cut it more often.
Dad: No you don't.
Me: Yes you do. You cut it like that and two days later it's long and shaggy again. If you cut it shorter then it would take longer to reach the long and shaggy state.
Dad: No. (He then went on to point out the flaws in my reasoning, but I don't remember the specifics of his rebuttal. Maybe he'll explain it again in the comments.)

But now that I'm trying to grow a lawn in my backyard, I am obsessed. It must be something to do with being a dad, like some unspoken rule or rite of passage into fatherhood. A commandment, perhaps, "Thou must care about thy lawn."

You are familiar with the phrase, "Like watching grass grow." It's typically used to describe a boring activity, such as churchgoing or listening to your spouse's recitation of her dreams. I, for one, will never perceive the idiom in the same way. I "watch my grass grow" at least twelve times a day. I walk outside and literally do nothing but look at the lawn. I stare at it. I scan it, back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes I walk around in the grass and look more discriminatingly at it. I peer at it from different angles. I fret over the weather forecast. Before the grass germinated I would crouch and squint and lament the lack of anything green and slender. "When's it gonna grow?" I would ask anyone--my wife, the neighbor, my cat.

I bought a sprinkler. No, I bought two. I'll admit that. I bought a hose even though I already owned two. I bought a new nozzle for the hose because there's a patch next to the house that can't be reached by the sprinkler. I was zealous about watering. I eschewed the use of straw because I read that straw contains things (not the scientific term) that eventually become weeds. There would be no weeds in my new lawn! I watched the sprinkler work its magic. (It's surprisingly mesmerizing, not unlike a bonfire.) The next morning I would again check for signs of life.

At one point, when some of the grass had (finally!) started coming it, we (my lawn and I) were hit with a vicious storm. Near-tornadic winds, hammering bullets of rain, and hail--yes, hail!--abused my infant grass blades and washed away a fair amount of topsoil. Rivers of water carried unsprouted seeds and deposited them in huge piles, leaving bare the patches of sand you see in the picture above. Aghast, I ran out and raked feverishly, trying to spread the seeds around. Will grass grow in sand, I wondered? Yes, yes it would. Grass will grow on the beach if you let it. Golfers replace divots with sand. A panic attack was avoided.

Checking the damage the next day I discovered the presence of an old nemesis: the voles were back. Voles, little satanic creatures that apparently prefer the lushest areas of new lawns, were tunneling under my proudest sections of grass. They were lifting the grass and somehow depositing dirt (well, sand) on top of it. Some of my grass had turned--gasp!--yellow.

I did what all backyard warriors do. I googled. Specifically, I googled, "How to kill voles and make them suffer horrendous deaths, deaths so grisly that word of them will quickly spread to any other vole in the area, or indeed, any vole considering relocating to the area, deaths so shockingly grisly, so obscenely gruesome, so nauseatingly repulsive that they would rather commit mass suicide than face the mere possibility of facing me and my murderous, Google-inspired method."

There were a refreshing number of options. There were traps and sound/vibration sticks. There were repellants made from castor oil. Someone said to use coffee grounds. Another swore by the deliciously torturous effects of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Apparently, the little turds can't resist the stuff, even though it wreaks havoc on their digestive systems and they die. But the best (because it's free) method I found was the use of urine, human urine.

The wife was not thrilled with this plan, and so we came to an agreement. It's the same agreement we have about my drinking out of the milk jug. I could bottle my urine as long as she could pretend that I wasn't. In other words, I had to hide the vole repellant.

I hid it in the cabinet under the bathroom sink because the only time anyone gets in there is when a band-aid is needed or when one of us gets a nagging cough and we have to locate the Nyquil knock-off before bedtime. It seemed like a fine place; it wasn't like I was going to go Howard Hughes and store twenty-three bottles of the stuff or anything. I planned on using it as soon as I had enough "product."

I used twenty-ounce bottles and I now know how much my bladder can hold. I consider this a fringe benefit of the experiment.

I have applied the treatment on three occasions and so far it seems to be working.

And here's where I'm supposed to bring this back to my father's lawn obsession. So let's do this: Tomorrow is Father's Day and we're having the dads over. We'll hang out on the back deck and eat hamburgers and drink beer. And if Dad smells something, I'll explain exactly what it is. I'm pretty sure he'll approve. It's a dad thing.

Running and Revising

The current round of revisions is going about as well as my exercising, which is to say slowly and somewhat painfully. The running trouble is easily explained by three simple facts:

Three Simple Facts

1. I am overweight and out of shape.
2. My shoes are old (and stinky), and I think they're contributing to the soreness in my legs. Of course, it is possible that the weight my legs are forced to lug around has something to do with it.
3. Running is hard.

Explaining the problems I'm having with the revisions is more difficult. Let's start with this: I like revising. In fact, one reason I push myself to get my first draft done is so I can get to the revising. I like dinking around with word choice and sentence structure. I like trying out alternative scenes. I even like taking out, then putting back in, then taking back out commas.

So it's not the revisions themselves that are the problem. And it's not that I mind doing requested revisions in contrast to my own. I like almost all the suggestions in the revision letter and I know they'll make the story better.

What I'm having trouble with is the same thing I'm running into (God, I love puns) with my exercise. Motivation. Like the running, I know I have to start slowly and build momentum. Once I get back into writing shape (as it relates to this story), I know I'll be okay. But the idea of starting all over once again is daunting.

I started this story in November of 2007. I have read it at least forty times. I have twelve different drafts saved on my hard drive. In short, I really used to like this story and now the thing is just play work with all the negative connotations usually associated with that four-letter word.

But like the running, I've been plugging away for the last two weeks (well, minus that golf thing) in the hope that tonight's the night it's going to feel easier. Tonight's the night I'm going to feel like I'm actually making progress. Tonight's the night when running and writing feel a little bit less like work.

And here's where I'm supposed to say something about the journey being more important than the destination, but just between you and me, I think that's a load of crap. If I woke up tomorrow twenty pounds lighter and Secret Agent Guy told me I knocked it out of the park with the latest revisions, I'd take it.

So, That Weight Loss Thing...

Well weren't we the busy bunch while I was away? Imagine how it felt to see that eleven comments were added in my absence. Never mind, don't imagine it. I will tell you. It felt like I'd imagine it would feel if I took a vacation and came home to find that people had been living in my home. Blog squatters is what you are!

So I'm sure you all want to know how my golfing weekend went. (And for those of you who don't, I give you this instead.) I'm going to recap the weekend in the form of a box score because even though Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," he was also a politician and was therefore, almost by definition, a liar himself. And if I learned anything from Mark Furhman's testimony in the O.J. Simpson case, it is that once you are caught in a lie, anything else you say must be met with extreme skepticism, and so I have to assume Mr. Disraeli was lying when he said the above, which would mean that statistics are not lies at all. (My favorite quote about statistics? "Statisticians do it continuously but discretely.")

THE STATS:

3 days
8 men (I use the term loosely here)
81 holes of golf. Each.
7 birdies. Total.
22 golf balls lost (That's just me.)
8 golf balls found
90 sausages (links and patties combined)
16 hamburgers
33 brats
12 baby back ribs
160+ beverage cans (the cans did not contain grape Kool-Aid)

And then there's the number that I'm sure you're dying to know. You will recall that last Sunday I bemoaned my weight and I may have said something about exercising. I also said something about how blogging about my "progress" would help motivate me. And it would have. It really would have. I honestly thought about taking my running shoes with me and jogging in the mornings.

But here's the problem: I have extreme feet. At night, they are like blocks of ice. If I wear socks, they sweat. If I wear socks and shoes, they really sweat. And if I run while wearing socks and shoes? Well, you can imagine the smell. Never mind, don't bother. I will tell you. My stinky socks, shoes, and feet smell like vinegar. And because I've used the shoes on more than one occasion, they've acquired a permanent smell that is rather offensive. I have to keep them outside of the house.

So there was no way I was going to subject my friends to this foul odor. The shoes had to stay home, and with them, any hope of losing weight.

THE WEIGHT LOSS STATS:

After one week, I have gained one pound.

But you know what they say about statistics...lies, damned lies.

Published

First, some good news that starts with no so good news.

The economy of Michigan is in shambles, due in no small part to the troubles in the automotive industry. Revenue to the state has been steadily falling and consequently schools have had to make tough decisions in order to balance their budgets. My school district was no exception. This year, the school board made the decision to close the school at which I work and turn it into a district run day care. The changes take place at the start of next school year.

We did a number of things to commemorate the building, one of which was to put together scrapbooks. Each staff member was asked to type up some memories of their time at the school and the professional scrapbooking people took it from there.

Some of my colleagues liked what I wrote and so they made it poster-sized and displayed it at the Goodbye Open House we held for the community. A local reporter covered the open house, saw the posters, and decided to publish my contribution in the paper. You can read it at the link below. It's on the far right of the screen.

A School is Not a Building
_______________________________________________________

Also, the blog will be on hiatus for the extended weekend. I'm leaving tomorrow for a golf vacation with some friends. Chances that I will lose any weight during this trip are slim. Chances that I will lose a lot of golf balls are not.

Here's a Poem

Q: How do you know when I have nothing to blog about?
A: I go through the vault and find a poem to post.

This one's about allergies, which The Wife is currently struggling with. Of course, The Wife has occasionally been accused of being a wuss. (By me.)

AH-CHOO!

The pollen count’s high

That’s what the news said

I’d better just stay in bed.

My eyes will be itchy

I’ll sneeze the whole day

There’ll be a dull ache in my head.

Yep, I better just stay in bed.

'Cause my nose will start running

And then I’ll start coughing

And I’ll use up a tree's worth of tissue.

So I think I'll stay home and not go to school

so my ah-choos will not be an issue.

Ah-choo!

Monica is Blogging. The World is Rejoicing.

And the Murphblog corporate office has stated in no uncertain terms that you, devoted followers, must read her blog now. Why?

1. Monica is probably my number one follower in terms of both reading and commenting.
2. Her comments are regularly funnier than my posts, which kind of pisses me off, but I'm just too enamored by her wit to stay angry.
3. She won the Order of Odd-Fish Week Contest.
4. She's Canadian.
5. Her last name is Murphy.

Go now and delight in the spectacularness that is well, it's about time you heard my opinion.

Three Quick Items

1. I've been abandoning books left and right lately. It's one of the side-effects of being a writer. I'm a far more critical reader than I used to be, and my to-read list is long and intimidating. I give a book about 50 pages and if I'm not hankering to finish it, I'm done and on to the next one. Marcelo in the Real World will not be abandoned. Awesome book--Printz material, I'm sure.

2. I have received Revision Letter #2 from Secret Asian Man*, so for the next couple of months I'll be revising my middle grade yet again. This time, I'm shooting for a blending of the last two versions. Secret Asian Man helpfully included comments from his two interns in this letter, which means that if no other person ever reads the book, it's at least been read by three people in the publishing industry. So that's kind of cool.

3. I started a weight loss program yesterday. I'm sure many of you are thinking, "What? Murph, you do not need to lose weight. Sure, you're no Alexander Field, but you're not that dude from The Goonies either." Thanks for thinking that, but the truth is I'm about 20 pounds above where I should be and with summer here, it's a little depressing. So starting yesterday, I have committed to walking/jogging/running in the mornings and eating better the rest of the day. I've got a calendar printed out on which I'll be recording my time (it's a 2.5 mile route) and my weight. I'll update occasionally so that the fear of public shame and ridicule might have a beneficial impact on my motivation.

*The previous nickname, you will recall, was Agent Guy, but I never cared for it. This new monicker comes from my penchant for mangling lyrics to almost every song I've ever heard. The song is, of course, Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers and that seems appropriate. He is a man. His identity is a secret (to most of you). He is an agent. He is not, as far as I can tell, Asian.

It's the Last Day of School

And technically, I should not be blogging. But the kids are long gone (half-day for them), I'm all packed up, the paperwork is completed and turned in, but the geniuses that run things are forcing me to stick around for another forty-five minutes. Consider this my rebellion. Granted, it's pretty weak for a rebellion, but right now, it's all I got. (For what it's worth, Bacon's Rebellion is my favorite. Sounds like some sort of porcine uprising. Plus, you can add bacon to anything and it's automatically three times better. At least.)

I thought about writing how the last day of school is a lot like finishing a book. You want to hang out with your book a little longer because you've gotten to know it pretty good, but you also know that there are other books to write and you really should stick that thing in a drawer or send it off to get rejected or find some other way to avoid going back and rereading it because what you need to do is start another one.

But that seemed a little too serious for Murphblog. If I wasn't careful, I could have approached poignant. And poignant is a place I really try to avoid. People like Alice McDermott and John Irving hang out there. I'm more of a Ben Esch kind of guy.

So instead I'm going to tell you a story about the gift I put together for one of my retiring colleagues. We selected months with the idea that our gifts would in some way relate to each month. I signed up for November because I planned on doing a theme gift. The theme was "Movie Night."

I bought a bunch of theater-like candy and some microwave popcorn. Then I went to the video store and picked up three discount movies. The piece de resistance was going to be a gift card to the local theater and it was all going to be placed in one of those gargantuan popcorn buckets because I wanted that touch of authenticity. That's just how I am.

So I go to the cineplex and tell the ticket-taker guy that I'm not going to a movie, I just want an empty popcorn bucket for this gift I'm putting together. "Will they sell me one?" I ask.

"Yeah, sure. Just tell 'em what it's for," he says. I head to the counter, wait in line, and when I get up there, I explain the whole thing.

The kid's like seventeen and he doesn't appear to be listening at all. "Six-fifty," he mumbles.

"No, I don't want any popcorn. I just want the bucket."

"Six-fifty," he says again.

"For the bucket?"

He nods.

Well what was I supposed to do? My options were as follows:

1. I could leave and sacrifice the authenticity of the gift and just wrap it conventionally.

2. I could pay six-fifty for a flipping empty tub.

3. I could throw a fit and talk to a manager and be one of Those People whose own petty problem becomes the problem of every person waiting in line behind him.

4. Or I could say, "Well, you might as well fill it up then," eat the popcorn, and then use the butter-stained tub to hold the gift.

Didn't seem like much of a choice to me. Not only did the butter smears add just the right amount of additional authenticity, butter makes everything at least three times better. If I ever start a rebellion, I'm calling it the Bacon-Butter Rebellion.

And instead of guns, I'll arm myself with awesome.

R.I.P. Murphpool

Close followers of the blog will recall that I have been in the process of getting my pool filled in. I won't bore you with all the reasons why. I would much rather bore you with pictures. I do this for two reasons.

First reason: This blog is the closest thing I have to a journal, and at some point I am sure my daughter will not believe me when I tell her we used to have a pool. I will show her this post. She will then say something like, "Daaad! blah-blah-complaining-blah." But I won't feel bad because if I'd have kept the pool she would have surely had some sort of teenage bash and some kid would have cracked open his or her head (probably his). I'm against lawsuits, especially the ones where I'm the defendant.

Second reason: I took pictures. What else am I going to do with them?

First, a brief look back. This is the pool before I had it filled in: (Click images to enlarge.) Do not let the crystal clear waters fool you; the pool was the devil incarnate. Well, okay, not incarnate, but like, inhydronate. Or something. The point is most of the time the pool did not look like this and on those rare moments that I was able to pull it off, it took me about three hours of work and lots of chemicals. Chemicals cost money. I'm somewhat averse to work. You can see the problem.



This is the pool as it looked this May. It's a little closer to how the pool normally looked. Sure, the liner wasnt' all saggy like this, but the color of the water is spot-on.



Here are some pictures of the pool being destroyed. The demolition was great fun to watch. The whole neighborhood came by. I felt a little guilty sitting on the patio drinking beer while The Guy (that's what Little One called him) did all the work, but really, what else was I going to do? I can't fix a leaky faucet; I sure ain't gonna try to lift heavy stuff. Twelve ounces was plenty.


And here we have no more pool. I skipped the pictures where we filled the hole with all sorts of toxic chemicals, old batteries, and tires. There's probably some lame ordinance against that sort of thing. I don't want to get in trouble.


And here is our lovely new "yard." Someday, it'll have grass. I hope. I'm doing that part myself, so chances are...not so much. Still, maintaining dirt is cheap and easy. Even I can manage it.

Student Poetry

Had a student write the following poem the other day (with some assistance for yours truly. But seriously, the ideas were hers, I just helped her hammer them into some kind of rhythm.)

MY CRAZY BIKE

By Julia B.


I like to ride my bike,
It's fun and joyful too.
You'll be frightened when you see it
It sounds like a kazoo.
The horn is made of baby cheeks,
The tires are make of snakes.
There's tornadoes for the handlebars,
dandelions for the brakes.
There's bats for the two headlights,
A huge frog for the seat.
The frame is made of monkey tails,
There's fish where you rest your feet.
Yes my bike is pretty crazy,
It's a wild and funny ride.
And when you see it coming,
you'll probably want to hide.

I had a problem with the dandelion line, but she insisted that she wanted the reader to stress the "li" syllable. I ended up kind of liking it that way.

WIP Excerpt

(For my facebook friends: WIP= work-in-progress.)

I think that's the first time I've started a post with a parenthetical.

On my Post-It: Start more posts with parentheticals. Also, refer to them as "parentheticals" instead of "parenthetical phrases." Sounds hipper that way.

So I've run out of ideas for the blog. I've interviewed the only two authors I "know." I've written so much about my love of chocolate milk that I am now beginning to sour on the topic. (Go 'head and groan. See if I care.) It's like when I was in middle school. My mother packed my lunch and everyday it was the same. In my brown paper sack would be a salami sandwich in plastic wrap, a bundle of chips, and a cookie. Yes, I grew up in Mayberry.

Every day I would eat the cookie and chips, toss the sandwich in the trash, and bum thirty-five cents from John Phillips so I could buy a soft pretzel from the A la carte. Mom knew nothing of this and continued to pack the sandwiches because, as she said years later when I finally fessed up, "I thought you liked them."

I did, about three thousand salami sandwiches ago. For the record, I haven't had a salami sandwich since sixth grade. I'm pretty sure the same thing will never happen with chocolate milk, but it seems as if writing about the beverage has lost some of its initial appeal.

Where was I? (Rereading...) Oh, and I've nearly exhausted my collection of disgusting poems.

So I guess I'm down to posting parts of my WIP. I'm not a huge fan of doing this for the following reasons:

1. By posting a portion of your WIP you are essentially saying to the world, "This is the best I got." Because who would post something they think is crap? Then, when people read it, (if they're anything like me) they say, "Pssh. That wasn't too good. I can do better than that. That dude's never getting published." And even though I can't hear them say this, I fear the vibe might somehow make it through the wonder that is the Internet.

2. Stephen King says you shouldn't show your first draft to anyone until it's done. And I tend to think Steve knows what he's talking about.

3. It's kind of lame. The last refuge of the idealess blogger, if you will. (And I won't blame you if you won't.)

What I do not fear is someone "stealing" my idea or scene or whatever. I've always found this notion laughable. First, do we really think our ideas or so breathtakingly original that other writers are going to forsake their own WIPs to write our story? Second, do we really believe someone else could even write our story? I've read Because of Winn-Dixie probably six times and even though I know the book by heart, I could never recreate it. Third, ideas are cheap. It's execution that counts.
____________________________________________
So here it is, without any context whatsoever:

Lauren staggered to her feet, and scampered around the room, but there was nowhere to go. The room was circular and made entirely of stone. A single tiny window allowed scant sunlight. There was a door, but it was between Lauren and the man. Escape was impossible, so Lauren balled up her fists and adopted a fighter’s stance.
“I’ll kick you,” she said, her eyes falling to the front of his maroon running shorts.
The man hadn’t been moving very fast, but now he stopped. “I just have to tie you up until Dr. Freemantle gets here. We can’t have you running off now, can we?”
“I won’t run off. I can’t! There’s nowhere to run. Please, don’t tie me up. I’ll just sit right here on the floor. I won’t move. Just don’t tie me up.”
“You promise not to cause trouble?”
“I promise.”
“Well then, you’re going to have to say the Promise Oath.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll say whatever you want me to. Just please don’t tie me up.”
“Okay, the Promise Oath. Repeat what I say: I promise.”
“I promise.”
“I promise.”
“Did I do it wrong?” Lauren asked.
“No, that’s how it goes, you have to say it twice.”
“Why?”
“For verification. You can blame it on a man named Harmonious Crabapple. Back before Load was incorporated, Harmonious took the Promise Oath, only back then you only had to say ‘I promise’ once. Harmonious promised to feed his neighbor’s cat while the neighbor went on holiday, only Harmonious didn’t like the cat on account of it was always killing the mice that lived in Harmonious’s field, so when he took the oath he gummed up his words a little bit and after his neighbor came home to find his cat dead, he confronted Harmonious, but nothing could be done because technically Harmonious hadn’t promised. The garbled words freed him from responsibility. Caused quite a stir. So now you have to say it twice. For verification.”
Lauren had many questions but considering the man still held the rope, she thought it best to simply say, “Oh.”
The man said, “We have to start over. Ready?”
“Yes.”
“I promise.”
“I promise.”
“I promise.”
“I promise.”
“To do what I just promised.”
“To do what I just promised.”
“And if I don’t.”
“And if I don’t.”
“Then I’ll be labeled a Promise Breaker.”
“Then I’ll be labeled a Promise Breaker.”
“That’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“No, I mean, that’s all. That’s the oath.”
“Oh. What’s it mean to be labeled a Promise Breaker?”
“Just what it sounds like.”
“Is there a punishment or something?”
“Of course there is. Wouldn’t be much point in taking the oath if there wasn’t.”
“What’s the punishment for being a Promise Breaker?”
“Guilt, for one.”
“Guilt?”
“That’s right. You’ll have a guilty conscience.”
“That’s it?”
“You ever have a guilty conscience?” the man asked.
“Sure. Everybody does sometimes.”
“Not me.”
“Don’t you feel guilty for kidnapping me?”
“No.”
“Well, you should. If you can’t feel bad about something like that, then you’re a horrible person.”
“It’s nothing personal. I’m just doing my job.”

The Ben Esch Interview

For those of you new to the blog, you should know that at one time I spend a considerable amount of time and intellectual energy (not to mention crazy amounts of wit) promoting a little, earth-shattering book titled Sophomore Undercover by Ben Esch. I did this for mostly selfish reasons, although I'm sure someone else managed to benefit. (Most likely the scores of people who bought the book after reading my review. And how did they benefit, you ask? Laughter, the greatest gift of all. Oh, wait...that's love. But laughter is right up there.)

It's been a while since we've talked Sophomore Undercover and frankly, I miss it. Sure, it's likely nostalgia for a simpler time (back when I had ten followers, for example) and it may have something to do with the increased difficulty of coming up with things to blog about. But really I think it's because Ben and his book fill the soul with such gooey goodness that when it and he are gone you suffer from debilitating withdrawal. Withdrawal is scary. Or so I've heard. So here it is, The Ben Esch Interview. Get your fix. Feed your soul.


What is one lesson you learned while writing your first book?

These things aren’t as hard to write as I thought they’d be. Okay, I know that’s kind of a douche thing to say, but stick with me here for a second: if you sit down and type for an hour a day, you’ll have a book in a few months. So, the book writing bit was a whole lot less difficult than I was expecting.

Now, taking the first draft and massaging it into something that doesn’t suck was actually pretty difficult. Okay, so that makes two things I learned:

Complete this sentence: I write because…

I’m not cut out for real work.

Rank these in order of importance to you as a reader: Plot, Characters, Voice

As a reader, I think that voice is the most important part about a novel. That’s why I love William Goldman so much. That guy has one of the most unique writing voices that I have ever read. So unique in fact, that nobody has really seemed to notice that I rip off his style. Or, maybe I should say homage. I’m pretty sure I can’t get sued if I say that my writing is an homage to William Goldman.

Then characters. Then plot. So long as the voice is solid and the characters are okay, I’m willing to forgive quite a bit if the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. For example, I Am The Messenger by Marcus Zusak. The last bit of plot on that book made me want to punch a wall it pissed me off so much, but I liked the voice and characters so much that I still really loved the book. Plus, he got me feeling some strong emotions, so there’s that too. Really, hats off to Marcus Zusak.

You write humor. What is one thing that you have always and will always find hilarious?

A good kick to the nuts always works for me. Here’s the thing about that, though: you can only have so many. Like, I think if you go over one nut kick per hundred pages, you’re in some pretty serious trouble, because that goes from hilarious to infuriating super quick. I can’t really explain it.

Does rereading your own work over and over again make the funny parts less funny to you and if so, how do you handle that?

Yes, it does make it quite a bit less funny. It’s just one of the things that you have to accept when you write a humor book: you are going to stop laughing at the funny parts. But, so long as you thought it was funny once, chances are that somebody else is going to think it’s funny when they read it.

If you were to start writing your autobiography tomorrow, what would you title it?

Heart of a Lion, Eyes of a Panther: the Adventures of a Handsome Doctor in South America.


In a battle between Grape Kool-Aid and chocolate milk, which wins and why?

Always chocolate milk. Sorry Paul, I know how you feel about this, but I never really got onto the Kool-Aid bandwagon. I’m thinking it’s because my mom never bought it for me, and if you don’t develop a taste for overly sugary crap (no offense) when you’re in the prime years of appreciating overly sugary crap, it’s hard to develop a taste for it when you’re conscious of stuff like calories and cavities and the like.

Besides, chocolate milk is a delightful treat.


Finally, has the fire really been burning since the world’s been turning, or can we actually place blame on some individual, generation, or entire culture?

I’m gonna go ahead and put the blame on the “Greatest Generation.” Maybe it’s just me, but I really think those guys need to get taken down a peg or two.


Pick ‘Em:

90210 or Dawson’s Creek?

I’m going with 90210. I never really watched the Dawson’s Creek for some reason, which is kinda surprising, because I was all about wasting my time on crappy television during the mid nineties.

Team Edward or Team Jacob?

I’m going with Team Jacob. First of all, I wouldn’t have to turn into a vampire, which is pretty awesome. I mean, the whole immortality thing might be kinda nice, but vampires aren’t able to sleep or eat real food. Seeing as sleeping and eating are two of my favorite things, we’re bumping into a logical problem here.

Back to the Future or Indiana Jones?

Definitely Back to the Future. They actually filmed all the old west scenes for Back to the Future 3 in my hometown, so that movie’s always going to have a soft spot in my heart.

Plus, did you see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Sweet mercy that was a turd.


Motley Crue or GNR? (in their respective heydays)

I never really listened to too much Motley Crue, so I’m gonna go with GNR if only because I like to sing like Axl Rose in my car.

Rappers: East Coast or West Coast?

West Coast. Definitely. I’m pretty happy that I got to live during the whole East Coast, West Coast beef. Those were an interesting few years.

Mario Kart or Simpsons Road Rage?

I only played Simpsons Road Rage once, and it was pretty awesome, but Mario Kart probably accounted for a good 2% of my existence during high school, so I’m gonna go with that.

Go for two or kick the extra point?

When I’m playing Madden, it’s always go for two.

Cha-Cha Slide or Macarena?

I still do the Macarena, so I’m gonna go with that. Though I really wish that somebody would teach me the Cha Cha Slide so I could diversify my moves a bit. (Editor's note: You're welcome, Ben.)

Best Jedi Perk: Mind-trick, telekinesis, or light saber?

I think the light saber, though it’s a tough decision. The mind-trick would be awesome, and it would be sweet to move stuff with thought bullets, but those light sabers are unbelievably badass.

The Limits of God's Poo

Note: I realize that the title of this post is probably offensive. In fact, "God's Poo" are probably two words that should never be seen paling around. I can only assure you that all will be explained (if you have the patience to read everything that follows) and that I trust even the most devoutly religious among you will not take offense. Well, not much offense anyway.
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A while back you might recall that the Wife and I purchased tickets to see Elton John and Billy Joel together in concert. I lurked online waiting for the exact second the tickets went on sale and snagged floor seats, twenty-two rows back. They were not cheap.

We spent the last two months looking forward to the date, which was last night. We left the house three and a half hours before the show was to start because we 1. wanted to stop and eat a nice dinner on the way and 2. despise those people who show up late for pretty much anything. My Garmin nuvi GPS device (henceforth dubbed "utter piece of rotten turd fungus") said the trip would take us ninety minutes.

The first forty-five minutes of our date went extremely well. No construction, (which is a miracle in Michigan and I mean this quite literally) no car accidents, no wait at the restaurant (Outback, if you must know), and we were back on the road still right on schedule.

And then everything went to hell.

It started with our first taste of construction which closed the ramp I intended to use. No biggie, I took the next exit. At this point there was one of those signs that said how many minutes to the next interstate. It said something like 18 so I figured I'd follow the utter piece of rotten turd fungus's advice and wind my way through Detroit suburbia instead. After all, the satellites had a better perspective, right? And it had to be better than dealing with construction.

Here's the thing about the utter piece of rotten turd fungus. It apparently does not factor in things like stop lights, traffic, speed limits, or pretty much any other variable having to do with travel time. Long story short, we spent thirty minutes wiggling our way through swanky neighborhoods and sitting at red lights. And when it was all said and done, we ended up back on the interstate that had been 18 minutes away.

But we were okay. The utter piece of rotten turd fungus said we'd get there with thirty minutes to spare. No troubles. Until we hit the largest traffic jam in recorded history. (I'm assuming someone records these things.) Every single car in the state of Michigan was on I-75. The Wife and I realized our error (or rather, the utter piece of rotten turd fungus's error) immediately. See, in Michigan, we have this thing called "going up north." Basically, everyone but me owns property in the northern part of the state and whenever there's a holiday that creates an extended weekend, these people all hop in their Ford F950s and celebrate by clogging the interstates.

We were ten miles from the venue and I could have walked faster than the Murphmobile was moving. The Wife and I watched, sick to our stomachs, as minute after minute rolled by. The estimated arrival time, which was at one time 6:56 slowly became 7:15, then 7:16, then 7:17, all the way to 8:00, a half-hour after the concert was to start. Warily (and irately) we inched along.

Anyway, we finally got to the parking lot a half-hour late only to find that it was unquestionably full. No spaces anywhere. (Well, I take that back. There were lots of spaces for "VIPs." The inventor of my utter piece of rotten turd fungus was likely one of them.) By this point I was done swearing. When God decides it's your turn to get pooped on there's really no point in doing anything other than closing your mouth. And maybe crying. I let The Wife out of the car because there was no point in both of us missing the concert, and I continued my search for the elusive parking space. I finally resorted to driving over a curb and parking on a grassy knoll.

I ran to the arena and found my way to the floor seating. Of course, the concert was well underway and I couldn't see a damn thing. The rows were labeled with chalk scrawled on the concrete floor and I caught a glimpse of a number and so proceeded to count up to 22. Alas, the rows ended at 20. Me=confused. I found an usher and she was about as much help as the utter piece of rotten turd fungus. "Go up two rows," she said. Or something. It was loud in there.

I looked for the Wife. I did not see her.

"You need to go up there!" usher lady screeched. I started walking, but apparently I wasn't moving fast enough. "No! Up there!" She pointed.

"Look," I said. "You keep saying that but I don't know where to go!" Finally, she walked me to my seat and I actually felt grateful that the lady had done the very thing she was paid to do.

So I get to my row and I see her! I see The Wife! I just need to squeeze past a few people and my harrowing adventure will finally be over. The first person is in a wheelchair, but I can get past her. I turn sideways and start to slide down the row when I step on something that feels entirely too soft to be somebody's foot. I look down and there's a flipping dog lying on the floor. The lady in the wheelchair is blind and I just stepped on her seeing-eye dog. There's another dude there who's job must be to watch over the dog, but he's like seven foot tall and his knees actually touch the seat in front of him. And now that I've stepped on the dog, (who I must say was very understanding about the whole thing. Given how the night had gone it's a wonder the thing didn't take a bite out of my ankle.) the dude is not moving. He's not even looking at me. There's no way I'm getting down that aisle. So I find a couple of empty seats two rows behind The Wife.

The way this story deserves to end is I get back to my car after the concert and find it has slipped down the embankment and has been mercilessly battered by furious drivers.

Or as I'm climbing over the chairs in front of me to finally get to The Wife, I trip and land in the lap of a Hell's Angel.

How it really ends is I did climb over those seats and I did sit next to The Wife and I did really enjoy the concert. It was awesome. What I saw of it anyway. And when I got back to the car, there it sat safe and sound.

And so the moral of the story is this: Even God eventually runs out of poo. (And Chevy Impalas have very good parking brakes.)

Wedgies

For those of you who just can't get enough James Kennedy, he did an interview with Betsy Bird (Fuse #8) of the School Library Journal. You can read it here.
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Bittersweet moment coming on Saturday: My pool is being filled in.

Bitter: I like swimming. I also like dropping the words "my pool" into conversation.

Sweet: The idea of having a pool is far cooler than actually having one. I've spent much more time tending to its many needs than I have swimming in it. Also, we'll now have a backyard for Little One to run around in. Also also, no more money will be spent on the pool after Saturday.
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So the other day Little One was picking at her rear-end and said something like "My underwear is stuck in my bum." I'm all about teaching her the proper terminology for such things so I said, "You've got a wedgie." She smiled and said, "I've got a wedgie?" Then she said it about six more times.

Fast forward. We're at a restaurant tonight when she starts squirming in her seat and announces, "I've got a wedgie!"

The Wife blames me. But really, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. We all get 'em. (Unless someone knows some secret that they haven't shared with me, and I'm not talking about going commando. I work in a school. There are some risks you just don't take.) In fact, I think it would be better if everyone just announced their wedgie and then picked it out instead of squirming around or trying to furtively remove it. We all know what's going on anyway.

I have a wedgie. See? Not so hard.

Ah, that's better.

The Ethical Dilemmas of PETA

I'm thinking of joining PETA, but I need some things cleared up first.

I get that, as a future PETA member, I'll have to be righteously indignant about all manner of animal mistreatment. I may be inspired to protest McDonald's poor treatment of chickens (you know, the killing thing). I might be compelled to write a sonnet about the regrettable action taken against pigs by the Egyptians. I could well be recruited to dump a can of paint on some fur-wearing celebrity. (Randy Jackson, if I had my druthers and he wore mink). It would not be implausible to find me raising a ruckus over the disrespectful portrayal of chimps in television commercials.

I fully understand that I will be expected to protect not only the lives of animals, but also their reputations in the marketplace.

But I'm having some problems with some of the details. See, I have ants in my kitchen on occasion. This is something I am sure The Wife will be mortified to read, but the truth is we get them this time every year and it's not because we live in a pig sty. (Although we do have a two-year-old who tries her damndest.) My wife slaughters these creatures with severe prejudice. It's like a Tarantino movie. She uses solvents, the Dirt Devil, and her own cunning mind to dispose of these unsightly insects. PETA would not approve.

But what would they have us do? Are we to shepherd these fine creatures out the back door? Do PETA people just live and let live? If I visited the kitchen of a card-carrying PETA member, would I be beset by legions of insects scuttling down kitchen table legs, scurrying over countertops, and diving into the box of Cheerios? If I were to join PETA, what would be my obligation to these ants?

And, sad to admit it, but ants are not the only creatures living rent-free in my house. I am sure a few spiders also claim residence. PETA does not want to talk about spiders. No other animal poses such a sticky ethical dilemma to those of us dedicated to protect the lives (and reputations) of all God's living creatures. (And while I'm at it, there is no gray area here. Either you think ALL animals have been endowed by their creator with the unalienable right to live or you don't. You can't go saving the cute ones and forsaking the uglies.)

For in the spider we have a moral conundrum. Spiders ensnare and then devour other animals. So what is the proper course of action for a homeowner who finds himself with spiders? If I remove the spider, it will surely build an outdoor web and catch and kill flies. I'm not sure my conscience could stand that. Poor, crap-eating flies. If I leave the spider in the house, it will also kill flies and it would not be unreasonable to lay the blame squarely at my feet. If a President pardons a murderer who murders again, does he not bear some responsibility? I certainly can't kill the spider myself. That would seem to leave only one option: quarantine. But if I sequester the spider so he cannot kill other insects, the spider itself will eventually die from lack of sustenance.

Oh, PETA, how do I solve the dilemma of the spider?

And don't even get me started on rats in the attic.

I may have to rethink this PETA thing.

And This Was Fun?

We had an ice cream party at school today. My class won it for something or other way back in the dark days of winter and I kept putting it off by telling my students that we'd wait until it was warmer. So now, with only three weeks left in the school year, I figured it was about time I made good on my promise. Afterward, we had about fifteen minutes left in the day so we played 7-Up. While I watched the kids tiptoeing around the room, I recalled my own experience with this and other childhood games.

I'm sure it says something about my psyche that I lived in fear of most of these games. I was scrupulously honest as a child and buried my face so deep in my arms that I nearly suffocated myself. I didn't want anyone to think of me as a cheat. With my eight-year-old heart pounding away I imagined my thumb being crushed by one of my brutish classmates. I always kept my thumb slightly bent and buried it in my fist the instant it was touched. This fear was so paralyzing that I'm quite sure I was the only person who actually hoped I wouldn't get picked.

And was there anything more mortifying than Duck-Duck-Goose? Like some kind of cultish chant. "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck"-- and with every "duck," a nice slap to the top of your head--"GOOSE!" I hated being the goose. Perhaps it was because I was slow.

But the king of horrific childhood games has got to be musical chairs. First, there was the terrifying music. In my day, the teachers always spun the vinyl on one of those boxy record players and it was never the kind of music you'd hear in the car on the way to school. No Men At Work, or Hall and Oates, or Dexy's Midnight Runners for musical chairs. At school you had to listen to creepy "children's music" by scary people like Raffi. So with this seriously spooky music playing you all pretended to walk around in a circle, but you weren't really walking. You were doing that shuffle-lean and pausing in front of each chair for just a second because at any moment the psychotic teacher was going to lift the needle and you were going to have to try to wedge your fanny onto a seat before they were all gone and you were left standing there like the loser you already suspected you were. And just in case you didn't realize that you were a loser, the teacher would walk over and slide a chair out of the circle, taunting you with the very object you failed to acquire. "Here," would be her silent message, "you can sit down now, loser."

Ah well, off to sit in a dunk tank. It's our annual end-of-the-year carnival tonight. Should be fun.

The Order of Odd-Fish Week: CONTEST RESULTS

It is the moment many of you have been waiting for. Tonight, Murphblog crowns the lucky winner of the The Order of Odd-Fish Contest. After hours of rereading the entries, deliberating, passionately arguing, and yes, a fair amount of dithering, James and I finally agreed on a winner. He graciously offered to defend our decision, and so has written the following. It should be said that I wholeheartedly agree with everything that follows (even the bit about Lambada), in spite of what I felt were below-the-belt criticisms of my mother during the judging process. Such is the withering force of his personality and the undeniable wisdom of his infallible logic. And now, from the fingertips of Mr. James Kennedy straight to your eager eyes:
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First of all: a very sincere—and startled—thanks for everyone’s hilarious contributions to the “Create Your Own Odd-Fish Specialty” contest!

I was bowled over not only by the number of entries, but the consistent excellence. It was very difficult to choose between them. But chose I did! My process of elimination follows.

Off the bat, we got three entries that were quite gross. Now, the book reviewer Lynne Farrell Stover, in VOYA, memorably trashed my novel The Order of Odd-Fish as a mixture of “ridiculousness and depravity” in which characters are “obsessed with bodily functions.” This is an interesting accusation from a woman who once alphabetized her own phlegm, but Lynne Farrell Stover is more or less correct: I am not overly averse to gross humor.

And the disgusting entries of Dame Ruby (studying children who eat their own “rhinoliths”—a euphemism new to me), Dame Tina (studying children created by their father’s earwax) and Anonymous Dawn (the study of what is delicately referred to as “toots”) certainly fall in the tradition of Odd-Fish’s comfort with digestions, innards, brains, and general ickiness. But unfortunately for them, I have turned over a new leaf.

Lynne Farrell Stover and I have been in frequent contact ever since I ribbed her in this blog post a couple weeks ago, and as often happens between a red-blooded man and a red-blooded woman, what was once disdain has blossomed into love, and long story short, we moved in together last week. She says she's going to civilize me! I hotly retort that I'm like the wind, I'm the last American cowboy, I'm a flaming maverick centaur in a zero-gravity bordello—but am I really?

How can I resist Lynne Farrell Stover? When she purses those lips, when she flounces about so enchantingly, when she gives me that come-hither look? Why, maybe she'll "civilize" me after all. Sorry, booger-jokes, earwax-jokes, and fart-jokes—you should've got me last year.

Another worthy entry came from Dame Anita, who proposed to walk the highways of America, studying discarded hubcaps. But surely Dame Anita must know that her proposed project was anticipated, and indeed rendered unnecessary, by the pioneering efforts of Sir Cornelius, over six hundred years ago—before hubcaps even existed? Before America was discovered—before a single hubcap was fabricated—Sir Cornelius had already deduced the location and dimensions of every discarded hubcap in America, using pure unaided reason. For Dame Anita to wander all over the country, empirically gathering data that Sir Cornelius had already divined, six hundred years before the fact, without leaving his armchair, seems to me pointless in the wrong way.

Dame Kelly proposed to study “outdated dance moves with a subspecialty in headbanging.” This is a brilliant idea, and indeed was a strong contender for first prize—if it wasn’t for a single fatal sentence that threw serious doubts of judgment onto Dame Kelly’s project, her aesthetics, and indeed, her alleged soul. See if you can find the flaw:

“I will rent old movies such as Saturday Night Fever, Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, and even the B movie Lambada.”

Lambada as a “B movie”? Unforgivable.

Sir Big Plain V proposed to specialize in food with alcohol in them. This seemed to me to be a promising topic: I was looking forward to recipes for proponol pies, for butanol beefsteaks, for formaldehyde frittatas, for isopropyl ice cream. No such luck: Sir Big rambled on endlessly about “Guinness ravioli, Guinness Jell-o, Guinness enchilada soup,” etc.

Memo to Sir Big: most of Sir Alec Guinness has already been drunk, long ago—by myself and some college friends, as it happens, in a youthful prank—rendering your project moot. (Interestingly, the distinguished thespian provided only a mild buzz.)

Sir Rylander promised to study “talking mustaches.” This is a project near and dear to my heart, as I published a short story about a disembodied beard in the Chicago Reader in 2008. Sir Rylander trots out several possible talking mustaches for study—those of his uncle Dieter, of John Waters, of Alex Trebek, and Tom Selleck—but that is precisely the problem.

What discussion of “talking mustaches” can presume to ignore—on a Michigan-based blog, no less—pitcher Rollie Fingers’ legendary trash-talking mustache, which caused such fury to Alan Trammell in a 1982 Tigers-Brewers game that Trammell refused to look at Rollie Fingers’ mustache again—and from that game onward, the livid Trammell kept his eyes shut whenever batting against Fingers? The notorious denouement, when Trammell lopped off Brewers catcher Ned Yost’s head with a blind, wild swing, we must pass over in silence; and accordingly I must pass over Sir Rylander’s entry as good in theory, but does not live up to its potential. (Tasty “Ned Yost heads”—a kind of fried pastry filled with marmalade and steak frites—can still be purchased on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, though many vendors have sadly forgotten the treat’s origins. “Get yer Yosts! Get yer pipin’-hot Yosts!” is a hawker’s cry that will always take me back to childhood memories of afternoon ballgames with my social worker.)

Dame Betty nearly walked away with the prize for her outstanding proposal of researching different kinds of nose-blowing techniques. Her quest to discover more about apocryphal nose-blowing methods tickled me, especially the legendary one which she claims “requires a third nostril to perform”—a line worthy of Douglas Adams. However, Dame Betty goes fatally awry when she claims that a “Ms. Snoseful” of “Sneezeville, South Dakota” blew her nose and found an image of the Holy Mother in her handkerchief.

Dame Betty: I have Google Maps. There is no “Sneezeville, South Dakota.”

There is, however, a “Sneedville, Tennessee” and a “Snellville, Georgia.” And you know what kind of “miracles” they have in those small towns, Dame Betty, you sneering cosmopolitan? How about the daily “miracles” of civic pride, hard work, and clean living? But you wouldn’t understand those, Dame Betty, would you, with your endless cocktail parties, your predatory sensuality, your devil-may-care hedonism—well guess what, Dame Betty—the devil does care, and he’s coming after you and your thoughtless blasphemy. In your whimsies you imagine the Holy Mother in a handkerchief? In my reality I stand before this sign, and say to you:






So much for Dame Betty. On to Lady Liana, whose entry was another near-winner. Her proposed specialty, of “improbable and illogical animals,” was the most purely Oddfishian of the bunch. (Possibly because the category already existed. Dame Delia in The Order of Odd-Fish studies Absurd Animals.) However, Lady Liana puts her own spin on the topic, by inventing a system of classification that can decide whether an animal may logically exist or not. Her goal is to prove, using her system, that most animals in fact don’t actually exist and that we don’t need to worry about them. This would be laudable were it not for this inconvenient fact: Lady Liana is herself a only very clever alpaca. For her project to succeed would, paradoxically, negate her own existence! I cannot allow this to happen. The world would be a poorer place without Lady Liana’s heartwarming alpaca antics. Permission to pursue this specialty is hereby denied—for Lady Liana’s own good.

Go! Run now, and graze in the pampas, my furry alpaca friend! I, as a responsible gaucho, will keep you safe from your alpaca logical paradoxes.

Blogger Tracy Edward Wymer proposed to uncover the truth about lightning bugs’ mating habits and displays of affection. Tracy, I trust you will not be offended if I am rather terse with you. I have struggled for years to overcome my addiction to insect pornography. Please, please, do not mock me.

Sir Jambuku proposed to study the words missing from the very proposal he was submitting. I appreciated the clever, self-referential aspect of this entry! Jokes about recursion are as funny as this joke.

Which leaves us with our winner: Dame Monica, who will formulate a thesis on the things that "should have been." Her entry is worth quoting in full:

"I, Monica, the Muse of afterthoughts, will formulate a thesis on the things that "should have been". I will research statements made by historical and nonhistorical persons about things that were expected to go differently, but didn't. I will then determine alternate timelines for every possible outcome, and depict those timelines in a mural that will cover one side of one of the pyramids of Giza. I will then use that mural to formulate an algorithm for world leaders to use, to make decisions. The algorithm will support decisions made about warmongering, disease control, and inventions of new technology. With this algorithm, decision makers will be able to examine ramifications of decisions made, before they are decided, instead of waiting until afterwards. This algorithm will eventually be mandated for use in all areas of society."

Monica must have known I have that very pyramid in my backyard! I found it, half-sunk in the weeds and mud, when Lynne Farrell Stover and I moved into this run-down shack we now call home. When Lynne Farrell Stover and I first left our respective families and atrociously eloped, setting up our infamous menage in the face of public scandal and furious denunciations in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, it had seemed like very heaven. Why, it was Lynne Farrell Stover and me against the world!

But time is cruel to passion. Now I spend more and more time staring at this inscrutable pyramid of what might-have-been in my backyard, while Lynne Farrell Stover, a Salem Light drooping from her too-red lips, leans out the back door, screeching at me as she woozily swings around her glass of rum-and-Vernors.

"Why d'yuh spend all day starin' at that damn pyramid, haw? Whuddabout me?" she slurs, stumbling down the steps toward me. I avert my eyes. What have I done with my life? I bury my head in the timelines and algorithms of Monica's prophetic pyramid. My tears stain its theoretically limitless possibilities, mathematically worked out to the millionth decimal . . . and yet now, I am that decimal, a forgotten dot lost in the jostling fates of countless others, my unique, beautiful destiny thrown away for a couple weeks of passion with Lynne Farrell Stover—and all because I wanted to be "civilized"!

Oh, Monica, if you had only shown me this pyramid earlier! Oh, merciless fate, to grind my nose into this obelisk of infinite possibilities, at the very moment my actual life narrows to the intolerable, eternal dot of Lynne Farrell Stover!

For teaching me a crucial truth about myself, and life—and for making me realize why I must leave Lynne Farrell Stover now, and return in penitent humility to my beautiful wife and darling child—I award Monica top honors in the Odd-Fish specialty contest. Thank you, Monica!

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Monica, to claim your prize email Mr. James Kennedy at kennedyjames@gmail.com. Send along your address and the first five pages of a manuscript you'd like critiqued. Congratulations!

(Note to James: Although we share a last name, Monica and I are in no way related. Just wanted to preempt any suspicions of impropriety.)

Thanks again to all who participated. Let's do it again some time.

Writerly Advice

There are many places on the Webosphere that offer advice for writers on overcoming a myriad of writing-related problems. Writer's block got you down? Try talking to a monkey. Does your prose suck? Avoid using the word "thing." Do your essays lack organization? Well then be careful you don't put socks in your underwear drawer. Maybe you just can't think of any good ideas for your next story? Don't worry, some loser has thought of some for you and he's willing to let you steal them.

With all this great advice out there, I thought I might provide some of my own regarding a little discussed problem: cold fingers.

I just came in from outside. It was a nice enough night and I thought a change of scenery might do me some good. I sat at the junky Wal-mart patio set that we have on our equally junky "deck" and turned on the laptop (also junky). It was very quiet and the ideas were flowing like grape Kool-Aid, which is to say, copiously and without impediment, as grape Kool-Aid is wont to do. I was really cooking. Then one of the neighbor's dogs must have run across something rather disagreeable because she started going bonkers with the yipping and whatnot. Not to be outdone, another neighbor's dog decided to get his two cents in. It was quite a rhetorical battle. Against this melodic backdrop, some schmuck decided that 8:30 at night would be an excellent time to mow his lawn, and around this same time, the neighbors on the other side of the privacy fence got into a lengthy discussion that seemed to center around the idea that fishing is more enjoyable when one actually catches fish. (Not making this up.)

And on top of all that my fingers were getting cold.

So I came inside to blog because the only sound in my writing cave is the faint audio of The Biggest Loser drifting in from the living room. (By the way, does it bother anybody else how almost every single contestant on that show uses the word "pull" to describe their weight loss? It's never, "I dropped six pounds this week" or "I shed four pounds" or "I was pretty bummed that I only lost two pounds." It's always "I pulled a six this week." I don't even know what the hell that's supposed to mean.) And horror of all horrors, I could scarcely type, so paralyzed were my digits. I tried blowing on them. Didn't work. I tried making fists. No luck. Finally, I found a solution and I would like to share it with all those who also struggle with cold fingers.

No, not this.
Not this either.

This. (Note: not me.)

You're welcome.

Update

As longtime readers of Murphblog know, it is my stated aim to one day take over the Webosphere. I strive to achieve Oprah Winfrey-like influence. (Although I have to say that if I gain that kind of power I'll use it for something other than ruining perfectly good fast food promotional giveaways.) I was beginning to doubt the likelihood of this happening. Until this week.

Egads, people! Have you seen the skyrocketing number of followers? Just last Friday I was strutting around the Murphblog corporate office saying, "Twenty-five! Twenty-five, everybody!" I even let the staff leave an hour early. But holey fonts, Batman! Just 24 hours later this blog has 31 followers! Thirty-one! (Yeah, I know it's a prime number, but I'm just too excited to care right now.) The lesson I have learned? Well, there's two. First, blogging about your followers is a good way to attract more of them. Second, total Webospheric domination is still a possibility.
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Contest entrants will be happy to know that Mr. James Kennedy, author of The Order of Odd-Fish, emailed me today and sent me his top five. I also have a top five. I will be using a points system based loosely on the algorithm the BCS uses to determine a national champion to pick a winner. James has already written a response to each and every entry and so I'll be coordinating with him before the winner is revealed, but it should be soon. I'm guessing Wednesday.
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I spoke (by phone) with Agent Guy (and if someone can come up with a cleverer (ererer) monicker then please, by all means) this past Thursday. Spoke for about 45 minutes, mostly about the book. Long story short: I took out some stuff that I shouldn't have, and I still need to work on making the novel feel like one cohesive narrative. He's going to be sending me a detailed revision letter so for the next couple of months I'll be working on that. Wish me success. Or don't. Whatever. Be that way if you want.
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As is customary (and because I actually, sincerely, for reals appreciate it), thank yous are in order to the new followers:

• Jambuku, who's been an infrequent lurker in the past, but has decided to commit to the relationship.
• My good friend from high school, Sarah and her husband, Matty. I am one hundred percent sure that Sarah is the only reader I have in Ukraine.
• Myra, who appreciates potty humor and admits it (unlike Debra who suppresses her natural inclination to titter at anything with the word poop in it) and who is the best query writer I know. Girl sent out five queries and got three requests for fulls.
  
• Jodi, a girl who I grew up playing pickle with (that sounds wrong) at our fathers' softball games and who probably still has a deadly jump shot.
• Steve, who I don't know at all, but he's published books and has a new one coming out in July.
• And Shirley Harazin, author of Blood Brothers, the book I am currently reading.

Thanks for coming aboard, all!