The Little One (our resident artist) doesn’t know I’m posting this, but I don’t think she’d be upset. She got some white soap at the drug store, and carved it and colored it, as a gift for Mommy.

I remember when I was a kid, buying (or making) and giving away Valentines to all my classmates. One year, we made and decorated our own Valentine’s boxes. Each student in the class would then hand out the Valentines he was giving, dropping one into the slot on the top of each of his classmates’ boxes.

I’m afraid that I over-decorated mine. I covered it in aluminum foil, drew on it with red marker, and decorated it with numerous, beautiful, pink shells. It was really quite… erm… girly. (My mother was afraid I might be made fun of, but much to her credit, she did not interfere. And I don’t remember being teased… much.)

For the first day of Valentine’s week, a simple reminder of the most important and significant Valentines, those we get from our families— whether they have physical form or whether they take the form of happy wishes.

-TimK

P.S. (And now for a word from our sponsor…) In honor of Valentine’s Day, there’s still time to get $5 off an autographed bundle of From the Ashes of Courage together with Love through the Eyes of an Idiot: click here and use the coupon code Gail n Eddie.

Yes, Star Trek. Specifically, The Next Generation.

The Little One and I have been watching select episodes together. I’ve been enjoying them on DVD, and she both startled and thrilled me when she started enjoying the show right alongside me. I panicked just a little when—right in the middle of a Borg marathon—she asked to see the first Next Generation episode ever made. Fortunately, barely 10 minutes into it, she found it just as distressing as I do. Of course, my comments about “Oh my God! I’m so glad he doesn’t do that anymore!” probably didn’t help.

(She also liked drawing comparisons between the Borg on one hand, and on the other hand, Brog, of Zork: Grand Inquisitor. “Brog like rocks! Rocks good! You will be assimilated.” That was funny.)

Seriously, though, I used to think of Star Trek as a guilty pleasure, but as I’ve been going back through them, first the original series, then The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, now with the benefit of years of training as a writer, I see the value of them. I see why I originally loved many of these stories, not because of the space-opera plots or the très kewl special effects or the corny techno-babble, but because they meet my five points of life-expanding stories.

I’m way behind schedule with Ardor Point #2, even without playing Farmville. I was originally supposed to be writing the first draft this week; instead, I haven’t even started the zero-draft yet. But I figured at least I could get a good blog post out of the major distraction. So here are some of our favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, the Little One and me, that we’ve watched recently.

• “Déjà Q” (season 3, episode 13) – The episode where Q (played perfectly frustratingly annoyingly by John de Lancie) becomes a mortal human, and everyone takes out their revenge on him. Fun times. Fortunately, the Little One finds Q as irksome as I do.

• 

  “Night Terrors” (season 4, episode 17) – “Eyes, in the dark. One moon circles.” Over and over and over again through Troi’s dreams. Creepy. Meanwhile, most of the Enterprise crew seems to be slowly losing grip of their senses. A fine dramatization of the importance of REM sleep.

• “Disaster” (season 5, episode 5) – The Enterprise accidentally runs into a cosmic string fragment, causing injuries and near-catastrophic failures all over over the ship. This episode defines suspense.

• “Cause and Effect” (season 5, episode 18) – The ship collides with another ship from the past, throwing it and its crew into a temporal causality loop, in which they keep repeating the same day over and over again, kind of like Groundhog Day but without all the good times. How many times is the term déjà vu mentioned in this episode?

• “I, Borg” (season 5, episode 23) – The crew rescues the lone survivor of a Borg survey mission and plans to implant in his consciousness a computer virus that will spread through the entire Borg collective… until this lone Borg begins to see himself as an individual. It strikes me how even the Borg, evil incarnate, is made up of normal people with the same needs as ours, trying to meet those needs in the best way they know how. I’ll remember this the next time I hear some politico spout on about a national “enemy.”

• 

  “Schisms” (season 6, episode 5) – Commander Riker can’t get enough sleep; some crew members have intense reactions to everday objects; others go missing… strange occurrences everywhere. This is the episode where members of the Enterprise crew are kidnapped by solanagen-based, bug-eyed aliens from a tertiary subspace domain.

• “Rascals” (season 6, episode 7) – A transporter accident turns Picard, Keiko, Ro, and Guinan into children. I don’t see what the problem is, actually; there are people who would pay good credits for a device that could take years off their lives like that. But I guess the Enterprise crew didn’t like it. Unfortunately, before they could find an antidote, they were attacked by a renegade Ferengi Damon, who ordered all the adults evacuated from the ship, leaving these four children to take back control of the ship. Even when you feel small, you can still make a difference, if you work with your strengths.

• “Timescape” (season 6, episode 25) – Picard, Troi, Data, and Geordi, returning from a conference on some planet, come upon a region of space filled with temporal anomalies, within each of which time is running at a different speed. At the center of the disturbance is the Enterprise and a Romulan warbird.

• “Phantasms” (season 7, episode 6) – The Little One hasn’t seen “Phantasms” yet, but I know she’ll love it. Data, while running his newly discovered dream program, begins experiencing dangerous delusions while awake. But these waking dreams actually represent a real threat on board the Enterprise, of which the crew is unaware.

-TimK

You wouldn’t think that I would need more books, judging from the size of my Goodreads “to-read” list, all of which I have on the premises or readily available to borrow. But the fact is that I’ve been looking for some engrossing, character-driven fiction to read, and on that score Holly has always delivered. Besides which, the Little One has wanted to read Fire in the Mist ever since I told her about it months ago. (I had read part of it online at the Baen Free Library, but that was before ebooks were convenient to read, and I’ve been longing to finish it myself.)

But that wasn’t the end of my book acquisition. I’ve also set up an account on BookMooch, have already given away 5 books from my “to get rid of” pile, and have already requested 2 more Holly Lisle books.

All told, here are the books I’m expecting (some of which I’ve already received):

• 

  Taxed to death by Debra Purdy Kong – Revenue Canada auditor, Alex Bellamy, discovers evidence of fraud during a field audit. But when someone murders a colleague he persuaded to help investigate, Alex is forced to turn to a lady he’s never met and who has her own frightening reasons for refusing to cooperate. Soon, her fears and his search embroil them in a bizarre and disturbing nightmare.

• 

  Last Girl Dancing by Holly Lisle – Obsessed with discovering what happened to her missing sister, Atlanta detective Jess Brubraker is willing to disappear into a sordid nightworld to find the answer. But that means leading both herself and her lover into the most intimate and terrifying trap of all.

• 

  Fire in the Mist by Holly Lisle – A simple shepherd girl discovers her wild mage powers after a murderous magician destroys her family. Now every mage in the world wants to train her. But Faia wants only to confront the madman who killed her loved ones.

• 

  I See You by Holly Lisle – For paramedic Dia Courvant, each day brings the possibility of facing blood and death. But nothing matched the horror of the day she was dispatched to the scene of a terrible car accident and rescued the sole survivor-only to find her own husband dead in the wreckage. Now, four years later, a series of deadly car crashes has brought handsome detective Brig Hafferty into Dia’s life. She’s drawn to Brig, but can she trust him enough to tell him of the terror that stalks her? For Dia has received a message warning her of danger and death-a message that seems to have been sent to her from beyond the grave.

• 

  Talyn by Holly Lisle – A conscripted warrior-mage, lover of the outlander who ended her country’s 300-year war, rescues her nation’s worst enemy from death to battle her lover and end imposed peace.

• 

  Midnight Rain by Holly Lisle – Phoebe Rain’s sadistic ex-husband lies in a coma a thousand miles away-a coma she put him the last time he tried to kill her. Yet Phoebe knows the voice on the other end of the line belongs to the twisted man who vowed he’d never let her get away. Panicked, she turns to her neighbor, Dr. Alan MacKerrie. Alan finds the story hard to believe himself, but now he, too, is receiving chilling, ghostly warnings of danger. Caught between icy terror and mounting passion for Alan, Phoebe knows there’s no escape.

• 

  Glenraven by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Holly Lisle – Glenraven seems to be an Alpine principality somewhere in the neighborhood of northern Italy–according to the unique guidebook advertising Glenraven’s charms, and obscure, almost non-traverse Alpine passages that constitute the only way in. But in reality it is a magic kingdom. And what the people of Glenraven want are a few heroes to free them from a ruler who is literally a monster in human guise. What the people get is JayJay and Sophie. They could have done worse.

-TimK

I enjoyed reading your book – so much that I read it in one sitting. My mind drifted to my own past relationships, the good, the bad and the ugly. But I know that each situation made me stronger, not willing to settle, and to fully appreciate the man I am now seeing. God rewards us and sends that special person to us when we least expect it.

Thank you again, Carrie. That’s such a wonderful sentiment, and I’m so glad that the book was uplifting for you. That’s what I was aiming at.

I also should add that I’m a lier and a swindler and a cheat, because I earlier promised that the free ebook download of this book would only last until the day before yesterday. But because I’m also an incompetent loser and easily distracted, I forgot to have the free download rescinded. So for the rest of today, you can still download the ebook of Love through the Eyes of an Idiot.

“Teaser Tuesdays” Teaser

I’m about ¼ of the way through EyeLeash: A Blog Novel, by Jess C Scott. (She sent me a free, electronic review copy, in return for the free electronic copies of my books.) EyeLeash is an alternative, self-published novel, in the form of a blog—or personal journal. Though a YA novel, it’s more risqué than most in that genre, because it about… well, it’s basically about sex.

The main character, Jade, struggles with whether to lose her virginity with Novan, a once-geeky-now-turned-yummy friend, with whom she has recently reunited.

The blog format I’m finding less distracting than I thought it would be. Stylistically, the story is very easy to read. However, the way Jade carries on about Novan, I gotta wonder if she really feels no romance and no attachment to him. Moreover, she seems afraid of feeling romance or becoming attached, and I wonder why. Why is she afraid of falling in love? Moreover, what motivated Jade to preserve her virginity until now—she’s 17—and what (besides simple animal lust) is making her want to change?

In fact, her daydreaming about sex all day, every day, it’s getting a little weary. I hope the story moves forward soon.

Also, Jade mentions her dentist in her journal, but not her parents or other real-life friends (as opposed to online friends). Why not? Is she really that lonely, that she has no human contact except for her dentist? What about at her job? Why does she talk about her appointment with her dentist, but not her job? Does the prospect of getting braces traumatize her that much? If so, why?

Unanswered questions I hope will be answered in the coming pages.

UPDATE: Reading some more—now better than 30% through—I see that she didn’t have a job. I know this, because she just got one! But my question remains: Is she really that isolated? Doesn’t she live with someone? Doesn’t she go to school? Why don’t any of these experiences make it into her journal?

Here’s a random teaser, from page 217:

His back was amazing. You could see all these lines, sinews, muscles or whatever…

I felt like licking them.

-TimK

P.S. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just follow the directions at the “Teaser Tuesdays” post.

We have a fresh-water turtle, a red-eared slider, which we’ve raised from a tiny baby. Back then, he lived in a small tank, about the size of a fishbowl. Now, he’s outgrowing his grown-up-sized tank, and we’re thinking he may need an even bigger one.

As he is cold-blooded—all turtles are—he spends a great deal of time sunning himself on his log. Unfortunately, today, his log seems to have drifted under the water filter, and the filtered water is spilling out over it. That didn’t stop him from sunning there, however ineffective that must have been.

-TimK

Remember when I used to post Friday Snippets here? I used to enjoy reading what other writers were writing. Unfortunately, the meme faded out of use. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still post a snippet here.

This is the opening scene in From the Ashes of Courage (my newly released novel, which you can download free for only 2 more days), where we meet Gail and Ann and their new venture.

Gail Bishop eased open the door and basked in the newness as it washed over her. She had visited the suite only once before, when she and Ann had set it up last week, every last piece of furniture in place. Very little in the room, in fact, they had bought new. New paint, and the air still smelled of it. New, colorful posters lined the walls. A new telephone, new stapler, new office supplies. But the desks, file cabinets, office partitions they had purchased on the used market—complete with scratches in the paint and nicks on the corners—from among the many poor businesses that had been going under. The computers they had gotten off eBay and craigslist. Even in the diagnostic meeting room, set off with a closed door for privacy, their nasometer, the children’s picture books they used there, and the other specialized diagnostic equipment, almost all of it they managed to find pre-owned.

But it all felt new to Gail. And that’s what she had told Ann, but Ann didn’t seem to understand.

She had started a business only once before, and at the time it excited and sickened her. Excited her, because she had known she was accomplishing something that mattered, because she would make a happy difference for untold hundreds of children. Sickened her, because she had known she could fail.

That was then, this was now. This time the newness almost felt familiar, comfortable. But despite the fact that her future did not hold the uncertainty, it still excited her beyond mere words. Because even though she knew where to look, there was still the seeking. And in the seeking, there lived her passion.

When she had told Ann this, the sweet, sensitive blonde replied with a vacant smile, that “I know what you’re saying is a profound revelation to you, but I just don’t get it” expression. Gail appreciated her fortune in landing her as a business partner. That was new, too: Gail had never had a business partner before. Ann’s unmitigated kindness and infinite patience made her an excellent SLP, though a novice businesswoman. But Gail had confidence that she would soon get it.

“You going in? Or you just gonna stand there and admire the place?”

Gail recognized Ann’s voice from behind her. She turned and beamed at her new business partner.

“You look happy,” Ann said, smiling back politely.

She and Gail stood opposite each other like black and white, literally as well as figuratively. Gail’s curly, raven hair was always poufing out in the wrong direction; Ann’s straight, blonde hair seemed to trickle like water over her shoulders. Gail stayed inside out of the sun, because otherwise her ghost-like skin would fry up like a strip of bacon; but Ann always looked tanned. Gail looked out from behind brown eyes, and her eyebrows, though well-defined, were too straight and flat, almost like a man’s; meanwhile, Ann’s blue eyes stuck out, the most dazzling feature on her flawless face, because of the arch of her pale brows. Gail always watched calories, because they always turned her thighs into lamb shanks; Ann’s super-model figure never wavered, no matter how much or what she ate. Gail had barreled her way through school through single-mindedness and hard work, and as a result she rarely dated; in school, Ann had always had a thing going with some guy or other, and she almost never studied. And after Ann graduated with honors and passed her certification on the first try, she married a simple but genuinely attractive man, worked for a couple years, then had kids and dropped out of the workforce. Now she was looking to get started again. Gail couldn’t even imagine living a life like that.

Despite their differences, the two women had become fast friends from the moment they met in a graduate course on voice disorders. Gail didn’t understand why or how it had happened. They had said “Hello” one day, began chatting, started spending time together. And no matter how much distance came between them, physical or emotional, they remained fast friends.

So when Gail’s business in Worcester started to bore her, and she began looking for a change, she turned operations over to Clarice, her friend and manager there, and she moved back East, to team up with Ann in a new venture.

Only until January 31, download the ebook for free: click here.

Or…

Only through Valentine’s day, February 14, get $5 off an autographed bundle of From the Ashes of Courage together with Love through the Eyes of an Idiot: use the coupon code Gail n Eddie and click here.

“I love this!” Gail gushed. “It’s like— Like you’re finally free.”

Ann nodded politely.

“Like nothing can hold you back. You know what I mean?”

“I know,” Ann said. “You said that before.” She was smiling, half with joy, Gail was sure, but half from how silly Gail must have seemed to her. Gail knew, because she had been there before.

Ann continued. “You looked lonely for a long time, every time I saw you. It’s good to see you this way again, like the person I remember from back in college. It’s the first time you’ve seemed happy since you moved back. You should go out more,” Ann said. “Go out and meet new people—”

Gail interrupted. “I don’t think we’ll have time for much going out, Ann. There’s too much work to do.”

Ann sighed. “Yeah, I get that. But just one night, after work. I mean, we’re not going to be working all the time, are we?”

“Pretty much,” Gail said, “at first.”

“You can’t spare time for just one date? Come on. Bob has a friend who’d love to meet you.”

Suddenly, it struck Gail what was going on. A blind date. She shook her head. “Ann,” she said. “I don’t go on blind dates. You know I don’t go on blind dates. I’ve never gone on blind dates.”

“You never go on any dates,” Ann said. “And I know you. You can make time to take a night off.”

“I don’t need a guy in my life right now,” Gail said.

“This isn’t about a relationship. It’s about having fun once in a while, so you don’t implode.”

“Well, I don’t need any fun, either.”

“He’s a nice guy.”

“Not interested,” Gail sang, walking toward her desk.

Ann followed. “His name’s Eddie. He’s good-looking, easy-going, fun to be with, and he won’t try any funny stuff, I guarantee it.”

“How do you know?” Gail asked, facing her friend across the desk.

“Well,” Ann reconsidered, “not unless you want him to.”

“This is ridiculous!” Gail was reaching the end of her patience. She sat and turned her attention to some papers on the desk. She didn’t care which papers, as long as they served as a distraction from Ann’s hassling.

“Okay, so he likes to date,” Ann said, “a lot. But he’s a gentle guy, and he won’t take advantage of you. Not unless you want to, anyhow.”

Gail leered at her.

“Sweetie,” Ann said, “you have to loosen up a little!”

Gail returned to her fake paperwork.

Ann sat on the edge of Gail’s guest chair. “I’m going to keep badgering you,” she said, grinning, “until you give in. So you might as well agree right now and save us both a lot of annoyance.”

“Why do you do this to me?” Gail said. “You did it in college—”

“I never did it while you were married,” Ann corrected her.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Gail said. “And you’ve done it every time I’ve visited since then.”

“It’s in my nature, and you’re my friend, and I’m tired of seeing you lonely all the time.”

“You want me to have sex with a stranger.”

“I just want you to meet someone, who’s fun to be with. And he is. Have a good time. The rest is up to you.”

Gail said nothing.

“I promise,” Ann added.

Still silence.

“Please?” Ann put on a pouty expression.

Gail took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Okay. Just one date. But then will you leave me alone and let me work?”

“Yes!” Ann beamed from ear to ear.

“But,” Gail added, “I won’t promise to have fun.”

Photo © 2005 Andre Alforque CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Last week, I got the strangest email, and I still can’t quite figure out what to make of it.

N, from the Natural Sciences department at Bentley University, found a sealed NetFlix DVD on a cart in one of the buildings there. She also noticed the corresponding torn-off part of the envelope, the part with the subscriber’s address, in a nearby wastepaper basket. And the address (she said) was mine. So she looked me up on Google and emailed me, asking if I wanted her to drop the DVD in a mailbox.

But I don’t go to Bentley, have not been to Bentley; and that certainly isn’t my DVD.

All my DVD’s are accounted for. I am paying for all the DVD’s I got, and I got all the DVD’s NetFlix said they sent to me. And at the time N emailed me, NetFlix had confirmed that they had received all the DVD’s I sent to them. So all my NetFlix DVD’s are accounted for.

I thought that it must be a different “Tim King,” and I replied to N’s email, telling her as much. But she replied back with my postal address, which was indeed my postal address—and I’m the only “Tim King” that has ever lived at this address. She confirmed that this was the address that was on the original NetFlix envelope.

At that point, I was definitely weirded out, and I still am, because the mystery has still not been solved. All my NetFlix DVD’s are definitely accounted for, and if NetFlix had sent a DVD to my address—even one that someone else had ordered fraudulently—I would have received it here. That DVD with my address on it is definitely not one that I have ever seen, and I don’t know how it ended up on a cart at Bentley.

I thought of asking her to open it up and see what DVD it was, but then I thought better of it. There weren’t too many ways this story could play out, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see any of them. So I just emailed her back, confirming that I have no, nada, zero missing NetFlix DVD’s and suggesting that she figure out herself what to do with it. That was the last I heard.

-TimK

I finally got to see Julie and Julia over the weekend. Unlike many stories, it doesn’t serve as a means of escape. Rather, there is substance and inspiration woven through it.

The film compares the stories of Julia Child and Julie Powell. Both faced an impasse in their lives; both set out on a search for meaning; both found it in pursuits that many failed to understand. Julia studied at Le Cordon Bleu at a time when all French chefs were men, and she brought that knowledge to American housewives. Decades later, Julie cooked her way through Julia’s first recipe book, 524 recipes in 365 days.

Both women encountered resistance. Julia faced a glass ceiling of her day, and shattered it. Then she spent almost a decade coauthoring her now-famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking, only to have it turned down by Houghton Mifflin.

Julie cooked her way through that book and blogged about it, which prompted questions from friends and family, questions like… “Why are you doing that?!” Even her loving, supportive husband—and I hope if you’re married that you have one of those— even he hit a low point and failed to understand why she needed to do it.

It might sound a little strange to say that she “needed” to cook 524 recipes in 365 days. Why would she need to do such a thing? If she didn’t cook, what would happen? Would her world come to an end? Would millions of people die? Why was this challenge so important to her?

Maybe if you’re going through your own search for meaning, the answer already makes sense to you.

In the same way, Julia needed a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu; it wasn’t enough that she had learned all the techniques and dishes. This was part of her search for meaning. And then she wrote about it in her book and brought the experience to others, just as Julie did with her blog.

These are a spiritual quests. The mountain climber needs to climb bigger and higher mountains, just because they’re there. Or me, when I was programming software, I needed to do it bigger and better, on an ever more predictable schedule, and when I couldn’t improve anymore, I dropped out.

And now I need to author ever bigger and better stories—that is, stories that make an ever bigger impact. And I feel I have to do it ever more reliably, like clockwork. So my newest goal is to publish at least four new books each year. My latest, From the Ashes of Courage (Ardor Point #1), is out February 1 (though in reality, you can get it already); so that means the next one (Ardor Point #2, still untitled) needs to be on Amazon by May 1. (Three months from now.) Therefore, the first draft should be done by the end of February, so I can revise it in March and publish it in April, in time for a May 1 release. I already know what the novel is about, and it features two of the minor characters from Ashes of Courage; expect to hear more anecdotes about the story here, and about the writing process at my blog for writers, BeTheStory.com.

This is all very important to me, personally. And that’s what struck me most about Julie and Julia, that Julie’s pursuit had meaning for her, not just because it was a challenge, but because it was her challenge. And when she followed it through, that’s what inspired me.

Gotta go now and get cracking on my next novel: I have my own challenge to meet.

-TimK

With this book, I did not order a proof copy, so I spent the last week nervous that it might not have come out as good as I expected. Here you get to see the actual, printed product at the same time I do.

(Plus, I read a little from the first chapter, tongue-tied goofs and all.)

-TimK

On Technology

Top Facebook group: “I’m not yelling…I’m Italian…thats how we talk.”

Top Facebook group that someone ought to start: “Walking around naked makes me feel sexy.”

Some weeks ago, I posted “Coconut” to my Facebook status, and no one noticed. Do you know how much that hurts?

If you have to force viewers not to skip over your video ads, then you’re obviously showing them the wrong ads.

Dear spammer: How do you know that an extra inch would even fit in my pants?

Sunday afternoon is the best time to get on Twitter, because al the e-marketing gurus are off for the weekend. (Also because that’s when #writechat occurs!)

I just added more blogs to my feed reader than there were on the entire Internet a few years ago.

Another worthy domain name that should’ve been considered more carefully for ambiguity: goredforwomen.org.

On Entertainment

Star Trek is no longer a guilty pleasure of mine… Not guilty, because a lot of those stories are pretty good. The Love Boat, however, still is.

In any case, I don’t know how they make it through the galaxy in a ship as fragile as the Enterprise.

Hey! It’s Tomolok the Romulan. He’s dead now, you know. (But he’ll always be G’Kar to me.)

Ugh. Gack! Now I know that Pippi Longstocking wears green underwear. Little girls should learn to keep their knees together.

The new A-Team movie will probably be fun, but they’ll never outdo the original cast.

Happy happy cow cow! Happy happy cow cow! SING IT WITH ME! Happy happy cow cow cow. Moo! (In honor of California cows, to the tune of the “Happy Happy Joy Joy” song.)

Porky Pig just suggested to Daffy Duck that he see a speech therapist for his lisp. (Gail Bishop, of From the Ashes of Courage, would not find that funny.)

On Politics

If a CEO squanders the stockholder’s money, he goes to jail. And if a politician squanders the public’s money, he gets reelected to Congress.

Q: How do you know a politician is lying? A: His lips are moving.

We believe gravity is real only because space aliens are controlling our minds. Fortunately, the FBI and CIA can protect us from the space aliens, thus allowing us to fly. (A commentary on political logic.)

I marveled at the incentives, when I discovered that the penalties when my daughter was late for school were worse than when she was absent.

Did you know that no not even one child has ever been poisoned by Halloween candy?

On Writing

Every time someone implies that I don’t have “a job,” I should thank them for furthering my writing career.

As a writer, I always have to look up the difference between “heroin” and “heroine”: one is a drug; the other is a female protagonist.

On Life, Love, and Relationships

Having a scruffy beard is really cool, and sexy, too, except when you’re trying to lick the last of the spaghetti sauce off the plate.

The Missus has no reason to fear that I will ever cheat on her: between a wife and two daughters, there’s simply no room for any more women in my life. I honestly, seriously, don’t understand how men in polygamous cultures can emotionally support multiple wives.

Ladybugs are so cute! Except when they start swarming near the entrance to your apartment.

After we moved the goldfish bowl next to the turtle tank, the turtle kept trying to swim through the glass.

Do boogers freeze? (As a parent, you sometimes get asked questions like this.)

The plea of a stay-at-home dad: “I want a day off from being a mom.”