A Difficult Man
Everyone has had to deal with difficult people. As I am writing this there are apparently 7.7 billion people in the world, which means there are 7.7 billion unique personalities, each with their own ideas, experiences, beliefs, and prejudices. For most people, what is any belief, political, religious, or otherwise, but a disguised prejudice. At any rate, with 7.7 billion personalities, disagreement is inevitable, and we are bound to encounter someone we find distasteful, to put it mildly. Conversely, each one of us will be a difficult person to someone else. I have encountered people in my life who seemed to be so devoid of any redeemable qualities, who had negative characteristics to such a degree that I found it hard to believe that they brought value to anyone else’s life. I couldn’t help but assume that they were as unloved as they were unloving. Which is tragic in many…
Lech
Every introduction to this story that I’ve thought of thus far has been horribly cliche. Nonetheless, I need to dress up this intro somehow, at least enough to pique your interest so that maybe you’ll take the time to click the link, download, and then read the story. I have been told by one of my proof-readers, who has been gracious enough to read my work, long before it was remotely suitable for public consumption, that this is her favorite thing I’ve yet written. Given the fact that we frequently trust the praise of strangers, called critics, I hope you will give this one a read.
The Inheritance
There are still a few people in the world who it is socially acceptable to openly hate, or at least to dislike. Trust fund kids are among them. On the surface it seems reasonable to be upset that someone would be the beneficiary of unearned riches. On the other hand, what business is it of mine, or yours? It isn’t only money, belongings, capital, or useless knick-knacks that we inherit from our progenitors. There are genetic blessings, and curses, as well. Beauty, a tendency to alcoholism, a tendency to athleticism, allergies, good or bad vision, a multitude of strengths and weakness passed down through generations. Beyond the material and the physical we also receive a psychological inheritance, which of course overlaps with the physical inheritance already referred to. For better or for worse we hold certain personality traits in common with our parents. In the instance where one parent is…
Fever Dream
While working on music for a different project, I inadvertently created a sound not unlike a siren. A sound, which while inappropriate for the project I was working on, seemed like it would be useful for something, and over the course of an evening that something became “Fever Dream.” This is an entirely unsponsored plug, but I used Audacity, a free, downloadable sound mixer to create every sound in Fever Dream, aside from whatever I originally recorded, which honestly I’ve distorted to the point where I have no idea what the original sound was anymore. I think I took it from some spoken dialogue. It seemed like there should be some video to go along with the music, so we threw that in too. Enjoy!
Complaint
Customer service, in any capacity, has always been difficult for me. If it were possible I’d prefer not to interact with customers at all, and that is rarely possible. Obviously, patrons are an important part of any business transaction. Without anyone to buy stuff there would be no one to sell a product or a service to, and therefore no way to fund my continued existence. I have no skills that would sustain me outside of a market economy. In order to survive we must all serve in some capacity. We must be useful in some way, and then get paid for it. Nonetheless, it’s easy to resent the customer for requiring our services; it’s as easy as resenting bad customer service. Despite my distaste for working directly with customers, I’ve had few bad experiences serving in that capacity. That is not to say that I have not had any.…