The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#248) -- 30 Random Things

Let's go meme time. Tell us the 30 random things about you.

 1. Although I consistently bump into the gloomier experiences in life, I tend to be more of a bumbling optimist in spite of it than a realistic pessimist.

2. I once had to cancel a date in college because I fell down an elevator shaft. No, she didn't believe me (thank you for asking) until a few days later when I showed up at her dorm with a serious limp.

3. I think the church was doing okay as long as it had no political or cultural or social power. The minute Constantine made it safe to believe in public, that's the day the church (small c, not large) began it's horrifying decent into apathy toward least of these, societal power plays, and morality enforcement. That's also the day it began to forgot about the mote in its own eye while I went around telling others about the beams in their eyes.

4. I used to have the biggest celebrity crush on Drew Barrymoore. Then she got too skinny. Now I uber-heart Christina Hendricks.

5. I enjoy playing sports, but typically detest watching them. A caveat: I do, however, enjoy watching them ONLY if I'm there at the game in person.

6. I'm addicted to entertainment. Music, movies, especially. Video games, not so much unless we're talking old-school Atari stuff. Life is to be enjoyed and lived. But as much as I love them, I always prefer them with friends, and get a bigger kick out of introducing other people to stuff I've enjoyed and think they will too.

7. It ticks me off to know that my generation is the first to, as a whole, be in less stable financial condition due to inherited debt and economy than the generation before us, including that of the Great Depression.

8. I play several musical instruments: bass, guitar, harmonica, some keyboards and drums.

9. I really, really want to own a mandolin.

10. I really want to experience a ghost hunt even though I don't believe in ghosts per se. I do believe, however in a spiritual world all around us, but just not that ghosts are the lingering spirits of human dead.

11. While I enjoy looking at a sexy woman as much as any other heterosexual male, I find the most alluring part of a woman's body to be the thin patch of skin between a knee-length skirt and a tall boot. And I don't know why. It just is.

12. A cute redhead will always turn my head and catch my eye. I'm a sucker for them. I blame Daphne Blake. It had to be her fault.

13. I was the only guy I knew in the town where I grew up who still got up early to watch cartoons on Saturday morning even when I was 16.

14. I write/create because it's how I define myself. I believe that it has something to do with being the product of a God who creates and being made in that image.

15. I am a devout believer in the Christian faith, but I also believe that as believers we should abolish the Christian subculture and spend our time out in the real world where we can't control, censor, or shut our eyes and ears to things that bother or offend us.

16.  When I was growing up, I was a dog person. When I got married, that changed and I became a cat person. Now I have both dogs and cats, and I think I love my dog Boomer and my late cat Merlin more than just about any pet I've ever had before.

17. I love Christian apologetics and to engage in debate, but NEVER at the expense of a relationship with anyone.

18. I despise talking on the phone. If I take the time to actually call you or answer your call even once, you should realize how important you are to me. But I'll always love you more if you text or email me. Or better yet, visit me in person.

19. I used to love Christmas and always made a big deal about it, keeping the Christmas music loud throughout December (but not until after Thanksgiving). Then I married, and my wife isn't a big Christmas joy person thanks to her Santa Claus experience, so I have gradually become more bah-humbuggy about it. I'm lucky if we even have our tree up by the weekend before Christmas Day, and don't usually even feel bad if we don't have it up. But I'm relearning how to experience it now through my kids, only it fades faster than it used to.

20. The most hurtful event in my life was when I was 'let go' from the religious agency I used to work for. The thing about it that really bothers me still is that several of the folks I knew very well all told me they didn't think it was right and that I'd done nothing wrong, and that it was political to appease other religious leaders in the denomination's structure, but not one of them interceded for me with my Vice President. Those feelings still sting when I see those friends. That's also the last time I had a good salary and comfortable lifestyle while working in the editing field as a full time employee.

21. I have been an editor for nearly 17 years, 18 in January 2013. I started as a copy editor then became an assistant editor for a magazine, then an editor, then freelanced as either a Managing Editor or Editor in Chief for several national and international publishing companies. 

22. I always apologize to anyone whose work I edit -- in advance -- because I will rip it to shreds. My job is to find your weaknesses and help you face them and become better, not to tell you how wonderful your strengths are. Chances are you already know that and have a little too much pride about it as it is. Even after that apology, I think I still surprise people when they get my edits back the first time. As an added note, I really hate it when your first words after I send the edited copy back to you are merely to defend just about everything I marked and mentioned. If you really didn't want me to edit it, when why did you hire me?

23. I'm a child of divorce, and I have lived in that limbo since I was five. And now that I have children of my own it's still the kind of thing that can cause hurt feelings or resentment on both sides, sometimes from the slightest of comments in a conversation with relatives.

24. I wish I had the superpower to change my body into that of anyone else at anytime, like Mystique.

25. I knew the second time I saw my wife that she was going to be my bride. And I made a forever vow, and I still intend to keep it. I refuse to do to my kids what life has done to me.

26. I get very irritated with writers who tell me they have writer's block. It's a sham. It doesn't exist. All it is is procrastination and an unwillingness to change ideas or cut something you really like or put words down for some other project or use a "trigger concept" to move on. Or I could just call it laziness because that's what we'd call it if a house painter stopped and claimed he had "painter's block."

27. I feel much better and relaxed to be myself among my weird friends, most of whom don't agree with me either politically or religiously. Ironically, I feel more reserved and less relaxed around my church friends who do agree with me religously.

28. I believed in the giant squid, and I believe that before my kids die, someone will finally prove the existence of Bigfoot. But not the lake monsters. Those are all misidentifications of other things or animals.

29. My dream job would be to write and edit full time for the rest of my life. I currently manage a comic book shop and love it, but it's still not my dream.

30. I really and genuinely believe that if I could just get my foot in the door with DC or Marvel, they'd hire me. And I really and genuinely believe that by continuing to build and work my network of friends and acquaintances, I'll get that opportunity to prove I'm right one day.