I delivered this speech at BE&K's Toastmasters meeting today. Every word of it is true. I will be happy to show you the book upon request.

Let me tell you a story. It's a story from my childhood. It's a story about meatballs and flowers and snowflakes. In it, I write my first book...and get my first rejection letters, all before the age of ten. It's a story from a time when everything was fun and I didn't take anything seriously. I'm sure all of you have a few of your own, but indulge me for a few minutes. This one's mine.
( I Made It Myself! )

They're not "normal people", and so do not deserve due process. According to the post-Inauguration phone call from my father. In case anyone was wondering, bigotry is still alive and well in these United States.

I told him if he wanted to talk like that he could talk to someone else. He said I was young and to talk to him in ten years. If anyone was wondering where my bad habit of condescension comes from, look no further.

BE NICE OR I'LL SEND YOU TO YOUR ROOM AND TURN THIS CAR AROUND I'M NOT KIDDING.

Also:

I wrote this a month or so ago to entertain Ginny while she worked a fraternity party. The first part was sent to her and Cal, one text message at a time, as I wrote it. Only the story within the story has been edited.

Alligator Tears
Consider the alligator of the bayou, how he waits: he is neither a social animal nor one given to deep concerns; and yet I say to you that even Methusaleh at the end of his life had not lived so long as this crocodilian monster.

( read the rest )

via diesel sweeties and explodingdog

So it's Sunday night, and I've had four hours of church and about as many of sleep. Will is making acorn squash quesadillas, Amy is sitting on the other couch, I'm waiting to call a girl to chat. My phone rings ("Skullcrusher Mountain" by Jonathan Coulton), who could it be? There are myriad exciting possibilities, but it's just my dad. I saw him when I left Huntsville this morning at 6, though, so I assume he's calling about something important. Maybe my driver's license is finally suspended, and he was waiting to tell me so he wouldn't ruin my weekend. I don't think I forgot my toothbrush. So I pick it up.

Restaurant sounds, my dad's voice, sounding cheery even for a veteran salesman and determinedly gregarious guy. He leads off by asking if I know a guy named Xavier, who is supposedly in the Birmingham Concert Chorale. I say I don't think that I do, there are 130 members and I'm not good at being social, and then ask why he wants to know. He tells me that, in typical Mike Gruber fashion, he's been chatting up the waitress, who is "cute as a button". Over the course of the next few minutes, I also learn that she is a math major at UAH, on scholarship, and is working two jobs in addition to attending classes full-time. She's funny, and nice, she has spirit and she's thrifty. Her name is Melanie. Suspicion creeps its way up my spine, making me alert in a way that a nap and coffee were unable to manage. Is this like that girl at the Chinese takeout place by Wal-Mart that he always used to talk about?

About this time, he hands off the phone to my mom. She reiterates Melanie's many qualities, then says, "So...do you want us to set something up?" So I sing a bit of the matchmaker song from Fiddler on the Roof, and then dive headlong into excuses. She lives 100 miles away, I've never even met her, etc. etc., all window dressing for the underlying reason that this is Jason Gruber we're talking about here, and I've never pulled something like this off. I have enough trouble with garden-variety same-town dating. Undaunted, my mother informs me that Melanie will be in Birmingham this weekend. I stammer or something, I don't really know what to say. Then they ask me if I want to talk to her. They must have had a few drinks, I think. That's not necessary, I say. But then they hand the phone to her. "Hello?" she asks. "Hi," I reply. She leads off with "Your parents are crazy." I try to play it cool: "I know, especially my dad. I'm sorry you have to be the victim of it." She reassures me, "It's ok, they're fun" or something to that effect. She giggles a lot. I don't know if she's nervous, or laughing at me, or just someone who giggles a lot. There are some more pleasantries, and then my mom gets the phone back. She asks again if I want them to set something up, I decline again, and they go back to their dinner.

About an hour or so later, my dad calls again. He say, "Your mom and I decided that we're going to set you up, whether you want us to or not. Do you have something to write with?" He gives me her name, phone number, some vital statistics, and tells me that if I don't call her, they will.

They have yet to follow through on that threat.

What's the use in being good if you end up too good for the people or things that you want?

A long time ago, I applied for a fast food job. It was summer, and so I needed gainful employment. That was, unquestionably, the way things worked. Meet my father, and you'll understand. In past summers, I had translated football plays into scripts at Anivision, stamped strut covers, a thousand or more in a day, at Matsu Alabama, and this summer I just wanted to work in food service. It was a job I could get on my own, without my dad asking around at pickup hockey (6ish on weekdays, several days a week). It was also a job that no one wanted to give me. I was overqualified. Never mind that I would have worked hard at whatever they gave me to do. Sometimes I complain, but I always do what I say I will. But no, they said, why would you want this job, they said, you don't want this job, you can't have this job.

This is a trend.

I know what I want. I am nearly always capable of deciding that. But I frequently encounter people who are less sure, and so they assume that I, like them, am uncertain or mistaken, and I assume that they, like I, know and refuse to admit it.

This is a problem.

At the end of the day, though, and this is the end of mine, because I couldn't sleep through a whirlwind of pettiness and spite, I am complaining, but I'm still going to do what I said I would. We'll see how that turns out.

The bottle spun forever in the warm red air, droplets of whiskey streaming from its mouth. An angel stood on nothing next to it, molten gold eyes glazed with confusion. High above, amidst the cloud of skin, fibers, and other tiny bits that left an eternal scent of Vic in her antennae, a Vindafel hearth maiden looked around for the raucous off-duty crew whose attentions she’d been trying to ignore just a moment before. Dismissing Vic, who drooped like a heartbroken gargoyle in the eternal now, she drew air through her ventral gills and exclaimed, “X.”

“Oh, hello!” the angel replied, each consonant crisp, each vowel pleasant to the ear.

“Y?”

“Yes, I suppose that is possible. The fact that we two have arrived at the same time certainly suggests some sort of mix-up; then again, the world can only end once, so we can’t come at different times, can we?”

Just then, a ship made of yellowed, gnarled nails soared overhead, faint cheering trailing in its wake.

“They seem purposeful, at least. Shall we ask them?”