Category Archives: Opinion

Harry Potter and the Miserable C-word

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I’m asexual. Many people, including close friends, don’t believe this. They see the fact that I like to draw sexy women as proof I’m not. They see that I’d had sex before with different partners as proof I’m not. Characters in my novels are often quite horny, which is proof I’m not. Some simply don’t believe asexuality exists. Maybe it’s a hormone issue. Maybe somebody hurt me. Maybe I just haven’t met the right person. Maybe I just have a headache.

I wrote and erased a point-by-point rebuttal to these because this is not about me, but it’s still very personal.

April 6 is Asexuality Awareness Day. This is a fairly new role for April 6, and I didn’t even know about it until this happened. JK Rowling knew, and she put out a snarky tweet. I considered posting an image of that tweet, but I didn’t want to google it. It basically says that it’s a day so people who don’t “fancy a shag” get to feel oppressed.

Fuck you, Joanne, we are oppressed. Google “acephobia” to see. There are conversions and
“corrective” rapes, as well as just straight-up violence. Did you know that the word “groomer,” so crucial to the stigmatization of Trans people, became popular describing aces? Apparently, we’re trying to indoctrinate children, when we just want to be left alone. Like Trans people.

The reason you don’t hear about acephobia is because we are, I believe, the smallest subset of the LGBT+ umbrella (if we’re included at all—that’s a gray area), and there are no legal protections for us. Currently, there are no pogroms directed against asexuals, but that could change soon.

Why should the government care who you have sex with? If you ask that question, you clearly did not live in the eighties and nineties, before gay people are such a part of society that even bigot Joanne Rowling (barely) supports them. No, the government is obsessed with who you have sex with.

When I first saw the tweet ten days ago, I thought she was just being a bitch. She is, after all, a bitch, and bitches do bitchy things. But the responses were increasingly unhinged, agreeing with her, denying we existed, telling us how we can be cured, or just threatening rape. Any time an ace stepped in to challenge this, Joanne herself mocked and dismissed them.

Trans people are under attack, and it will escalate even more as soon as the people who voted for Trump (i.e. most of the country) run out of immigrants to terrorize. Transphobia is not new, but it could be argued that JK Rowling made it mainstream. They can talk about how scared they are of men in dresses using the ladies room, but they’re not in any danger. And they know it. Trans people are a weak minority, and nobody’s going to stand up for them while they’re being harassed by the people who are supposed to protect them.

And now she’s coming for the asexuals. Like all fascists, she’s picking on a target that can’t fight back, and she’s raising the profile of us, mocking us then making us out to be a threat somehow. This will escalate.

I can blend into the allosexual world if I want to, but I don’t want to. I am fairly outspoken about being ace, and I intend to stay that way, even facing down the barrel of a gun.

Here’s the thing: Harry Potter is fine. I am not going to talk about how badly written it is (the word I’d use is competent, and leave it at that) or say I knew how problematic it was the whole time. There’s some good stuff in there, but much of it could be found, and presented better, in any Terry Pratchett novel. I’ve read all seven books and seen all the movies. I even think of myself as a Hufflepuff (without all the hard work stuff).

Lately, I’ve been forced to consider “The Death of the Author,” in which an author can be separated from their work. This is important when the artist behaves badly, as in the case of literary giant Neil Gaiman, and my favorite comic book writer, Warren Ellis, as well as comedians Bill Cosby and Dave Chapelle. So much of what I know about storytelling comes from these men, but I can’t separate the hate speech and rape.

Harry Potter fans with an inkling of a conscience use “The Death of the Author” as an excuse for putting on their Gryffindor scarfs and playing Quiddich, despite that the creator of this nonsensical sport is hateful and petty. She is the richest author, ever, and she wants Trans people in prisons, if not dead, for the sin of existing. And now the eye has turned to me.

Maybe they won’t come after asexuals. Maybe they won’t inspect my penis to make sure it’s being used properly. Maybe they won’t try to convert me. But American citizens are being sent to foreign countries to be imprisoned in hellish conditions. Trans people are being attacked by endless legislation. Gay teens are still being tortured legally.

Don’t tell me I’m overreacting. Don’t say it can’t happen. It is happening. You may not know any Trans people, but they’re still people, and you should care. It always starts small, with a little mocking and dismissal, and the next thing you know, you’re public enemy number one. And it looks like I’m next. You might be next.

In conclusion, if you’re a Harry Potter fan, I urge you to reconsider. I get that it’s part of your childhood, but Sandman was a crucial part of my life, and I’ve boxed it up and put it in the corner of my closet, along with my autographed copy of Norse Myths.

You are not your entertainment. You are a human being, and we need to look out for each other. If I can kick Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis and all of my favorite books and comics to the curb out of solidarity to women, you can kick Harry Potter and the Insufferable Monster to the curb too, out of solidarity to Trans people, and hopefully not asexuals.

Virtue Signaling

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Glenn Beck, whoever that is, held a rally on September 12 (I can’t remember the year) to unite us as a country, like we were on September 12, 2001. I can’t begin to list all of the ways this is a lie, so I won’t. Remember, though, regardless of where you were, what it was like when the world ended, but the next morning, life went on. We had no idea how we were supposed to move forward. Somehow, we did.

When Donald Trump pulled his face off to reveal Elon Musk making a Nazi salute, the world ended. Those of us with any decency had been betrayed by their neighbors, their coworkers, their bosses, some of whom are now saying, “I didn’t vote for this!” Judges are upholding Elon’s draconian cuts and unprecedented access to the confidential information of innocent Americans.

Somehow, life goes on.

It’s bad out there. I don’t need to tell you why. I can’t look at the news without wanting to vomit, and this is not an exaggeration. It’s hard to remember what it was like to be happy, even for a minute. Your body and mind are seeking out dopamine. There are lots of ways to get a little hit of it, but the best way is to pay someone a compliment. That way two people get dopamine hits.

Lately, for no reason, I’ve been more aggressive about pointing out things I like about a person. The dam burst when I was sitting in the dressing ballroom at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church with Lisette listening to my expertise about dresses. I have no expertise, but somehow suggesting binder clips(?) was the solution.

Lisette’s performance and character are my favorite part of Metromaniacs. I realized then there was no reason to keep this to myself. So I told her. She was startled, but touched. The next day, I told Lucille that she had that influencer vibe, and she told me she hadn’t looked at it that way. I’m looking forward to telling Mondor that his fall is art.

I’ve started bugging strangers on the street, making them smile for a moment. It’s not always rewarding, as in the three elder Zoomers walking side-by-side. As I passed them, I said, “You guys look really fucking cool, keep it up.” Then I added, “I’m being sincere. You really look cool walking like that.” Their expressions said, “Who the hell is this crazy old person?” And I think they were waiting for me to hit them up for some Molly.

I’m telling you all this because I need to brag. Bragging is in fashion. However, you only get to brag if it’s about the size of your bank account and/or penis, how much gas your car goes through, and how much people love you. Culture has criminalized bragging about the good things you do.

Well, go fuck yourself, culture, because I’m bragging about making life a tiny bit better for a tiny amount of people. It’s easy, it’s free, it only takes a few seconds, and you can turn someone’s day around. I’m bragging because I want more people to do it.

I got my hair cut two weeks ago in a slightly different style, and someone in the office noticed, and it made my morning. How could I not want to do that for other people?

I’m not a good person. I’m passive-aggressive, my manners have atrophied, my lizard brain is kind of racist, I’m impatient, and I’m a disappointment to my cat. But I like to think I’m a decent person. I do try to have some empathy.

It’s in the spirit of this that I say this: You. Yeah, you. The one reading this. You have a great smile, and I love seeing it. Except you, Lisa. Your mouth is nightmare fuel.

Reel Talk

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(Trigger Warning: It took a lot of work to keep this PG-13. I had to take a shower after the events of this brief adventure, and not in a fun way.)

I hate it when Facebook recommends stuff to me, based on my “interests,” including the reels. At one point, I was only getting clips from 2 Broke Girls, even though I am not remotely interested in that show.

The algorithm decided that, if Kat Dennings wasn’t enough, it would send me all the big boobs they had. Even though I didn’t click on them, the algorithm decided I needed to see more uncomfortable-looking breasts. It sent me reel upon reel of buxom women, mostly dancing.

When that phase passed, it switched to end-to-end Taylor Tomlinson clips, which finally got me clicking on them. (Her comedy connects with me.) However, the batch I actually engaged with didn’t last long.

Now it’s kind of crazy. Mostly, it’s gone back to big boobs, but they’re uncomfortably huge now, and I’m not turned on. I feel bad for the girls. Also there are the occasional clips from 2 Broke Girls and Taylor Tomlinson.

Today, I made a huge mistake. I saw a preview for a reel that featured an inhumanly pretty ginger in a corset. Her boobs were average-sized, so I don’t know what she was doing here.

I’m making huge strides in my artwork, and I’m trying to spend more time on faces. She was a beautiful model. And not because she was in a corset. Honest. In that two-second preview, she became a muse to me, and I needed to see more. I knew not to click on it, but I did anyway.

The video lasted about thirty seconds, and it was on a loop. The entire show featured this beautiful woman digitally stimulating the camera, as if it had male parts.

She could have been playing with a cat. She could have been banging on a silent bongo. She could have been painting. She could have been using a shake weight. But she wasn’t. She had the smug look and rhythm people have when they’re engaged in this kind of activity. Or so I’ve heard.

I closed my laptop and thought about my choices. I feel really gross now. I know I’m a vulgar person. I own this about myself. However, there’s a time and a place, and I don’t think Facebook is it. It’s not even sexy, it’s icky. Never again will I click on—ooh! Taylor Tomlinson video!

Capsule with Butterfly Wings

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When I was married, we owned a gun. It was a Glock 19, nine-millimeter. It was compact and virtually indestructible. Each clip held fifteen rounds, sixteen if you had one in the chamber, which any responsible gun owner will tell you not to do. We used steel-jacketed rounds for target practice, which means, the bullet would go through a victim and hit the person behind them. They would probably not die, but they’d have to go to the hospital. Someone could do that to over sixteen people if they were so inclined, and no one would be able to stop them until they paused to reload (which only takes a second or two).

To buy the gun, we went to the Silver Eagle gun range in Virginia, said, “We want a gun.” Kate knew the make and model, so we walked out of there a couple of minutes later. We did not have to do a background check or give any indication we were not going on a shooting spree or even sign something (maybe saying we weren’t planning on shooting anybody?). The only thing they asked of us was the payment.

I’m telling you this because that one-time purchase was easier than the hoops I have to jump through every single month to get a psychiatric medication I require to function.

USA! USA! USA!

A Day in the Life

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I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm this morning, and it still pissed me off. Oscar slept on the floor because I’d rolled over onto him at about 2:30. He knows my alarm means breakfast, so he bullied me into getting out of bed and feeding him. I brushed my teeth, cleaned out his litter box, made my bed, picked out my clothes for the day, and showered. Since it was super-early, I worked on a drawing until my favorite café in the DMV region opened at seven. I took the Metro the two stops and huffed and puffed it up some very Bay Area terrain. When I arrived, I enjoyed a breakfast sandwich while reviewing the proofs for my novel. I then continued working on my drawing and watched people for the next three hours, until the art store opened. I didn’t need paint, ink, or paper, so I just browsed. I also found the comic book shop Nicole had shown me years ago, but it wasn’t open yet. In this beautiful, late-summer day, I explored Silver Spring, Maryland and went home to open up my social medias.

The one and only post I could find that acknowledged what’s on my mind today was the car salesman meme, this one selling a plane that can crash into two buildings for the price of one.

I’m done until tomorrow.

I Want to Take his Face … Off

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We all know who Nic Cage is. He’s a dangerously unhinged actor who had a pyramid constructed to house his remains. When you see him screaming, “Not the bees! Not the bees!”; it’s easy to forget that this guy won an Oscar. He is a genuinely good actor, but he owes a lot of money to the IRS, and will take any job he can get.

Nicolas Cage is weird. He named his son Kal-El. He’s plenty weird onscreen too, delivering some of the most bipolar performances in movie history. You can see the same histrionics in the role that won him an Oscar on display when he dresses as a bear and cold-cocks a woman.

In Face/Off, one of his bigger roles, Cage plays a terrorist who switches faces with the FBI agent vowing to bring him to justice. He costars with John Travolta, who plays the FBI agent who switch faces with the terrorist he vows to bring to justice. And then the doves come out.

Face/Off starts out with a little boy, no older than five, getting shot in the head. It’s a John Woo movie, so no punches are going to be pulled. The next scene ends with a plane crash and gun ballet and someone getting flattened in a wind tunnel. This is the first eighteen minutes of this film.

John Woo had a long career in Hong Kong before coming to the US. The first time I saw Hard Boiled, I couldn’t get clips from it out of my head. The grace of the dives, the flash and crack of the guns. A baby urinating on the hero to put out a fire. Hard Boiled was a bloodbath, but sentimental, like all John Woo movies.

I haven’t seen all of his movies, but I have to say that Face/Off is in his top three (that I know about). With a Hollywood budget and stars, he shot a bloody gunfight around a five-year-old boy listening to “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” He ends the movie with a brutal gunfight in a church, followed by a high-speed boat chase that ends when their stunt men are thrown onto the beach. This was a bay seemingly made of napalm because everything blew up.

Face/Off seemed like the last few episodes of a long-running show. Agent Sean Archer and Castor Troy have a long history of failing to kill each other, and it shows. There are so many stories between them, I’m surprised a comic book company never got the licensing rights to do prequels. There are so many characters who have names and are given a personality who are in maybe two scenes, from Archer’s best friend, Tito to the agents at the FBI office, to Castor’s brother Pollax, to the vaguely incestuous Demetri and Sasha, who work with Troy.

Even though Nicolas Cage danced, grinned, and got a little pedo as Castor Troy, the movie is never more entertaining as when he’s John Travolta. When Travolta is Sean Archer, he has all the charisma of a sack of mashed potatoes in a toupee, but if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s mischief. He plays Castor Troy like a sociopathic thirteen-year-old boy.

With John Travolta as the bad guy, Nicolas Cage gets to be the good guy. Where Travolta’s performance ranges from annoyed to angry, Cage brings in some real pathos. This war is weighing on both of them, and it shows.

John Woo’s career didn’t get any better than this. He made some more movies in America, to diminishing returns, including Mission Impossible 2, as well as Windtalkers, the movie about a Navajo Code Talker where the main character is a white guy. Eventually he went back to Hong Kong and has been making the kinds of movies he wants to make.

This was my favorite movie until it got dethroned two years later. I bonded to the moral grayness—when Travolta is Troy, he becomes a father and a husband, and when Cage is Archer, he steals and lies and commits great acts of violence. I was pretty convinced I was a bad guy back then, and it was good to see that you could be bad and do good things.

I also really dug the gun ballet, as well as the mythos, and the finest, as Jason Mantzoukas calls it, “kabuki acting.” I could talk about this movie forever, like how the Troy brothers are named after the Gemini brothers, but I won’t. I’m not qualified to say if this is his magnum opus. What I will say is that this movie was the work of a mad genius, and I salute you. If there’s one word you can use to describe John Woo, it’s sincerity. I think this is how he sees the world. I think that, most of all, is what I connected with.

Words, Words, Words

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If there’s one thing people know about me, it’s that I’m a writer. This goes all the way back to the fifth grade when I wrote my first short story, a Top Gun fan fiction. I showed it to my dad, and he had notes. Everyone’s a critic.

I have over thirty novels to my name, as well as countless short stories, a well-curated folder of most of my essays and blog entries, as well as a memoir and whatever the fuck “Three Stories in One” is supposed to be. Between “Three Stories in One” and my school newspaper column, writing made me a celebrity in high school. I went to college to learn to write. I moved to New York to become a writer, and while I didn’t become published, I certainly enjoyed the craft.

My marriage was great for me as a writer because she had an idea for a novel (I’d only written short stories so far), she got a lead on a contest I ultimately did pretty well in, and she bullied me into submitting my work. Ten short stories were published in various anthologies, but I got over sixty rejections on a novel I wrote by accident while she was in Namibia.

That basically stopped me from writing until seven years ago, when I entered another season of the contest and decided that I was going to write a novel. I did. And then I wrote the next one. I wrote the novels to write them, and I wasn’t going to kill my self-esteem with dozens more rejection letters. I tried again, submitting my best novel so far, but after thirty-plus rejections, I gave up.

Years later, I saw an ad for a writing service. Among the their many offerings is help (from agents and editors) with writing your query letters and synopses, copyediting for your samples, and help finding the agents and publishers your work is the best match for. I purchased all of these. They found me five agents and five publishers because I didn’t want more than ten rejections. I got nine. The tenth should be publishing me in a few months.

If there’s two things about me that people know, it’s that I’m a writer and a Doctor Who fan from way back. I grew up with Classic Who, where the effects were cheap (but very imaginative), the acting was not Method, and the serials were always one or two episodes too long. Then it got cancelled, and seven years later, there was a movie with flashy effects and motorcycle chases. When that went over like a fart in a car, they rebooted the series nine years later, and it runs to this very day.

I’ve loyally watched all of NuWho (or Who Redux) as they have gone from Doctor to Doctor and showrunner to showrunner. Prior to last year, the latter was Chris Chibnall. It did not go over well. It started going badly before his era even began because the Doctor was going to be played by an icky girl. I defended Chris Chibnall from the Doctor-Who-not-Nurse-Who/Go-Woke-go-broke contingent who were complaining about the writing so they could mask their sexism. However, I wasn’t enjoying the show anymore. When it wasn’t completely forgettable, the mythos was being torn down, and the character was being stripped of everything I loved about them. The problem was indeed the writing. As a writer, I’m not happy to say this.

When a project goes wrong, especially on TV, it’s almost always the writers. And considering how much people complain about the writing, it’s no wonder the studios want to use AIs to do it.

But movie and TV writing is not an art, it’s a science. In a movie, you must, by around page 55, have some kind of conflict. And the audience is so trained to expect this that The Avengers dragged a little in the middle because the epic fight on the Helicarrier took place on page 70. If characters don’t hit their beats like they’re supposed to, people can’t handle it. Look at the reaction to The Last Jedi. I tried writing a pilot, but I couldn’t make it fit into five acts.

Movies have endless script doctors fine-tuning every little thing. A sitcom will have rooms full of writers, fine-tuning every single joke. Producers and studios give their input. Actors love to give their input too, sometimes rewriting their lines. A producer (or a comic book editor) will have an idea, and they’ll make a writer make it happen. The writers everyone is complaining about are a committee, about as far from the process of writing I enjoy.

Don’t get me wrong—I love a good collaboration. Some of my favorite memories are sitting in Shane’s studio, bouncing ideas off of each other and creating a screenplay and a lost screenplay. But that’s not what happens. In movie and TV writing, someone is always reading over your shoulder and telling you they can do it better, unless you’re Neil Gaiman.

I used to want to be Joss Whedon (before we found out he was a violent creep) because he had made a brand for himself. He had fans who would watch anything he wrote, even Dollhouse. They picked apart his mythology, they obsessively watched for Easter eggs. I wish someone would do that to my stuff. Yeah, it would be great to have fans. I wish my other twenty-nine novels had readers.

On the other hand, I sit here in my cozy apartment with my swiftly growing cat, living my life with (mostly) peace and contentment. How miserable would I be if I were a professional writer?

If I were a novelist, I would still need a job because authors get paid shit (there’s a finite amount of money for authors, and it’s all going to JK Rowling). If I were a TV writer, I’d have to hustle just to make minimum wage while the studios figured out ways not to pay me, and I’d have to share my inspiration with a crowd and a belligerent showrunner. If I were a movie writer, the screenplay I poured my life into is going to be ripped up and reassembled, so I won’t recognize it.

The Princess Bride is a classic because of the performances and the art direction and costuming and sets, all brought together by Ron Howard, but every single quirk, every single quotable line came from William Goldman. You can’t have a movie, TV show, or comic book without the writing (though the founders of Image Comics gave it their best shot), but people don’t notice unless it’s bad.

I’m living my best life right now. I’m not famous, and maybe that’s okay. I used to feel like I was supposed to have a bestseller for my twentieth high school reunion, but I don’t want to hand over parts of my soul to people who have no respect for me. I’m a writer. I write. And that’s good enough for me.

God’s Not Dead 5: God Strikes Back

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When I was a little bitty kid, around ten, I think, I spirited my younger sisters into my room. I had something important to tell them, and it was going to blow their tiny little minds: Santa Claus wasn’t real. I had evidence. If PowerPoint existed back then, I would have had slides. My youngest sibling fled the room, crying, and the middle sibling was not convinced. Christmas morning, Santa wrote me a long letter in my dad’s handwriting urging me not to lose faith. That Advent, my skepticism started early.

I’m going just going to say it: I’m an atheist, meaning I don’t believe in god. That’s all it means. We are all different. Some atheists believe in fairies. Buddhism is an atheist religion, and there’s even an afterlife. I read Viking runes. Some of us are naturalists, i.e. we don’t believe in anything that can’t be tested with the Scientific Method. (I’m one of them.)

You may be wondering what caused me to disbelieve in God. To those in the know, this would be called my “deconstruction story,” except I don’t have one. I don’t think I ever believed in God, even as I was born and baptized a Roman Catholic. I’m middle-aged, so the motives of my child self are baffling to me, the ones I remember. However, based on the wreckage of cars I left behind, as well as of theft, bullying, court appearances, and my father’s broken legs, it was clear that I was not concerned about hell.

Between the ages of eight and fourteen, I grabbed the reins and took control over my life. Yeah, I was still a bad kid, but I was better. My grades improved. I developed mentoring relationships with most of my teachers. I got along with adults better than people my own age, and I had a great thing going on with the parish priest and his deacon.

When you’re a Catholic, you have a list of sacraments that you should at least make an attempt to complete. Ask your Irish or Italian friends. Your first sacrament is baptism, which you don’t have any say in. You also don’t have any say in your second sacrament either, because you’re in the second grade. You want it, though, because it’s the reason you have a suit.

Confirmation, they tell us, is optional. Around the end of middle school, you’re asked to confirm the commitment you made when you got your first communion. Seven is too young to choose your path, but thirteen makes you a grown-up. Confirmation is a ceremony to mark your entrance into adulthood and make the decision whether or not to stay Catholic.

By that point, I had been questioning the church, and I was seriously considering not kneeling before the bishop, where he’d be slapping me. This wouldn’t have been out of rebellion, or fear of the slap, but rather respect for the people who did believe. (My best friend in high school, Tony, would receive communion, an earned sacrament, despite that he was not a Catholic. I was appalled, even back then.) However, one look around revealed that Confirmation was not optional at all.

I was an altar boy for many years, through my doubts, because I got along so well with the clergy. I will never forget the look on my dad’s face when he saw Father’s arm around my shoulders. New Mexico had known about the pedophile priest scandal long before the rest of the world because this was where they shipped them. You’ll be relieved to know that nothing happened. He was one of the good ones.

The deacon was a friend of my mother’s, and he took a special interest in me while I flung one atheist 101ism after another at him. By that point, I was starting to realize I didn’t belong in that Sunday school class anymore, so I told him I didn’t believe in God. I think I was brave enough to say this out loud then because I wasn’t worried about losing everything by rejecting the church because I had new friends, and they weren’t Catholic, or even Christian. The next day, my mother pulled the car over to deliver an impassioned, eloquent, furious speech about why I was wrong, and God was real.

Even though I didn’t believe I’d be going to hell, I lived in fear of it. If I was wrong, and Jesus was real, then there was no way I was going to heaven. Yeah, I was nicer to people at that point in my life, but you didn’t have to dig very far for the bad. Most people were like this, I imagined. Maybe that dad over there hit his kids. Maybe that young woman had an abortion. Going to heaven was the kind of thing you needed extra credit for. I went to confession, and I prayed and prayed, and I could only fake it and hope nobody noticed.

Late in high school, we were excused from class so we could go to some kind of evangelical recruitment show in the gym. (I’m not sure how that happened with the separation of church and state.) I wanted so badly to believe, to be one of them, that I broke down in the middle of the gym, bawling, begging Jesus to take me. He never did.

In college, I studied the bible, only a couple of credits shy of a Religion minor. However, the more I read the Hebrew bible and the historical documents surrounding them, the more I saw the holy book as a collection of myths. Likewise, when I went through the Greek bible, I found a lot to be skeptical of. I won’t go into detail about this because I didn’t write this to start a fight.

I tried to believe in God another way. I remember Mom assuring me that Genesis says it took six days to create Earth and man, but why couldn’t a day be millions of years? I flirted with the Baha’i faith when I had to decide between all religions being wrong, or every religion being right. When the idea of praying to God to find my keys seemed kind of petty, I considered Aquinas’s Unmoved Mover.

I couldn’t even believe in luck. Nowadays, I do, but not as an external force, rather as the delicate, snowflake of coincidences coming together to create a perfect moment. Life is full of them. My history would get picked apart online if it were a movie.

For example, during the Great Blackout of ’03, I was trying to figure out how to get to New Jersey, and I bumped into my friend and former coworker, Mark. I had no idea how I was getting home, but Mark had a plan. And sure enough, I made it by bedtime. If I had not stopped in a bar for forty-five minutes and drank the last cold beers in Manhattan, I would not have been in that exact spot when Mark showed up.

I have been a very lucky man.

As I got older, I started looking again for something I could believe. I embraced the religion of my ex-wife. Keep in mind, she’s the one who bought a raccoon skull on eBay to put on the altar she drilled into the wall of our (her) condo. She fed it bowls of wine. The raccoon was her animal spirit.

I tried having an animal spirit. As I was walking down the steps out of a leather shop early in our marriage, I felt a pair of giant, invisible talons grab me by the shoulders. Since then, my animal spirit has been the owl, and that’s why I have an owl shrine next to my Newcastle shrine.

I tried to believe in her gods. And yet, even though I learned fairy lore, even though I became a Morrigan fan boy, even though I taught myself how to read runes, even though I used everything I learned and wrote a series of Urban Fantasy novels about it, even though I went to mass at the UU church, even though I looked in awe toward the really weird people she was hanging out with, I couldn’t just believe.

After I moved out, I came to realize that I wasn’t agnostic, I am an atheist. I’m not an atheist because the church hurt me or I realized it’s easier to sin if I didn’t believe in hell. I’m not an atheist because I hate God. I don’t blame him for the death of Newcastle. I don’t blame him for all of the horrible natural or otherwise disasters that destroy the lives of millions. I don’t even blame him for the reprehensible actions of many of his followers. I can’t blame him for any of this because he doesn’t exist to me.

I’m sure some of you knew this already. I haven’t concealed my skepticism, so I figured some people have assumed. I haven’t believed in God all my life, and it took until now to say anything directly. Apologists have a lot of shitty things to say about us, and in poll after poll, we’re the least trusted religious subgroup. Pastors tell their congregations that we’re coming to take their religion away.

It doesn’t help that the spokesman for atheists in the mainstream was Christopher Hitchens, a bottomless asshole. Who wants to be associated with him?

Coming out as atheist has changed nothing about me. I’m a guy who loves cats and used to like comics and respects his job and has a creative outlet. At this point in my life, most of my identity is tied up in my creative outlet. If you’ve never had a chance to speak with an atheist before, let me answer some common questions.

Are we just animals? Yes. To simplify it, evolution happens when an organism adapts over many generations to fit their environment. Occasionally, you’ll find an organism that adapts its environment to them. Some of them developed consciousness and imagination, and the consciousness and imagination evolved into art, religion, and culture. Our personalities evolve from a combination of instincts and environment, like any other animal, but as humans we have drama. I don’t know where that evolved from.

Do I believe in eternal life? Yes, but not how you think. Over the course of my life, I’ve encountered thousands of people, and I’ve affected them in some way, for good or for bad. These people, in turn, have an effect on someone else. And so on. Though the memory of me will fade, I will live on. That’s my eternal life.

What do I think happens when I die? Nothing. The lights go out, and everybody will have to move on with their lives. To explain why I think this is a good thing, I’m going to talk about Star Wars. Star Wars is a series of eleven movies, two made-for-TV movies, a holiday special, two Saturday Morning cartoons, as well as a lot of animated series for every age, and a number of TV shows. There’s some books, but only nerds read those. Once upon a time, Star Wars was two amazing and one fine (I guess) movies. And they were brilliant, even the okay one. They changed Western culture. Nowadays, when there’s an announcement for a Star Wars movie or TV show, see if America cares. The Empire Strikes Back, arguably the best out of all the movies, is less than 5 percent of current Star Wars content.

There was a time when six hours of Star Wars was all we had, and we loved every little detail of it. That’s how I feel about my life. My story will be over within a few decades, and that’s great because what a story it was. My life had drama! It had pathos! It had twists, it had turns! I met some amazing people and went on some great adventures. How can a day be special if it’s one in an eternity?

And that brings me to your next question: Where do I find purpose? Inside me. I know what I want to do with my life, and I do it. Writing is my purpose, drawing is my purpose, except when Oscar deposits himself on my sketchbook or keyboard. Keeping him fed, clean, and happy is my purpose, just like it was for Newcastle or any cat I’ve lived with.

Finally: Where does my morality come from? I have empathy, and I don’t want to do something that hurts another person. (I mean, I do, but it’s never my intention.) I would never have sex with someone who was not my wife at the time because that would hurt her. However, when we agreed to be polyamorous household, I had sex with someone who was not my wife, and no one was hurt. I’m more concerned with ethics than morals because there are no moral absolutes.

Those were the first questions that occurred to me, but if you have more, feel free to message me in good faith. I’ll answer to the best of my abilities. I know most of you don’t agree with me, and that’s fine. I’m not here to convert you. I just want you to understand where I’m coming from.

I’m asking that you respect my lack of belief. Don’t try to convert me, don’t try to debate me. As I hope I’ve expressed in this essay, I’ve made every effort to be a believer, and no amount of your logic or appeals to my humanity are going to suddenly make everything click. No matter how clever you think you are, I can guarantee I’ve already heard it.

My life is not empty. I have a cat who will fight me for a cinnamon roll. I have my art, I have my writing. I’m not the most social person, but I regularly chat with people who mean the world to me. It took me a long time to realize this, but the life I’m living now is more than a dress rehearsal. This world is my only home, so I’m going to try to take care of it and enjoy what it has to offer.

Fangs for the Ride

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I have to tell you about this movie I just saw. It’s called V for Vengeance, and it’s about adopted sisters, two vampires and one finding a cure for vampirism. On the poster, one of the sisters is holding a crossbow, which she never does in the movie. I had put it on to have something in the background while I tinkered with my latest work of art, but Oscar set up camp on my arm, so I had to watch it.

I really enjoyed this movie. One of the sisters is armed with a stake made out of the same kind of tree the cross was made out of. They call it the Jesus Stake. She had the Jesus Stake because she called dibs when it was brought out. There is a government agency called the Federal Vampire Corps.

I don’t love this movie because it’s good. I don’t love it because it’s so bad it’s good. I love it because it tries so hard. For example, a hilarious philosophical debate about eternal life goes on between an impeccably groomed man who likes to shout and a young woman in a baby tee, and short-shorts, using words like elucidate.

The death scenes, of which there’s a spectacular one (well, more than one) near the end of the movie, are on par with Paul Reubens on the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It wasn’t supposed to be hilarious.

The writing is not very good, but it follows the formula. The character you’re expecting to betray the good guys betrays the good guys. One of the sisters is falling for the Judas, but their romance is awkward motel sex, so you can’t really buy it. The dialogue is … fine? I guess. It’s influenced by Joss Whedon, but without the pop culture references.

Speaking of the writing, this movie has Chekov’s switchblade boot. You figure out pretty quickly when the lethal footwear will come in handy. You may not expect any twists, but they come up with an even dumber use for them that you really don’t see coming. Of course, this is used to kill the bad guy. (If you’ve seen this kind of movie before, I’m not spoiling anything.)

On the other hand, the actor who plays the lead is actually really good. Her character is a vampire who drinks too much alcohol and gazes contemplatively into the distance when she’s not killing perverts on the highway. The actor (whose name I didn’t get) portrays her with sass and joie de vivre, and she’s a real bright spot.

Most of the actors aren’t that great, but Graham Greene’s in it. The fight choreography is choppy and raw, but quite good. For budget reasons, they didn’t use their vampire powers much, but when they did, they were cool and different.

I guess what I liked about this movie is that it could have been good with a budget, even the script, the weakest part. I don’t recommend it because it isn’t good, but I had a good time.

I’m the Exact Amount of Sexy for This Song

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So I can’t use the lyrics to “I’m too Sexy” in my book. I tried. The publisher told me it could potentially cost thousands of dollars (for fifteen words; yay capitalism!). The first version is almost perfect because it captures that moment when you realize, “I’m going to have to listen to this again.” The second version is lame, so I’m not going to do it. The third version is what I’m going with.

Original Version
Because, just as she was trying to make sense of a geometry problem, the jukebox went off. A deep voice, almost comically so, said, “I’m too sexy for my love; too sexy for my love; love’s going to leave me.” Her head slammed down onto her book. Had they seriously not updated the jukebox for ten years, but when this song came out, they thought, this was the one? This was the music they wanted everyone to associate with their family restaurant?

The What-I’m-Not-Going-to-Do Version
Because, just as she was trying to make sense of a geometry problem, the jukebox went off. A deep voice, almost comically so, said the opening lyrics to “I’m too Sexy” by Right Said Fred. Her head slammed down onto her book. Had they seriously not updated the jukebox for ten years, but when this song came out, they thought, this was the one? This was the music they wanted everyone to associate with their family restaurant?

Final Version
Because, just as she was trying to make sense of a geometry problem, the jukebox went off. An aria, with a voice as deep as the bowels of hell, heralded a first-person ballad she had come to know of a man whose sexiness exceeds the tolerance of his love, his car, his cat, your party, several cosmopolitan cities, and his shirt, the latter of which actually causes him pain. Her head slammed down on her book. Had they seriously not updated the jukebox for ten years, but when this song came out, they thought, this was the one? This was the music they wanted everyone to associate with their family restaurant? “I’m Too Sexy?” Really?

Conclusion
This whole ordeal reminds me of the original Cybermen from Doctor Who. The women who designed their costume had something like fifty dollars, so she bought a vacuum cleaner and some floodlights and constructed one of the most iconic bad guys in science fiction TV. Nowadays, if you want something onscreen, you throw millions of dollars at some keyboard jockeys, and they make it happen. Before CGI, you had to work within existing space with limits, and they did some amazing things. Think about how much better A New Hope looks like next to Rise of Skywalker. Being limited ultimately gave me a chance to describe how dumb that song is without using any of the lyrics, and the result is better than I’d originally written it.

(Special thanks to Donna Martinez who helped me brainstorm this approach. Someone, I won’t say who, has earned a space on my acknowledgements page.)