Let’s begin with some stupid advice. I don’t have time to write a lot today because the Princess is ill and must go see the doctor in Plano. So the advice is; Set aside time for writing and always allow plenty of time for it. You will probably notice already that I am giving you advice that I am not taking myself this morning. So don’t follow that advice. It is stupid advice. I have given it to creative writing classes for years and thought I meant it. But looking back on real life, I realize, it has never been true for me. My best ideas, my best writing, always seem to come in the middle of the pressure-cooker of daily struggle and strife. I have battled serious illness for most of my adult life. I have the luck of a man who tried to avoid letting a black cat cross his path by crashing his bicycle at the top of a hill covered in clover with only three leaves each and then rolling down the hill, under a ladder, and crashing into a doorpost which knocks the horseshoe off the top. The horseshoe lands on my stupid head with the “U” facing downward so the luck all drains out. Bad things happen to me all the time. But it makes for good writing. Tell me you didn’t at least smile at the picture I just painted in your mind. You might’ve even been unable to suppress a chuckle. I am under time pressure and misfortune pressure and the need to rearrange my entire daily schedule. So it is the perfect time to write.
This essay, however, is about bad advice. And I am a perfect person to rely on as a resource for bad advice. I am full of it. Of course, I mean I am full of bad advice, not that other thing we think of when someone tells me I am “Full of it!” So here’s another bit of writing advice that is probably completely wrong and a bad idea to take without a grain of salt, or at least a doctor’s prescription. You should stop bird-walking in your essay and get to the damn point!
I know a lot about the subject of depression. When I was a teenager, I came very close to suicide. I experienced tidal waves of self-loathing and black-enveloping blankets of depression for reasons that I didn’t understand until I realized later in life that it all came from being a child-victim of sexual assault. Somehow I muddled through and managed to self-medicate with journal writing and fantasy-fixations, thus avoiding a potentially serious alcohol or drug problem. This is connected to my main idea, despite the fact that I am obviously not following the no bird-walking advice. You see, with depression, Bad advice can kill you. Seriously, people want to tell you to just, “Get over it! Stop moping about and get on with life. It isn’t real. You are just being lazy.”
I have been on the inside of depression and I know for a fact that not taking it seriously can be deadly. In fact, I have faced suicidal depression not only in myself, but in several former students and even my own children. I have spent time in emergency rooms, mental hospitals, and therapists offices when I wasn’t myself the depression sufferer. One of my high school classmates and one of my former students lost their battles and now are no longer among the living. (Sorry, have to take a moment for tears again.) But I learned how to help a depression sufferer. You have to talk to them and make them listen at least to the part where you say, “I have been through this myself. Don’t give in to it. You can survive if you fight back. And whatever you have to do, I will be right here for you. You can talk to me about anything. I will listen. And I won’t try to give you any advice.” Of course, after you say that to them, you do not leave them alone. You stay by them and protect them from themselves, or make sure somebody that will do the same for them stays with them. So far, that last bit of advice has worked for me. But the fight can be life-long. And it is a critical battle.
So taking advice from others is always an adventure. Red pill? Green pill? Poison pill? Which will you take? I can’t decide for you. Any advice I give you would probably just be stupid advice. You have to weigh the evidence and decide for yourself. What does this stupid essay even mean? Isn’t it just a pile of stupid advice? A concluding paragraph should tell you the answer if it can. But, I fear, there is no answer this time.
But that, of course, is not how it works in real life… even without the nuclear physics which was an exaggeration for humorous effect.
Catch a Falling Star 
The Muffin Man Goes Uber-ing
I have been retired now for nearly four years. It has not been an easy thing to adjust to. I am used to hard work and constant thinking on my feet. Yet I have been mostly confined to the house and unable to do much beyond write and drive my kids to the many places high school kids need to go. I don’t really have trouble keeping busy, but I need to do something to reconnect to the outside world beyond the bedroom door.
I have been teaching myself to cook. These muffins are strawberry flavored and only require milk added to the mix, no eggs to crack and shell pieces to pick out of the batter. I have also been learning the hard way how to burn the crap out of pans and muffin trays. And… learning how to clean burned pans… but obviously not very well.
I have been getting to know the oven quite well. We talk about life and muffins and heat and baking times, and she is constantly beeping at me to warn me when things are about to burn.
She has also been giving me writing advice. She got me talked into not burning my bank account any further by investing in publishing services. Those goobers are mostly just money-grubbers in a dying industry. My novel Stardusters and Space Lizards was thoroughly baked on this blog over the last sixty eight weeks, and so I needed to finally take it out of the oven. This I did through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. The book was formatted and put together in publishable form in a matter of days. You can find it here on Amazon… My Book. Page Publishing still has my novel Magical Miss Morgan in page formatting after over a year and a half of working with them. No way are their services worth the money I paid them. They work slowly and dangerously incompetently. I would sue them to get my money back, but it would cost me more for a lawyer than what I paid them. So far with self-publishing I am only ten dollars in the hole, the amount I spent on copies of my own book.
But as the stove pointed out heatedly, the kitchen and computer are not actually getting out of the house and meeting the world again after three and three quarters years. And the chances of income from muffins and writing are slim. So I also made a plan to be an Uber driver. I got carefully signed up and prepared. I was finally able to download the Uber driving app last weekend, and this weekend I finally felt well enough to try driving for money. So last night I got in the car and connected with a potential passenger, my first ever Uber drive.
Of course, this is Mickey we are talking about here. Nothing in my little life ever goes smoothly, especially at the start. If things were perfect, I would definitely be worried that something was seriously wrong with the universe. So, my first passenger was a guy who needed to be driven to the 7-Eleven to buy beer. And naturally, I couldn’t find the place to start with. The Uber computer-voice lady kept wanting me to download something in the middle of giving me directions. She also wanted me to turn left and drive through a fence. But when I finally did turn in to the apartment complex and realized that I was in the wrong section of the complex to pick up my passenger, I quickly corrected my error and found him. Computer-voice lady kept telling me to turn the wrong direction, so I listened to my passenger to make the proper turns and got him there on time. My car, however, overheated in the parking lot. Now, that isn’t entirely accurate. It has a faulty heat-sensor that registers overheating whenever the car is idling and heat is reflected back up from stationary pavement under the car. I had the thing in to the dealer for the recall fix twice, and the replacement chips are just as defective as the original chips. And, of course, I have been notified about the class action lawsuit, but because it is not a life-threatening malfunction, it may be some time before that is resolved. So, I rolled down the windows and turned the car heater up high and reduced the heat the defective detector detected. The drunk guy got back in the car with his beer and I successfully took him back to his apartment, his girlfriend, and his party. I got a five star rating for the trip. But I cut the night short. I earned $4.oo total for the evening. It wasn’t perfect, but I was finally out in the world again. I was earning money again. And I got to discuss the perils of diabetes with a drunk guy whose brother had juvenile diabetes. Life is good… some of the time.
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