Author: Pavowski

I am a teacher, runner, father, and husband. I am an author-in-progress. I'm bad at jiu-jitsu. I know just enough about a lot of things to get me into a lot of trouble.

S***-men

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Just wanna take a moment to point out how sick I am of “I wish he wouldn’t do/say that, BUT …”

News lately is lousy with this phrase. I guess it’s probably always been lousy with this phrase, but more so since You-Know-Who has sat the highest seat in the land. Every day he does something that needs apologizing for. And since he will never apologize for himself (you have to feel bad about a thing to apologize for it), every day his apologists swarm forth to deliver said apologies in his stead. Kind of.

Let’s be real, though. We all went to grade school. We all know that when you apologize with a “but” on the end, it’s not really an apology, you’re claiming justification. You’re admitting wrongdoing, but not really. “I wish he wouldn’t say s***holes, BUT (insert racist and/or patronizing remark here).” “I wish he wouldn’t say ‘grab ’em by the p****, BUT (insert sexist and/or derogatory remarks about an entire gender here).”

Sidenote: I’m fascinated and endlessly amused by the dances networks do to avoid repeating the foul language You-Know-Who uses. Listening to an interview when both parties keep saying, literally, s-holes, is so ludicrous it’s almost to be laughed at. “blank”holes is pretty good, too. Or you could go the CNN route, throw caution to the wind, and just use the actual language in question in front of millions of viewers round-the-clock. Seriously — what’s the right play? Censor the language of the highest office in the land or report on it honestly and be judged vulgar?

Then they proceed to evangelize about why, deep down, he’s really right to say what he’s saying, even if he isn’t saying it in “the nicest way”.

And, I mean, I get it. Everybody misspeaks. Thank goodness, after all, I don’t have people parsing my language every day. But, for goodness’s sake. There’s not a job in this country that you can keep when you’re so uncouth, so consistently uninformed, so routinely unaware of social graces.

Except, apparently, president. Apparently the president can say whatever he wants, and still be defended to the death by suit- and skirt-wearing sycophants.

And these are only the things we hear about!

Seems like the argument today is that he didn’t say “s***hole countries,” he said “s***house countries.” Because that’s so much better.

The problem isn’t even the language (though the language is its own problem). The problem is the thinking — or the lack of thinking — behind the language. Write off an entire country, an entire group of people, as a hole in the ground fit only for excrement? Sure, that seems reasonable.

Is he the Pied Piper? Is he a voodoo priest? How does he manage to convince so many otherwise intelligent people to make the stupidest arguments on his behalf? Why do so many otherwise respectable individuals keep destroying their credibility coming to his defense?

I don’t know if I will ever understand this.

Progress, Quantified

Pavowski4 Comments

So here’s what’s going on with my current project:

It’s a Superhero story (I’m currently reading Save the Cat, which, if you haven’t read it as a writer, I can only encourage you to pick it up right away, even if you’re not writing screenplays) about a guy in a family of supers who has no powers himself. So he’s a little jaded. When he finally develops an ability of his own, he quickly finds himself at the top of the food chain and sets about a plan to wipe out supers forever.

It’s an idea I love that I kicked around in the ol’ brain for a good couple years before I wrote the first words, and once I did start writing it, it really took on a life of its own, as they say. Lots of twists and turns grew organically out of the thing, which is just one of the measures I use to tell me when an idea is worth pursuing.

And now, as I find myself neck-deep in rewrites and edits, the story is growing out of control like a Mogwai tossed in the deep end of the pool. Every day or two, I have an idea for something I want to add to the story, some twist to throw in the road. Every time I re-read something, the characters seem to be speaking to me: that doesn’t make sense, I should be doing THIS instead.

Gremmy

Playing whack-a-mole with ideas like this is frustrating: obviously not everything that springs to mind can make it to the page. Every widget you add over here throws things out of balance over there, and if you’re not careful, the story will go to pieces trying to accomodate everything. But it’s also encouraging, because it makes every writing session exciting. Every page is Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.

So every day is taxing work — pruning here, shaping here, splicing here, all without end — but it’s also fulfilling and of late, it’s actually been enjoyable. Like I wrote yesterday, the words are coming easier and faster of late. Given the loggerheads I was at with my other project, I’m taking all this as just another sign I’m on the right path, moving in the right direction.

Maybe I’ll even set a deadline, soon.

(I haven’t given myself a deadline in over a year.)

*flies into panic*

*jumps out the window*

This post is part of Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday. Today’s prompt was “the 6th, 7th, and 8th word of the page of the nearest publication. That happened to be “at the top”, from my current read, Otherworld, by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller.

Progress

Pavowski1 Comment

2018 has been productive, so far.

Words are moving — maybe not flying, but moving — on the novel project. 500 word days are coming easy. Average is more like 6-800 when I get rolling. Runs are good, too. The nagging Achilles issue I had for the last few months of 2017 is waning, so the run is an actual release and something I can enjoy again. Which helps tremendously!

And the wife and I are down a few pounds; amazing what we can accomplish when we hold each other accountable. (Actually, she holds me accountable much more than I her, but let’s not quibble!)

The road to summer is long, but at least for now, the path is lighted.

And now for a three-day weekend to derail all that post-holiday progress, whee!

Things Not to Say to an Atheist

Pavowski11 Comments

The title of this post is probably a topic for a weekly feature all its own. Perhaps even a daily one. Fear not, This blog is not about to go full militant atheist.

Still, when somebody wanders into my house and starts flinging poo at the walls, I think it’s only fair to feel some kind of way about it.

I present to you the following comment, which landed on this post just yesterday (emphasis mine):

I wonder why some humans take no personal responsibility for what happens in the world? Just because you have never had a personal relationship or experience with God, doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist. It just means you may not be one of the humans He has chosen to show Himself to. Even if He did, the way you think would cause you to attribute His interaction with you to something you did to make it so. I feel such pity for humans like you. If you had lived my life, you would KNOW Him as I do. But He has given you freewill, and thus, the option to say He does not exist. All will become clear when you encounter Him after death. Humans are wrong about many, many, many, MANY things. Believing there is no God is the most tragic of all.

I could pick this thing to pieces, but again, that’s not my schtick — I’m a more-or-less friendly atheist. There’s at least four or five questionable assumptions and dubious claims in here, but the one sticking in my teeth like a popcorn kernel is the bolded line.

Pity.

Pity assumes that the pitied party is in really dire straits. (Sidenote: are you familiar with Puddles’ Pity Party? You should be, and I say that even though my comfort level with clowns is barely inches above the pavement.) Pity assumes that the pitier is in a superior position, somehow, to the pitied. And pity is, therefore, pretty much innately condescending. Someone up high feeling badly for someone down low.

Get the hell out of here with that.

If I’m to be pitied, it’s only for thinking that I could somehow start turning a dime off my words after almost 40 years walking this earth, not because I don’t believe in the specific god that you happen to believe. I’m doing just fine in my heathenism. Good house, good job, good family.

And, somewhat off the point: what’s up with calling me a “human”? Are you not a human? Am I somehow less than a person? I can’t prove it, but it definitely feels derogatory, so minus points for that, too.

This is not the humble, shrinking atheist you were looking for.

You can go about your business.

Atheist Symbol

Bowl-Shocked

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In less than a year, two of my hometown teams have suffered two of the most embarrassing, soul-crushing losses in recent sports history.

In last year’s Super Bowl, it was my beloved Atlanta Falcons running the hated New England Patriots out of the building for three quarters, only to allow a historic comeback in the 4th that led to an inevitable loss in overtime.

This time, it was my alma mater, the Georgia Bulldogs in the CFP championship, keeping the dynastic Alabama Crimson Tide at arm’s length for three quarters, only to allow (hmm, this feels familiar) a huge comeback in the 4th that led to an inevitable loss in overtime.

It’s one thing losing when your team is bad. You accept that they’re going to suck, you don’t get all invested in them, and you move on with your life. It’s another thing when your team makes it to some of the biggest stages in sports. You believe a little more, you buy in a little more — but it’s still possible to say such aphorisms as “win or lose, it’s nice to have made it to the big game.” I started both nights — last year’s Super Bowl and this year’s Championship Playoff — with the highest possible skepticism and grizzled resolve. I fully expected both teams to lose — that’s just how Atlanta sports go — but I was just happy to see them on the big stage.

But my teams have done something worse to me. My teams gave me hope. No, worse than that, they gave me assurance: The Falcons led by 25 points, and the Bulldogs led by 10 late in the game. That’s victory! Teams don’t lose with margins like that! In the space of a few hours, both games took me from “well, they probably lose, but it’s cool to see them in this game at all” to “hey it looks like they might have a chance” to “holy shnikes, they’re actually going to do it, they’re going to win!”

A loss without climbing the mountain would have been a lot less painful. A loss even halfway up the mountain would have been fine. But to scale the summit and be moments from planting your flag in the highest peak is the worst kind of disappointment.

So I’m bowl-shocked with the rest of the Bulldog fans out there. I’m proud of my team (well, my teams — the Falcons are in the hunt again) but I feel so hurt, and for me at least, a major part of the hurt is that I allowed the game to become more than a game. I allowed it to become a story.

Crazy, right? That the wannabe writer-guy sees story in everything? But I can’t help it. I was rooting for my teams, but even more than that, I was rooting for the story.

Take Atlanta: Consistently mediocre for years. Never won the big game, haven’t even been there in two decades. Occasionally they make the playoffs, but they go out with a whimper. Then: they’ve got a new head coach, young, hungry players, and a few veterans coming together at the right time. Who do they face off against? Only the most dynastic team in the NFL, whose current QB had four titles to his name already. Four! Most players are lucky to even have a chance at a single win.

Then, UGA: Again, some local success but never making a lot of noise outside the community. They won a title back in 1980 (the year I was born — coincidence? I THINK NOT) but haven’t even sniffed the big game since then, and it might as well be an entirely different sport these days. And all of a sudden: the team has great leadership under its seniors, who forego the NFL for one last season, one last shot; and like a bolt from the blue, new talent crawls out of the woodworks under the brand new coach. And hey fight and scrap and fight and scrap and face off again — who? Only the most dynastic team in college football, whose current coach has five championships in nine seasons. Saban wins the biggest game in the country more often than he loses it, and most teams — even great teams! — never even sniff the title bout.

Both situations are a little bit Star Wars, aren’t they?

Star Wars

Scrappy underdogs taking aim at the big, bad Empire? Going into a battle that you know in your heart doesn’t favor them? But you blink, and all of a sudden, they’re winning. And not only that, they have the Emperor on the ropes, lightning spraying from his arthritic fingers, cackling madly as he falls into the reactor. And in the final moments, the Empire is smashed, the Death Star explodes, and the Emperor is no more.

That’s how the story is supposed to end.

Unfortunately, real life is not fiction. In the real world, the Empire survives, the upstarts have certain victory snatched from their fingers, and those who have had more success than anybody has any right to take home more trophies. (Fighting, fighting, fighting the urge to go political here.  HRRRGGGG okay I’m over it.)

It’s enough to make you give up on your teams.

But also unlike fiction, these “books” don’t have endings. There’s a next year, and a next, and a next, and in sports at least, there’s nothing to stop the little guys from taking shots at the Empire, no matter how long the odds.

So don’t give up on your teams, even if they lose the big game, or even if they lose a lot. Embrace the suck.

Unless you’re a Patriots or Bama fan. In which case you can GTFO.

(Image lifted from Starwars.com.)