What would your life be like without music?
I didn’t choose wisely with my second wife. Well, I didn’t choose wisely the first time either. Anyway, she was bothered that I knew a little about music and singing. So I stopped having music in my life. I listened to NPR a lot. Life without music is sad and dreary. Music is necessary to humans. We grow with music. Without music. we wither.
Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.
I saw this post on Facebook on fried hamburger and mashed potato balls. It looked great. I did not have a deep fryer or a pot, so I used a regular pan. I ended up setting fire to the stove and burned my skin. 3 years later and I still have scars.
The other time is that I set fire to the stove boiling water. There was some paper that got into the range. I didn’t know it at the time. I was just mystified at what I was seeing.
Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.
I am back to this writing exercise again.
I wish one lesson I wished I learned was that there are ALWAYS more than 2 options. People get away with pushing others into binary yes/no situations. Nothing is black and white. When someone, with authority or power, gives you only two choices, you know it’s manipulation. This is true for work, financial issues, and relationship issues. Adults compromise. Only children insist on binary answers.
What do you enjoy most about writing?
I actually do not enjoy writing. I love drawing and building stories. I love creating outlines and overviews. But actual writing? It is not my favorite task. It is one of the reasons why I get behind on my comics.
I type out responses to Jetpack’s daily prompts as a writing exercise. Doing so does not fill me with joy.
What profession do you admire most and why?
The older I get, the more I learn. Consequently, I’ve learned that all professions have their pros and cons. All professions have their own bad players. However, I do admire having a profession in the Web Development field. I also admire those who make money from WordPress.
If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
I would love to open a comic shop. Nothing complex.
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
Besides my keys and phone, a bag of rocks. The rocks help center me because they will remain long after I am gone. I am holding on to something technically immortal with a history spanning centuries.
Describe your life in an alternate universe.
I actually write my stories based on a premise of me in an alternate universe. One of my old colleagues, Jim Wayne a.k.a. Citizen Prime, had a podcast about this concept. Jim wrote stories about Citizen Prime in another universe. Jim also played City of Heroes, as I did. I thought it was a novel concept.
When I retired as Zetaman and started to work on my stories, I wrote a Zetaman into Naked Man Comics. I wrote some of my experiences as Portland’s Real-Life Superhero in Naked Man Comics #5. A few years later, I explored Jim’s idea in Zetaman The Multiverse. Using Grant Morrison’s concept of 52 Earths, I wrote that there are 24 Earths in the local multiverse thread. 24 for 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. Each Earth has its own Zetman, as did our real-life Earth.
Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.
Court: Kevin Costner may need to pay off South Dakota sculptor
I remember driving to Washington from Connecticut with my family through South Dakota. One of the road side attractions was the horse from Dances with Wolves. I thought it was horrible to put a poor animal on display like this.
Dances with Wolves was one one of the few movies the teachers would play in high school. I don’t understand why they played this and asked us to write an essay on the movie. Unless it was just busy work. Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood was in the movie rotation as well. Someone at Bethel High School must have been a fan of Kevin Constner.
How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?
I would describe myself as the weird liberal bearded long haired wackado you get from Wish or Temu 🙂