I'm submitting a short story of mine to a literary magazine, and it
just made me realize a very interesting place to get ideas for writing -
things that disturb you.
And I don't just mean in the sense
of "things that scare you". I'm referring to when you hear or see or
learn something that bothers you so much that you can't get it out of
your mind and it keeps nagging at you and making you perpetually
uncomfortable. It can be a real-life concern that disturbs you. It can
be a philosophical concept with arguable bearing on real life. It can be
a philosophical concept with tremendous bearing on real life. It can be
a decision someone (maybe yourself) made that you're perfectly
comfortable with except for one small fact. Really, it can be anything.
The
thing that disturbed me and inspired this piece of fiction was a Norse
myth that I read about two years ago in a class I took on the subject of
Norse myths. At least, it was supposed to be a Norse mythology class.
It turned into more of a "Why Loki is awesome" class. (I had the
privilege of being introduced to the character of Loki through the
actual Norse myths rather than the Marvel films, so I am therefore able
to appreciate him on a completely different level.) We basically read a
bunch of Norse myths (most of which involved Loki) and talked about
them.
Now, the day finally came in which we read "The Binding
of Loki". The way the teacher introduced it, she made it sound like,
"Okay, everyone, the fun is over. Time for something serious and sad."
And the way one of my classmates (who was the most knowledgeable about
and fond of Loki) reacted to it, he made it sound like, "Oh no, this is
sad."
I won't spoil the story for anyone who hasn't read it
and would like to, but it doesn't end well for Loki. It ends with him in
a painful and hellish situation (involving being chained up with a
snake's venom dripping over him). It leaves him really unable to go
anywhere or do anything and it somewhat brings to mind the end of Harlan
Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (minus the specifics of
being turned into a blob of living jelly). He wasn't able to trickster
his way out of it. He was stuck there until Ragnarok (and, if you think
the Norse myths are true - which I don't, but I frequently imagine
stories to be true - then he's stuck there still).
The thought
of something like that happening to this beloved character was very
upsetting and it stuck with me for quite a while. I couldn't stop
thinking of Loki chained up with snake's venom dripping over him, and it
all culminated in a short story written at around midnight when I
couldn't sleep. It's very...abstract, one might say, and other than the
fact that the Loki myth is mentioned a few times in the story (with the
narrator comparing himself to Loki) and that the narrator finds himself
in a similar position at the end, it really doesn't bear much
resemblance to the story at all. However, I needed to get out my
feelings regarding the story about Loki, which disturbed me and upset me
that much.
What's funny is that, almost as soon as I wrote
the story, I felt better about the story. It wasn't that I realized it
was just fiction. It was that I did something with the feelings I had. I
took the story and made something out of it. Maybe it was because I
showed myself that I had power over it - power enough to make something
out of it. I'm not really sure why the bad feelings stopped, but the
point is, they did, and what's more, I got a story out of it.
It
was a silly thing to get upset over. It was a very silly thing to be
"disturbed" over, certainly. But the fact was, I was bothered by
something, and I made art based on the thing that was bothering me. It
was something I'd heard that I could not let go (or that would not let
me go - I'm not sure which was the case). And now I have a story to
which I am submitting to a literary magazine.
If you ever come
across some information or situation that makes you feel viscerally
uncomfortably and will not let you go, try making some sort of art out
of it. Even if it doesn't make you feel one bit better, you will at
least have something to show for it. And not only will that mean you've
brought another wonderful thing into the world (because all art is, in
its way, wonderful), you'll have exercised some power over the thing
because you used it to create.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Vegetable Game
I have recently made a great discovery. Specifically, it is that of how to get kids to eat their vegetables.
It involves playing something called the Vegetable Game.
The rules of the game are as follows: you put a piece of the vegetable in front of the child, and you repeat the name of the vegetable in increasingly comical tones. If the kid laughs, they have to eat the vegetable piece. (Eating a piece of the vegetable, to prove that it's not poisonous and for your own nutrition, is optional). You continue playing until the kid has consumed their entire serving.
I was playing this last night with my little cousin, who did not want to eat her cucumbers. She had three slices in front of her, and I told her that, if I could get her to laugh by saying "cucumber", she'd have to eat a slice.
It worked. It more than worked. It worked so well, she actually enjoyed the game and ate way more than the bare minimum of three slices of cucumber. It was also tremendous fun for me (finally, my debatable skills as a comedic actor can be used) and it was effective in getting her to eat.
This of course only works if you have a kid who can actually agree to such a game, but things do work more easily when you turn them into games, and the Vegetable Game is a very fun game for both parties involved. Supervisors of children, go forth in this knowledge of a new, exciting way to get kids to eat vegetables.
It involves playing something called the Vegetable Game.
The rules of the game are as follows: you put a piece of the vegetable in front of the child, and you repeat the name of the vegetable in increasingly comical tones. If the kid laughs, they have to eat the vegetable piece. (Eating a piece of the vegetable, to prove that it's not poisonous and for your own nutrition, is optional). You continue playing until the kid has consumed their entire serving.
I was playing this last night with my little cousin, who did not want to eat her cucumbers. She had three slices in front of her, and I told her that, if I could get her to laugh by saying "cucumber", she'd have to eat a slice.
It worked. It more than worked. It worked so well, she actually enjoyed the game and ate way more than the bare minimum of three slices of cucumber. It was also tremendous fun for me (finally, my debatable skills as a comedic actor can be used) and it was effective in getting her to eat.
This of course only works if you have a kid who can actually agree to such a game, but things do work more easily when you turn them into games, and the Vegetable Game is a very fun game for both parties involved. Supervisors of children, go forth in this knowledge of a new, exciting way to get kids to eat vegetables.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
When Stress Ruins Fun
First off, I apologize for how little I've been blogging lately. Things have come up in life, and it hasn't helped that, try though I might, I haven't really been able to find anything to blog about that might be of any interest to anyone else.
That said, in the midst of the relative business of my life (going out and doing things with family members, getting things together for my upcoming return to school, things such as that), I've learned something that I probably should have understood long ago and that I understand now and that I think is relevant to everyone.
For a while, I understood that my aunt, sister, and sister's friend were going to go out and do some fun activities together, which I had been looking forward to partaking in along with them. (Yes, I'm a boring, dull introvert, but sometimes I like to get out and do stuff with other people.) They'd been planning this event for some weeks now, and though I wasn't very involved in the planning (it was mostly my sister's affair), I knew I was allowed to come along if I wanted. They were going to go to the movies, hang out in enjoyable public places, and go back to my aunt's house for a Doctor Who marathon. These are the sorts of things I tend to find very fun and enjoyable, and I was counting on having a good time.
What no one was counting on was how absolutely busy life got in the days preceding that. It wasn't that anything big or even stressful happened; it was just that I found myself, in the days coming before the supposed day of fun, I got dragged along to do other things with and for other people. Some of them were also fun (like meeting a friend at the summer fair my town has every year), some of them were more along the lines of jobs and work done for other people (like babysitting young, rambunctious cousins), some of them were just events I had to go to for the sake of other people (like my cousin's fifteenth birthday party). But because I found myself caught up in other activities, all of them one after another, I found myself stressed-out enough so that I just knew that, if I went with my aunt and sister on their little adventures, I would not enjoy it for lack of energy and excess amounts of stress.
Something fairly interesting happened the day before we were going to follow up on our plans, however. I had a bit of a breakdown.
It wasn't huge; it mostly involved me getting very tense and nervous and needing to hide from other people lest my being around them cause me to be even more nervous. I couldn't interact with people in the relatively polite and sociable manner that I'm typically able to interact with them. I had trouble forming sentences, and when someone came to talk to me, my thoughts always followed the lines of, "How can I get out of this as soon as possible?" I was in survival mode, and I was not having fun.
I don't know if this is the result of my clinically-diagnosed anxiety or if it's my often life-impeding introversion or if it's just an odd quirk of mine, but when I do high-energy things of any nature, I find them inherently anxiety-inducing. I could be having an excellent time, doing exciting things that I absolutely love doing, but I'm still experiencing anxiety. Maybe I just acknowledge the fact that excitement is a form of anxiety, and that being "anxious" doesn't necessarily mean one is "nervous", but having a good time stresses me out and tires me, and I need to recover from it. And I had been doing anxious things (some enjoyable, some not-so-enjoyable) for quite a few days in a row, and I had to stop.
This made me very unhappy, because I had been looking forward to what my aunt and sister were doing, and I wanted to do them. But I couldn't. The energy was not there. My anti-stress levels were depleted. I couldn't even deal with minor social interactions, and all I wanted was to be left alone. Thinking about the following day's fun events were not helping, and they only made it worse. When the fear of activities became even greater than the stress that would probably result from them and not worth the enjoyment I would get, I knew I'd had enough.
After calming down somewhat, I explained this to my aunt and sister, who were fortunately very accepting of the fact, even though they would miss my company. (My family is, in general, very accepting of the fact that I experience more stress than usual people, even if they don't always understand some of the things it makes me do.) I compared it to someone who has heart problems and has gone with their friends to an amusement park whose rides would cause health problems if they rode them. It would be wiser if the person didn't go on the rides, but they'd really want to, and perhaps going on the rides wouldn't kill them, but it would certainly put them in a great deal of discomfort and pain that should have been avoided.
It was telling them this that I realized my anxiety really is a health limitation. It keeps me from doing things that I would enjoy, and it makes a number of everyday activities more difficult. I can't drive because my fear of driving and the sense of panic that has always happened the few times I've gotten behind the wheel has kept me from learning how. In stores, I never ask people for help with finding things because I don't trust my ability to make coherent sentences when put in the terrifying position of explaining something to a stranger. I have to use the self-checkout at grocery stores because interacting with cashiers, while finally possible now, is more trouble than it's worth. It's a health limitation, and I've been so used to living that way, I've failed to realize it.
I understand that anxiety like that isn't something most post people actually have to deal with on a regular basis, but I do think there's something I learned from this that anyone can appreciate. Sometimes, we don't know our limits or else we willfully ignore them, and sometimes it takes the aftermath of pressing ourselves to realize that the limits even exist. All of us only have so much we can take where things are concerned, and we sometimes have to feel it to know it. Fortunately, I was able to find my limits before anything terribly bad came of them, and hopefully other people can learn how to do the same.
That said, in the midst of the relative business of my life (going out and doing things with family members, getting things together for my upcoming return to school, things such as that), I've learned something that I probably should have understood long ago and that I understand now and that I think is relevant to everyone.
For a while, I understood that my aunt, sister, and sister's friend were going to go out and do some fun activities together, which I had been looking forward to partaking in along with them. (Yes, I'm a boring, dull introvert, but sometimes I like to get out and do stuff with other people.) They'd been planning this event for some weeks now, and though I wasn't very involved in the planning (it was mostly my sister's affair), I knew I was allowed to come along if I wanted. They were going to go to the movies, hang out in enjoyable public places, and go back to my aunt's house for a Doctor Who marathon. These are the sorts of things I tend to find very fun and enjoyable, and I was counting on having a good time.
What no one was counting on was how absolutely busy life got in the days preceding that. It wasn't that anything big or even stressful happened; it was just that I found myself, in the days coming before the supposed day of fun, I got dragged along to do other things with and for other people. Some of them were also fun (like meeting a friend at the summer fair my town has every year), some of them were more along the lines of jobs and work done for other people (like babysitting young, rambunctious cousins), some of them were just events I had to go to for the sake of other people (like my cousin's fifteenth birthday party). But because I found myself caught up in other activities, all of them one after another, I found myself stressed-out enough so that I just knew that, if I went with my aunt and sister on their little adventures, I would not enjoy it for lack of energy and excess amounts of stress.
Something fairly interesting happened the day before we were going to follow up on our plans, however. I had a bit of a breakdown.
It wasn't huge; it mostly involved me getting very tense and nervous and needing to hide from other people lest my being around them cause me to be even more nervous. I couldn't interact with people in the relatively polite and sociable manner that I'm typically able to interact with them. I had trouble forming sentences, and when someone came to talk to me, my thoughts always followed the lines of, "How can I get out of this as soon as possible?" I was in survival mode, and I was not having fun.
I don't know if this is the result of my clinically-diagnosed anxiety or if it's my often life-impeding introversion or if it's just an odd quirk of mine, but when I do high-energy things of any nature, I find them inherently anxiety-inducing. I could be having an excellent time, doing exciting things that I absolutely love doing, but I'm still experiencing anxiety. Maybe I just acknowledge the fact that excitement is a form of anxiety, and that being "anxious" doesn't necessarily mean one is "nervous", but having a good time stresses me out and tires me, and I need to recover from it. And I had been doing anxious things (some enjoyable, some not-so-enjoyable) for quite a few days in a row, and I had to stop.
This made me very unhappy, because I had been looking forward to what my aunt and sister were doing, and I wanted to do them. But I couldn't. The energy was not there. My anti-stress levels were depleted. I couldn't even deal with minor social interactions, and all I wanted was to be left alone. Thinking about the following day's fun events were not helping, and they only made it worse. When the fear of activities became even greater than the stress that would probably result from them and not worth the enjoyment I would get, I knew I'd had enough.
After calming down somewhat, I explained this to my aunt and sister, who were fortunately very accepting of the fact, even though they would miss my company. (My family is, in general, very accepting of the fact that I experience more stress than usual people, even if they don't always understand some of the things it makes me do.) I compared it to someone who has heart problems and has gone with their friends to an amusement park whose rides would cause health problems if they rode them. It would be wiser if the person didn't go on the rides, but they'd really want to, and perhaps going on the rides wouldn't kill them, but it would certainly put them in a great deal of discomfort and pain that should have been avoided.
It was telling them this that I realized my anxiety really is a health limitation. It keeps me from doing things that I would enjoy, and it makes a number of everyday activities more difficult. I can't drive because my fear of driving and the sense of panic that has always happened the few times I've gotten behind the wheel has kept me from learning how. In stores, I never ask people for help with finding things because I don't trust my ability to make coherent sentences when put in the terrifying position of explaining something to a stranger. I have to use the self-checkout at grocery stores because interacting with cashiers, while finally possible now, is more trouble than it's worth. It's a health limitation, and I've been so used to living that way, I've failed to realize it.
I understand that anxiety like that isn't something most post people actually have to deal with on a regular basis, but I do think there's something I learned from this that anyone can appreciate. Sometimes, we don't know our limits or else we willfully ignore them, and sometimes it takes the aftermath of pressing ourselves to realize that the limits even exist. All of us only have so much we can take where things are concerned, and we sometimes have to feel it to know it. Fortunately, I was able to find my limits before anything terribly bad came of them, and hopefully other people can learn how to do the same.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Burnout
After a remarkably successful month of fiction writing, in which I
believe I wrote over 9,000 words' worth of fiction (and I didn't intend
to include that reference, but apparently I did), I have found myself in
the regrettable position of feeling completely unmotivated as far as my
writing is concerned and with barely even the ability to write
semi-coherent poems.
My problem is that I am far too real of the fictitious nature of fiction right now. Fiction is imaginary; we all know that. We all ought to know that. However, we should never have to know that fiction is fake, and especially not when we're reading it, and especially not when we're writing it. It's said that, if you don't believe in your story, no one will, and I personally can't bring myself to believe in any story, my own included.
It's one thing to read someone else's fiction, something that didn't originate in your own mind and thus something you could possibly believe in. It's quite another to write your own and understand, from the beginning of the process to the end, that you have come up with this, that it is your job to make it good and make others believe in it. It's almost like being expected to take shelter in a structure you're currently building.
I can't think of a single tale worth telling, a single story that hasn't been written before, a single character or idea or concept worth believing in. It's been great so far but frankly, I'm exhausted right now, and if I'm going to be even more frank, I've been exhausted ever since last year, as far as writing and being able to tell good stories has gone, and it hasn't gotten significantly better.
I'll be frank again. I hate talking about this weakness on this blog, because while I'm (thankfully) nowhere remotely near being a "famous writer" and thus don't have "famous writer" expectations on me (i.e. to be a shining example to all other writers out there), I do know there are people who read this who look up to me as a writer, and to them, I am the "shining example", and being so blatant and nearly pessimistic (even though the pessimism is caused by perceptions of my current reality and expectations made by judging off of the continual nature of this reality)...well, I just don't think it's good. There are other places I can essentially complain, why am I doing it here?
That's a very good question and I haven't got an answer, but maybe it's to show that writing, at its heart, is a very miserable business and we do it anyway and I don't know why and it probably makes us insane but it's what we do so we do it. And that tiny part of me that isn't stained with cynicism and that doesn't regard reality wants to say that, even if we could choose not to, we'd never consider doing anything but what we're doing.
My problem is that I am far too real of the fictitious nature of fiction right now. Fiction is imaginary; we all know that. We all ought to know that. However, we should never have to know that fiction is fake, and especially not when we're reading it, and especially not when we're writing it. It's said that, if you don't believe in your story, no one will, and I personally can't bring myself to believe in any story, my own included.
It's one thing to read someone else's fiction, something that didn't originate in your own mind and thus something you could possibly believe in. It's quite another to write your own and understand, from the beginning of the process to the end, that you have come up with this, that it is your job to make it good and make others believe in it. It's almost like being expected to take shelter in a structure you're currently building.
I can't think of a single tale worth telling, a single story that hasn't been written before, a single character or idea or concept worth believing in. It's been great so far but frankly, I'm exhausted right now, and if I'm going to be even more frank, I've been exhausted ever since last year, as far as writing and being able to tell good stories has gone, and it hasn't gotten significantly better.
I'll be frank again. I hate talking about this weakness on this blog, because while I'm (thankfully) nowhere remotely near being a "famous writer" and thus don't have "famous writer" expectations on me (i.e. to be a shining example to all other writers out there), I do know there are people who read this who look up to me as a writer, and to them, I am the "shining example", and being so blatant and nearly pessimistic (even though the pessimism is caused by perceptions of my current reality and expectations made by judging off of the continual nature of this reality)...well, I just don't think it's good. There are other places I can essentially complain, why am I doing it here?
That's a very good question and I haven't got an answer, but maybe it's to show that writing, at its heart, is a very miserable business and we do it anyway and I don't know why and it probably makes us insane but it's what we do so we do it. And that tiny part of me that isn't stained with cynicism and that doesn't regard reality wants to say that, even if we could choose not to, we'd never consider doing anything but what we're doing.
Friday, July 26, 2013
After going to the science museum
The science museum was brilliant. It mostly focused on astronomy and biology, which is great because those are the two sciences in which I am the most interested. Seeing the Endeavour was an absolutely amazing experience. It made the universe feel almost like a bigger place for being not entirely out of reach for us here on Earth. I got some ideas for stories and poems, and I think I ended up educating some kids who were at the museum (they were looking at exhibits excitedly and I told them a bit about what they were looking at to help them learn. One adult actually asked me if I was a teacher; I said no, I just know stuff.) I think I really did learn a lot at the museum, or at least some (there are some facts about stars and galaxies and telescopes I will retain), and that coupled with the rare opportunity to see such an important object in the history of astronomy is really fantastic.
The Beauty in Forgetting
Today, I am going to the space museum with my family. Technically,
given that it's the California Science Center, the museum's got to do
with more things than space, but we're going to see the Endeavor space
shuttle, and they do have an air and space section, apparently. So I
expect to see space sorts of things.
Even though I'm a science fiction writer (or perhaps because I'm a science fiction writer), I take an interest in actual science and while I'm really awful at retaining what I've learned, I enjoy learning about it. You see, I have a problem: my memory is so awful that it's difficult for me to learn things. (I'm currently in college and I have no idea how I'm able to pass my classes, much less with the kind of good grades I pass with.) The possibly nice thing about learning something and forgetting it, however, is that I get to learn it all over again. Say I learn about how galaxies are believed to be held in place by the gravity of a supermassive black hole in their centers - I learn that, think, "Oh, that's so cool!" and forget it. But I hear it again, think, "Oh, that's so cool!" and maybe I forget it again, maybe I don't, but I've been exposed to a really amazing fact and it's amazing both times. (Incidentally, the thing about supermassive black holes is one of the few actual astronomy facts I CAN remember.)
This reminds me of the story of the old man with Alzheimers' who forgot who his wife was, but he saw her every day when she visited the rest home he lived in, and every day, he fell in love with her and told her he wanted to marry her. When she said they were already married, he thought that was the most wonderful thing in the world. But because he forgot her, he could fall in love with her every time they met again. I'm not saying that's a beautiful or ideal love story (it's really quite sad) but there's a bit of beauty in it because what could have solely sad or unfortunate also allowed for the constant rediscovery of something that truly was beautiful.
Most likely this trip to the science center will result in me remembering things that I learned in school or from books or even just from hearing them from knowledgeable people, things I'd forgotten due to my inability to retain information. Everything I learn, whether I knew and forgot it or if I truly didn't know it before, will be beautiful and new again, and I think that's wonderful.
Even though I'm a science fiction writer (or perhaps because I'm a science fiction writer), I take an interest in actual science and while I'm really awful at retaining what I've learned, I enjoy learning about it. You see, I have a problem: my memory is so awful that it's difficult for me to learn things. (I'm currently in college and I have no idea how I'm able to pass my classes, much less with the kind of good grades I pass with.) The possibly nice thing about learning something and forgetting it, however, is that I get to learn it all over again. Say I learn about how galaxies are believed to be held in place by the gravity of a supermassive black hole in their centers - I learn that, think, "Oh, that's so cool!" and forget it. But I hear it again, think, "Oh, that's so cool!" and maybe I forget it again, maybe I don't, but I've been exposed to a really amazing fact and it's amazing both times. (Incidentally, the thing about supermassive black holes is one of the few actual astronomy facts I CAN remember.)
This reminds me of the story of the old man with Alzheimers' who forgot who his wife was, but he saw her every day when she visited the rest home he lived in, and every day, he fell in love with her and told her he wanted to marry her. When she said they were already married, he thought that was the most wonderful thing in the world. But because he forgot her, he could fall in love with her every time they met again. I'm not saying that's a beautiful or ideal love story (it's really quite sad) but there's a bit of beauty in it because what could have solely sad or unfortunate also allowed for the constant rediscovery of something that truly was beautiful.
Most likely this trip to the science center will result in me remembering things that I learned in school or from books or even just from hearing them from knowledgeable people, things I'd forgotten due to my inability to retain information. Everything I learn, whether I knew and forgot it or if I truly didn't know it before, will be beautiful and new again, and I think that's wonderful.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Poofy's Pastrami
Let me tell you a story about something that happened in my childhood that I still think is funny and relevant.
The story is about something called "Poofy's Pastrami". It was a restaurant, and while I never ate there, it was a familiar part of my childhood because I passed it on the way from school to my grandparents' house. A lot of the time, my mum would pick me up from school and take me to my grandparents' house (which was fairly nearby), and the route we took would take us by a construction site.
They were building (or attempting to build) what was most likely a restaurant called Poofy's Pastrami, and we could deduce this from the presence of a large billboard-like sign advertising such an establishment. The part of the sign we found funniest was a cartoon drawing of a black man holding a pastrami sandwich and looking very pleased about it. Undoubtedly he was Poofy, and he was showing the world his pastrami and how wonderful it was and how they should all come to eat at the fine establishment his workers were busy building.
The odd thing about Poofy's Pastrami was that it always seemed to be under construction. They were always building the place, but it never seemed to get built. There is something inherently funny about a restaurant with a silly name and a silly billboard that seems to be under permanent construction. My mother and I recognized the humor in this, and we would react accordingly when passing it. She would say something like, "There's Poofy," and I'd say, "And we still can't have his pastrami." (Not that we intended to go there upon its completion. Neither of us much cared for pastrami, though we definitely liked making fun of it.)
A curious thing happened, however. After about a year of construction, Poofy's Pastrami vanished. Gone was the construction site. Gone was the billboard with the restaurant's name. Gone was the man who gave the restaurant its name. There was nothing to suggest that Poofy's Pastrami had ever existed.
My mother and I didn't find this mysterious or odd - after all, this happens all the time, restaurants being under construction for a year and ultimately never happening - and we incorporated it into our humor. She'd say, "Goodbye, Poofy," and I'd say, "We never got to have his pastrami." Poofy's Pastrami was a thing that was and then just as soon was not.
Things like Poofy's Pastrami are far more common than anyone would like to admit. Things are planned and started but never finished. They take a long time and turn out to be colossal failures in that they attract people's attention and even become the source of jokes, but they don't happen. The restaurant never happens. People are left with the memory of a pastrami place that never was, even though it tried to be. Things are planned and do not happen and everyone remembers, at least in the back of their minds, the thing that never was but tried to be.
But there is a bright side to this fact of failure. Sometimes, under a different set of circumstances, in a different place with different people, they are attempted, and they are accomplished. I looked up "Poofy's Pastrami" online, just for curiosity's sake, and I found out that there are operating establishments under that name and with the sign depicting the African American Poofy with his pastrami (looking pleased as ever). Somewhere in this world, a Poofy's Pastrami was built and succeeded.
Ultimately, the story of Poofy's Pastrami gives us hope that, even if things fail under a certain set of circumstances, they can be tried again under different ones and succeed, and even the failures can give people a much-needed laugh.
The story is about something called "Poofy's Pastrami". It was a restaurant, and while I never ate there, it was a familiar part of my childhood because I passed it on the way from school to my grandparents' house. A lot of the time, my mum would pick me up from school and take me to my grandparents' house (which was fairly nearby), and the route we took would take us by a construction site.
They were building (or attempting to build) what was most likely a restaurant called Poofy's Pastrami, and we could deduce this from the presence of a large billboard-like sign advertising such an establishment. The part of the sign we found funniest was a cartoon drawing of a black man holding a pastrami sandwich and looking very pleased about it. Undoubtedly he was Poofy, and he was showing the world his pastrami and how wonderful it was and how they should all come to eat at the fine establishment his workers were busy building.
The odd thing about Poofy's Pastrami was that it always seemed to be under construction. They were always building the place, but it never seemed to get built. There is something inherently funny about a restaurant with a silly name and a silly billboard that seems to be under permanent construction. My mother and I recognized the humor in this, and we would react accordingly when passing it. She would say something like, "There's Poofy," and I'd say, "And we still can't have his pastrami." (Not that we intended to go there upon its completion. Neither of us much cared for pastrami, though we definitely liked making fun of it.)
A curious thing happened, however. After about a year of construction, Poofy's Pastrami vanished. Gone was the construction site. Gone was the billboard with the restaurant's name. Gone was the man who gave the restaurant its name. There was nothing to suggest that Poofy's Pastrami had ever existed.
My mother and I didn't find this mysterious or odd - after all, this happens all the time, restaurants being under construction for a year and ultimately never happening - and we incorporated it into our humor. She'd say, "Goodbye, Poofy," and I'd say, "We never got to have his pastrami." Poofy's Pastrami was a thing that was and then just as soon was not.
Things like Poofy's Pastrami are far more common than anyone would like to admit. Things are planned and started but never finished. They take a long time and turn out to be colossal failures in that they attract people's attention and even become the source of jokes, but they don't happen. The restaurant never happens. People are left with the memory of a pastrami place that never was, even though it tried to be. Things are planned and do not happen and everyone remembers, at least in the back of their minds, the thing that never was but tried to be.
But there is a bright side to this fact of failure. Sometimes, under a different set of circumstances, in a different place with different people, they are attempted, and they are accomplished. I looked up "Poofy's Pastrami" online, just for curiosity's sake, and I found out that there are operating establishments under that name and with the sign depicting the African American Poofy with his pastrami (looking pleased as ever). Somewhere in this world, a Poofy's Pastrami was built and succeeded.
Ultimately, the story of Poofy's Pastrami gives us hope that, even if things fail under a certain set of circumstances, they can be tried again under different ones and succeed, and even the failures can give people a much-needed laugh.
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