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10 Years Later…

Y’know, I realized not too long ago that I’ve been maintaining this humble blog – in one form or another – for at least 10 years at this point. When I started, I was nothing but a wee high school student, barely getting my feet wet with HTML and hosting the first iteration of my blog on Yahoo Geocities because it was free. Now I’m a full half-decade out of college, and as far as this website is concerned, I’d like to believe my skills have “leveled-up” in the intervening years. Words with Jeff is now professionally hosted, maintained using WordPress, and even has its own logo (designed by yours truly). Even if the content isn’t updated as frequently as I’d hope, at least I can be proud of how far the site has come from its pre-Cambrian origins.

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The Best Laid Plans

So let’s address the elephant in the room: I absolutely sucked at accomplishing any of my goals for 2014. Not only was Project New Leaf a complete and utter bust, but I didn’t even finish my nerdier (and far less lofty) resolutions. “The best-laid plans of mice and men,” as the saying goes, “often go awry.”

Certainly, there are aspects of my goals – like getting a new job – that were somewhat out of my control, but by and large the blame rests entirely on my shoulders. I’m the one who never made a habit of going to the gym. I’m the one that didn’t prioritize reading or writing for 12 months. I’m the one who continued to fritter money away instead of saving it. And I’m the one who failed to do almost any significant traveling this year. Mea Culpa. I’m at fault and no one else.

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The Hardest Job

I don’t talk much about the ins and outs of my life here on this blog, and that’s a very conscious decision I made many years ago. It’s not that I don’t want my (albeit minuscule) audience of readers to know the particulars of my everyday existence; on the contrary, I frequently use personal history or experiences to bring flavor to my writing. However, I never want my personal blog to become something akin to an online diary. I don’t need a permanent record of every relationship, every triumph or failure, or the inconsequential nonsense that might irk me on a given day. And so I haven’t written about something that has been bothering me for over three years, even though it occupies a constant place of prominence in my mind.

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Image of Chromebooks

Livin’ La Vida Chromebook

As a writer, few things are more important to me than the tools of my craft. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I need my tools to work to their fullest potential if I’m going to be happy and productive. A pen that has trouble writing, for instance, will inevitably send me on an epic quest to find a superior implement. I’ve settled into a comfortable system over the years, combining the best of both physical and digital writing, but every so often I’ll happen upon another chink that needs fixing. Lately, the issue has been my laptop.

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Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy – the latest entry in Marvel’s ever-expanding Cinematic universe – is a movie that doesn’t feel like it belongs in 2014. Sure, it has some of the trappings of a modern movie, including copious and frequently gorgeous CGI as well as highly quotable dialogue; however, it also feels like a throwback to movies from the 1980s. As I watched and re-watched and reflected on Guardians of the Galaxy this past month, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the sci-fi and adventure films I grew up watching: films like The Goonies, Indiana Jones, Ladyhawke, The Last Starfighter, Romancing the Stone, The Princess Bride, and – of course – Star Wars. All of these are stories about a misfit or group of misfits who somehow overcome odds and make everything work in the end. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of movie Hollywood doesn’t make anymore.

Which really is a shame, because Guardians of the Galaxy just showed us how much fun we’ve been missing.

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On Being 27

It’s seems improbable that just a few short days ago I turned 27, thereby entering the final year of my mid-twenties. Just five years ago I was 22, finishing my final semester of college and preparing for what I knew to be a successful career as a post-collegiate adult. In fact, I remember doing a project for one of my final courses that involved predicting our lives 5, 10, and 15 years into the future. Being the precocious, optimistic, and – above all – ambitious 22 year old, I imagined myself quite far along on the road of life: I’d be married, or at the very least partnered with my future wife; I would certainly have a job in my desired field, earning enough to support myself as well as all my nerdy proclivities; my first book would be written at this point, if not published and – naturally – topping the New York Times bestseller list; and with a 10-year high school reunion looming, I could appraise my standing in life and find it suitably brag-worthy.

Yet, here I find myself – five years after completing that silly project – and life for 27 year old Jeff is hardly at all like I envisioned. At the same time though, I’m a very different person compared to that younger Jeff. Some of my goals remain unchanged, but they’ve also been supplemented by many more that were quite simply of no concern to a nerdy college student.

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Of Ants and Men

Before things took a decidedly dark turn last weekend, the Internet’s attention had been fixated on one thin: director Edgar Wright’s sudden departure from Marvel’s upcoming Ant-Man film. As usual, the reason given for the split was “creative differences”, a phrase so vague that it could literally mean anything. Of course, vague statements and a complete lack of concrete information didn’t stop the Internet denizens from wildly speculating on the matter. Most laid all the blame on Marvel, with some even going so far as to demand that they apologize for whatever hypothetical wrongdoing caused Edgar Wright to split. Others seized the opportunity and proclaimed this event as proof the Marvel’s movie juggernaut was falling to pieces. It all struck me as a tad ridiculous.

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Not All Men

On Friday night, May 23rd, a young man named Elliot Rodger decided that he’d had enough. He was 22 years old, still a virgin, and had “never even kissed a girl.” It seems as though girls had “never been attracted” to Rodger, a “supreme gentleman” in his own mind, and instead threw themselves at “obnoxious brutes”. He was frustrated and lonely, and he blamed women for denying him the “sex, fun, and pleasure” that he believed rightfully his. None of it seemed fair. He wanted to punish them for making him suffer this way. Before the night was over, Rodger had killed 7 people, including himself, and injured 13 more.

Much and more has been said about these horrific events, and perhaps I can do little more than simply direct you some of the very smart people writing about the incident. But I’m going to try to do more, not because I feel like I have to or that I’ll get more web traffic. Because I want to. Because I can’t help myself.

Because it’s important.

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Back to Basics

I haven’t been writing lately, as you’ve no doubt noticed, and although my recent move (and all the related preparations) is at least partially to blame, that’s not the whole story. The real reason is that I have too many distraction, or more accurately, I let said distractions get the better of me. Although I’d say the writing comes naturally to me, it’s never easy, and when I hit a wall on a particular project, it’s much easier to step away and do something else for a while rather than push through. But more often than not, “a while” turns out to be the rest of the day… or several days… or even weeks. Since I traditionally do most of my writing on my laptop, the distractions are ever-present, sometimes even hijacking my attention while researching something related to my current project. With this in mind, I’m reviving a technique I haven’t used in some time: physical writing.

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Clearing Out The Cruft

The times they are a-changin’ around Sacramento. Spring will be here before we know it, and I’ll be making my first big move in almost three years when it does. I’m staying in Sacramento (for now, at least), but my roommates are all moving out and starting new lives in the next couple months. It seems reasonable that I should prepare to do the same thing; after all, this is my year of new beginnings.

As so often happens though, I’m realizing that – despite my best efforts – I have accumulated a lot of stuff that I now have to move. You may recall that I grappled with this exact scenario last time I had the make a major move. I guess it’s almost unavoidable: unless you live out of a suitcase and sleep on an air mattress, there’s always going to be furniture and a great many other things that must be moved along with you. However, I’d bet there’s also plenty in my humble 10×10 bedroom that doesn’t need to be carted to my next abode. Spring is almost here, and it’s time I do a bit of Spring cleaning and clear out all the cruft.

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This is the blog of Jeff Staple
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