Tuesdays with Muerte

I dislike all five of these terms and will avoid using them when possible. But when they are misused (by myself or others), a little grammar nazi in my head starts to cough and spit. Common Misspellings "Disconscerning" vs. Disconcerting "Alot" vs. a lot "Could/Would/Should of" vs Could've/Would've/Should've "Ecetera" vs et certa Less vs. Fewer When you’re trying to decide between “less” and “fewer” first ask yourself: am I talking about a specific number of things? If you can count it, then use "fewer." If not, then use “less.”  Fore example: Less — If you’ve got a big bowl of salad (with an indiscernible or irrelevant number of leaves) and you can’t eat it all, you might ask for “less salad.” Fewer — If, however, there is a specific number of tomatoes in the salad and you think there are too many, you would ask for “fewer” tomatoes (or a fewer number of tomatoes). Nauseous vs. Nauseated For hundreds of years, nauseous  ...

Bryan's Lessons My idea is not necessarily the  right  idea. But even if it were, the relationship is more important than being right. When one of us is sad, and once the space is safe, it's helpful to approach an interaction with a tender hug.  It's an important habit to share a meaningful kiss as we come and go. (I picked that one up from watching  The Importance of Kissing  on The School of Life YouTube channel.) I didn't need many facial tissues before marriage. But now, it's worth investing in the Costco 12-pack. The temple is an excellent place to unwind from a stressful week. It's my job to never forget weekly date night or FHE. Intimacy cues are hard. It's important to clearly communicate what I want, whether it be that I'm tired…or not tired. Stacia's Lessons Vulnerability…is hard. It's tough being seen as less than perfect by the one you wanted to be perfect for. Trials are much easier to face with two. Having a shared ...

Jim's Amazing Story I was reminded of this PowerTales ™  story on Facebook today: “This is Jim Thorpe. Look closely at the photo. You can see that he's wearing different socks and shoes. This wasn't a fashion statement. It was the 1912 Olympics, and Jim was a Native American from Oklahoma representing the U.S. in track and field. On the morning of his competitions, his shoes were stolen. Luckily, Jim ended up finding two shoes in a garbage can. That's the pair that he's wearing in the photo. But one of the shoes was too big, so he had to wear an extra sock. Wearing these shoes, Jim won two gold medals that day.” Why I Want to Be Like Jim Thorpe I knew who Jim Thorpe was from an early age. A common Sunday afternoon activity for me was to listen along to recordings as I read,  PowerTales ™,  popular character-development books for children in the 80s. Jim Thorpe's book on Sportsmanship was my favorite. Thorpe's multiple extraordinary athleticism and praisewor...

TL;DR Dogs are just another (cute) vehicle for racism. The subject of racism has been on my mind pretty much all of 2020. I just finished reading the book,  Race Without Racism , which argues that the chameleon-like system/institution of racism is alive and well despite a cultural shift toward racial "colorblindness." My interest in America's new racism led me to an article from a decade ago that shocked me— How dogs help keep multiracial neighborhoods socially segregated . Author and Editor of The Conversation, Beth Daley's findings went against my natural assumption that dog owners would be drawn naturally together in friendship. I naively imagined multicultural neighbors walking their dogs, stopping to chat, finding common ground, resulting in BBQs or even vacations together. Daley painted quite a different picture with her robust sociological investigation of a multicultural, North Carolina neighborhood between 2009-2011. She offers readers three alarming examples...

Introduction After reading  The Happiness Project  (2009) by New York Times bestselling author, Gretchen Rubins, I decided to read two of her more recent books: Better Than Before  (2015) The Four Tendencies  (2017) These books talk about habits and how our personalities orient us toward certain motivational techniques. Both showcased Rubin's revolutionary personality profile called, The Four Tendencies . She explains that "The Four Tendencies explain  why we act  and  why we don’t act ." And boy, did I learn a lot about how I personally derive motivation. Now, I'm dying to discuss them with my friends and family.  Take the ONLINE QUIZ now, or read on to discover your Tendency.  A Summary of The Four Tendencies The Four Tendencies framework describes how we respond to expectations. We all face two kinds of expectations: outer expectations , such as meeting work deadlines or observing traffic regulations, and inner expectations , such as q...

Sometimes, the most painful things I have experienced in life are sad memories I've held on to long after the painful event has past. This issue was brought to mind for me this week as I watched some Doctor Who with Stacia. Doctor Who Explores the Universal Law of Justice Stacia and I just finished watching an episode of Doctor Who called  A Town Called Mercy  (s07e03) where an alien, scientist named Kahler-Jex hides out in the old west. His character was based on J. Robert Oppenheimer, a.k.a. “the father of the atomic bomb.” On Jex's home world, he developed an army of cyborg super-soldiers (through awful torture) who nearly-instantaneously ended a nine year war by “decimating the population.” After the war, Jex and his cyborg-project cohort were hunted down and being eliminated by “The Gunslinger,” a renegade super-soldier. Jex escaped to earth and hid out in a small town in the American West where he led a serene life of service and redemption. But soon the r...

Hi. So, We're Both Grieving... Since you were interested in enough to open this post, I hope it isn't too presumptuous of me to say, I am so sorry for your loss. I'm serious; grief sucks. They say it's impossible to compare grief--and maybe this is my grief talking--but I am utterly embarrassed by the fact that I'm constantly thinking about losing a person who wasn't even real. (I'm sure your loss is much less fictional than mine.) The thing that gets me is that my feelings of hurt are still very real. But then I saw this TED talk by Jennifer Barnes, and it made me feel less silly. Whom I Lost I recently lost my first character, Faroughm DeBelltols—a level 3 (almost 4) Aasimar Bloodhunter — just over 2 months ago and I'm still processing my grief. (Thus, this blogpost). Denial & Isolation When my DM first told me that my character had died, I was in shock for the remainder of the session. "This isn't happening. This can't be happeni...