My brother calls a spade a spade when he sees it.

He has the uncanny ability to say what he needs to say, when he needs to say it, and consequences be damned. There’s not enough of that going on these days, this brutal honesty. Many of us hide behind political correctness or an aversion to conflict and use noncommittal jargon to smooth things over even when unhappy news needs to be shared. We shy away from saying what should be said, when it needs to be said. When it would be best.

He said something to me I didn’t appreciate. He told me I needed to “own my shit.”

He was right.

Dammit.

I’ve learned that the things people say to us, about us, the stuff that really sticks in our craws (I just wanted to use the word craw), the stuff that burns us up and has us blowing our tops in rage—that stuff tends to stick with us because it’s true. Because it’s true. Because someone had the audacity to highlight the thing about ourselves we like the least. This was one of those times.

I could call it a miscommunication or brush it off as a misunderstanding. What I was trying to do and what actually happened were two different things. I was screwing things up when trying to make them better and the even though my intentions where good…well…I wrote a whole book about what happens with good intentions (you can even buy it here).

Anyway, he told me I needed to own my shit. That I needed to take responsibility for my actions. I took particular exception to that. But after stomping around my house for 3 days, I started to see where he was coming from. Fine. I get it. Take responsibility. Fine. Own your shit. Yeah yeah yeah.

When I was a kid, my mother used to characterize our personalities in terms of ass-kicking (don’t ask me why—if you know my mom, it makes sense). She would say, “Your brother will tell you he’s gonna kick your ass and then do it. Right then. Your sister will tell she’s gonna kick your ass but not tell you when. But you, Chris, you won’t say shit. You’ll just walk up and kick somebody’s ass and they’ll never know why.” I used to think that was compliment. Thought it was some kind of Clint Eastwood-Marshall Dillon-law of the west-cowboy-ride off into the sunset kind of stuff. It’s not. It’s action without reason—there’s no ownership in it. Now I get it.

What’s my point, you ask? At the beginning of this year, I set some goals and made them pretty plain for everyone to see. Write this blog every other day. 2 book reviews per month. Do freaking P90X on a daily basis. Be about my shit. I missed my targets, at least for January. I’ve written 10 blogs but it should be 15, will complete 1 book review, and really don’t want to discuss my love-hate relationship with P90X. Hate is winning right now.

I didn’t own my goals like I should have.

Owning up to something and owning it are two different things. One of them requires an admission of responsibility; the other turns that responsibility into action. It’s both recognizing the error of your ways AND making changes to ensure it never happens again.

I made amends with my brother (well, I’m working on it). And I’m carving out time to be more diligent about my blog postings, my book reviews, and my exercise. And yesterday, after a dog bit my kid, I told the owner that if the Boy and the dog were in the same place at the same time again, I’d kill it myself. Owning my goals, my intentions, and my words.

Owning my shit.

I like to think of myself as a serious writer. Not like I’m serious about writing but that I write serious stuff. My subject mater is profound. I think deep thoughts like Jack Handy, have political opinions like Bill Maher, ponder the depths of the human condition like Jonathon Kozol. And when I consider my writing career, I always imagined tomes of philosophical weight streaming from my keyboard. I thought I would be crating literary expeditions into my nightmares or rollercoaster rides of suspense, not comedic hijinks or I’d-have-gotten-away-with-it-if-it-wasn’t-for-you-meddling-kids nonsense.

But that’s not who I am. Not entirely.

Truth is, as serious a writer as I like to think I am, I’m also the guy who knows he’s going to hell for laughing at a handicapped hockey game. Go back, read it again. I’ll wait. Yes, I said handicapped floor hockey. Wheelchairs and people with that one heel a little thicker than the other. Funniest shit I’ve ever seen. Seeing people fall will leave me convulsing in laughter but watching a movie where the dog dies makes me cry. I’ve found outrage at the antics of the Cincinnati Police department, pride at my president shutting up his critics, grief when two of my friends lost their own close friends.

I’ve never intentionally written a funny thing in my life but you guys—you magnificent people who participate and share in this little journey of mine—you all are quick to let me know what works and what doesn’t. You loved DMFRH because you could relate (or you have one down the hall or on your job). Or Hello Kitty because that shit happens to all of us. Or Shit or Get Off the Pot because sometimes we all need a swift kick in the ass to get moving. You let me know what touches you.

The larger literary community likes to put us in buckets, in little bubbles of stories and authors. The entire apparatus segments us as authors and readers, separating us in the name of efficiency, marketing and profits. Horror has a section in every bookstore and library. African-American literature earns half a shelf off to the side, or a table in the front during February. You have to wade through the Self-Help section and listening to all those titles tell you how much you suck before getting to the kids section. We are taught to think in categories and silos, in metatags and keywords.

You all have taught me that the human condition is all-encompassing, not broken apart. It is a cohesive, consummate process, one that envelopes fear and joy and pride and failure. We are not silos and categories and metadata. We are individuals who find horrible things humorous, who get embarrassed by medical terms to describe our body parts, who sometimes don’t fit inside our own skins.

For me, it’s about being the writer I am, being the man I am. Being the person I am. Embracing the components of my psyche and personality—including accepting that the wholly inappropriate is funny to me—and folding that into my words. You all have forced me to redefine who I thought I was as a writer.

Thank you for that.

My daughter talks a lot. A lot.

We tend to tiptoe past her room in the mornings because from the moment she wakes up until she is finally, with great effort, in the bed, the child is talking. I read a study that men and women speak essentially the same amount of words—this chick must be training for a gold medal in the Gum-Flapping Olympics. She can TALK.

And anybody who has that much to say generally is a decent storyteller (hey, look at me!) The Honey Badger had a recent spate of stories she had to write for school. They were doing this story mountain exercise and she had go through the major components of a story (Beginning, Build-Up, Climax, Resolution, Ending). One of those was a story about being a turkey on Thanksgiving and how you would escape. Because I am the writer in the family (unless you look at my wife’s blog), I get to tackle this assignment. YAY!

The Honey Badger has a million ideas: shoot the turkey out a cannon, ice skate away, get a bunch of other turkeys and do a Michael Jackson Thriller-style dance escape. But she can’t pick. She won’t decide. This becomes the argument, “I don’t know what to write!”

Unfortunately, I know exactly where she’s coming from.

I have a degree in Sociology (I know, I don’t look like the type). One of the main questions sociology tries to answer is nature vs. nurture. I didn’t physically make either one of my kids—we are a Hamburger Helper, just-add-water type of family. But I did mold them and the Honey Badger’s been my little project since she was 2. She’s 9.

I think I gave her my own habits as it relates to writing and procrastinating. I know exactly how she feels and apparently so do many of my writing friends. I read a post by Deanna Knippling (10 Signs You’re Not Getting Published) and the number 1 reason sign was “You can comfortably say, ‘So I have an idea for this book…’ or ‘I have lots of ideas for books.’”

Damn. I fell into that category. I have a thousand ideas for books but only one of them is complete. Damn. And for you non-writers out there, it’s not just about writing. It’s easy to think about the things we want to do to really own our lives: work out, read more, take a trip, take our kids to school, bungee jump, whatever. We choose a date on the calendar or at the start of the week or in an hour when we’re actually going to start. But there is a point where thinking about what you should do doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t do anything. It’s just procrastubration—it just makes you feel better about doing something later that you haven’t actually committed to doing at all.

Truth is, it’s time to shit or get off the pot. Or, if that’s too abrasive, fish or cut bait (I don’t even know what that means). Even Nike’s in on it: Just Do It. Do something. Right now. Right NOW. Stop talking and thinking and planning about that thing you know you should do or that person you know you should be and start doing it. NOW. So what if you fall? So what if you fail? So what? “It is better to fail at doing something than achieve in doing nothing.” Do something RIGHT NOW.

The Honey Badger wrote her story when we had a similar conversation. I told her she couldn’t pick wrong; it’s her story. She can’t be wrong. But she had to pick. She did. And after 4 days of hemming and hawing, of bullshitting and procrasturbating and losing TVs and play time, she finally wrote her story. And it was good.

As for me, I’m going to sh…well, that’s probably TMI, huh? You know the deal.If you want it, the Honey Badger’s story is below:

The Great Escape of Kayla the Turkey

Once upon a time there was a turkey named Kayla. She was really sad because no one would buy her. Then one day something strange happened. Kayla got picked up and put in a shopping cart. Was it true? Was Kayla actually getting bought? Then Kayla got put on a conveyor belt so she could go to the person’s house. Kayla finally arrive at the person’s house. She was so excited but then Kayla saw a stove that was opened so Kayla thought that they were going to cook her! So Kayla had to escape! Kayla ran and jumped off the table. Kayla was really scared like a bunny when it is being chased. Then Kayla ran to the living room. Kayla got really scared because the dog barked at her. She climbed up on the couch! The dog jumped on the couch and tried to eat Kayla. Kayla jumped off the couch and ran upstairs to the parents’ room and the dog followed her. Then Kayla jumped out the window! The dog did too! Luckily it was a two story house. The owners dashed like lightning out the door. After that Kayla ran to the grocery store. Next she jumped into the Turkey bin and blended in with the other Turkeys. Very last the owners came to find the turkey. Then the dog comes in and barks. The cashiers came and so did the cops! The cashiers took the dog away! After they took the dog away the cops took the owners and kicked them out of the store. The turkey Kayla squeezed to the bottom of the turkey bin and no one bought her. Kayla lived happily ever after.

the end

I think I was 9 or 10 the first time I saw someone moonwalk. I remember the event: it was the Motown 25 concert and Michael Jackson was on stage performing Billie Jean in his sparkling ass outfit and high-water pants. He came out, threw the hat, did his song and eased across the stage. Walking forward; moving backward.

Now as cool as it was I never got the hang of it. I wanted to: my friends could moonwalk, I saw Breakin’. Just never happened for me. And eventually it became old news, old hat and I moved on. And we all know how things ended up for Mike. Maybe it was a good thing I was never able to do it.

When I was 12 I made a mistake and it cost me my relationship with my grandmother. It was the 80s and my father had gotten laid off from his job in Minnesota (I remember both recessions and booms under the Reagan administration. Shit wasn’t perfect!). My dad ended up moving to Washington DC, in with his mother—my grandmother—to start his life over. It was a messy divorce between my parents and my brother, sister and I were often caught in the middle. I was mad about the whole thing, didn’t understand tough economic times (not like I do now!), and certainly didn’t handle it well. I got into an argument with my grandmother about my dad, said some choice words and hung up. And I never spoke to her again. By the time I was old enough to understand the gravity of my actions or even realize the quality of the relationship I was missing, she was gone. She passed away before I made it right.

Now It’s easy to chalk it up to being 12, to being young and stupid: when you’re that young, you can’t really comprehend mortality or understand that people don’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever but I didn’t know that then. I know it now. And I’ve carried that burden with me, and the responsibility of it, for a long time. I was 12 when it happened; I’ll be 39 this year. I was only able to forgive myself in the last couple years and even then I had help. To this day, I can’t listen to Christina Aguilera’s song Hurt without tears in my eyes.

But I can’t go backwards either.

I sincerely believe that everything that happens to us happens for a reason. I believe that we are the collection of our experiences and choices and they all work together to move us forward, to move us toward that person we are meant to be. There can be no wallowing in the past, no moonwalking—walking forward but moving backward—if we are to be who we’re supposed to be. And there’s no dancing around the difficult obstacles in your path. Those decisions, those regrets and poor choices and hurts handed out and pain received—they’re part of you. Part of the person you were. Part of the person you are today. Part of the person you will be. They simply are what they are.

Own them. Embrace them. Whine and cry and scream at the top of your lungs about them. But stop dancing. Stop moonwalking. Just walk. Step by agonizing step. Just walk. You’ll get there faster.

I never ever wanna press rewind, never wanna go back in time
Not much glory in that story but it’s mine
So I’m loving who I am today, past has passed away
Finally I have forgiven me
–Forgiven Me, Mary Mary (2008)