The first four seem to have a common theme. Now that they're done (finally), I'll be thinking of four more related in another way. For now, click on the title you'd like to see, sit back and be enlightened by my inflated self-image and all around pomposity. As I make a dangerous assumption that you'd like to know any of this:

I couldn't decide what to talk about for this month's fireside chat: the Meaning of Life, or a discussion on why men use twice as much toilet paper after they hit 35. After some debate, I decided on the less interesting topic for this month. Not to worry, we'll do the toilet paper another day.

The reason for the 'Part 1' in the title is because Life, in general, is just too big and sticky for one discussion. Besides, your phone line will be busy for months if I try to cover everything in here. Patience. Patience.

I'm a big believer in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. In short, the historic psychiatrist (or whatever he was) said that there is a 'pyramid' of needs that one climbs throughout life, attaining a higher level only when the lower, more basic levels have been satisfied. The lowest, most critical plateau contains the basic requirements of life: food, shelter, water and sex. Interesting that sex is in there. I think these days it might have to be moved to the second level. There are some that say it's not a requirement at all. Look at Mother Teresa's life. True. But I think sex could be as important as clothing (or lack thereof) for some, based on their expectations of life. But let's not jump ahead.

The second level, gotten to after your basics are out of the way, contains more social things: acceptance by family, acceptance by peers (social acceptance), basically a good self image (I'm going from memory here). Then there are two others, more specific to higher, less tangible needs. The specifics evade me, but are generally what I'm going to talk about. They involve attaining higher goals, "chasing the dream", needing to paint that picture, or write that story. The highest of all levels, the narrow peak of the pyramid, is called "Self Actualization." Maslow didn't think anyone could ever reach this plateau, but he figured we all strive for it. Perfection. Blah blah blah.

There's something to be said for all this. Folks in "third world" nations, who never know if they'll drop off forever or actually eat something one day to the next, are constantly in that lower level of basic needs. Who gives a crap what the woman next to you thinks about your tattered rags when you feel your body shriveling into nothingness? Then there's Bif, a young boy born into the family fortune, a thirty-thousand square foot mansion on a 500 acre estate, servants with food, a pool to dip his toes, and a snobbish, I'm-better-than-all-of-you attitude. One would think Biffy boy is way up there. He has everything. Then why is he a sociopath who sits around screaming at the servants, drinking sherry when his parents aren't watching, and torturing the pets? Unfortunately, Bif's parents couldn't care less about the little runt. He's such an inconvenience. They're planning on sending him off to a boarding school. Far away. Bif has no friends. Because he's so used to getting what he wants, no one wants to hang out with him. This is either because he's too spoiled rotten; or else they're intimidated by his wealth. "Poor" Bif is stuck in the second level of MHON, not getting what he needs in the family & social support area.

**click**

"Sneezo!" "Ask your doctor." "At last, freedom from the bondage of allergies!" "Sneezo." "Ask your doctor." "Parasail across wheat and pollen! Watch your son's ball game!" "Ask your doctor." "Ask your doctor about Sneezo." "Sneezo." Zoom! "I'll ask my doctor today!" (Most common side effects of snezolofigantrialisten are very similar to a sugar pill, and may include painful bowel movements, sneezing, dementia, blindness, menstrual cramps, and death)

**click**

"That about wraps up Fox News at 10:00. Thanks for joining us. Recapping the last hour of news: Monica Lewinsky changes her brand of tampons. Is this a message to Bill Clinton? Jonbenet Ramsey's gerbils: what role did they play in her death, and why have the police brought in the cute little rodents for questioning? On Fox News at six a.m. we'll follow up on these and other stories. Oh, and the President is in Ireland and has brought peace to both it and the Middle East, Iraq has dropped a nuclear bomb on Turkey, the Russian government has collapsed and a band of traveling harlequins have taken over the Kremlin. But our top story we'll follow up on: Has a blind farmer in New Mexico discovered proof of the Roswell UFO?"

**click**

Of course, if all you say is "Maybe someday sigh maybe someday" and not stop to think about what exactly you're sighing about, then you'll just hang out at the top of the second level of MHON. You'll peer in through the frosty window to the third level, seeing the tall grownups laughing and sipping beers by a fire in their mysterious lovely world. You stand there with snow up to your knees.

What, honestly, should a person do if they're in this metaphor? Well, one of two things. First, and this can be the most risky, walk into the place where the people are and see what happens. This could work perfectly. If that place is writing (God I wish I could be a writer sigh I wish I could write) then this means sitting down with a pad of paper and a pen and starting to write. I tried this in college. I didn't work. Why? Because I had no idea where to start. I never took a creative writing course in school (I can never understand why, since I've wanted to write since reading my first Ray Bradbury story as a teenager). I only took those short story courses where you read a famous story and analyze it to death. I loved doing that. But it made me think that these writer's spit these works of prose out first draft. Non-existent imagery and all.

You see, I hadn't realized at that time that the kid looking in the window had another option. He could go home, get changed, and talk to people about what he should do to get himself into that warm place. After college, I signed up for an after-work, adult-education course on short story writing. These things are offered in every city every year. Suddenly, light dawned etc. My friend Fran (whom I met at the class) and I started a writer's group when the class ended. Whoola. I started writing.

Wow, see how that guy can paint those pictures on TV? I wish I could do that. Look up the class and take it. See what happens. See if it clicks. I thought I could be a great guitar player. Janet bought me a guitar (we were dating at the time... It wouldn't be in the budget today) and I took a class or read a book. It just didn't click. Saxophone. Well, I liked it, but it was going to take so much practice. I realized that since we had two kids and one on the way, I'd better narrow my possibilities.

Try things. Don't sit on the edge of your bed and think that trying this or that takes too long. I haven't got time for that, what if it isn't what I want? I'll waste my time! No. You won't. Sitting there for years thinking of how you want to be something you can't even put into words is wasting your time. If you think you want to be a teacher, or a college professor, or do something related to a college, call the HR department and ask to speak to someone about employment. Not an interview, just an informational session. "I'm considering a career change, but need some information." "Why certainly, sir. Pee into this cup." "No, no. You don't understand. I just want to - " "Maybe you don't understand, sir. Pee in this cup. Here. Now." "Is that a gun, ma'am?" "Do it!"

As a kid, I'd stare at the ever-changing images on the PBS sign-off and think, "Boy, I wish I could have sex" and "Boy, I need to get into that world." Maybe I've found it. I didn't go to Harvard, and I never had discussions in libraries, but I did have many deep discussions with Gerry Cotnoir at the Plantation after work, drank beer from fluted glasses, married the woman of my dreams, have gone to plays and concerts and painted and learned the saxophone and I can't play one decent note to save me, and I write bizarre and scary stories. And boy, does Microsoft Word hate that last sentence; it's all green. I'm not trying to yadda yadda about me all day. I guess Life is such a personal endeavor that one has to go about it from his/her own twisted perspective. I haven't reached Maslow's peak of Self Actualization (Those who know me will gasp at this, saying, "No! Really?"), but I think I know what I want to do in this life of mine. For now. I might just get published someday. I might just drive to Maine soon and paint with Bill Howard on the sea shore. If I find myself sitting on the edge of the bed saying "Oh why can't I be at the ocean and paint sigh why why" then I'll know it's time to give Bill a call. I like the core Life I'm living right now. I love my wife and my kids. It's just now and then, when I feel like yelling at the servants (who are, well, me and Janet; the kids being the king and queens) and torturing the dog, I have to take time to feed the right side of my brain, the paint-smattered notebook and pen-carrying side of my life. When I'm done, I can come home and sit on the edge of my bed, sigh in contentment, and go to sleep.

About a month ago I got my first story accepted for publication. Well, it wasn't my first story, but it IS the first story published. Dig? In 1987, after moving to the Big City to work for the Big Insurance Company, I decided (see prior essay TPBSSOATMOL Part I, for details) to attend a writer's class at night. After which, Fran and I formed a writer's group, with the folks who attended the rather mundane class with us. And so we went, full steam for about a year, then two, then three. We met every week, every other week, stepping tentatively at times, jumping into the muck at others, to try and figure out this fiction-writing thing. We picked words from the dictionary, I wrote bizarre little ditties like "Saturnine," "Doctor Vittorio Changing," and "The Receipt." I sat mostly in Fran's apartment listening to her horror stories, Joe's intense suppressed-homosexual vignettes, Susannah's poetry, Frank's surreal explorations of his post-retirement mind (using one of the most original surnames in history: Nitorig K), Julie's deeply personal testaments, and everyone else's written molestations of English prose. And we were good, at least for beginners. In front of each other our stories grew, and they improved. Though my stories got better, more unique, they weren't polished. They weren't ready to go out (though I DID send them out, again and again). Had I known what was good and what was bad, I'd have known that one or two drafts is just not enough for a story. I was only beginning to read stories and books on a regular basis, learning what good meant. Marriage and a new child later, the writer's group was gasping for breath. No one was writing. In the spring of 1992, I started writing a new story, which trudged up into my mind one day with lots of promise. But it wasn't ripe. I wasn't ripe. I stopped writing it. The story, 'Incineration,' was left to mildew in a bent notebook.

Over the next five years I wrote nothing, fiction-wise, except for an occasional story for fun, starring a member of my family, for birthdays or Christmas. I learned to paint. We had a second child. We put our house up for sale. I hated my job. We found some land we bought some land we sold our house we moved into an apartment while our new house was built we had a third baby I changed jobs and became a consultant.

My sister Ellen, brothers Mike & Paul and Ellen's friend Joyce and I wrote a story together (see the Writing World for a link to it). Once bitten, as they say. I was ready to go back. But I had to choose between painting and writing to concentrate on. Deep in me, I knew I had to write. Since reading Ray Bradbury as a kid, since reading the Lawrence's "Young Goodman Brown," I've wanted to write. There past five years stories had been rolling around in my head, banging on my skull. 1997. I began again.

I wrote "Doomsday." If you check out the Writing World pages you'll see it's been subsequently retired (too many asteroids crushing down on Earth stories). Oh, by the way, I resurrected the story, cut it in half, made the asteroid an annoying background noise, and now I have to admit, though it's dark as hell, it kicks ass. But I stray. I finished "Doomsday" in March 1998 and began its short submittal life. That was eight months ago. Since then I've written "Living by the Highway," "Gum," "Lavish" (which I estimate to be the next one to be published), and "Ptolemy." Then the story which had been left stranded at the cliff of my mind in 1992, and since then never really stopped pounding on my eyeballs, was brought front and center. I wrote and finished "Incineration". It sold to Cemetery Sonata, a horror anthology due out early next year by Chameleon Publishing. I had my first sale, the moment I always hoped for (but only truly strove for this past year). After one day of feeling really good about myself, things got fuzzy. I was stuck in neutral. Why wasn't I jumping for joy?

I needed a new essay for this page. It was early October and I needed to get something in front of my recent "PBS Signoff" over-pontificating essay. I kept thinking of the paneling in my parent's den. But what to write? What's the deep dark theme I can delve into about a childhood memory on paneling, of all things? That wasn't what I wanted to talk about, so it never happened. What did I want to talk about? Well, for one thing I was kind of curious as to my blasé reaction to getting the story sold. All I could think about was, I need to sell another very, very soon. Then my Aunt Linda asked how I felt, and when I finished answering her, the answers to my question started to gel.

Since finishing "Incineration," I've written another story that's been hanging around my muse since I was 19 years old, driving to New Hampshire with the McDonald's gang, and pictured a giant Monkey swinging from the three radio towers in Manchester. "The Monkey on the Towers" was recently finished and sent out. I feel good about this one. It's bizarre, but pretty darn good. (I'm my own best fan). I rewrote an oldies from the eighties, and at last did "Tanner's Bomb" justice. Still, I needed for some deep reason to get another story published. At this point I have six stories out to various markets. But it's all a waiting game. It's all about writing and waiting.

I figured it out, I think. When you're dating a woman for the first time, you're walking on air because at last you're on a date with this wonderful person (you hope they're wonderful). But just because you're with her and she with you, it doesn't mean a damn thing. Both of you have to decide whether it could work, what if anything is between you. No matter where the date goes, nothing's for certain until the most important event: the second date. No second date; no relationship. Even then, a second date just means you don't hate each other. The third.... Yep, the third date is the key. Go on three dates with the same person and you're either going to break up with each other over soup or spend a long time together.

I need that second date. I'm walking down the sidewalk, my beautiful wife and three incredible kids on my left side, and this dark, passionate mistress on my right. We're just finishing our first real date, in as much as we're just not flirting across the restaurant, eyes meeting between flashes of the waiter's hurried wanderings. "Incineration," though a key step, was simply dinner and a movie with her. I've got a lot more to show her, to offer, and I'm asking for a second date. I'll get my answer in the mail. Someday.

This is the meaning of my life. One of them, at least. Picking up the kids after work and checking the mail. Trying no to be too grumpy if a big enveloped addressed to me in my own handwriting arrives in the big black mailbox. Going down to Fidelity's cafeteria every possible day and making love to my 12-year-old laptop in front of everyone and not caring what anyone thinks. It's become what I do. But it's just what I do. I only have had one date with the creature I've courted all this time, if not physically then at least mentally.

I've begun a novel, and a whole new world is opening up. It's going to be very good, this novel, but a lot of work. Whereas in a week I can write the first and second drafts of a 4,000 word story, maybe draft 3 and 4 the next week, draft 5 and finish with 6 the next, one week of letting Janet, Fran and anyone else who asks read and critique, the book is going to be about 75,000 words. I've been at it for about three weeks and am a third of the way through (I think). But it's still just what I do. What I am is a computer consultant with a dashing wit and an overly-right-sided brain. If I can get myself out on the town one more time, then one more time again, as a writer, then maybe that's what I'll be. A writer. If something is what you do long enough, there comes a time when it has to be what you are, or you stop doing it. See? I can't see myself not doing it. It feels like I've rolled over the edge of a large, wonderful hill and there aren't any breaks. Or that I've walked into an auditorium in my underwear and everyone has turned to see me. No sense in turning around at that point. Unless you're not wearing clean underwear. I could jump out of the car, run from the hall, but then there have been too many metaphors in this essay as it is. Time to stop typing.

...what? What does this have to do with dark paneling? Nothing. I just liked the title. Remind me someday, and I'll tell you about what inspired the name. It just has nothing to do with this essay. When I do write it, maybe I'll call it "Waiting On a Phone Call For a Night on the Town," or something like that.