Recovering After Writing an Unpopular Blog Post

One of the more difficult aspects of writing multiple times a week is finding subjects that I think my readers will find interesting and entertaining.  Reading, for many, is work. Many of my readers are doing me a favor by reading my posts, so I try to reward them with a laugh or a line that is creative or off the wall or whatever.  This is not the AP news line, though, and I do have opinions.

Lately, my opinions in my posts have been offending people. I'm sorry, I'm not the Great Appeaser. I play the appeaser too often in life to have to do it on my own website. People said things, like, "I can't believe you didn't like Disneyland?" And I replied, I didn't say I did not like Disneyland, I said it was not Walt Disney's idea of a family friendly park anymore, and overly capitalistic.  When you pay multiple hundreds of dollars for an outing I think you have the right to be somewhat critical.

Sometimes my students will criticize artwork done by another student, or say snarky things about some program the choir, band or theatre did; and I'm always quick to say, "They did this on their own time, without getting paid, and with limited talent/funding/time! What did you do the last few weekends that you are proud of so that I can harp on it!" We as a society tend to find fault with amateurish works more than we do with professional works, its a part of our societal crabology. Nobody is escaping the cage.

My most recent blog I made the mistake of nitpicking the amateurish block party in the Whitaker area of Eugene. I judged a whole neighborhood of Eugene on the poor production values of its event planning. I unfairly labeled an entire area of people because I didn't enjoy myself. I was being a crab, or curmudgeon, or brat, or asshole, or whatever your favorite term for jerk-like character is. Many, including my own family, were quick to point out the hypocrisy of my post. Someone said, "it's your Holden Caulfield" post. Yes, yes it was.

I, like J.D. Salinger's antihero, Holden, am a complex person with hypocritical moments. Or moreover, like Holden, I just suffer from bad character flaws at times. As I said in the aforementioned post, I like comfort, good food, and laughing. When I go to events that are uncomfortable, filled with overly serious people, or uneatable food...I tend to get "moody." I don't need all three things to be happy, just mostly. Here's some examples.

* Old Baptist church potluck. The elderly church ladies have made ten different platters of potato salad and cheesy meatloaf casseroles. The seats are wooden pews. Conversations very from  "why Obama is the devil," to "whether John Deere or Kubota makes a better tractor." Verdict: Chris not happy.

* At a crowded, hot, theatre production of The House of Bernarda Alba which means crying, gnashing of teeth, and temperamental teenagers are cutting themselves with uncontrollable grief = Chris not happy.

* Sitting on the ground at an outdoor amphitheater watching Hall and Oats while eating vendor falafels. Verdict = unclear. Depending on what company I'm with, this could be awesome, or miserable. Falafels can be decent or disgusting...and Hall and Oates can be diva-ish. Sitting on the ground is never a good start, though (I never learned how to do criss-cross-applesauce).

Overall, being a Grinch is part of my nature. I don't like being grouchy, but I guess I'm just easily manipulated by my environment.  I'm trying to be more self-aware of my crotchety-ness so that my family and friends don't ALL turn on me.

Some day, when I'm a best-selling author of Alternative-Christian, New Adult, Magic Realism books (which translates into 422 book sales), and I'm signing books at Tom's Torn Cover and Remainder Mark Book Wholesalers in Tacoma, WA. I can demand a platter of fresh fruit and bacon, a leather Lazy-E Boy recliner, and to have Pauly Shore's comedy album Pink Diggily Diggily (1994) repeatedly played in the background.  Is that too much to ask?