This Zine Will Change Your Life.

Thank you, Ben Tanzer, for publishing one of my pieces on your web-based zine.

Downward-facing dog.

It's not that I'm at any sort of stopping point with my HOW TO WIN FRIENDS project. I've just joined a couple cults that have broadened my focus.

Today, I joined a yoga class at my office, and it hurt like holy hell. The instructor said that she'd try to find modified positions that would make me feel more comfortable, but I'm going to invest in some kneepads in the meantime.

Last week, I joined Weight Watchers because Jenipher's mom Jan - who likes me but whom Jenipher says is not allowed to like me better than her - was teaching the Monday night class near my house. Tonight, I went to my second meeting and got a sticker from Jan because I'd lost a significant amount of weight in my first week. Tonight's meeting was all about providing yourself with positive reinforcement.

I'm doing good things lately.

PRINCIPLE THREE: Arouse in the other person an eager want.

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are." - Dale Carnegie

Taking on this principle, the last of the book's "fundamental techniques in handling people," was tough, really tough, even though I've learned about it in improv class before and can apply it in my scene work. What does this mean to those of you who don't do improv? It means I can create characters who can come to understand what someone else's character wants, and I can build a scene around either helping them gain that goal or thwarting their goal.

Of course, in improv, it creates a better scene if you create an obstacle toward someone's goal. It creates tension, and tension is more interesting onstage than an easily solved problem.

In life, blocking someone else's goal for the sole purpose of building tension just makes you an asshole. Working to understand someone else's desires and concentrating on the benefits they hope to reap over your own wants, desires, hopes and goals is what Carnegie suggests doing.

And I found it tough to do it. I'm selfish and self-centered and self-loathing and self-indulgent, and my initial reactions to situations are usually filtered through that self-interest.

But, since I'm trying to map my progress in this project on a regular basis, I did find one example today of how I've dealt with this specific principle. And it's a fucking doozy.
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My mom took the day off work today so that she could go to Glamour Shots and get her casket photo taken. She went with her best friend Debbie, who also wanted a coffin-topper portrait in soft lighting.

As Mom explained to me, she and Debbie had discussed doing this photo shoot for nine years, but the plan moved from discussion to action a couple weeks ago when Mom found a two-for-one Glamour Shots coupon in the newspaper. They redeemed it today.

Debbie and Mom didn't just want updated, good photos of themselves. They wanted their going-away portraits. Mom wanted the photo that we're going to put on her casket during her wake.

Debbie and Mom devised this plan, as I said, nine years ago after Debbie's sister died. Debbie's sister - who was fine-looking but not a knockout - had a framed, filtered-lighting Glamour Shots photo of herself in heavy makeup looking her most "fashion model beautiful" atop her casket during the viewing of the body, and Debbie's family loved the photo so much that there was an actual fight over who got to keep it after the burial. And Debbie's sister's lying, cheating ex-husband apparently stole it off the coffin during the service when it looked like the photo was going to go to some other relative.

My mom said she and Debbie made a pact after that white-trash funeral photo theft incident that they should have pretty pictures taken of themselves for their coffins before, as she suggested, they became craggy, ugly, fat old women. She didn't want us to use a photo of her that was from the 1980s, and she didn't want a more recent photo that was unflattering. So she went to Glamour Shots today.

(My mom's pretty. But my mom doesn't think she's pretty. Just like I'm cute. But I don't think I'm cute.)

She told this to my stepfather and me, and our reactions were different.

My stepfather Jerry, with his Southern twang and his idea that our family funerals should be all about weeping, wailing, snake-handling and histrionic, down-on-your-knees begging for mercy from an almighty God (even though he doesn't go to church), was vehement in his disapproval of my mom's funeral photo shoot.

"THERE AIN'T NO MATERIAL THINGS LEFT AT THAT POINT! YOU AIN'T SUPPOSED TO FOCUS ON WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE! IT'S SINFUL!" Jerry roused to my mother, and she actually would laugh and argue her point, rather than just stay quiet like she usually does with Jerry, who prefers to proclaim his conclusions rather than listen to other people's points-of-view.

"We've been talking about it for years, Jerry," she explained. "And Debbie and I want to do this before we get any uglier. Have you seen some of the photos they run on the obits page?"

Jerry scoffed and said he'd just have her cremated. (I scoffed at that, for I'm betting he dies first.)

My mom's whole perspective on this photo shoot for the past couple weeks has been refreshing, actually. She's been very matter-of-fact about all the deeper ramifications of this, like that she's openly acknowledging that she's going to die eventually. She knows that the photo shoot is shrouded in this morbidity, and she's tackled it with a certain admirable, sick sense of humor.

As a result of this, my main objection to the photo shoot was not that I didn't want Mom to plan her funeral. (She's been carrying around sheet music for it in her briefcase for years. I know that. She's just being zealous about preparation.) No, my main objection was her choice of photography studios.

"Seriously, Mom, I know photographers who could do this for you," I said to her today while she ironed three outfits that she wanted to wear. "Why Glamour Shots?"

"Well, we have a coupon," Mom said. "And Debbie and I want to do this together. You know how we'll probably get there and just start laughing about it. We've wanted to do this for years."

I understood what she wanted. I understood why she wanted it. So I tried to work with that by telling her what my fears about the whole thing were.

I said, "I don't want you to wear a hat. I don't want you to wear a boa. Don't clinch your collar. I don't want you to do any shots where you rest your hand on your chin. I don't want them to light the shot so much that it looks like you've been glazed. I don't want the photo on your casket to make it look like you were the madam at some New Orleans brothel."

It was wrong of me to concern myself over how potentially tacky this whole thing might be. It's not my funeral.

My mom explained to me that Glamour Shots has changed.

"You wear your own clothes now, so I won't be wearing a hat or a boa," she said, propping up the iron. "They do your makeup while you're there, but I'll still be in my own clothes. I've got the black-pinstripe suit, the red suit and this denim one that will, you know, look more casual. Don't worry about it."

My mom hasn't worn much facial makeup in years. She abandoned lipstick when she started dating my stepfather. She's never been a Glamour Shots type of woman before. I had mixed feelings about this whole thing because I couldn't quite grasp what she was out to prove about herself.

And then, while she was going over the clothes, I thought that maybe my problem with all of this is that, because I'm her son and because I love her, I see something in her that she doesn't. It's the same thing I can't see in myself.

And so I looked at my mother and said, "You know you're pretty, right?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Oh come on," I repeated, "you've always been pretty."

She kept ironing.

"Even when you were a kid, you were pretty. You're pretty now. You dress well. You're pretty, and you know that."

She thanked me, but, unfortunately, I don't think she quite bought it.

Still, this evening, she called me up and said, "I didn't wear a hat. I didn't wear a boa. There was one shot in close-up where they told me to rest my head on my arm, and I did that. But most of them came out really good. I got several 5x10s of one where I was wearing the denim, and you can have one of the wallet-sized ones."

My mother is not dying. My mother just allowed herself this fun, silly act of vanity to fly in the face of aging and death. And I just want her to like herself and have fun. I think she wants to like herself.

Today, at that photo shoot, she did.

When I put that photo on her casket one sad day, I hope I remember this. And I hope I laugh about it.
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: The lovely woman in the above photo is not my mother, just some nice person who posted her photo on the Internet.)

In appreciation.

"Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare." - Dale Carnegie

My friend Zach Steele owns a bookstore in Decatur. It opened last June. Because I'd been out of touch with him, I found out about Zach's bookstore while I was hitting on this straight guy during the Armistead Maupin book signing at Outwrite Books. The heterosexual guy worked at Georgia Center for the Book, and he and I were doing this random chit-chat while I was trying to picture what he looked like naked. (I did not know he was straight at the time. I mean, jeez, it was an Armistead Maupin book signing at Outwrite. It's not my fault for jumping to the wrong conclusion. And he was cute.)

During the chit-chat, the straight guy and I were talking about self-published books, and I told him that the worst self-published book ever written was this Southern-fried, end-times novel called APOCALYPSE SOUTH by Kyle Watson. (The book has a scene that takes place in a traffic jam on I-285 during the Rapture. It's absolutely hilarious.)

And the straight guy told me that he'd seen APOCALYPSE SOUTH before and, in fact, had a friend with a marked-up copy of it with notes on the edges where an entire bookstore staff had commented on how bad it was. And I told the straight guy that I was familiar with that copy of the book, for I had once worked with the bookstore staff that created it. The straight guy told me that Zach, my one-time manager, had the copy and read it to the staff of his new bookstore at every meeting they had.

And, thus, the cute, straight guy and APOCALYPSE SOUTH led me to reacquaint myself with Zach. The day after the Maupin signing, I e-mail him and discovered Wordsmiths Books in Decatur. A few days later, I'd walked through the doors of their first location in Decatur, a pretty place with unfortunately low foot traffic. Zach wasn't there during my first trip to the store, which is why I was able to focus on the store and fall in love with its charms in my own way. It's a beautiful place with a warm vibe. It feels good to be there. It feels comfortable to read there. It was the sort of place where I wanted to know everyone's name.

I came up with my own dream for Wordsmiths that first day. I wanted to do a reading there. I wanted to sign copies of my own, as-yet-unwritten books there. I had this feeling stronger in Wordsmiths than I'd ever had in any location of the bookstore that had given me paychecks. In part, this was because it was independent. Mostly, I think I was just charmed to be standing in the middle of Zach's dream store. He had the idea. He wanted something. He went for it, and he achieved it. It made me want to tie my own ambitions to his. I envied his success, and I hoped that Wordsmiths was a place where fulfilled dreams were contagious. That was last year when I'd just begun discovering places like JaCKPie in the city, places built on optimism. I wanted a part of it.

So I e-mailed Zach the next day and told him that I'd enjoyed going to his store and was tempted to jump up on the microphone and read one of my essays. And, even though at that point he'd never read an essay of mine and had never heard me perform anything, he told me at the time that I was more than welcome to jump up on the mic whenever I was in his store. And within a month, Wordsmiths had its first Open Mic Night, and I brought "Prayer for the Waffle House Faithful" to read. When I stepped up on that stage, I'm fairly certain that Zach and his staff didn't know what to expect from me. During the reading, I noticed that I was getting a lot of laughs, particularly from Zach and his wife Alice. By the time I was done, Zach came onstage and said that I was more than welcome to perform at every Open Mic Night. It was one of the best compliments I've ever gotten in my life.

Since then, Russ Marshalek, the events coordinator for Wordsmiths, has proven to be just as supportive of my work as Zach. He's asked me to read at other events at Wordsmiths and said that my Phi Kappa brother Will Young and I are the store's favorite homegrown performers. Russ even helped me film a scene of THE AMBER NASH SHOW video in his apartment complex elevator.

I love these guys. I love Wordsmiths Books. It has shown me nothing but love, and it has supported my efforts as a writer and performer.

And now it's in trouble. Because of debt incurred at the location it has since moved from, Wordsmiths is in danger of closing, and I want to keep the place open forever. Fundraising efforts are ongoing, and I would like it very much if you could help out a place that's becoming an important part of the Decatur and Atlanta communities.

View it anyway you like. Go to their website, and read about what's going on from the owner himself. Just help them out if you can. Pick your reasons. Please help.

Do it because good people need your help. Do it because you want another place where you can buy books. Because people who've helped me out now need help. Because a local, small business needs help. Because it's a cool place. Because you remember what the cool, small bookstore in your town used to be like. Because I've not written a book yet, and I want Wordsmiths to still be there for when I do or for when any of my friends do. Because the continued existence of mom-and-pop stores suggest the basic American dream can still survive. Do it because places built on optimism are places that need to stick around.

And thank you for your attention and help.

http://www.wordsmithsbooks.com

PRINCIPLE TWO: Give honest and sincere appreciation.

"I shall pass this way but once: any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." - Old saying referenced in HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

WEEK TWO PROGRESS REPORT

Trying to think up a more interesting way to blog about this than just "I tried this principle this week, and this happened ...," I tried to think of something that I'm randomly grateful for. And, for some reason that hit me when I singing along with my car stereo, I realized that I am grateful that I never got to perform a solo number in my high school's choral variety show. The people I suppose that I can thank for this are Mr. Fowler, my high school choral director, and my late Grandpa Carr.

The reason that I am grateful that I didn't perform a solo isn't because I'm scared to sing in public. I like my singing voice, actually. I'm not great, but I'm not bad. Since I grew up singing with my mother the formal choral teacher-turned-mortgage banker and two aunts who also taught high school chorus, it was sorta expected that I'd be singing my whole life - even if I never showed the sheer talent for it that my elders did. (Seriously, Aunt Carol is a very, very accomplished soprano.)

Still, because I was one of those theater kids (or would've been if I'd been at a school with a functional drama department) and because I was a former member of the Atlanta Boy Choir, I wanted to be center stage at every concert and, after it was created my junior year, the song-and-dance variety show, which is a spectacular program in Buford even now. But my moment in the high school spotlight never happened.

And I am fucking grateful. Because now I have no embarrassing "song-and-dance" moments to live down.

It's all about song choice. You'll see what I mean.

My junior year, I heard this '40s tune on television because it was the theme song from my favorite show, "Homefront," which was this really, really good post-WWII soap opera. The song was "Accentuate the Positive" by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, and my mother - ever resourceful when it came to music - bought the sheet music herself so that I could try out for Mr. Fowler. It's a great song about spreading joy and being really, really happy in the face of adversity. But, when I tried out, I'd only heard the hook of it. I didn't know about the deep, deep bass, gospel-churchy "Come to Jesus" part that opened the song, and I didn't rehearse it enough. So I ended up sounding like a fool during the tryout, which made me angry and made me throw a stupid fit where I cried in front of the teacher. (I cried a lot in my younger days before testosterone kicked in and made my voice drop. I can sing that song's deep, deep bass parts now. Not so much when I was 16.)

So when junior year didn't work out, I thought I would try extra, extra hard my senior year to really get a solo and really give a performance that would amaze people. So I picked Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman," which is a great song that I can really sing and did decently well with during first tryouts. And I was supposed to sing it, everything was set. And my grandfather died the week before the show, so my brother and I had to leave rehearsals to go to Florida. And coming back from Grandpa Carr's funeral, I really didn't feel like polishing a song-and-dance routine wherein I sang of my love for beautiful ladies to a group of dancing, dolled-up teenaged girls. The number was cut. Now, at 32, I can honestly say, "Thank you for dying, Grandpa. Your timing is excellent."

If you're reading this blog, you probably know my attitudes and preferences really, really well. Now, if I'd mentioned to you that I'd performed song-and-dance numbers to "Accentuate the Positive" and "Oh, Pretty Woman" in high school, what are the chances that my melancholy, homosexual ass would ever be able to live that down? (And you know I would have already told you this story if it had actually happened.)

I honestly and sincerely appreciate that I didn't get to perform those songs, even though I was really, really upset about losing both opportunities at the time.

Hindsight can be sweet.
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Tonight, after an excellent improv class where my confidence and attitude is improving, I met my friend Scott (yes, that Scott - the ex-almost-boyfriend Scott) for dinner at Steak 'n' Shake. And I tried listening to him. I tried not bringing up all the baggage and bad memories that I usually bring up. I didn't dwell on bad things. I didn't bitch at him. I was happy to see him, for - because we are comfortable with one another - I have fun with him and relax with him. And I must say that it was one of the best evenings that we've had together in a while because I tried to pay attention to him and concentrate on what he wanted. I really, really tried to apply the principles of the book, and he said he noticed a change in me.

Yes, I'm typing this from Scott's. Yes, it's his webcam. Yes, it's 5 a.m. No, we did not. Thank you.
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My improv teacher Jim does read this blog. I found that out last week after he e-mailed me to ask why I blogged about him not replying to my e-mails. That entry last week was me trying to reason out what I was doing wrong and how I could improve my approach with him. I applied those principles stronger this week, and I think I'm in a much better place with him and with my performances in class. Jim's an exceedingly positive, encouraging and supportive guy. As I read in this book about "recognizing and satisfying other people's wants," I'm reminded of performance lessons that he already taught my class.

As I continue to work on these things, now that he knows what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, I'm very happy to say that I have his support.
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This week, I went back to my bookstore because Kurt wanted to see the new Tori Amos comic, and I got to see Daniel the Violin Guy, my friend Cheryl the Chef and James the Future Roommate. It was a really good day. I miss the bookstore and miss those people. I need to move back to town, but these things will all happen in time. I expected it to happen quickly, but patience will allow me the chance to work through some financial problems that come when you face the amount of change that I have this year.

I just keep reminding myself that the changes were positive.

Kurt's become a good friend to have around.
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I really like this book. Thank you, Dale Carnegie.

PRINCIPLE ONE: Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

"Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? ... Why not begin on yourself?" - Dale Carnegie, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

WEEK ONE PROGRESS REPORT

I would say that this first principle has been something of a bitch to apply to my life, but that would be a complaint. And, if I am dedicated to this process, I can't be dedicated to it halfway. Of course, Carnegie admits that he found himself backsliding in regard to this one. It's a process, and all I have to do is get better at it. I can do that.

It turns out my tattered paperback is not a copy that once belonged to my father, though my mom told me that he took the seminar when he was working for Hartford Insurance in the '70s. My copy just looks old. It turns out that my well-intentioned, oftentimes too-involved mother bought me this book to try and motivate me to get along with people and behave like a normal, undepressed kid when I was in high school, and I ignored it - except to carry it around with me from move to move to move until its pages yellowed and its cover got stained and beaten to hell. She routinely used to mention the book to me as though it could solve all my social problems and help me fit into future workplace environments. (She thinks it helped my dad with relationships and success, though would he be a divorced, twice-laid-off insurance exec if he'd really, really been good at keeping friends?)

I think I carried it from move to move because I thought it belonged to my dad, but the back cover mentions that it's been updated for life in the "complex and competitive" 1990s - and he stopped living at our house in 1982.

So, by reading this book after she told me to do so for years and years and years, my mother's arrow has reached its intended target. I'm reading the book. So the next time she tells me that I'd be better off if I'd read it, I can scoff and reply sarcastically with, "Oh yeah, well, I have ..." Except that it'd be really, really negative to say something like that, and it isn't even that funny. She means well, even if it comes off as dismissively judgmental sometimes to my ears, which have been honed to interpret everything intended as helpful with a degree of skepticism and venom.

I've been living with her for two months, and she's been good and nice and patient. I should have more in savings than I do, and I should be further along in my apartment search than I am.

There is much in my life that I need to work on. It seems too small to work on the fact that I'm a self-involved smartass. But maybe it'll be like dominoes, one thing will affect the next until a sea change comes in my attitudes and situations.

In trying to explain the backstory of how I picked this book and why this book in particular is the one I'm blogging about, though, it should be said that this was my mom's go-to suggestion of how to "fix" me whenever I had hardship or was having difficulty in friendships or work. This book was the salve she suggested I apply to my damaged psyche, and she told me that it did wonders for my father, with whom I have a sometimes connected, sometimes utterly disconnected relationship. So that's the "why" of the blog. I want to see my mother's remedy and my father's fabled "inspiration" affect my life.

So here's how I've applied the first principle this week:

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I was nice to my stepfather whenever I saw him, asking him his opinions of what he watched on TV and saying hello whenever we were in the same room. And, this week, when he cleaned three rooms of the house while my mother was at work, I was impressed and maintained a good opinion of him. (Of course, it leads me to wonder how much cleaning I should be doing. But, well, I'm usually only at the house awake between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m.)

So, well, my stepdad vaccuumed, and I thought it was a cool thing for him to do.
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In my communications with my improv teacher Jim, I've tried to be positive and encouraging, asking him - a little too bluntly and obviously after going on about myself for days before picking up the book - how I can be a better friend to him (in an e-mail that he didn't answer). And I tried to be upbeat in an e-mail reply to an announcement he sent me about an improv show he had this weekend (which he also did not reply to).

I shouldn't have made my attempts at positivity so blatant, such a 180-degree turn from the last conversation I had with him on Tuesday where I worried too much, criticized myself extensively and then asked him to hug me. When I tried talking to him this week, it came off as a desperate attempt to make amends, fix things and restore order. In short, I was a handful for him this week, and a freaked-out overreaction from me probably won't restore his faith in me that things are going to get better.

I need to chill with him, and I need to relax. In the meantime, I'm going to try a positive, smile, quieter poker face.

And I'll let you know how it goes. (He does not read this blog.)
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I had another good dinner with my friend Kurt, who does read this blog. At one point, I made a self-effacing comment about whether he actually thinks I'm cute - which he's said. It was just another way that I was condemning myself. It was wrong to do that, particularly in the way that it seemed like I was just digging for compliments from someone whose friendship has been a reliable, reassuring thing that I can trust.

Kurt saw the book, and he asked me how old the copy was. That's what prompted the realization that my copy was put to press in the '90s.
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The most significant chance I had to apply these principles this week, and the one that I've been most unsure about addressing, was my trip to a guy's apartment on Friday night. We will call him "D," even though I don't think he reads this blog (and probably won't in the future). I've not blogged about my personal life in quite some time, but, if I'm going to examine how these principles are affecting my life, I would be remiss if I didn't mention - at least in part - what happened on Friday night because HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE and this project was mentioned specifically.

Shortly after I arrived, D saw that I had the paperback in my hand and asked me how it was going. I told him that it was going pretty well, though I said I was having a difficult time remaining positive and not complaining about stuff. I mean, I was aware that I complain a lot - for I know my temperament - but, geez, so much of what I say is negative.

I mean, it's almost as though "guy who bitches about things and people in a clever way" is who I want to be known as. (OK, it's a lot like that's who I want to be.) I'd never realized so completely as I did this week that being "that guy" is a silly thing to really want to be. I've done a lot of damage to myself by being that guy. If you want to be a harsh, critical, melodramatic person, why is it a surprise that you need help winning friends?

D sorta playfully mock-criticized the book, the way I always have with my mom. When he heard the first principle, D said that much of what he says is a complaint, criticism or condemnation. (We have that in common.) And it didn't seem to be a temperament that he wanted to lose. He said that people come to him for that sort of spice. (It was yet another moment this month when I felt, with D, like I was dating someone with my exact personality, and these moments kinda horrified me.) And, when he said that, I thought about whether I wanted that in a boyfriend, someone as jaded and bitter as I have been. I know what it's like to pride yourself on your negative temperament. (I still do it.) But how can I get better if I am growing close with someone who doesn't appreciate that I'm trying to improve or thinks that it'd be a stupid thing to try? I know I've made jokes, but I want to explore this process seriously. His reaction was such a bummer.

The remainder of the evening went downhill from that. There were some good moments, some fun. I really, really wanted to connect with this guy, for we did have things in common. And I would like to connect with someone.

At one point, my mind was wandering about things that weren't working, and D asked me if everything was OK.

"I'm not supposed to condemn, criticize or complain," I said in a smart-alecky way.

It was our third and probably last date.

I saw a lot of myself in that guy. I saw a lot of what I want to change about myself in that guy.

"Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life."

By the time I was four years old, I had developed this rather in-depth conviction that I was either an alien from outer space or the savior of mankind. Or both. I'd seen Superman and Spider-Man in cartoons. I'd seen Luke Skywalker in the movies and sang songs about Jesus Christ in children's choir. My mom, without meaning to, encouraged this conviction. She told me that I was special, not just because I could walk on my wobbly legs like Bambi did when he and Thumper stepped on the frozen pond. She told me stories of my difficult birth, my surprising survival against incredible odds, my remarkable singing voice, my sweet temperament, my kindness toward all the people I met, the weird birthmark on my head and my unexpected intelligence. That was my origin story. I was supposed to be another hero. All I had to do was wait for my superpowers to show up. I knew that they were coming.

And, based upon some conclusion I drew after closing my eyes really, really tight and putting the palms of my hands against my eyes until I saw "stars," I thought my superpowers were going to come from another galaxy far, far away or, like, Heaven. (Jesus was just another guy with superpowers to me at that point. I knew all the words to "Jesus Loves Me" and the "Theme from Spider-Man.") By routinely inflicting that injury on myself, I figured that I was actually receiving some kind of message from the place that I was really from. My cerebral palsy wasn't an affliction that caused difficulty, it was something from which I would eventually derive power. My mom and dad were not my real mom and dad. My little brother would bite me and fight with me because he was merely normal and understood that a supreme being like myself didn't belong with them.

Kids want to be superheroes. Kids play pretend.

On the last day that I was in daycare at Lithia Springs High School before my family moved to Buford, I remember that it was raining and darkly stormy and that the drops were beading against the window of the daycare classroom. I was told that we were leaving Lithia Springs, but I didn't understand it. I didn't understand that someplace else was supposed to be my home, that I wasn't supposed to be "from" Lithia Springs anymore. So I put my hand against the window, acted like I could touch the raindrops, that I could freeze them in place or command them to move down the window. I imagined that I had powers, that I had control over the weather. I didn't want to go to the town with the dumb name. "Buford" just sounded like a dumb name. "Lithia Springs" sounded mythic to me in comparison, the name of a goddess or a radioactive element. I sat in the classroom, looked up into the dark sky and tried to imagine that my real life - the one where my future as a hero was set in stone - was beginning. I closed my eyes, pressed my palms against them until I saw stars and waited to receive the message telling me exactly how to become a superhero. I might've imagined voices telling me what to do, but the voice sounded to me like mine. I wanted something else, someone bigger than me, to communicate to me, to tell me that everything was OK. But the whole thing was just a game I was playing, one where a four-year-old boy had power over the universe, where it was only a matter of time until I fulfilled my destiny and all the things that I didn't understand would eventually be explained. Until it was time for us to go, I sat Indian-style against the window, concentrated on the raindrops hanging in front of me and tried to make them move.
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I wish I still had that sense of power, that certainty, that belief in single-minded purpose as strongly as I did when I was a child. But things happen. If that sense of myself as "special" or "a superhero" was gone completely, I don't know that I would even mourn it, but there are still elements of it within me. I still dream. I still stubbornly believe that I'm doing the right thing.

Somewhere along the way, though, the idea that I was supposed to help other people got lost, replaced by the notion that I was important and that other people were supposed to pay attention to me. And the me that I have become is not totally the me that I wanted to be when, you know, the aliens were sending me my special purpose and weather-controlling superpowers from Heaven.

Somehow I got off-course when finding my special purpose. This wasn't supposed to happen like this. I was always supposed to be able to fit in with people and talk to them. I'm not supposed to be this self-centered. I'm not supposed to be this sarcastic. I'm not supposed to EVER be a complete dick. I was never supposed to complain, and I was never supposed to have any reason to complain. My destiny was supposed to be set. I was always supposed to be the hero.

I am not always the hero. I'm not always nice. I'm not even remotely cheery or an optimist. I feel like I barely smile. In fact, I can be a self-centered, self-defeating ass. In fact, I can be a downright drag. I'm the dark one. I'm the villain sometimes. There are times when even my friends really, really, really need their space from me.

I want to get better, and this book can help me.

I want to be the hero again. And that's going to take a lot of work.

How to win friends and influence people.

My mistake happened this weekend. It was the sort of error that you wouldn't notice unless you were really paying attention. Somebody said something to me while I was onstage doing a comedy show, and it threw me off my game. I kept going with the comedy show, but I stopped enjoying it. Eventually, that little seed of self-consciousness grew into a tree of insecurity. By the end of the show, I'd started struggling and was not having a good time, which is a real shame when you consider that I was doing something that I love doing and had taken time off work early to be able to do. But, at the time when I was onstage judging myself and in a panic, I'd forgotten why I was there. I was just up there, trying to get onstage, trying to get my groove back, trying to survive. It was not a total disaster, for me struggling through a show can still generate some decent comedy - and I had people onstage who weren't "in their heads" like me, people were trying to help me.

My problem was that I wasn't returning the favor. I was thinking about myself, my level of comfort, how *I* was doing, how the mistakes that were happening were not my fault.

But it was all my fault that I had a bad show. It was all my fault that I didn't have a good time. It was all my fault that my mind wasn't where it should've been and that my job as a performer wasn't done the right way.

The people who were trying to help me should've gotten an equal lift from me trying to help them, but I was not doing that. I wasn't trying to make them look good. I was out there in a panic, putting myself into a bad mood while trying unsuccessfully to save myself.

That can't happen again. And I can't keep going over it in my head. So instead, I'm going to work on my attitude.

I have a task. I'm setting it for myself and working on it alone. I'm not going to worry about what I did wrong. That's in the past. I'm going to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

I don't want to be in my head so much that I can't see the effect I have on myself or other people anymore - onstage or in my life. I need to focus my energies outside of myself and relate to people better.

When I changed jobs, had the puppet show happen and had to move back in with my mom for a couple months, there was a book at her house that I've sold to many, many people at the bookstore called WHO MOVED MY CHEESE. It was just sitting around the bathroom, and I picked it up, more to scoff at it than anything else, but reading it actually provided me with a lot of comfort in regard to the changes that I was going through at the time. And, when the changes come again, I hope I'm better able to face them.

So I've picked up a couple more self-help books from a box of my father's stuff - specifically Norman Vincent Peale's THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING and Dale Carnegie's HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE - to see if they'll help me fix my attitudes and my way of dealing with people. And, last night at Steak 'n' Shake when I started to read my father's old copy of Dale Carnegie's business motivation book, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, the book said that you should write down and constantly review how you used the principles of the book in everyday life.

I figured that it might make for interesting blog entries and improve my improv skills, and I do have a legitimate desire and curiosity about how to improve my relations with other people. So I thought I would try it.

OK, so here's a new personal project.

I'm going to apply HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE to my life, and I'm going to blog about it.