Day 9 is my beliefs.

This one gets to start with a disclaimer: These are my beliefs and how I view things; they’re right for me, which is why they’re mine, but they don’t necessarily apply to or work for anyone but me. We cool? Good.

I was raised loosely Christian, the child of a Baptist and Roman Catholic, but only went to church on occasion with my Catholic grandmother. When my close-mindedness led me to treat someone poorly for their choice of spirituality, the resulting challenge drew me to educate myself more objectively on other paths.

After over three years of study, I no longer considered myself Christian. And now, some seven years after that evolution, I have no label that is accurate. I call myself a pagan because it’s the closest fit, but I am so eclectic that even such a broad, vague term as that is barely applicable.

The natural sciences and quantum physics are the core of my beliefs, and studying them evokes all the fascination and love and delight I find in the world and creatures and people around me. I respect life and do my best to impact it as little as possible.

Martial arts has led me to study Taoism and zen, and my physical training has been complemented by my study of breath-work, energy/chi, meditation, and the elements.

I use personal gnosis and customized symbolism in most things I do: color, element, archetype, mythology (often legends and godheads taken from my own worldbuilding and fiction). Since I consider reality to be relative, I adapt everything I do and learn to suit my paradigm and self. I imbue things with meaning that have subjective significance; to me, spirituality is intensely personal and unique.

I believe that there is a spark of divinity, a life-force, that animates and resides in all things. I often use the term Universal Soul to express this concept. I view everything as facets of one infinite whole, distinct and unique but not disconnected. I am somewhat agnostic towards the concept of individual deities.

I made my own divination system and tools. I believe that trust and intent play a large part in the accuracy and validity of information I receive, through cards or coins or anything else. I believe I can learn from anything and find messages/wisdoms wherever I look, even in seemingly trivial or artificial things.

I believe everything happens for a reason and that the purpose of life is to live it: to experience and to evolve.

Day 8 is a moment.

‘Moment’ is ill-defined in length, so I’m going to cheat and pick a day. (In my defense, the day has since blurred and could be encapsulated into a very, very, very long moment.)

It was November 20th, 2009. I was way behind on my wordcount for National Novel-Writing Month. (50,000 words in 30 days, for the unfamiliar.) I was museless. I was desperate. And my partner was at work, which at the time was a 24/7 emergency animal hospital.

Over the course of the day – and I use the term loosely, as I think my ‘day’ ended somewhere around 4 AM – I wrote 17,700 words on my work-in-progress. Fueled by chai and pretzels, I more than doubled my wordcount – 15,769 to 33,469.

And my partner, J? He wound up being awake for thirty hours straight, working twenty-two of those. He didn’t stop until I drove up and took him home.

Now that was a helluva day moment.

Day 7 is my best friend.

I don’t really use the term ‘best friend’ – I don’t rank my friends in single file. I have a handful of very close friends, and a lot of very good friends, and I know a lot of other cool people. So, I’ll pick one of my close friends: Pat, the guy who runs All Things From My Brain and who writes Evermist.

Unfortunately, he reads my blog, so I’ll have to make this post as embarrassing as possible. HI PAT!

I met Pat when I was still living in West Virginia in 2004, I think it was. He was and still is in Colorado – we first encountered each other on a roleplay server in World of Warcraft. One day, after a year or so of playing together and becoming friends, he was regaling me with tales of woe. He and a friend of his had started a web company, and they were finally ready to hire their first real employee… but this person had to have a collection of various skills that, so far, no one they interviewed seemed to have. He rattled off the list of qualifications to me over IM.

I paused, then asked, “You know I can do all of that, right?”

There was a long silence. “…do you have a resume?” he finally replied.

Little under a week later, I loaded myself and my dog into my car and set off on a cross-country roadtrip. It was the first time I’d driven more than three hours at a time: the trip was 25 hours of driving and 1500 miles one way. I napped in rest areas and arrived on Pat’s doorstep a day and a half later. I slept on his couch, had an interview with him and Q (the owner of the startup), briefly checked out apartments in the area, and drove back home a few days later.

Two weeks later – before I knew I got the job – I packed the most important stuff into my car, the SUV my dad loaned me, and the Uhaul trailer it was towing. I left my job, my significant other, my apartment, my family, and the only land I’d ever known. My mom, her sister, and I drove across the country again and plopped my boxed-up life into an apartment I hadn’t even seen. Pat even warned me against the place, having lived there in the past, but it was cheap and available, so I took it.

I did get the job. The apartment was not great, but I was out of there in 7 months and in a much better place, closer to work. Pat was my boss; I made great friends with the only other person in my department, a graphic artist named Sharra who was hired some months after I was.

Thirteen months after I started working, the company closed its doors. Internal sabotage and bad choices had killed an incredibly promising group of people and ideas. We had poured everything we had into that company, sweat and soul, and it was devastating to see it fail. But, slowly, we picked up and moved on in our own directions.

Through all of this – through the crazy move, the stress of so much work, the breakdown of our hopes and dreams – Pat and I remained good friends. I was lounging on his couch most days of the week; we did dinner, movies, video games. He introduced me to a lot of TV shows and films, being the media buff that he is. He made me laugh and took care of me when I needed it. Even after I left Colorado and came to Nevada, he and I have remained close (though I sure do miss his chili spaghetti).

He’s just a great guy, and I’m incredibly glad to have him as a friend.

(…wait, I think I left out all the embarrassing stuff. Damn. Well, maybe next time, eh?)

Day 6 is my day.

Which is not over yet, so I will tell you about my yesterday instead.

The alarm went off at 7h30; I actually got out of bed somewhere around 8h30, after being pulled back to sleep by very persistent dreams. I got to work a few minutes before 9 and left at 5; during those eight hours I listened to a lot of SJ Tucker music on Youtube (especially City of Marrow) and did my job, which entails website maintenance and troubleshooting and content production. We just rolled out our new company website, so there are a lot of issues to be fixed and a lot of CSR complaints to mitigate. But it was a pretty mellow day compared to recent weeks, which was nice.

J and I got home at the same time and shared a snack before he left for the dojo early to get in some throwing practice. I stretched out, did a balance drill, and lifted weights, finally moving up to the next size on my dumbbells. I wrote a poem and some could-be song lyrics, and I worked on a few of these memeriffic blog posts in advance (yes, I am a dirty rotten cheat).

Then, impatient with inaccuracy, I cracked open one of my favorite books on the African orisas and brushed up on my knowledge. Over the next two hours, I completely re-wrote those could-be song lyrics into actually-are song lyrics, then started tweaking the wording and hammering out the (vocal) tune. I sang the entire thing through a couple dozen times until my voice started to break. J came home with food and we ate; I sang the song for him and he was impressed by the concept and how I dealt with it, which pleased me.

We also bought four of SJ Tucker‘s albums digitally, which was awesome. (Guess what I’m listening to right now?) We’d previously been huge fans but only had a handful of her songs.

By midnight, I was exhausted – the exercise, the singing, and the poor sleep I’d gotten the night prior all combined to do me in. I collapsed into our oh-so-comfortable bed with J and fell asleep nigh instantly.

Day 5 is my definition of love.

I can’t define love. I can describe it, I can share how I’ve experienced it, but there’s no way I can possibly define it.

Though I’ve gone in different spiritual directions since my childhood, my tattered memorization of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 remains:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.”

(I seem to remember that last bit as perseveres, rather than preserves, but that’s okay. I was itty at the time.)

At the risk of sounding like a total cheeseball, I will add:

Love is the driving force of existence: seeking love from within and without, and feeling love, and giving love. Love is joy. Love is caring because you can’t not. Love is crazy, and drunk, and blind, and chaotic, and can bring you to ruin just as easily as it brings you to the highest highs. Love is not the only thing that you need, but sometimes it’s the only thing that really matters. It is the source of confusion, heartache, delight, contentment. It motivates and propels you; it redirects and slows you.

Love is.

And it’s pretty awesome.

Day 4 is what I ate today.

This question, compared to the past three, is a little boring. Oh well. I’m also cheating, since today isn’t over, so I’m giving you a different day’s eatinz.

Breakfast was a homemade smoothie-shake: one banana, two scoops of Secure meal replacement chocolate powder, one scoop of Primary Greens, and 1% milk. It’s tasty and incredibly healthy, and it makes taking a multivitamin a lot easier. (I can’t swallow it with just water without hurking.)

Lunch was two chocolate-peppermint Luna bars (I dislike that they’re marketed at women, but they taste so damn good) spaced out over a few hours, then a little bag of Welch’s fruit snacks, courtesy my coworker.

Dinner at home was boiled crab legs and a couple flaky biscuits. Plus a glass of chaimilk (1/3 caffeine-free chai, 2/3 milk).

It was all very tasty.

Day 3 is about my parents.

My parents are from Detroit, Michigan – notably, the bad neighborhoods. They both grew up rough-and-tumble and street-wise. Dad’s parents moved to West Virginia and, later, my parents followed them there, making a huge leap from city life to rural mountain life. They planned to have me once they had a house and, when they were both 25, I was born into a small house on an acre of land in a forest in the hills.

My mom never graduated high school, but she is one of the most independent people I know. She is the epitome of badass female power; she is unafraid to say what she thinks and take what she wants. At the same time, she taught me kindness and compassion, how to chase a dream without trampling people along the way. She refused to let me be submissive and refused to let me be weak (I was a quiet child). She gave me all the tools I’d need to succeed as a person. “Adapt, improvise, overcome” is her adage. She’s far from perfect, but she knows her weaknesses and does her best with what she’s got.

My dad is a professional electrician with a zillion licenses and no college education; he’s made it in a challenging field with nothing but his brain and skills. He’s something of a workaholic. He’s very intelligent and has a quick temper; yet, he is still compassionate, generous, and kind, and he tries to be as respectful and polite as he can. He has some old-fashioned views, which clash with mine, but he still hears me out and is willing to accept my ideas as possible. He expresses affection through material gifts and money – he taught me the value of a dollar – and he is unbelievably devoted to family. He’s not happy if he’s not providing for and taking care of someone who needs him.

My parents got divorced when I was 18– well, a couple months before I turned 18, but they waited to tell me to prove that we were still a family. After the surprise wore off, I was fine with it, since they’d be happier apart than together. They both still live in West Virginia, Mom in the house I grew up in and Dad about 90 minutes away. My mom got engaged again last year to a wonderful man, whom I am happy to consider family.

I love both my parents immensely and am grateful for everything they taught me; I’m a lot like both of them.

Day 2 is my first love.

I suspect the meme creator means romantic love here, not the first time I felt overwhelming joyous love for life or the woods or my dog or my parents. Alright, I’ll play along.

My first love was a close friend for a long time. She and I were inseparable, knew each other inside and out, and shared more obscure interests and hobbies than anyone else. In a way, we grew up together, at least in the sense of becoming who we were.

We also lived in different states, and didn’t see each other in person until a year or so after we met.

Some three years after we met, I realized I had fallen for her. The geographical distance proved too difficult for two teenagers, and our attempt at a relationship dwindled back into steady, unwavering friendship.

We dated other people, always coming back to each other, always subconsciously seeking that time when both of us would be alone and, perhaps, able to move and be closer. For seven years, we danced around with others, still magnetized to each other.

Eventually, though, she found a long-term partner, a good person whom I later met and approved. And, after I finally allowed myself to release the dream of being with her, I met and fell in love with J, my partner, who blew my mind in all the best ways with the person he was and how happy he and I were together.

She and I are still very close, and we are happy with our partners, and… somehow, everything worked out just fine.

I’m going to do something I should totally never do on a used-to-be-professional, still-is-public blog. I’m going to play with a meme. A thirty day meme, even. After the dust and quiet has fallen so comfortably here, this is tantamount to sacrilege – but it sounds fun, so here we go!

Day 1 is an introduction.

Hi. I’m Ty. This name, “Ty,” is the color of old forest lions, grey-tawny, and maybe that’s why it fits so well with Barbary. Ty is soft and worn, a favorite throw-blanket, a well-loved couch. Ty is sand almost-but-not-quite touched by the licking, lapping waves of the sea. Ty is the texture of coarse stone. Ty is above-ground roots with skin like bark, huge oaks in warm light. Ty is the fur over cat or dog toes, the rough pads beneath.

I live with five cats, two dogs, and my partner J. I wear two earrings in one ear, have a curly brown mohawk, and most of my face is scarred. I look pretty badass in mirrored sunglasses and the right jacket. I make really exaggerated expressions a lot and have a really malleable voice to match. I sing whenever I can.

I don’t use many pronouns in reference to myself, or I’ll default to ‘it’, which I don’t find offensive or belittling. I’m happiest when people aren’t quite sure of my gender. I get violently offended when someone stereotypes me. Gender in all its permutations absolutely fascinates me.

I am constantly analyzing everything I observe. Not in a judgmental way, but in a curious ooh-wot’s-its-guts-look-like? way. I want to know how and why things work, and by things, I usually mean people. Living things and thinking minds are incredibly intriguing to me. And everything I observe and learn, I try to relate to me and my experiences to better understand it all.

I like writing and living viscerally. I want to exist and convey my existence richly and authentically, in a way that people can chew and digest and integrate into how they live and project themselves. Communication is important to me – accurate communication, genuine communication. It’s really hard for me to lie – ethically, anyways, I can be very believable when necessary – and I consider inaccurate perceptions to be unintentional lies.

I talk to everything, whether or not it talks back. I tell my car good morning and thank her when I park. I hide in a giant tree when I need to calm down, even though I can’t climb any other tree and much prefer rock-scrambling. I’m really good at changing traffic lights when I need to. I have a small brown dragon who usually stays on my shoulder and has a fondness for raw fish.

I spin wild stories and totally mundane stories, but the line is a little blurry unless you know me really well.

Sometimes, details matter immensely – like what one does or does not capitalize, like which shades of which colors are used – and sometimes, nothing but this huge abstract vague impression-image matters. Sometimes it’s all math, and sometimes it’s all ideas.

I am animal-centric. The natural world matters a zillion times more to me than the constructed human world of media and society and history and politics. (The inner workings of the human animal counts as part of the natural world, for me.) I adore languages and science and math, these things that help me understand how the world and its denizens work. I express my delight in this world by creating fictional worlds so I can highlight in stories all the awesome things I find.

I know myself very well, I take good care of myself, and I’m honest with myself and usually pretty gentle. I really wish that sentence didn’t set me apart from as many people as it does. I keep trying to improve, because change is my life and to stop moving is to stagnate and die.

I have a hard time making myself do something if I really don’t want to. Emotions are my fuel, logic the facilitator to their healthy expression. I follow my heart.

I hate judgment, rudeness, malice, bigotry. I fight these things in my own self whenever they crop up.

Sometimes, the world is so huge that it terrifies me, and I hole myself away until my courage returns. And sometimes, I can scale any mountain and roar my triumph from the peak. I’m a dynamic paradox.

I’m a person, no more or less complex than anyone else.

Nice to meet you.

Guys, I have brilliant and exciting news!

I am turning this entire would-have-been polished-and-professional space into a giant playground. Complete with a ball pit and tire swing.

There’s a story here, of course. (There’s always a story. Stories are What I Do.)

See, once upon a time, I decided to forsake my nebulous ideal of perfection in lieu of being the best me I possibly could. I decided to embrace my quirks, weaknesses, and strengths – instead of denying or overriding them, to work with them and to make them work for me. I was really tired of trying to be something I wasn’t.

And this is the homecoming of that decision. I realized that my idea of a “good author” – or at least the public face of a good author – did not mesh with who and what I was, what I liked, what I wanted to and could do. So I’m tossing my not-me ideals out the window and refocusing on just being me.

I’m a writer. I don’t have to be not-me to be an author. That doesn’t make any sense.

I’m getting rid of all the stiff limitations of professionalism. I’m getting rid of a “posting schedule” and letting myself shrug off the pressure of deadlines. I’m getting rid of the feeling that this place is far too special to sully with my randomness and my less-than-bestness.

And now this is my playground. I get to do whatever I want here. I get to geek out and get excited about worldbuilding. I get to discover Important Life Things and share them. I get to inundate you all with my favorite fiction snips. I get to tell silly stories about my life, like the time my mom asked me if I was going to have a “wicker wedding” and my sister suggested I burn baskets at the four corners.

Ultimately, I get to be me. And that’s a lot of fun.

If any publishing agents or otherwise official people read this post, I may be doomed. But landing a publishing deal is not my goal. Telling stories is my goal. Living stories is my goal.

And I can do that just fine.

Image Credit: Crestock Creative Photos.