Welcome to the Unpredicitable Way of Life

Story time everyone!

Though today was a usual day, there were a few key events that changed how things went. I’m not saying they were extremely significant or changed the course of my life forever. They were just mundane events that turned my day from predictable to delightful.

To start, I locked myself out of my apartment.

I’ve lived in my current place for almost three years and this was the first time I managed to close my front door without my keys in my pocket. Unfortunately, my landlady hadn’t been home at the time to let me back in, though she was thankfully on her way when I texted her. And to add insult to injury, it was raining.

I could have gotten angry over my rotten luck and sheer stupidity, but there didn’t seem to be a point. If things had been worse, I’d have texted all my friends to find one who could take me in like a lost puppy.

So, I sat on my front stoop, a little damp, and played on my phone until my landlady came back. It was nice and a little peaceful. The birds were chirping, and I got to pet a friendly doggie. It was nice to relax for a minute and enjoy the last day of March...even if I did get a little wet.

Fast forward a few hours and I’ve gotten to my favorite hiking spot. It was later than I wanted it to be, but beggars can’t be choosers (especially after they’ve locked themselves out of their apartment for half the morning). I decided to try a new trail, which was very muddy and partially flooded. Not a big deal for me. I don’t mind getting dirty, it’s not for everyone.

That’s when I met another hiker - a visitor from Belgium staying in one of the nearby towns for work and wanted to do something on her one day off. Unfortunately, since she was a visitor, she didn’t know much about the trails.

Fortunately, she ran into me.

She asked if she could join me and I said yes. I took her to some of my favorite spots on the trails that wouldn’t be as muddy, including the lookout peak where you can see New York City on a clear day. We couldn’t see the city, but it was still a nice view and we had a great time talking with each other.

However, neither one of would have met if she had decided to hike earlier and I hadn’t locked myself out of my apartment.

What’s the point of this anecdote?

Well, my aunts would tell me that this is an example of “everything happening for a reason”. Because I locked myself out, I was able to meet someone new. I don’t know how much I believe in that. My feelings on the idea of fate and destiny are mixed at best.

Nah, I think this is one of those times where I didn’t allow an unfortunate incident ruin my day and therefore got to make someone else’s a little better too. I mean I could have stayed home and sulked all afternoon.

Why today’s events happened aren’t as important as learning from them. Like making sure my keys are in my pocket before I close my locked front door.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Watching the Stage

One of my goals for the start of this year, was to take advantage of the fact that I live within spitting distance of New York City. I am happy to say that I have been keeping to that goal.

And my favorite reason to go into New York is to see a stage show.

It doesn't matter if it's on or off Broadway, I've been having a lot of fun going to different plays and performances around the city, though I haven't gotten tickets to see Hamilton yet.

There are all types of stage performances. Musicals, dramas, comedies, classics like Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies, operas, and ballets. Each is unique in how they tell stories and convey emotions.

My current favorite play is Come From Away which is about how a small town in Canada took in about 3,000 people during 9/11 when all airplanes were grounded. The music is amazing and the stories are inspiring as well as heart breaking. What's really cool is that all the characters portrayed are based on the actual people who experienced the event.

What's really cool is how the set is designed. There's a rotating stage with fake trees, chairs, a "bar", and beautifully painted backdrop that reminded me of painted drift wood art. The band plays on stage, instead of in a pit and adds to the atmosphere. I hear there's a movie in the works, but no matter how well done the movie is, I don't feel it will have the same feeling as the play.

I'm not sure how to explain this feeling, but there is a big difference seeing a stage play and watching a movie based on that play. Plays rely on suggestion and imagination. When the lights go down and a single spotlight illuminates a solitary character on stage to give a soliloquy, it doesn't have the same effect as a character looking into a camera or giving a voice over to tell the audience what they're thinking.

Don't get me wrong, there are some plays that made the jump onto the big screen with success. West Side Story, Sound of Music, Hairspray, and especially The Rocky Horror Picture Show are all awesome movies (though I admit that I haven't seen them on stage). I even enjoy the 2004 Phantom of the Opera.

However, movies are a different medium from plays. Often scenes are squashed together or cut to make room for run time. Depending on the writers and directors, things can change drastically between stage to screen. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does change the experience.

To see "Phantom of the Opera" on stage is an entirely different experience. There's a reason it's one of the longest running shows on Broadway. The sets are a amazing, the effects are stunning, and to see the actors on stage is magic. I like the "Phantom of the Opera" movie. I love the Broadway show.

And there are a lot of plays in New York. New ones open every year, and there are even a few shorter runs with famous actors and actresses.

This is from the movie.

A few years ago, I saw The Front Page starring Nathan Lane and John Goodman. Yesterday, I saw Hillary and Clinton with Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow. Both Adam Driver and Danieli Radcliff have recently been in shows that I nearly brought tickets for, while my mom was disappointing that we weren't able to see Jeff Daniels in To Kill a Mockingbird (tickets were about the same price as Hamilton when I finally started looking).

It's cool to see these actors in movies and TV shows. It's stunning to watch them preform live and on stage. Nathan Lane in particular is one of my favorite actors to watch on stage. His stage presence is captivating.

I do wish it wasn't super expensive to see plays though, especially in New York. There are ways to find cheaper tickets, but it's tough and the timing doesn't always work out. There are raffles and buy-same-day tickets, but they are hard to get.

If going to New York is a tough option, then check out what the local high schools or college are putting on. When I was still in high school and college, I'd go to the plays my school put on. I loved seeing Little Shop of Horrors and Thoroughly Modern Millie with my friends.

Some schools even put their performances on YouTube, which is how I saw the "Very Potter Musicals" (not "Cursed Child") and "Once Upon a Mattress".

And don't discount the film adaptations. I know I earlier said that the experiences are different (and they are), but that doesn't mean that that's a bad thing. The Harry Potter movies are very different from the books, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying them. There are tons of movies from the 30s and 40s which were originally plays (see my post on The Front Page for a great adaptation example).`

One of my favorite play adaptations is Angels in America. You can find the whole mini-series on Amazon Prime right now (and possibly HBO GO). It's about the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s. HBO put together a 6 part miniseries back in the early 2000s and if you haven't seen it, I totally recommend it. It is a play (both parts) that I hope to eventually see on stage, but for now, I'm happy re-watching the miniseries when I have the time.

Do you guys have any favorite plays or stage performances?

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from

Welcome to St. Patrick's Day

"Everyone is a little Irish on St. Patrick's Day." - many a drunk person on March 17th.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! A day to wear green, get drunk, and feast on corn beef and cabbage...at least if you're in the United States. I can't speak for how the day is celebrated outside of the States.

Last night, I was at a friend's house to celebrate. We had traditional corn beef with potatoes and carrots dowsed in Irish beer and watched classic 80s fantasy movies (which isn't traditional so much as just plain fun).

Honestly, I didn't realize how big of a celebration St. Patrick's Day was until I moved to New Jersey. They take today very seriously. Growing up, St. Patrick's Day wasn't that big of a deal. I just needed to make sure I was wearing some form of green to avoid getting pinched and in college, it was an excuse to buy overpriced beer that was dyed green. Plus it was fun to watch the Disney Channel Original Movie "Luck of the Irish" every year. 

Heck, I got a text from one of my cousins laughing about how they forgot about the celebration - which shows how important St. Patrick's Day is to my family.

The difference from where I grew up and where I live now is likely ancestry. New York and New Jersey have a higher number of people of Irish decent. St. Patrick's Day became a way for the Irish immigrants to keep in touch with their roots. New York has a big parade and there are tons of websites letting people know where to go to get the most out of today's favorite drink: beer.

Though I think it's become more popular over the years with everyone because it's an excuse to party.

This history of St. Patrick's Day is a lot less about partying and more about religion. St. Patrick is the patron Saint of Ireland and March 17th was the day set aside in the catholic calendar as a Feast Day for him. Feast days are days to honor a specific saint's martyrdom for Christianity and, in some regions, for people who were named for that specific saint (in place of a birthday, people celebrated "name" days). 

St. Patrick was a Romano-British missionary to Ireland in the 4th century. He later became the bishop of the Emerald Isle and preformed many miracles in Christ's name, including banishing all snakes from the island. He was also known for using a shamrock as a visual symbol for the Holy Trinity and for having a walking stick which sprouted a living tree.

Though he did a lot of amazing things, partying wasn't one of them. 

So, enjoy the day or weekend and try to fit a few thought in about the real life St. Patrick. New York is an awesome place to celebrate St. Patrick's Day as is Boston and Chicago (I hear they dye the river green there) or find the nearest Irish pub (a few of my cousins swear there's at least one in every major city around the world if you look hard enough).

If you're interested in the Irish experience in America and are in New York City, you might want to check out the Tenement Museum in the East Village. They have a lot of different tours, but a few are specific to the Irish experience.

Erin go bragh!

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Research Rabbit Hole

By trade (and likely by nature) I am a researcher. All this means is that I am given a question (or one pops into my head) and I dig through any sources at my disposal to answer it.

I love learning these answers.

Researching allows me to satisfy my natural curiosity and love of learning. On my own time, I can spend hours going through documentaries, books, and websites on any number of subjects.

In simple terms: I am a wealth of useless information.


My range of research varies greatly from the mundane (what are good eco-friendly cleaning products to use/buy), to the fan based (at one point I knew way more than I needed to about the Transformers franchise), to the bizarre (I am a proud deathling and learning about what happens after a person dies is really interesting), to the down right depressing (unsolved mysteries are heart breaking).

The need to look anything up typically starts with the phrase: I wonder...?

For example: I wonder why the English language became the garbage disposal of European Languages? This led to an entire afternoon going through a ton of websites on the English language, which led to me reading on several invasions of England that I hadn't previously known about, which led to a "brief" history on the Normandy region in France, which led to me realizing it was dinner time and I had spent half a day on research that I wasn't going to do anything with.


I don't know if you've noticed readers, but there are a lot of run on sentences in this post. Probably because that's my feeling on research. Once I start, I just go until I remember to return to the real world.

My current ear worm question is: would aliens use a different base system than we humans do to do math and are there any examples in science fiction of this happening?

Basically, we use a base 10 system (our number scales are "based" on units of 10) for most of our number systems. Exceptions are the base 12 system we use for our clocks and the base 2 system (also known as binary) used for computers. The main reason human use base 10 as the base for the majority of our number systems is because we have ten toes and ten fingers. So, by that logic, if an alien species say had 8 fingers or toes, would they also have a base 8 math system?

I can't think of any examples of science fiction where this problem arises. Not even in Star Trek or Doctor Who, which are two series I would think would explore this idea. I mean there's one episode of Star Trek where binary is super important to one alien species, but that's not as out there as my previously mentioned base 8 system (or even more arbitrary a base 17 system).

If you guys know of any examples, please let me know.

But to bring this blog back on topic, I can easily get lost doing research. I can't make a decision without first doing research on all my options. If I'm planning a trip or event, I have to look up everything before hand.

The down side is that I can become indecisive or even anxious about my research. Fun fact: there is a point where a lot of research turns into too much research. Instead of writing a good solid story, too much research can cause me to not write a single word or be too afraid of taking literary license as I might get a ton of "um actually..." emails. One of the first tips I got as a writer was to never write about trains because people who do work on trains will call you out on your inaccuracies.

So, what is the balance between just enough research, not enough, and way too much to keep a person sane?

There isn't an answer.

I'm off to discover if any science fiction movies, book, or TV shows ever had aliens use a different number system than us humans. Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Magic Numbers

I'm always amazed by how many people tell me they don't like numbers. Numbers, and by extension math, are a major part of our everyday lives. We use math to make purchases at the store, measurements to cook, and to calculate the restaurant tip (if you live in the United States).

You need math and numbers to cook

Numbers don't even have to be math or science related. They are used in music, art, and even literature. Numbers pop up even where the math evasive are least likely to suspect. Their uniqueness creating a language all it's self.

I'm not just being poetic with that last sentence. One of my parents got out of needing a foreign language requirement for their graduate school because math was considered a separate language from English at the time (they had an undergraduate degree in math).

My point is, that numbers have a larger meaning in our lives.

Religions often have significant numbers. The most common numbers in the Bible are one (denotes singleness), three (the Trinity), four (creation), six (man), seven (completeness), twelve (divine completeness), and forty (probation or trials). I am also somewhat familiar with the importance of numbers in Buddhism, paganism, and Wicca.

A five pointed star is significant to witches

Folklore and mythology also often have significant numbers. The "rule of three" is one of the most common, such as accomplishing three tasks to reach a reward (Psyche and Eros, Rumpelstiltskin), having a trio of protagonists (Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff), or a repeated phrase of three words (veni, vidi, vici). Seven is another number associated with auspicious meaning, such as the seventh son of a seventh son will be able to see spirits or it's association with magic (Harry Potter references this).

There are even numbers people are afraid of.

While 7 is often seen as lucky, 13 is incredibly unlucky (especially if the 13th lands on a Friday). In Japan 4 is associated with death (due to its pronunciation sounding very similar) and is equally avoided. Three sevens might mean heaven, but three sixes are a sign of demons.

Literature is full of numeric symbolism.

A few paragraphs before I mentioned the rule of three and that continues to pop up in modern literature. Three is also seen in the tropes third time's the charm and the power of three (Charmed anyone?). The five man band is a popular team structure, as seen in Avatar the Last Airbender, Voltron, and Power Rangers. These teams include the team lead, the lancer, the smart one, the big guy, and the "heart" (which is usually, but not necessarily, a girl).

We can't escape numbers. They're built into our universe.

There are multiple irrational numbers which occur naturally. Pi and the golden ratio (Fibonacci sequence) show up everywhere, but have decimal places so far out that we usually have to round them two places.  Any time you look at a circle, there's an example of pi, and the golden ratio can be found in flowers, sea shells, and hurricanes (click here to see more examples).

Hey guess what, I just wrote a blog post all about numbers and most of it wasn't even about mouth. Okay, a few of the paragraphs were about math, but a lot weren't.

It's numbers that make the world go round.

The number I am most currently focused on is 100. My goal for this year is to get 100 rejections. If I get 100 rejections, I'll know I have been submitting my writing enough. Writing is hard work and it's even harder to get published. Finding the right fit for a piece of fiction is tough. What one editor might hate, another might love. So, 100 is my number of the year.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.