Author: The Joseph Craven

I'm tall, but not so tall that people point and stare.
HTBASF, Sportz

How To Be A Sports Fan: Support and Believe

This is another lesson in my HTBASF series. It is lesson 5 or 6, depending on where you list a lesson that is/will be posted on XtraBacon.com.

Always support. Always.

This entire post could probably be summed up just like that, but apparently I’m REQUIRING myself to wax philosophically for the next 1,000 words or so. I’m sorry in advance if this post isn’t quite as tongue-in-cheek as the previous HTBASF posts. I just feel like, with college football upon us now, this needs to be discussed. Here goes:

You want to be a sports fan? You want to ACTUALLY care for and support a particular team? Then be prepared to do just that.

Even if it means dealing with moments like this
Even if it means dealing with moments like this

Continue reading “How To Be A Sports Fan: Support and Believe”

Real Talk, Useless Observation

The Flip Side

I promise I don’t actually care how you feel about me, regardless of how it seems.

Look, I wrote last week about how I want to be all about community and openness and honesty and all that. Well this post is sort of the flip side of that, which is more openness and honesty than it is community. More about me than it is about you, I guess.

As much as I want to be about community, and I do, there’s an aspect of it that is still focused on me, and it’s hard for me to control that. Or rather, it’s hard for me to figure out if I need to control that. I mean, how much of it is healthy motivation and how much is some sort of selfish ambition, right? How much is genuine and how much is “selling out” (for lack of a better term)?

For example, why do I want so badly to write on this blog more? I’m awful at self-promotion because I feel really dumb trying to plug myself a lot. But at the same time I clearly want people to read what I write, otherwise I wouldn’t post this stuff on the internet. So I have to ask myself whether my writing is for my own benefit or if it’s really about building community or if it’s just so you will like me. But I promise I don’t actually care how you feel about me. Continue reading “The Flip Side”

FICTION Y'ALL, Sudden Writing Challenge

The Unusual Suspect

Here is what I wrote for the Sudden Writing Challenge that Ricky Anderson and I started up the other day. Click here for a full list of participants and the rules we set up for the challenge.

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“Okay Mr. Matthews, can you tell me what you saw?”

“You can call me Glenn.”

“I won’t.”

By this point, Lieutenant Jackson was tired and just wanted to go home. This was to be the last person he had to talk to today, and he knew already that this janitor wouldn’t have anything new to say. Nobody had gotten a good look at the suspect, they only knew that he was a man of average build who escaped to the roof and disappeared. There was no sign of a getaway vehicle and seemingly no lead to go on. Jackson only wanted to finish up and get home before his wife’s meatloaf was too cold to save.

“Mr. Matthews, I just want to finish up and get home before my wife’s meatloaf is too cold to save.”

“Well I’ll try to speed things along, but I’m sure you’ll have plenty of questions to ask me about it.” Continue reading “The Unusual Suspect”

Lazy Post, Useless Observation

I’ve Done It All Wrong

About seven years after I started college, I found the results of some random freshman assessment I had to take. It was one of those things that was required in your typical freshman welcoming class. You know, where you had to block out about 45 minutes of an otherwise nice and free afternoon just to click some bubbles on a computerized multiple choice.

I guess it was because of that fact that I forgot the test ever happened. Maybe I was bitter about having an afternoon thrown off, because I’m sure that it was a perfectly lovely afternoon where all my friends were receiving free money or something and I was stuck testing. Whatever the reasoning might have been, I had forgotten that test ever happened when I found the results from it seven years later.

There’s something about finding something like that which is fascinating. Assessments like that, or personality tests or anything along those lines, give such great insight, but looking back over them after more life experience gives a different perspective. A new view of things you already knew. Sure, I know I am an ENFP, but there’s a whole new perspective to have when I see it in light of how life has gone since taking the tests. Continue reading “I’ve Done It All Wrong”

Misplaced Mississippian, Real Talk, This Is What Happens

My Brick

As we get older and life goes by, it’s easy to look back on moments that we thought were the worst points in our lives and laugh at them. We’ve lived more than we had then. We’ve seen more, and we understand more and more that both the best moments and the worst ones are still ahead of us.

Honestly, it’s what keeps us going. Even if there are awful moments waiting for us around the corner, we keep moving ahead because we know that something else, either good or bad, has to be ahead. We can’t tell if it’s the good or the bad, but we know it will be something new and something different. It’s what keeps us alive.

The other night, as I was driving around my city with much on my mind, I had to think back to a time that I felt was the worst I would go through, and how my Brick helped get me through.

Continue reading “My Brick”