Life is Just a (Milton-Bradley) Game.

I will get to Thanksgiving (wait, what? This week?) and all my beloved Christmas nostalgia bullshit before too long, but I was thinking--which is always a bad start--and just wanted to jot some thoughts down before I forget them. God forbid my half-awake, half-still-stoned-on-ZzzQuil, Monday morning musings about life go unrecorded.

Take life step-by-step. Often literally. What do you have to do right now? Do it, then find time to stop taking a step and think about the steps beyond the next step, and sometimes way beyond the next steps. To figure out those steps, first you think about what's important to you. What's important to you depends on your principles and your priorities. We always make lists about the very next steps (that reminds me: cat litter), but feel free to write the big ones down too. Sometimes it seems weird to write down the big things--you're like, "What, I need a note to remember my selfless dedication to albino manatee preservation?" I'm just saying it can't hurt.

Here's my real point: When you scribble out your plans (goals, dreams, whatever), use a plain notebook. Not some fancy fuckin' vegan pleather-bound affirmation journal tied shut with cruelty-free, single-origin hemp twine. You don't write in those. No one does. They just sit on desks, get dusted off a few times, and eventually get nestled away on bookshelves. No one writes in them because the fanciness makes you feel like you should be writing about something important. Remember: you're not writing about something important, you're writing about your life. Yes, it's unique, and yet everybody's got one, so get over it. Do you think it's a mistake that your life is referred to in the lower case, but the game and the cereal and even that crappy Eddie Murphy movie are capitalized? No, it's entirely appropriate.

Disclaimer: I may have heard all this somewhere and stolen it, joke for joke. Either that or I'm really tired of my own shtick, which is not only possible, it's perfectly understandable. (In any case, I'm gonna stop writing now. I can't change the cat litter but something must be done.)

One last thing, John Cleese talks about life here and it's really good. Oh, and one last last thing: don't feed the trolls. It really is the most valid modern truism.

Ha ha, you caught me! I made dad Gacy!