Chapter 3: You Are What You Eat

Chapter 3: You are What You Eat

One day in the fourth grade I brought a stick of butter to class to snack on during silent reading.  It came wrapped in gold-colored foil and smelled of freshly stale cheese.  I considered purchasing one of those tubs of spreadable butter  but preferred the ease and portability of the sticks instead.  As I sat down with my copy of Atlus Shrugged in hand Mrs. Smith peered over at me and let out a deafening roar.
“Mr. Miller what in the world are you eating?”

Startled, I dropped my stick of fatty goodness onto the ground where it rolled off my denim jeans and onto the dusty old carpet.  Its golden exterior now a light shade of gray, covered in dirt and short strands of hair.

“Mrs. Smith it’s a stick of butter, the golden kind,” I said as I picked my treat back off the ground.  I examined it for a few more seconds trying to decide if it was fit to eat.

My teacher was horrified and disgusted.  “Mr. Miller if you eat that one day you will grow up to be a fat bald sad old man.  You are what you eat you know.”

I looked at her and then back at the golden stick staring back at me, and then smashed the stick of butter into my mouth, enjoying every second of it.  

 

I spent the rest of the day migrating from time-out to the shit-stained bathroom stalls of Parmer Lane Elementary.  During one of the dozens of trips I made to the toilet I looked down on the ground and saw something magical staring back at me.  There, shining below my dangling feet and immersed in a thin layer of pre-pubescent piss lay a golden token.  And not just any token either.  No, it was a token to the wondrous land of Sega City.  A sprawling arcade previously located in the nearby mall. I squeezed out the last of my buttery shit and reached down to pick up the moist token.  I smiled and stuffed it in my pocket as I ran back to class. 

 

The next day after eating my daily turkey sandwich and green apple during lunch I ran out to the playground to beat my arch nemesis Billy Schrider at a game of tetherball.  As I trotted out to the slab of concrete I saw, to my dismay, a group of young boys standing alongside Billy.   

“Hey butterface!” Billy sneered as as his cronies snickered.

“Hey Billy, ready to play?” I said nervously.

He didn’t say anything else and instead walked over to me and punched me in the face.  I saw a flash of white and fell to the ground as the boys proceeded to kick me over and over again.

“Butt-er-face! Butt-er-face!” They chanted as they landed blow after blow.  I rolled into a ball and remembered the golden token I had found on the floor of the boys bathroom the previous day.  A smile spread across my blood-stained face.  All I could think about was how fun Sega City was going to be that weekend.    

Soon the kicking stopped and the pain seceded.  I slowly made it to my feet and stood face to face with Billy as I swayed to and fro. 

Billy was smiling devilishly.  “Take that you turkey!” He said as he punched me in the adam’s apple.  

I let out something that sounded like a wheeze and fell back again.  The boys quickly ran away and left me sitting on the ground grasping my throat.  As the oxygen slowly left my brain and darkness surrounded me it finally made sense.  “Turkey? Apple?  Of course!” I whispered with my last ounce of strength.  

From that day on I refused to eat anything containing Turkeys or Apples.  Instead, I mainly consumed foods the color of that glorious stick of butter.  And that, folks, is what I attribute most of my success to today.

Faux Pas

Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop pretending to be productive.  Not Starbucks obviously because I need to keep at least some of my Austin cred.  No, I'm sitting in The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  An establishment that I thought of until recently as being locally owned and operated.   I stumbled across it in the Detroit Airport and realized there were probably hundreds of these god-forsaken things all across the country..  It was later brought up in conversation and I nervously scoffed at the idea of anyone buying an overpriced coffee from the evil vendor.  “Oh, that place is like the new Starbucks,” I said.  My heart almost gave out when I thought of the praise I would have given it if I hadn’t passed it on my way to find a Burger King I’d seen in the airport directory.  These days favoring a food-chain is like wearing white after Labor Day.  
 

I don’t have any paper so I’m substituting my daily planner as a notepad.  This note is scrawled across the lines of Thursday, June 9th. Along the left margin are small numbers notifying me of the things I might need to get done today.  Right now I’m dumbfounded and horrified at the thought of someone actually needing two full lines for every hour of the day. I bought this planner about six months ago thinking that it would magically make me more productive.  After all, what’s a day if it hasn’t been planned?  Like maybe if I could see all the things I had to get done it would make it more fun.  Instead it did two things:

1) Overwhelmed me by placing all the obligations I had all week right in front of my face, (never more than two).  and...

2) Saddened me when I found myself going weeks at a time without writing down a single thing.  

The latter brought me to write down absolutely anything I was going to do for the day just so I could feel more useful. “Tuesday, March 22nd. 8:00 AM: Read.”  Read?  Read what? Maybe catch up on the current events in the New York Times?  Scour the insightful article on Yahoo!’s home page about what not to say on a first date?  Who knows.  I don’t even wake up that early.   The sad(der) part of it all is that I couldn’t even check that off my to-do list. Eventually my enthusiasm for my daily planner waned into nonexistence and it got stuffed into the bottom of my backpack, never to be seen again.  Besides, I prefer my days to be spontaneous.  

It has taken me almost two weeks to finish writing this.  I’m no longer sitting in a coffee shop debating whether or not I should ask the attractive girl sitting across from me for a piece of paper from her notepad.  Now I'm sitting in my boxers at ten in the morning trying to decide if I want to take a shower now or go all day and take one at night.  Because if I’m going to wait I should probably put some clothes on.  But if I take one now then I should stay in my boxers because It would be too much work to dress and then undress and dress again.  My life is full of difficult choices.  

I realize now that professional writers probably don’t just write when they feel like it.  They likely have some sort of daily routine of locking themselves away with a typewriter and a pot of coffee for hours on end.  My daily routine is to think about how I should be writing something while I struggle out of bed sometime around ten.  I then sort out my ideas in front of the boob tube.  A few hours will go by and I’ll work through the conflict on the way to McDonalds.  My midday nap is a great time for me to figure out a climax while late night drinking is when I perfect the falling action. 

 It’s very important that I become productive at some point in the near future.  I just need to stop fooling around and get to it.  Unfortunately, motivation eludes me at every turn.  Or at least it would elude me if I actually tried to pursue it.  Instead, every day motivation looks at me and makes a B-line for the exit while I sit in The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf  Spiderhouse and wave it goodbye.  

My Life Through the Lens of Alcohol (a.k.a. forgive my grammar)

It's 2:30 in the morning and somewhere between the drinks and the drive home I decided to myself that I would figure out exactly what I'm doing with my life.  I can hear the murmur of some band coming through my speakers and there's the smell of mold or mildew trailing out of my kitchen.  I'm sitting at a computer I stole from my previous job and drinking some terrible rum I found in my pantry.  Because the only way I could face my life and reflect on it is by drinking myself into a stupor.  Are there worse things in the world? Sure there are, but when you feel scared to do anything but the safe thing, things look pretty bleak.

It's true though.  I am scared of taking any risks.  Upsetting the familiarity of my daily routine.  I'm scared of failing and maybe hurting my pride.  The biggest step I've taken in the past five years has been publishing my stories to a website that only my friends and familiars can read.  The next step I took was to create this blog where I'm vicariously living through a caricature of myself where I'm a self proclaimed billionaire.  And that's something I consider a big step.

Over the past few months I've come to realize that maybe an English degree wasn't the smartest career path.  Sure, I love to write.  I love literature.    The thing they don't tell you in  high school about college is how it's only a way to educate yourself for a career.  If you go there to learn you'd better be learning something that can help you succeed in life.  Hermin Melville and what makes a film noir aren't so helpful when someone is looking over your scant resume.   So I'm finally coming to the end of my long and torturous college career and I realize the road is essentially leading nowhere.

There's a time in my life that I would give almost anything to go back to.  A time where I was fearless.  I could try anything and not worry about the consequences because I was at the absolute lowest point in my life.  There's something about feeling terrible that is completely liberating.  I always try to tell people "if you ever find yourself at a place where it could not get any worse, you need to get out there and do what you want."  Because you see, if you fail at something you've always wanted to do what does it matter?  Your pride is the least of your worries.

Now it's three o'clock and this rum is getting watered down from the ice.  A softer sound is seeping out of my speakers and i'm starting to worry about the length of this blog post.

For once in my adult life I have a strong desire to make a change in my life.  No, it's not a change in the kind of person I am.  I'm not going to say "I really need to drink less" or "let's maybe try and save some money."  What i'm talking about is a change in everything that I know.  The people, and surroundings, and familiarity.  I've set my sights on packing up and moving out.  As soon as I can reasonably do so i'm out of here.  I need to get out of my comfort zone and experience something new and terrifying.  Some place where  I don't know the people or the streets or even the language.

This could be the biggest mistake of my life. I'm probably holding up another city or country on a pedestal.  Like somehow moving away while staying the same is going to completely change my life and steer  me to a path of success and fortune.  At this point I don't care.  Tonight I celebrated getting a job where I could potentially get paid minimum-wage by doing a job that a fifth-grader could conceivably do better than me.  Let's put this in perspective.  Take into account inflation and I was making more when I was seventeen than I do now.

So what does it matter.  Nothing could be worse than this. So I find myself again with no fear.  And this time I'm going to take advantage of it.  Move away and try to do something with this English degree I have.   If I fail I fail.  But at least I'll fail with some pretty cool scenery.

How to Make a Billion Dollars: Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: DON’T CLIMB

Close your eyes and imagine this if you will.  You are at the mall shopping for some new gadgets and gizmos.  Because you spent all night working on your new business you haven’t eaten and would like to stop by the Orange Julius for a quick little snack.  Now on your escalator ride to the second floor some pushy old man flings you aside as he climbs step by step because he needs to make it to the restroom before he exits his bowels all over the mall floor.  This sad old man was climbing while you, a young up-and-comer, were pleasantly standing on the escalator allowing it to briskly ascend you to the awaiting Julius.  

Climbing is a waste of time and energy.  Time and energy that could be well spent on making a billion dollars.  All it does is make you sweaty and exhausted.  Why would you climb up the escalator?  That doesn’t really make any sense.  If the genius that designed the escalator wanted you to climb up it, he wouldn’t have made it move in the first place.  What kind of people climb in this world?  Rock climbers, ladder salesmen, poor people.  You don’t want to be a rock climber because that involves risk.  And what you will learn in chapter 5 is that billionaires don’t take risks.  Secondly, ladder salesmen are poor people.  Genius rich billionaires ran them out of business when they opened up great stores such as Walmart and Home Depot.  You don’t want to be a poor person so why would you sell ladders?  Finally, you don’t want to be a person or else why would you be reading this book?

I obviously am not just talking about climbing literally.  I’m also using it metaphorically (see 'note' at bottom).  A good businessman doesn’t climb his way to the top because he starts at the top.  If you find yourself starting at the bottom you might want to pick up my companion book Starting at the Bottom for the low price of only $300.00.  Now I know what  you’re thinking.  

How am i supposed to start at the top?  That seems impossible.  Doesn’t my idea need time to grow into a billion dollar money-maker?  The long and short answer is no, and here’s why:

1.  I had an idea for a great book.  I wrote the great book and instantly became a billionaire

2.  When Steve Jobs created the mac it began as a top-selling money making machine.

Whenever you find yourself in a situation where you might need to climb you need to stop and think, “what good am i going to get from climbing right now?”  To help you with your decision I have created a list of pros and cons for climbing:

CONS:

Very sweaty - Nobody likes a sweaty person.  Everyone finds them unattractive.
Tiresome -  Would you rather be full of energy, or drained and exhausted from climbing all the time?
Waste of time -  Climbing takes time
Waste of car - Anywhere you need to climb you could probably drive instead.
Mentally unstable -  “Climbing is so stressful on the mind that it makes an individual mentally unstable,” (pp. 36 from Starting at the Bottom by Jonathan Miller, 2010).  

As you can see the cons greatly outweigh the pros, because there are no pros.  Remember, climbing and billionaires do not mix.

Note: Metaphor - A comparison without using 'like' or 'as'. The definition of a metaphor was teken from “Definitions and You” by Jonathan Miller, 2010.

How to Make a Billion Dollars: Chapter 1

How to Make a Billion Dollars

By Jonathan Richard Miller

At some point in every person’s life they wake up and ask themselves “how do I make a billion dollars?”  This book will give you all the knowledge you’ll need to do just that.  It will provide amazing step by step instructions on what needs to be done in order to succeed.  

I know what you’re asking yourself.  “How come the writer of this book isn’t a billionaire?”  Well, that’s a very good question.  It’s a valid point and one that I could argue about for pages and pages.  But this isn’t a book on how to debate someone, it’s a book on how to make a billion dollars.  Which brings me to the first step in becoming a billionaire.

CHAPTER 1: DON’T ARGUE

Arguing is a part of every person’s life...unless you are a billionaire.  Billionaires don’t argue or debate people on anything.  Ask Steve jobs if he argued with anyone when he invented the Mac.  Or ask Steven Speilberg if he debated with his friends when he made E.T.  Don’t bother asking them actually because i’m telling you here and now that they didn’t.  

There are probably going to be several things in this book that you would like to argue with me about.  Why did this book cost $300.00?  Why shouldn’t I argue? All that’s going to do is prolong your eventual success.  You’ve waited long enough and why wait even longer when you could be a billionaire?  

First let’s go ahead and define what it means to not argue with someone.  Let’s say you want to open up a video rental chain, but your friend (let’s call him Billy) is telling you it’s a dying business being overrun by digital distribution.  Look at Blockbuster Video for example.  A decade ago they were a thriving business but now they are a dying company holding on for dear life.  The next logical thing to happen is for you and Billy to start to argue with each other.  Only two things can come out of this.  Either Billy and you split ties, burn bridges, and throw away thirty-five years of friendship and memories.  Or, even worse, you decide your friend is probably right.  It would be a fools errand to open up a video rental chain in this day and age and you lose hundreds of hours planning and tens of dollars on writing up a business plan.  Congratulations entrepreneur, your business is gone and you are still working minimum wage.  Your dream of becoming a billionaire is but a distant memory all thanks to one little argument.

There are three questions you need to ask yourself after anything happens in your life:

1. Am I a billionaire?

2. Why am I not a billionaire?

3. On what page of How to Make a Billion Dollars can I find my solution.

So for example, after your argument with Billy you would need to reflect on the situation and ask yourself those three questions.  

1. Am I a billionaire?

The answer is no.

2. Why am I not a billionaire?

Because you didn’t follow the first step to making a billion dollars

3. On what page of How to Make a Billion Dollars can I find my solution.

Well you can find it on page 1. But obviously you don’t own my book on how to make a billion dollars, because if you did you would never have argued in the first place.

The first hurdle is usually the hardest.  Here are a few great tips to help you get past that first step on the staircase of success.  First make sure to use a lot of post-it notes.  They are a great way of always reminding you what needs to happen.  Second, always carry around this book.  Those are the only two tips you need to get past this first hurdle.  But don’t worry.  Although the mountain my seem tall and insurmountable, when you’re a billionaire you will never have to climb a mountain again!