There are three things I wish I would have learned much earlier in life. While my parents managed to pound a few vital truths into my thick skull during my youth, (like finish your work before you play, refrain from being a jack wagon, and never expect to have a loan paid back) I somehow managed to skip right over the secrets of water, sugar, and dancing.
If I could travel back in time and tell my thirteen-year-old self a thing or two or three, these truths are where I would start. Since my youngest son hasn’t been able to get his time machine to work yet (and I stress the word “yet”), I’ll share my wisdom here and hope this is one of those “better late than never” situations. As for this post, I’ll start with sugar.
This will be hard for many of you to stomach (pun intended). I’ll put it this way. I drink booze on a regular basis (although never before dinner because I was taught to get my work done first). I’ve never smoked anything worse than the hookah or a Swisher Sweet. I’m not widely traveled when it comes to mind-altering substances (despite having attended a Phish concert). But the deadliest and most addictive substance I’ve ever imbibed, eaten, or absorbed through my skin has been sugar. The white stallion. The devil’s nectar.
I quit sugar during the sweltering summer of 1999, and it has been the single most beneficial move I’ve made for my overall health and well being. If I could council my thirteen-year-old self, I’d tell him to choose marijuanna over Dr. Pepper…unless the marijuanna resulted in an increased consumption of Dr. Pepper. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that it’s time we wake up to the deadly reality of sugar. Even Homer Simpson knows that “In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.”
If you want to know who the real cartels are, look no further than Kraft, McDonald’s, Yum! Brand, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola. I mean, why the hell are we so worried about kids vaping when a disease that used to be called “adult onset diabetes” had to be relabeled “type 2 diabetes” because too many kids were coming down with it? And while I’m in my old-man-get-off-my-lawn mode, I’ll take a break from typing in order to shake my fist at society. [shaking fist menacingly]
No matter your thoughts about the coronavirus, the stark reality is that our collective weight gain over the last eighteen months is gonna unleash a secondary wave of devastation in the form of sugar-shakes, obesity, depression, and heart disease. And there’s no vaccine for sugar. The employees at McDonald’s can wear masks when they hand you that Big Mac (9g of sugar), but it ain’t gonna make a difference. (If we’re lucky, they washed their hands.) And just try social distancing from sugar in a country that has a fast food restaurant for every 1,657 people. I’m in walking distance of 25 fast food restaurants as I type this!
Our ridiculous war on drugs, ain’t gonna do a thing while we’re inviting our neighborhood dealers to juice us with sugar on a daily basis. Consider this your intervention. Hi, my name is David, and I’ve been off the white stuff for twenty-one years, two months, and three days.
At the Desk This Week
I finished the first/second/third draft of Season Three of The Green Ones! Yay! I think the season is gonna be titled, Awaken. I wrapped up the final scene this week. I’m really happy with how the last episode played out. The last climactic scene ended up being some of my best stuff, which surprised me a little. It’s been a few years since my days of writing 3,000 words a day five days a week. I’ve had to set a different pace in the last year. And it’s been more difficult to get myself into the proper headspace when I have my opportunities to sit down and write. But I think I’m figuring it out. Next, I’ll start over at the beginning of this manuscript and work through the whole thing again with an eye on continuity and further developing the characters. I started this story over a year ago. This is by far the longest it has taken me to get from beginning to end on a single project, so I know there is gonna be stuff I stated early on and then forgot to mention later. (You know, stuff like a character having a bullet wound in one scene and then totally healed the next…or having a backpack one moment then not the next and then having it again later.)
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
[Click here to start at the beginning.]
Thanks so much for taking the time to read these scenes of Boundaries, Season 2 of The Green Ones. I’ll be publishing FREE daily scenes from The Green Ones until…I die…or something terrible happens. Seriously, I’ve got over 100 scenes written so far, and I’ll be writing more until the story reaches its natural ending. You are totally welcome to read the entire story for FREE! If at any point you decide you would rather finish the story in ebook or print format, just click the buttons below and you can do that as well. If you enjoy reading the serial releases, BUT you would also like to support me as a writer (my kids need wine!) please subscribe to my premium content for bonus scenes, exclusives, and insider access to my process. And of course, I’d be grateful if you would share this post with any of your reader friends who you think would enjoy The Green Ones. Happy reading!