Do You Ever Know If It Ends? Ever?

If you had been living under a rock and not checking the news at all today, Liam Payne is dead. It's unexpected, and odd, and off, and tragic, and I don't know why it feels so hollow. I guess I do know: it's because I'm in shock.

But I'm also pretty angry about it. Because people say things have to change, but we don't do anything; we let Hollywood and social politics and war machines kill people again and again. Liam Payne was troubled, and he was hurt by the industry, by being treated like a commodity as a mere child. And yeah, he wasn't perfect and he hurt people in turn, perpetuating that very cycle, but he was human and deserved better, just like those he hurt deserved better, and he was also a father, a son, a friend...

Hurt people hurt people. It's a tale as old as time. And the troubled rockstar celebrity guy who burns himself out and dies tragically young is a tale as old as time, too. But maybe it really shouldn't be - we have to sop letting the entertainment industry push these kids to their breaking points and turning them into troubled adults that only spread that pain further down the road.

I really, truly was rooting for him to get his shit together. He has a son. He was only thirty-one. It's just a reminder how how fragile life is and how dangerous it is to leave people alone when they're on a bad high, or having a panic attack or outburst. Locking someone alone in a hotel room is not a solution. I don't know if anybody could have saved him from his own demons, but somebody certainly should have been there.

RIP Liam.

I'm not afraid of a fucking yeti - I'm just cautious, okay?

In defense of my father, Bigfoot could be real. Mind you, when I say "could" I mean it in the same way I do when I tell you that I *could* probably survive being shot. That I *could* become a bio-engineer someday. Which is to say, probably fucking not, but I like to keep a sense of wonder about me.

Why am I bringing up Bigfoot? Well, because a Sasquatch probably could survive being shot, if one did exist. And because my dad is fucking obsessed with them for some reason.

Seriously, I think I've been forced to sit through more history and science channel specials than a damn junior high teacher. My dad is like, the official unofficial Sasquatch expert. But this week the Bigfoot obsession has been kicked into overdrive - as in, while we're all sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner, he's got the iPad propped up beside his plate watching documentaries about the hunt for the Yeti. Yeah, welcome to my world.

But the thing is, today, I had one of those Reese Witherspoon "I should embrace nature" kind of moments and, in my basicness, went outside to do just that. So, picture this: me, wearing a hoodie, swim trunks, and boat shoes with no socks on, wading through knee-deep snow in the middle of the woods out back.

I swear, I'm not one of those straight boys who walks around in shorts in the winter to prove his masculine and hetero he is. . . namely because I'm not a boy and because I'm miles away from hetero and because masculinity honestly bores me . . but also because I'm really just too lazy to change out of my pajamas even in the winter.

So here I am, half-dressed in the snow, in the middle of the woods, and I just think well, this is fucking creepy. Because I was focused on those stupid Yeti videos and how a Sasquatch could totally tear my limbs off my body and like, eat my heart out of my chest or something, and I wouldn't even be able to run away because I was wearing those stupid boat shoes with no socks, and my feet were slipping all over and oh my god was that a branch breaking? Why am I still standing here????

I swear, I know Yetis don't fucking exist. Where I'm from, a yeti is just another name for a popper with weed and tobacco (which I can pop, but not without crying). So I'm not afraid of a fucking yet - I'm just cautious, okay?

And now, I need to get back to work. Well, after I go and close the curtains, y'know, just in case someone who is totally not a yeti is spying from the woods. . .