I was going to be the youngest, most celebrated screenwriter that ever lived.

I was going to drop out of college and get an honorary degree. I was going to own a house with a Scarface staircase and drink martinis with Katie Holmes. I was going places. Got it?

I pinned my derivative Hollywood dreams on the top-tier film school that admitted the least number of students: UCLA. The piles of rejected hacks I’d have to climb over would only increase my sense of accomplishment. So I busted my ass. I neglected my studies and my girlfriend and stopped cleaning my apartment. This was my shot. My own version of the rap Olympics.

But despite my shocking resemblance to Marshall Mathers, shit didn’t work out.

My fat stack of dreams in a manila envelope was met with a rejection on a single sheet of paper. It was very thin, this paper. Cheap. As if UCLA was on the verge of bankrupting itself by the sheer number of film-school dreams they were obligated to crush by mail. I thought about slitting my wrist with the razor-thin rejection. I thought this might be a cool thing to have happen in a movie. I doubted my ability to judge cool things to happen in movies based upon the content of the rejection slip, but still thought about using it to slit my wrists.

Yet rejection comes with consequences even more dire than thoughts of ironic suicide. Like answering questions: “How’s that UCLA application doing?” “Hear from UCLA yet?” “When are you planning to move to California?”

Guess what, Legion of Curious Assholes: Never ask a writer how their book deal/fellowship application/agent search is going. EVER. We have fragile egos. When we have ANYTHING going for us, we will tell you within two minutes of shaking your hand, or our spouse will bring it up to save us the trouble. At every turn, we and those we love must inflate our egos like storing food for the drought to come – that will surely come – weeks or months or years later when things are, again, not going well and the Legion of Curious Assholes is closing in with their wide eyes and soul-crushing questions.

And in case you’re wondering, the worst place to get rejected from film school is Iowa. There you are, rejected, and also in fucking Iowa. You are surrounded by corn. The world is flat. Everyone is smirking and white and above average and there’s you – rejected, and so far from Hollywood in every possible way that you can’t help but feel you were destined to fail. Like, who the hell did you think you were, Rudy? That shit happened in Indiana. And nothing makes you feel like a bigger asshole than investing in a highly improbable dream that doesn’t come true. Except for doing it in Iowa.

Luckily, I had a friend in LA. He was older and successful as a writer and contemptuous to me in every possible way just then, but I needed to rub up against the luster of the dream a little. So I wrote him a long, sniveling email about what happened to me. Here’s what he said:

“Hollywood isn’t going anywhere, kid. But you’re only young once. Travel the world. Get drunk. Get laid. Then come back and write about it. The kids who go to UCLA never write anything interesting. That’s because they haven’t done anything.”

Good advice. Especially the bit about getting laid. Unfortunately, I’d alienated my girlfriend by applying to UCLA and my sure supply of sexy starlets had been embargoed by my own failure. So what could I do? I left the country. I took my friend’s advice, and did my damndest to live out a different dream. A drunker, sexier, more foreign dream than even UCLA film school.

It worked. I had a blast, learned a lot, and my experiences put me on a different creative path. Now, as a fiction writer, I’ve managed to divest myself of my most cliché dreams. But I’d still like a cult following one day. A few books to have fun promoting. And I’ve come to terms with a grim reality: No matter how modest the dream, the road to artistic success is paved with rejection.

Thin, razor-sharp rejections that stretch into the gray horizon and cut your feet like broken glass and make you want to collapse into a bloody heap and scream for your mother and gouge your eyes out and end it, end it, JUST GODDAMN END IT ALL. But look on the bright side. At least you’re not in Iowa.

We were discussing ice cream–frozen yogurt, actually–and how we weren’t going to have any that particular night.

“But that’s not fair!” My oldest, my daughter–her life is tragic. I explained that we were going to Tennessee. That we didn’t want to spend any extra money before that trip. That two sets of grandparents would be there. Ice cream and candy would most likely flow like Manna from the paternal and maternal grandparent heavens.

And then I said, “Basically, all your wildest dreams will come true in Tennessee.”

It was a joke, a throw-away attempt at humor that I thought would silence the whining and continued attempts to get me and my wife to amend our decision.

I went back to my dinner just as my son–calmly looking at his plate of rice–said, “So, My LIttle Ponies will come to life in Tennessee?”

Some backstory. My son is what you might call a Brony. His love of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic is unparalleled. And at six years old, this sort of interest is still considered cute and acceptable for a boy. Personally, I have no problem with him watching or enjoying My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. This doesn’t mean the show is good–far from it. But unlike some of the more alpha-male dads in the community, I’m not the type who’s going to go out and buy him a football in hopes of persuading him away from the world of unicorns, ponies, and cutie marks (whatever the hell those are.)

Of course, at some point–if his interest in magical ponies persists–this will bring him some kind of trouble. Most likely, this will happen in middle school. And while every part of me wants to save him from that sort of ridicule, I know I can’t. It comes like puberty–you can’t stop it. But I also don’t want him to buy into the crap of the world–the stuff that tells him he can’t like what he likes, that he can’t get addled with laughter whenever Pinkie Pie does something hilarious–at six years old. Hell, at sixteen–if that’s who he is. If that’s who he wants to be.

Of course we laughed–it was so hard not to. He was so earnest. So excited about the possibility. For him, I guess, having those Ponies prance around is the definition of wildest dreams. He told us–in great detail–about one of the plot lines he particularly enjoyed and the day faded away.

But that night, as I was beginning to type the conversation into Twitter, I realized some people might  take it the wrong way–as if I was actually making fun of him. As if I somehow think that this could affect his ability to become a Real Man someday.

While I never had an interest in Ponies, I can remember being the one guy in middle school who had an active vocabulary when it came to musicals. West Side Story, Oliver!, The Music Man–I could quote (or, you know, sing…) them flawlessly. A guy would say, menacingly, to another friend, “Consider yourself warned!” And I’d bust out a little Consider yourself, our mate! Consider yourself part of the family! Somebody might say, “We’ve got trouble…” And I’d add something like, Right here in River City. 

I was very popular.

I can’t tell you a specific moment when this threatened the public perception of my approaching manhood–when it specifically broke the Manly Code we’re all supposed to follow–but it did. Because when high school came around, I did not try out for the musicals. And the things I did do–namely, the school newspaper–I never talked about. It was as if we all thought it was something I should be ashamed of, something I should bury as quickly and deeply as I possibly could.

I think I missed out on a lot because of this. Now, as then, the theater types are a lot more interesting to me than most anybody you’d find in a sports bar, at an NFL game. I can’t change that, but I can be a part in making sure it doesn’t happen to my own son.

Most likely, this fascination with sparkly, rainbow-drenched ponies will pass naturally. Like Bakugan, Pokeman, and various other things, it will slowly be pushed to the corners of his mind. And I’m sure–at some point in the future, most likely about the time he brings home his first girlfriend–it might slip from my mouth. My hope is we’ll all laugh about it–that the connection we have now will still be intact in the same way.

However, what I am not sure of, is how to teach him that it is okay to have interests outside the norm. That it is okay to like things that make you happy. And while I hope–for my own sanity–that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic disappears from our television, from our dinner table, I also hope that he continues to be the sort of kid who doesn’t care when one of his friends ultimately says, “My Little Pony sucks.” That he won’t feel the need to hide things that are fundamental parts of his childhood.

And if he can, then maybe he will have learned something that took me too many years to figure out.

After my first time roller skating, my parents asked me how many times I’d fallen down. I stopped counting after five. Not good. Same deal with skiing. Riding a bike. A low fall count meant success. If my brother, cousin, or friend fell fewer times, they were more skilled.  Each trip to the slopes became a excruciatingly cautious, nail-biting experience. I now hate to downhill ski.

That was my first taste of The Male Code — Rule #1: Don’t Fall.

Don’t Fall dictates how boys develop into men (or giant boys). It’s the reason we don’t dance. It’s the reason we don’t feel like playing that new game. It’s the reason we are circling the block for the seventh time. Don’t Fall is both literal and metaphor. An actual, physical fall is the worst violation. It is also the most hilarious, and the easiest to share on YouTube. Less hilarious ways to fall include:

• Not knowing what you are doing at all times
• Dancing in a manner that is not like the last dance scene in a movie about dancing
• Missing the shot
• Reading the directions
• Asking directions
• Taking direction from anyone other than a Code-certified mentor*

(*Subsection iii – Code-certified mentors: 1) men who own their own dojo, 2) stunt men, 3) men who own a giant BBQ smoker, 4) Bruce Springsteen, 5) Yoda.)

The most common way for a man to fall is to not know what he’s doing at all times.

This is why a man cannot physically walk past a smoking car with its hood up. He must stop and peer into the smoke as if reading mysterious man-signals only those with a penis can divine. This man may have never looked at his own engine block. If he lives in Oregon, he may have never pumped his own gas. This man may be wearing khakis and a black turtleneck. He will still look at the smoking engine block with a hand on his hip. He may tsk or nod. These are strategies he learned at sports bars when his friends were describing specific passing strategies or batting averages or the latest stadium renovation, or earlier, as his friends discussed French kissing and the finer points of third base. This man may have never been to third base with a baseball team or a woman, but he will nod and tsk as others describe these bases and how to take them and turn them into home runs. He will be attentive, but mildly disinterested as he listens, as if watching a show he’s seen many times before.

Because a man must never show interest. No leaning forward. Interest indicates learning, and learning is the enemy of Don’t Fall. If learning must happen, it should never occur in public. Ideally, all male learning takes place in a cinematic montage. The reasons for this include:

1) Montages are over quickly.

2) Montages often get great 80s music.  This is so people will be bobbing their heads too hard to notice a man is learning something.

3) Most montages occur when a man is alone, or surrounded by animals. (Note: Never talking animals. No real man would ever be caught dead in a talking-animal montage.)

4) Being in a montage proves you’ve mastered the Art of the Montage. Most good Montagers have been to third base.

5) Men are rarely caught reading books in a montage. Reading is strongly associated with learning, no matter what the book cover looks like.

This may all sound good and familiar. Unfortunately, Don’t Fall’s perpetuation of ignorance and numb-nut bravado is making us vulnerable as a human race. Below is a scientific approximation of our soon-to-be alien overlords.

So listen up, men. The Venus Mantrap is coming. There are only so many good montage songs, and we can’t all train for the invasion at once. So do me a favor: Ignore The Code. Admit ignorance when a car is smoking. Try something new. Most importantly, fall down.

Then have a friend take video of your learning experience to post on YouTube. Because that shit is going to be hilarious.

[This post is a slightly edited version of a post that appeared on my personal blog, Exile in Goyville, in 2010.]

I’m originally from New York—specifically a suburb on Long Island. I now live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The differences between these two metro areas are numerous, and today I will focus on one.

To attempt to illuminate every instance that I’ve felt rather out of water would take an entire blog. In fact, that was the initial intention of the blog named in brackets above.

Today, we will visit the most popular coffee shops in each area: Caribou and Starbucks.

In Minnesota, the Caribou cashier will greet you, and actually smile and listen to your reply to “How are you doing today?”

In New York, the Starbucks cashier might make eye contact when she asks what you want: “Can I help you?” If she says “How are you?” it just means “What do you want?”, and if you reply and ask how she is doing, you will get a vacant stare in response.

In Minnesota, the cashier will then ask you if “you need anything else today?” She might tell you how nice/cold/rainy/hot out it is, and that the football game will be on later, and perhaps you plan to watch?

In New York, the cashier will, while writing on your cup, say, “That it?”

In Minnesota, after you pay, the cashier will ask if “you need a receipt at all?” (“At all?” What does that mean, anyway? Am I supposed to say, “I need it just a tiny bit”?) She will suggest you have a great rest of the day, and perhaps stay cool/dry/warm/inside/outside.

In New York, the cashier will put the receipt in your hand with your change in such a way that the change will fall from your hand and roll off the counter. She will say “sorry” and turn to the next customer while you try to get the coins that are rolling around the store.

In Minnesota, after you take your change, no one will make a move to order until you’ve put everything in its proper wallet or pocket or zippered bag compartment and moved completely out of the way. While they wait, they will smile and look at you. It will make you nervous.

In New York, the moment you have your change (or are scrambling for it all over the shop), the next person will start right in, often before being asked, leaning across and in front of you if necessary: “Yeah, lemme get a double nonfat latte in two cups . . .” It will make you nervous.

My sister is getting married next week and so, naturally, I thought, “What the hell–I’m about to go seersucker on those fools.”

Now, you should know that my family has always been prone to making irrational fashion decisions. My sister is immortalized on a beach vacation VHS recording wearing striped shorts, a bright red shirt emblazoned with the old chestnut People who think they know it all haven’t met me yet! and, of course, a single pearl hanging from a cheap silver chain rounded out the ensemble. I can be found in the background–white shorts, no shirt, a shark tooth hanging from a similar chain around my neck–demonstrating the proper use of my new switchblade comb.

You could call this impetuous youth. Blame it on the kitsch of Myrtle Beach–We really had little choice for souvenirs at the Gay Dolphin! But at some point you have to realize that, for some of us, fashion calls from the depth of our being. It’s like a tractor beam. You might as well enjoy the ride.

So I walked into J. Crew and pretended to be discerning, as though I routinely shopped in over-priced stores that cater to frat boys and the sort of people who regularly go “boating” and wear top-siders without socks. It didn’t take long for me to locate a pair of seersucker pants in such an environment.

It should be said that I am not fashionable by default. If left to my own devices, I would be more than happy to wear jeans and a t-shirt to almost any event. Granted, they are nice jeans–but they are jeans nonetheless. And as I was walking out of the store–feeling as though I should probably start dressing better, that High Fashion may be in my immediate future–a cold, haunting realization occurred.

I have no idea what to wear with seersucker.

Returning the pants was out of the question–that would admit defeat. But the prospect of paring not only a shirt, but a belt, shoes, and a tie with these pants was daunting. Not only is seersucker the sort of pattern that doesn’t suffer fools (or plaids, for that matter), but I am colorblind, hence all the denim in my life, and trying to match colors isn’t exactly my forte.

I pulled the pants from the bag and held them up. The puckered stripes mocked me, an inanimate taunting. I was totally out of my league. I went back into the store and, casually, said, “So, I think I might need to get a shirt and a tie.”–the clerk eyed me, as if any serious fashionable male would’ve considered this before checking out–”you know, to really tie the outfit together.”

He straightened his tie, and said, “What were you thinking?”

This, of course, was the worst possible question. I had no idea–dark blue? Yellow? A nice cyan, perhaps? I pulled the pants from the bag and laid them on the counter.

“Ah, yes,” he said. Like he hadn’t just sold them to me minutes before. “Well, you obviously don’t want to go navy, given the subtle hints of gray.” He tapped the fabric and I nodded.

“Well, of course,” I said. “Obviously.”

He took me through the store, considering shirts like he was shopping at the farmer’s market for peaches. He’d pick one up, match it to the pants, then put it back on the shelf. After doing this three or four time, his breath caught audibly as he held up a baby blue dress shirt, matching it to the pants. He turned to me. We nodded together knowingly.

“Alice blue,” he said. “I should’ve known.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. And–what the hell, right?–I concluded by saying, “I was thinking maybe an Oxford Blue for the belt.”

The clerk turned and, for a few seconds, I thought he might toss me from the store–keeping the pants and the newly discovered Alice Blue shirt–yelling something like, “Have fun at Old Navy!”

Instead, he smiled.

“That depends on the shoes.” And when I told him what I was to wear, his smile grew. We were simpatico. Fashion brothers, which runs deeper than blood and doesn’t require the knifing of palms or thumbs. I imagine, instead, it involves walking slowly down a walkway of  some sort, our jackets hoisted casually over one shoulder–smiling into the sun, our hair and outfits perfect.

I love punctuation. I love all punctuation so much. A well used pair of em dashes can change your life. Semicolons in first-person fiction make me a little weepy. A collection of creatively used periods to break up a sentence. In a. Disjointed manner. Can be.

Riveting.

(Sometimes it fails, I’ll grant you. Have fun with it.)

But the comma.

I love you, comma. I really do. So, so much. Just look at how often I use you. Okay, so this post so far is not the best example of my positively ecstatic use of the comma. It probably will get more comma’d as I go.

So if I love you so much, dear comma, why am I flipping you the bird? Telling you off? Wishing you the worst? Because you can’t make up your freaking mind!

Here are some issues on which you refuse to settle on one rule:

• Preceding and following “too”
• Preceding the “and” or “or” in a series of three or more items—the Oxford or serial comma
• Inside or outside the quote mark when used with quote marks for non dialog copy, such as a song title
• Preceding a conjunction when the subject of the sentence is/isn’t restated
• In direct address within common expressions: “Yes sir!” or “Yes, sir!”?

And so on.

The result of this, among writers, editors, copy editors, and laymen, is a certain conviction that we know what we’re doing with these silly little squiggles because we heard a rule one time from a well-meaning but ill-informed grade-school teacher. Or, worse yet, we experience a total lack of conviction and become paralyzed in the face of a commatic decision.

Maybe even worse: a lack of any clue about your use, comma, and yet a tremendous amount of conviction just the same. Commas end up everywhere—in the wrong place, the right place, or no place at all. “Use a comma when you’d take a breath.” What?! I’ve heard that advice so many times, and while it sounds lovely, it’s not something to live and write prose by—especially if you hope to professionally copyedit some day.

So fuck you, comma. All your friends have pretty clear rules about their use. We know where to put a period. Even when we’re feeling crafty.

We know how to use the semicolon; anyway some of us do.

Em dashes, exclamation points—maybe we use them too much, but at least if we don’t have restraint, we have a solid grasp on what they’re for!

But you, comma. Was that right? Was that right, just then? How about that one? It probably depends who you ask, and that gives us agita. So fuck you.

The exclamation point. The Comic Sans of punctuation. You think it’s going to add that extra punch to your dialog. That it will get the reader laughing, like all they needed to join you rolling on the floor with laughter is just that last subtle nudge. You tack it on in a moment of writing euphoria, raising your hands in the air and proclaiming: William Faulkner ain’t got nothing. on. me.

The exclamation point. God’s gift to new writers. Fail-safe of the plebeian humorist, the hammer-holding satirist hellbent on letting you know a joke has occurred. It is used liberally, like an ointment.

The exclamation point. Unbuttoning its blouse. Running its fingers down your neck and purring in your ear. If once was that good, think about how better it will be two, three–fifty times.

The exclamation point. Putting a lampshade on it’s head and drinking too much. Talking loudly and stumbling around the room. Laughing. Screaming. Spilling its drink on you and then staggering over to tell you that it always liked you–that you should hang out more often. Two hours later it’s nearly passed out on the couch, lampshade askew like a cut-rate halo, mumbling about how the party was great. How you should do it again soon.

The exclamation point. The gun in the drawer. The big red button that can only be pushed once, and to catastrophic results. The monster finally pulling itself from the sewer. The scream of a parent as his child is forcibly being taken. A ghost. A nightmare. A man hidden in the darkened corners of an empty room. A ninja. Powerful because you never see it coming.

The exclamation point. Laughing at its own joke. Starting up again before anybody can open their mouth. It talks all night and never leaves. Never sees the hosts yawning or how the other cars have emptied from the driveway. It asks for another drink. Launches into another story.

The exclamation point. Spawn of Satan. Progenitor of the emoticon, of the LOL. Waiting. A hired gun. An easy fix. A placeholder. Something to come back to. A way to finish, to move forward. An appeasement to the gods of word count and deadline. Lazy.

The exclamation point. Beware. Here be dragons.

You know what? Fuck you, Ellipsis.

Yes, that’s strong language. That’s the point. Check this out: “Fuck you . . . .”

You even make “fuck you” sound non-committal. Like I’m not really sure I hate you. Like maybe you could win me back. Not this time, pal. You’ve ruined more Google chats than emoticons. You’ve downgraded more freshman English papers than the word irregardless. Not to mention your little business with book blurbs and movie reviews:

“It was . . . the best movie of the year.”

What the hell are you covering up? The word “not”? The word “arguably”? I guess we’ll never know, because you couldn’t resist conga-lining your three-dotted ass across actual words. You’d be a giant black Sharpie, Ellipsis, but you don’t have the balls. You’re a chicken-shit redaction. I’ll bet you and Dick Cheney go hunting together.

Every day you turn “Well . . . ” into a cliffhanger. “We’ll see . . . ” into  a meaningless pile of shit. You aren’t punctuation. You’re a bridge to nowhere. A Mad-Lib without a clue. You are the Monkey’s Paw for people who wished for one period at a time.

And while we’re at it, stop pretending you’re a period x 3. The period is the hardest working asshole in showbusiness. You aren’t one of them. You’re what would happen if periods unionized and refused to end a sentence without a goddamn work order. And don’t think we didn’t notice that four-dot bullshit you tried to pull back in ’87, you ambitious little prick. What the hell were you thinking? Never overwork periods. Look what happened to Hemmingway.

But you’re fun. You’re conversational. You’re easy to have around.    

You’re a parasite. You stand around eating cookies while four-syllable words and the semicolon can’t get work outside of legal briefs and MFA programs. You’d be a whore, Ellipsis, but you’re giving it away free while the entire non-abbreviated alphabet is buying Top Ramen with their SNAP Cards. That makes you a fucking job killer, Ellipsis. You’re ruining America.

And how about America’s shitty collective attention span and intellectual decline? People blame Google Instant. They blame Kindle Singles and the word meh. But I know who’s holding the strings. It’s you. You are The Nothing, Ellipsis. You’ve swallowed Falkor in your three-period vortex and Fantasia is next. You are the goddamn Keizer Söze of imprecise speech, and I’m not going to let you limp out of here alive.

So no more awkward silences. No more cliffhangers. Ever wonder what happened to Esperanto and the Interrobang? Get in the car, asshole. You’re about to find out.