One of my favorite movies as a boy was Free Willy, the heartwarming tale of an abandoned kid named Jessie and the whale who loved him. On our VHS copy of Free Willy, before the BumbleBee Tuna commercial and the film, was a music video for Michael Jackson’s gospel epic, “Will You Be There.” Perhaps it was the catchiness of the song, or the song’s association with the Homerian Willy saga, but for some reason my brother and I were compelled to sit down and painstakingly write out every word of the lyrics. Such was my brief and innocent introduction to Michael Jackson.

Sixteen years old, I was eating at the Denver Hard Rock Café, and in the stream of music videos playing on the ubiquitous monitors arrived Michael’s infamous Thriller video. I was intrigued, if maybe a little disturbed. Soon after, rifling through the video collection of some friends (who had moved and put us in charge of looking after their unsold house), I discovered an ancient (to my mind) treasure: The Making of Thriller.

I took this VHS totem home, and that night in my room watched the full Thriller video and the eighties-drenched behind-the-scenes featurette that followed. Almost twenty years late I discovered the marvelous pop culture enigma—the dancing, the inimitable voice, the idiosyncrasy, and the aura—of Michael Joseph Jackson.

The song “Thriller” buried itself into the soft concrete of my teenage mind, and a true obsession was planted and watered. Every opportunity I had at school to give a speech or write a research paper, the subject was Michael. I thus did an inordinate amount of investigation into his life—his childhood, the Jackson 5 days, his teenage years, his superstardom, and his fall from grace. I read defensive fan articles and condemning news articles alike about the allegations of bizarre behavior, plastic surgery, skin bleaching, and child molestation. I became something of an authority on what could be known about his life, and an ardent champion of the King of Pop (a title that, despite common belief, was not self-proclaimed).

And of course I was obsessed with the music. From the sloppy mix CD-Rs commissioned to my friend Chris (who had Napster and a fast internet connection), I graduated to owning every single album. My obsession came at an eerily coincidental time in his career; nine years after releasing his last full studio album, 2001’s Invincible came out at the peak of my fever. I bought up every popular music video collection, the oddly cobbled “film” Moonwalker, and a Chinese import of the Stan Winston-directed Ghosts.

When new allegations of child molestation arose in 2005, I was Michael’s unofficial defense attorney to the general populace in Parker, Colorado. I followed the case with uncommon interest, and was relieved (but not surprised) when he was acquitted of all charges. I eagerly awaited the day when he would release a new album (hanging on every scrap of a rumor—that he was recording songs in a house in Ireland, that he was finally going on tour again). I was once again in Colorado the day I found out he had been rushed to the hospital (in 2009), and I remember the exact moment—driving in my truck across the plains of Longmont—when I learned he had died. I believe the sky was overcast.

Over the weekend, Alison and I hosted our second out-of-towner houseguests since moving to Pittsburgh. With a moderately spacious place of our own, we have eagerly invited many of our friends to make Pittsburgh a destination vacation and to lodge with us—promising an unforgettable sampling of this hidden American gem—but alas, few have obeyed the call. (I have truly come to love this city, and I invite with such fervor because I instinctively want to share it.) Finally some friends took us up on our near-beggarly offer.

Like being new to marriage, home rental, and many other grown-up things, this was really the first time I was required to employ my hosting muscle. I’ve “helped” host in various ways and various settings during my life, and my mother taught me plenty of the good manners and habits that are prerequisites to being a good host. But this was the first time that it was on my turf and I was the man of the house, where the onus was on me (and my wife) to provide the towels and guest bed and accommodations and food (or at least a good restaurant recommendation).

I won’t comment on my efficacy as a rookie host this weekend, other than to say that I really enjoyed the role, and was relieved to discover that I wasn’t utterly incompetent at it. But this weekend found me contemplating and drawing on my many experiences over the years on the other side of the guest room door. I thought of all the friends, family, and even relative strangers who have “put me up for the night,” and the qualities that I have come to appreciate in a good host.

Being a good host, in my book, begins with the sheer offering of keeping someone. The fact that you are willing to open your doors and let another human being occupy your temple—and drool on your best sheets and stink up your bathroom and raid your refrigerator—is the first and most significant comment on a host’s character.

Beyond that, though, a good host primarily makes their guest feel at ease, makes them comfortable. The oft-uttered phrase, “Make yourself at home,” is the perfect encapsulation of this idea. A good host makes their guest feel like they’re sleeping in a bed and sitting on a couch and brushing their teeth in their own home. It goes without saying that a bad houseguest can abuse this privilege, but the very fact that a host would run that risk says something complimentary about them.

Good hosts go out of their way to offer items of comfort (food, entertainment, or even privacy), and make it plain that it is a genuine pleasure to offer such things and not a begrudged sacrifice. When I am the houseguest, you can make me feel like what you’re offering me is a burden or a delight. One ensures my comfort in your home, the other chokes it.

The many, many wonderful experiences I have had staying in the homes of others around the country (and internationally) inspire me not only to host out-of-town travelers myself, but to aspire to a very high standard in doing so. Even when it means sleeping on air mattresses and sharing a tiny bathroom, lodging with good people who are good hosts beats a five-star hotel any night of the week.

On the recommendation of two writers whose opinions I highly value, I am reading Stephen King’s marvelous On Writing—a kind of memoir/how-to hybrid about the writer’s craft. I remain largely unfamiliar with and uninterested in King’s body of fiction, but On Writing is shaping up to be a practical, inspiring, and surprisingly poignant read. It has lit the fires of writing for me, and has me reevaluating my habits, strengths, and vices.

One of these vices—about which I was previously half-ashamed, half-ignorant—is what King refers to as “dressing up vocabulary.” He writes:

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up your vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.

Make yourself a solemn promise right now that you’ll never use “emolument” when you mean “tip”…Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to mind, if it is appropriate and colorful.

I take (foolish) pride in my vocabulary, and I never (okay, rarely) use a word that I didn’t already know the definition of. But I confess that I suffer from chronic thesaurusitis—an incessant compulsion to look up smarter synonyms for words that I want to use.

It’s not that I’m embarrassed (as King assumes) of my shorter, “pedestrian” words. I think I’ve simply bought the same lie that too many high school English students buy, that I need to use big, fancy words to write a good, smart paper. King’s curt dismissal of this behavior has strengthened the (heretofore) weak conviction I’ve held that this over-reliance on the thesaurus is a crutch. That’s not to say that the resource shouldn’t be wisely used to locate a word that my slippery memory has temporarily misplaced, by means of a related word. The sin, I believe, is accessorizing my writing with too many of these cute, shiny trinkets that I overspend on at the synonym store.

King has me convinced that the best writing is clear writing, and that my best tools—meaning here vocabulary—are the ones already in the “top drawer” of my toolbox. I should reject the lie that the amount of syllables is proportionate to the amount of cleverness. I should favor clarity over gloss, simplicity over complexity. All I need to do to see the wisdom in this principle is read someone else’s prose overburdened with what are clearly nonindigenous fancy words. It reads clumsy and unclear, and it taints or even dams up the writer’s message. It’s more than enough to make me go home and take the tuxedo off my poor pug.

From one vantage point, this past year in Pittsburgh might easily look like a wasted one. Unable to land any of the permanent positions I’ve applied for, I’ve worked fairly tedious temporary assignments outside of my field for the past six months. I’ve been stuck on a holding pattern awaiting graduate school, which has kept us from making any major commitments. On a temp’s income, we’ve had difficulty setting aside any savings, and we live on a very tight budget that doesn’t allow for many luxuries.

But that’s one vantage point. In reality this year has been an incredible one. In addition to venturing out onto the glorious, uncharted waters of marriage with Alison, this year has offered a wealth of experience, education, and relationships that will surely benefit me for the rest of my life. And of all the lessons I’ve learned this year, one of the most valuable has been the sheer logistics—and rewards—of living on a shoestring.

Having been equipped with a thirteen-week course in the Dave Ramsey school of finance during our engagement, Alison and I entered the risky land of unemployment, low income, and first-time independence armed and ready to conquer. Determined to be purposeful with our money and not to become slaves of debt, we have consistently created a detailed budget at the beginning of each month (made all the sweeter by the accompanying, once-a-month “fancy drink” at Caribou Coffee)—and with very few, minor exceptions, we have diligently obeyed the numbers on the almighty spreadsheet.

I’ve learned so many things deliberately living on a little, and many preconceptions have been duly debunked. First of all, it’s possible. Neither Alison nor I were terribly disciplined with our money before we got married; I would say that I was, at the very least, quite lazy about it. The word “budget” instilled the same fight-or-flight emotional response as the post-it note from my mother telling me to clean the bathroom. But, together, we’ve made it work. And it does work, and it’s not that hard.

I’ve learned that you can survive despite only going out to eat once or twice a month—in fact, the dining out experience is highly augmented when it is rare. I’ve learned that I can obtain just about any book or movie I could hope to watch or read through the interlibrary loan system, if I only exercise a little patience. I’ve learned that small gifts and treats and luxuries are far more delightful when they are limited to a specific and conservative amount. I’ve learned that going on walks, seeing movies at the dollar theater, playing chess, and reading are just as enjoyable as anything that costs much money to do. I’ve learned that a lot of the things I spent money on “in my former life” either a) were totally unnecessary, b) could have been obtained much less expensively, or c) were worth a wait.

One of the most helpful ideas (for me) espoused by Dave Ramsey is that living on a budget is simply telling your money what to do. Organizing and planning your spending does not have to be a depressing, suffocating, humdrum way of living life. It is simply exercising control and dominion over your hard-earned paychecks, and making them do what you need and want done. If your paychecks are small, you simply have to be a little more creative. And that should appeal to someone who purports to be an artist.

I’m reading the first of three (massive) volumes of the Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis. I purchased these gargantuan tomes because I’m a Lewis fanatic, and the dirt-cheap price tag at our local used bookstore left no excuse for my salivatory fandom. I trepidatiously cracked into the first volume, which contains his letters to family and friends from the age of seven up until his young adulthood. What I thought might be a dry documentation of early twentieth century life has turned out to be a witty, eloquent window into my favorite author’s youth.

One of the dominant effects that the exercise is having on me is the inspiration to pick up the proverbial quill and start writing letters to my family and friends.

I’m not talking about recapturing the antiquated art of penmanship and sending physical letters through the antiquated postal service. Email is a perfectly sufficient and efficient platform for letter-writing. What I’m talking about is putting news, thoughts, and ideas down in words rather than only in the occasional phone call or even less frequent visit.

This should be patently obvious to me. I’ve always expressed myself better through the written word. I organize my thoughts better, cover more ground, and convey my ideas in more interesting vehicles when I write. As a kid, whenever I wanted to communicate something of any significance to my parents (or siblings, or teachers), I wrote them a letter.

Phone conversations have the advantage of that special human touch rendered by hearing someone’s voice, and there’s no substitution for face-to-face communication. But the written word is such an incredibly powerful medium, especially when employed to its maximum potential, and this collection of Lewis’ letters has reminded me what a shame it is to waste it. Email is so accessible and undemanding that there is no excuse not to put my news and ponderings down in a letter.

In a very meta moment in the volume, young Lewis makes mention to his father that he has been reading a collection of an author’s letters. He was quite inspired by the author’s suggestion that our letters should be more about our thoughts than our actions—that we tend to write to people about the various news and happenings in our lives, but not the important events transpiring in our hearts and minds.

I, too, took this idea to heart. And when I do commence consistent letter writing, I want to write as much or more about what I’ve been thinking and feeling as what I’ve doing.