The Humor in Everything: An Introduction

This blog entry serves as an intro into who I am and what I do. I think an intro is never a bad thing to have as it may help frame some of my perspectives, actions, etc and give some added context into the bizarre, sometimes awful, sometimes hilarious situations I find myself in. I generally aim to find humor in everything, the metaphorical light in the darkness, because reality is too crushingly awful otherwise. Due to this nature, I am often a purveyor of “too soon” jokes. These entries are going to come and go when the mood hits, which will likely be at some fairly low points. So if you’re thinking “dude, I’d kill to read a Soya story. It’s been a minute.” Just know I haven’t been writing since life has been kind to me for a moment. The former, long dead grammarian in me will weep as I write these entries in conversational prose, abuse parentheses, and ignore many rules I once swore dear to. 

I’m Michael Soya. I’d go by Mike, but about 80% or more of Michaels prefer to go by Mike, so I take the path of least resistance and use Michael despite preferring Mike, but also use my last name as it’s fairly uncommon. I’m a 32 year old born in Scranton and raised in the next neighboring municipality north or Scranton, Dickson City. I call my area, sub-rural. While it is suburban, the house I grew up with is surrounded by woods, fields, ponds, creeks. A lot of my childhood and teens were spent in said areas, from biking, hiking, paintball, sledding, and who knows what else. I grew up in a family of five: mom, dad, older sister, younger brother. My dad was a former systems engineer for IBM, turned independent network manager (until he got in a legal battle with his business partner), then employed network manager and IT for a few schools in the area. My mom didn’t work for a good portion of our childhood, not because we were wealthy, but because she was trying to ensure her kids excelled at damn near everything. For exams, she made her own for each of us which tended to be harder than what we got in school. If you came home and got a 95 on an exam, there wasn’t a “congratulations”, but rather a “why didn’t you get a 100?” My mother admitted to me earlier in 2022 that she expected us all to come out a little fucked up by things like this; she was successful. But on the plus side, I never felt challenged academically in my entire life, so I guess there’s an upside to feeling like nothing short of perfection was a failure. On the note of perfection, going to a catholic elementary school, on report cards we couldn’t receive 100% for quarter grades as only god was perfect. This didn’t sit well with my mother.

Most of the point of this background is to show I grew up in a predominantly white area in a middle of the middle class family. It’s great context for when I eventually meet my Filipina wife who admonishes my lack of culture, particularly with foods. Again, to be fair to myself, if you wanted exotic food in our area, you went to one of the Chinese buffets and got re-served General Tso's chicken. No, I'm not being racist, one of the restaurants we frequented got shutdown for placing uneaten items of diners' plates back into the serving dishes...I wish I could say it stopped us from going, but the food was pretty tasty. There are lot of stories to be told about my wife and me (they’re good, my marriage is awesome, seriously). So let’s fast forward a bit to the current state of affairs so I don’t get too bogged down in the distant past.

I live in Union, NJ with my wife and our two dogs Butch and Bronson. They’re both pitbull mixes and are the cuddliest well-muscled dogs you could ask for. They’ve convinced me that I will likely adopt pitbulls for any future dog, not because I like the aesthetic of a seemingly intimidating dog, but rather because they’re often discarded and unwanted, but so full of love when given a chance and a stable environment. You can follow them on instagram @butchandbronson granted my wife and I don’t post on their account with any regular frequency. Since 2017 I’ve been a self-employed physical therapist. I did two years with a large private practice from 2015-2017 and was convinced that I’d either: kill myself, transition out of healthcare into a different career, or go my own route of self-employment. All the options seemed equally viable at the time. Admittedly I’m glad I opted for the last one as it’s been incredibly rewarding and I’m a fixture in a few different communities and am “the guy” when someone gets injured. I had a history of competitive powerlifting from 2012-2019. I held a few state records, held podium spots at nationals, went to (and won one) North American Championships (kind of the JV league for American national team members, but it was cool). In 2019, after nearly getting into a fight at the dog park (more on this in a later post, maybe) I started training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and left lifting mostly behind me. There’s a lot to say on BJJ, but again, later post. I find it tough to nail down any real philosophical outlook that I ascribe to, but I often call myself a “disappointed realist”. Despite a catholic upbringing, I am very much agnostic. I can be pretty tolerant of peoples’ religious beliefs, but I do often find myself responding to “why won’t god answer my prayers?” with “he’s busy giving kids cancer since everything happens according to his plans”.

The main reason for beginning this blog post was at the request of a few friends who enjoyed an abbreviated retelling of my horrific journey with a perianal abscess. There have been a few “Soya, you really need to write more” remarks, so I’ll get back into this old hobby. At the time of this writing, I have a few ideas cooking on some other pretty crushing moments in my life. If you’re a fan of relatable storytelling, feelings of “damn, I’m glad this isn’t me”, dark comedy, and somehow coming out the other end of some shitty things, this is a place for you.