House of Benders is the creative umbrella founded by Justin J. Genao.
It is a blog and home to a collection of alter-ego-driven brands including The Balloon Benders, Mr.ClosetBender, and Mr.ThoughtBender.
Justin J. Genao
I suppose this is the part where I’m meant to impress you. The truth is, I’m still working on impressing myself.
Naming this page “About Us” brings me comfort. I dread the idea of having to talk “About Me.” Sometimes I think about me, and I don’t always feel like there is something extravagant there. I’m a person who spends a lot of time in his own head, sometimes battling it, sometimes laughing with it.
I’ve been verbally beat up enough in life that I learned to do it to myself first, harder, that way when people criticize me it doesn’t hurt as much because I’ve been way meaner to myself than they could have possibly been to me. I overthink, deflect compliments, and sometimes spiral into the “circular staircase” of my own thoughts. Humor and sarcasm keep me afloat. They’ve become my life rafts in tricky waters.
My pontifications are always sparked by thoughts that feel bigger than me — but when I speak them out loud, they can come out tangled, incomplete, or completely different from what I meant. Writing lets me slow down, go back, and fine‑tune those ideas into something closer to what I intended; a Rumination. It’s a chance to be precise. A luxury I rarely get in real‑time conversations.
This blog is also my attempt at intentional conversation — with you, and with myself. It’s where I can take the circus in my head and turn it into something worth sharing.
I don’t know if I’ll ever make money from this. If I don’t ever make a dollar, I’ll be fine. If no one ever reads a single piece of my writing, I’ll be fine. If I can somewhat tame the mental asylum I’ve been blessed with, I think that is a non-monetary wealth worth my while.
So, welcome. You’ll find honesty here. Probably too much of it. But also humor, questions, and the occasional deep thought that I promise didn’t sound this weird in my head.
Stick around. Let’s see where these conversations take us.