How To Write a Post That People Will Read

It is not hard to write a post that people will read. All you need to do is tell a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Oh, and don’t forget to come up with something that people can relate to.

For example I could write about what a struggle it was to get the children out of bed, dressed, fed and off to school. Many of you aren’t parents but quite a few are and you know how challenging it can be.

Used all of tricks today, including singing some School House Rocks Songs With them like:

and

Most mornings that kind of thing works for us but not today. Nope, today they didn’t want to move so I had to adjust. For those who are curious none of them involved posting a video on Facebook and I am pleased to say that no laptops were harmed in the process of not making the damn video.

I walked into my son’s room and told him that if he didn’t get out of bed I would be the father that goes nuts on the sidelines during kid’s sporting events. That might have worked but he already knows that I am the guy that tells that other father to stuff it. Damn kid actually pays enough attention to know my lines before I use them.

Mulled over some other ideas. Played Crazy Train and told him that one day I’d make like Ozzy in front of his friends but that didn’t faze him either. Damn that Ozzy for making a freaking MTV show that made him look like an ordinary fellow. Ok, my kid hasn’t ever seen that show but I can say WTF is this win a colonoscopy commercial.

Ozzy, this is almost as bad as what George Lucas did with the additional Star Wars movies. Stop Raping my childhood. Stop! Stop! Stop! Since the kids were running late I wrote a note for them to give to the school office saying that they had a doctor’s appointment and signed it “Epstein’s Mother.” They didn’t find that funny but I sure did. Made a point to tell them both “up your nose with a rubber hose” and then laughed like a lunatic.

Again they didn’t care because they know that sometimes dad comes unhinged. That is because I try not to take life too seriously. It is all part of my effort to become The Greatest Dad Blogger of Them All. I suppose it is because that unsettled feeling is back again.

It is another one of those moments where I say in Yiddish A mentsh tracht und Gott lacht – A person plans and God laughs.  There has been a lot of laughter lately. Most of the time I am pretty good at rolling with the punches.

Moments like now are part of how I come up with posts like The Perfect Blog Post and How To Write The Perfect Blog Post Part II. I write and write and then write some more.

I do my damndest to tell a story that you can see and feel and then I just say fuck it and turn on something like the song below and dance like a crazy and uninhibited motherfucker.

BTW, don’t ask me to dance in public because it probably won’t happen. I am too damn self conscious. Although I have to concede that back in the fraternity days you could find me on the floor but that was much easier. It was wall to wall people and you didn’t have to do much. Besides it was dark.

I watched the Celebrity Apprentice yesterday. Lou Ferrigno said in his heyday he weighed 330 and had 2% body fat. Now he only weighs 260, slacker. Hell in my heyday I weighed a bit over 200 and  had 9% body fat and I wasn’t a professional bodybuilder, but I won’t hold that against him.

What I will hold against me is the tendency to look backwards and compare myself now to what I was then. My daughter looked at my college pictures and asked how I got all the lines in my stomach. I flexed and she laughed. “Daddy, they are only there when you make that stomach muscle.

Daughters are good for deflating egos.

But I am not looking back because it is not 1985, 1988 any more. It is not 1995 or any of those other years I mentioned. It is 2012 and I am man in his early forties. That means that I deal with what I have right here, right now. That means that if I want it badly enough I can rebuild my body and recreate the feeling I had.

The rules of the blog are simple and they call for brutal honesty. I won’t lie. I loved having the girls ask me to show off my abs but what I loved more was how I felt physically and mentally. It wasn’t the ego trip that made me feel good. It was being in great physical shape. I didn’t have mystery aches and pains. I could run all day if I wanted to.

Well now I want that back because I owe it to me and to my kids.

Every day is a new beginning and I am ready for mine.

• Saved: Blogging, Children, Writing