EMBED-Dad Ruins Christmas Tree Setup – Watch more free videos
Archives for December 2009
Time to Say Goodbye to 2009
I want to do a year end roundup of the best posts of 2009 but I am not sure if I am going to get around to it. I am a bit schizophrenic about this in that I have this love/hate thing going on with my writing.
I am a competent writer who sometimes produces some excellent content. Sometimes I read a post and a smile breaks across my face because I know that I have created something special that I can be proud of. But it is not uncommon for me to read a post over and cringe. Because some of it is crap, just horrible stuff.
I don’t know if I am going to get around to doing it. This is one of those moments where being so prolific is problematic. There are more than 1,000 posts to review. Sure some of them are videos, audio posts or recycled material, but they all take time.
So I am asking myself how serious do I want to be. Do I want to be thorough about this? Do I want to dig in and find the gold nuggets from every month, or do I want to kind of half-ass my way through it. There aren’t any prizes to be won, no awards to be had.
Really, I am just doing this for myself. Anyway, that raises a few more questions and comments that I ask myself this time of year.
1) How much longer do I want to keep going? Started in May 2004. Do I have more to say?
2) Is it time to purchase a domain and move over to WordPress?
3) Do I want to change my focus or keep on doing what I am doing?
4) Should I serenade you all with the ballad I wrote for The Shmata Queen.
The good news for you is that unlike your math book you will not have to turn to the back of the book to get the answers to your questions.
1) The question is not whether I have more to say but am I interested in continuing. And the answer is yes, for now.
2) I might have already done so. You’ll find out.
3) In spite of appearances I don’t really have ADD. I can focus on specific topics. But I do this for fun, so I’ll keep writing about whatever the hell I want.
4) No. I will not serenade you all with that particular ballad, at least not until it is released on iTunes. Rumor has it that it is coming out late next year. I don’t mention burning rivers or cleveland in it.
And now I am off to bed. Got a conference call scheduled for ohmylorditistoodamnearlytobeawake.
All I Want Is You
This next post is a sequel to this one.
Twenty years ago you never would have seen a note like this. I never would have allowed you inside my head or my heart. Twenty years ago you would have screamed at me in frustration and asked why I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking, wondered why I wouldn’t share my thoughts with you. And then you would have looked at me expecting an answer and received a smile and silence.
It would have tested your patience. For a while you would have hung around believing that if you gave me enough time I would learn to trust you enough to let you in. Chances are there would have been a few moments where hints of that which I held back came out. Little glimmers of hope would have made you think that it would happen.
But it wouldn’t have. Not for lack of effort or desire but because I didn’t know how to say those things you wanted to hear. They lay inside locked up in places I had trouble accessing. And truthfully I didn’t want to find the keys to those doors. It was fine to keep that untouched.
Eventually you would have given up and left. I would miss you but never say a word. It was easier that way.
Time would pass and we’d connect. We’d find each other and learn that timing really is everything. Unexpected and unsought for love would sweep us away. Under the craziest of conditions we’d fall harder and faster than ever before.
Alone at the keyboard I type and retype that last paragraph trying hard to avoid trite expressions. Unhappy with the thought that someone would read it and think of cliches and bad sitcoms. Because it was none of those things. It was real. It was the most real thing we ever experienced in a relationship.
*****************
I remember a day not so long ago. All I Want is You was playing and you were telling me about your day. We were talking about the future and you said that until I got my head out of my ass there wouldn’t be one. I laughed and told you to relax.
I didn’t have to see your face to know that you didn’t like it. But I knew that if I pulled you into my arms and kissed your lips you’d give in to the feeling. I told you that you couldn’t stay angry with me and you smiled. Dark, dark eyes looked up at me and gave me a smile that no one else gets.
*****************
That was then. A lifetime has passed since those crazy days. A million years and a million experiences spent both together and apart. I didn’t have to speak with you to know what you were doing or how you occupied yourself. Didn’t need the telephone, email or a psychic to know that you kept busy with family matters. Supermom had always been there, but you put extra work into wearing that cape and playing that role.
I know how you think and that you figured that every day without contact it would become easier. In time you might have even convinced yourself that it wasn’t real, that what happened was something other than it was. Then it was my turn to tell you that if you pulled your head out of your ass it would be all too evident that you were fooling yourself.
*****************
Maybe. That is a funny word, maybe. If you are a glass half full kind of person it is a word that offers potential and hope. If you are the half empty type it is more symbolic of something that isn’t real. A word that you can use to say no without actually saying no.
I told you a thousand years ago that storms follow me, that I radiate intensity. I said that I would scare you with it. You laughed and told me that it could never happen, but it did, sort of. You didn’t fear me because you worried about harm. You feared being close because that fire that burns inside me could so easily light the one that still simmers in you.
Were you standing here reading this, I’d pretend to be Fabio on the cover of some trashy romance novel. I’d strike a pose and make you laugh. It is not bragging if you can do it, how many times did I say that.
Well, it is not. Popeye was right, I yam what I yam. Just a boy telling a girl “All I want is you.”
Celebrities Lost in 2009
2009 was a bad year for me but for many celebrities it was far worse.
“Among those who passed: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Natasha Richardson, Bea Arthur, Dom DeLuise, Karl Malden, David Carradine, Patrick Swayze, John Hughes, Ed McMahon, Walter Cronkite and Don Hewitt.
Authors John Updike, Frank McCourt and Dominick Dunne died, as did blues legend Koko Taylor, Ventures guitarist Bob Bogle, Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary, guitar innovator Les Paul and Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein.
In sports, NFL players Steve McNair and Chris Henry died as did veteran basketball coach Chuck Daly.The politcal world mourned the loss of Sen. Edward Kennedy, and former U.S. Housing Secretary Jack Kemp.
Even celebrity pitch personalities weren’t immune as 2009 also saw the passing of Oxiclean pitchman Billy Mays and Gidget, the chihuahua best known for hawking Taco Bell.”
This Week in Unnecessary Censorship Best of the Decade
140 Characters- Teaching Boys To Be Men
(Hey Jeff Pulver, if you are ever in need of a character at a 140 Conference I can convert this post into a short presentation. Just saying. )
It is after midnight and the room is dark. I am wearing an old headset, a sweatshirt and the shiny shorts that shone for the Shmata Queen. Don’t ask, it just kind of worked.
I am listening to Desperado and imagining that the song was written about me. Hmm…, maybe I should be listening to Carly Simon sing You’re So Vain. Anyway, the song catches my eye and my ears because of the combination of lyrics and music.
“Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table.
But you only want the ones
That you can’t get.”
It makes a lot of sense, the idea of being happy with what you have. It is not always easy to do and not because of social or cultural messages. Sure those things have an impact upon our thoughts so it would be foolish not to acknowledge them.
But what I think is a bigger issue is the challenge of understanding ourselves well enough to know what it is we need versus what it is we want. If you are one of the 17 long time readers of this blog you have seen the posts that tie into this in which I ask you to tell me what brings you joy, what makes you happy.
I ask those questions because I am truly interested but also because I have spent a lot of time searching my own soul for my answers. Some people grow up and know that they want to be doctors or astronauts. They have a dream and they follow it from the time in which they are little until they are so called grown ups.
I have had a lot of dreams. The first was to play outfield for the Dodgers. I still think about it, but at 40 I am slowly coming to accept that it is not very likely. Neither is playing for the Lakers. Both of those would have made me very happy and brought me great joy, but they aren’t part of my reality.
Blogging is a pleasure and an outlet because it provides an easy way for me to vent and gain a greater understanding of myself. This is where I learned that I really am interested in writing a book. This is where I learned that I want to write a screenplay.
Twitter ties into this because of the restriction on characters. 140 characters, that is all you have to work with. It forces you to take your message and to simplify it. Trim the excess fat off that puppy and make it easy to understand.
Brevity isn’t my strong suit so it is a great exercise for me.
It also ties in well with the lessons that I am trying to teach my children. The goal isn’t to try and have more toys than the other kids. It is not to have better toys, but to be happy with what you have.
But when I think of this I am thinking about this from a long term perspective. What can I do to help the kids figure out what makes them happy. How can I help them find their passion because isn’t that what we talk about. Don’t get a job, find a career.
Figure out what you love and then figure out how to make money doing that. Now some of this might sound like goofy, feel good crap, but it is significant.
To be clear, I don’t expect my kids to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. I expect that their dreams will change and evolve the way that most of ours do. If they happen to be the exception I’ll be happy for them, but really it doesn’t matter that much now.
The important thing is to give them the tools to use to figure it out and then get out of the way. At least that is the general idea. I get to spend the next 100 years watching them to see how well they learned the lessons or conversely how well I taught them.
Either way it is an interesting ride.