Archives for December 2012
The Sex Was Better The 987th Time
That headline virtually ensures that some of the people in my tribes won’t tweet out this post because they’re concerned what people will think about their tweet.
They’ll wonder if people will read it and assume that it is something that isn’t safe for work or will damage the brand they are trying to build and that will that.
Others who know me and have read my posts might wander by to see if this is Jack the insouciant dad blogger just having fun or if there is something deeper and more meaningful to it.
My bet is that loads of people won’t bother to read it and that a bunch will just approve it because they hope that I’ll reciprocate and that it will make their blog dreams come true.
You can call it Jack’s not very insightful musing about Triberr.
This Post Is For Writing and Not Insight
You should know in advance this post isn’t a rant about social media, mean moms, the state of Twitter or the bad holiday music that comes blaring from the television set.
It is not me trying to sell you a product or convince you to think a certain way. It is just me talking out loud about this and that with some friends.
Know why I opened up a G+ community page for TheJackB?
Curiosity. I wanted to see what it was about and the best way was to start my own. Wanted to see if it might provide another place to get to know people better.
Feels a bit crazy. My time has been limited. It has been challenging getting around the blogosphere so part of me says I am silly to create something new, but sometimes silly is fun.
Fun Is What I Seek
I like fun. I am a playful guy. Kids almost bust a gut when someone said that I am always serious and rarely smile. It is not true and I am glad about that.
Wasn’t ever true and I have been through some rough moments. Gotten humbled by life and kicked in the junk, throat punched and poked in the eye, but I still laugh.
Laughter is my secret weapon. It is what keeps me afloat. Life is filled with lots of silly moments but we spend far too many being way too serious.
Fun is what I seek and joy is in my heart just begging to come out.
Sometimes I Forget About That
Sometimes I forget about that and get caught up in the narishkeit of life. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in trying to make things happen I forget to laugh.
It is a sad confession, but honest. That is ‘cuz sometimes I think if I got more recognition I could leverage that and build something better, faster and bigger than what I have now.
You see the goal here is to become the writer I know I can be but haven’t yet become. And to do that I need more cash so that I don’t spend my days wondering and worrying about how to pay the bills.
Money Comes and Money Goes
It is funny to me to think about what life was like when I didn’t think about money. Made more than I needed and didn’t have time to spend it. Looked at cars, trips and toys but didn’t use it on most of them because I was saving for a house and for other stuff.
Got the house. Wasn’t exactly the one I wanted, but it was still amazing. It was just one step and in a few years I figured it would be easy to sell it and move into something closer to what I really wanted.
Well if you are a long time reader you know that I sold that house last year. Lived there for ten years and had equity but it wasn’t enough to buy the house I really wanted because the housing market went crazy here.
Transitions
I am not worried about getting the house I want because I will make that happen. Not worried about getting what I will need because I’ll make that happen too.
Will take a bit of time and some doing, but we are on our way. Thing is that sometimes I forget because I get caught up in the nonsense. So it is time to laugh again, never did stop but I could do it more frequently.
You might see some more silly stories here that are tied into it. Might hear more tales about the goofier side because everyone can use a bit more goofy.
Which brings me to the headline and the conclusion of this post. Wilt Chamberlain claimed to have had sex with 20,000 women. Set aside the concerns about health and or any moral issue and I wonder what the hell he was thinking.
Could be fun to have lots of different experiences with different people but you never really get the really good stuff going until you have been with the same person long enough to really know each other.
It is sort of like finding your voice in blogging, except you don’t receive comments about your performance from anyone other than your partner.
And that my friends is all I have to share right now.
An Open Letter To My Computer
Shot by Scazon.
Dear Computer,
I gather from your refusal today to start and the multiple groans disguised as beeps, clicks and whistles you were none too happy when I figured out how to breathe some life back into you.
Wish I could tell you it is ok for the lights to go dim forever and to let you enjoy that eternal sleep that good computers are granted when they are given license to go wherever it is old computers go when they retire, but I just can’t do it.
You see it is Chanukah now and that means it is a really bad time to ask me to spend money. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it is the truth.
Got stuck with a nasty dental bill last week and of course my car and life insurance are due this week so you can see I can’t give you the time off. Can’t do it, won’t do it, shan’t do it.
The Kids Deserve More
Damn you computer, you know that you and I are a team and that I can’t do my work without you. Can’t pay the bills without you by my side and if that means I have to be the task master, well then so be it that is what I’ll do and who I’ll be.
I am adaptable.
Is it coincidence that I am listening to Eminem and Rhianna sing “Love The Way You Lie?” Maybe, or maybe not. It is not my usual fare of Johnny and June or Ray Charles but it feels appropriate.
Been a harder holiday because some clients defaulted on paying and a few are playing the “check is in the mail” game so we are doing a little dance of our own.
The children aren’t really suffering or I wouldn’t ask questions about whether they can receive too many gifts but that is because their grandparents have taken care of them. I am not really crazy about that, but it is not a horrible thing.
Truth is I wish I could do a bit more for them in a couple of areas but it is nothing we have to have. It is just what I want us to have and there is a world of difference between want and need.
…the size of a misfortune is not determinable by an outsider’s measurement of it, but only by the measurement applied to it by the person specially affected by it. The king’s lost crown is a vast matter to the king, but of no consequence to the child. The lost toy is a great matter to the child, but in the king’s eyes it is not a thing to break the heart about.- Mark Twain’s Autobiography
Dear Computer,
That quote is one of my favorites. It is one I plan on sharing with my son because he is finally old enough to really appreciate it and that is kind of hard for me.
Hard because I look at him with such pride and joy because he is on the right path and if I can help here and there I can see he is going to grow up to be one hell of a man.
Smarter and better than myself and that is what I want. Don’t need to add much other than to do what I can to make sure he understands gratitude and hope that along the way he figures out that what you need to be fulfilled can only be found within and not without.
Don’t think he has my wanderlust and I am good with that. He has a different sort of fire in the belly and that is good.
My Girl
Can’t talk about my big guy without giving my girl a couple of words too. No one knows how to torment her older brother like she does but she has no bigger hero.
When they aren’t trying to kill each other they are tight and I see that if we have done nothing else we have helped form a tight bond between them. It is enough for me to be confident that they will always look out for each other and that pleases me.
I kid around about having to beat the boys off with a stick, but I know it will happen. One day some boy will catch her eye and she won’t let me scare him away.
She’ll probably let me mess with him a bit, but I can see a time when she’ll say something like “daddy leave him alone.”
Got a mess of years before that happens so I don’t know why I am thinking about it now, but I am.
A Simple Request
So computer I am asking you to suck it up for a little bit. I need you to walk down the road just a little bit farther and then we can go our separate ways.
Don’t do it for me, do it for the kids. It is Chanukah and the time is right for a new miracle. But to be clear I need more than 8 days so don’t go getting any funny ideas.
What Tools Can We Use To Build Community and Stimulate Conversation?
As promised here is the link to Content isn’t Always Consumed Immediately.
I address several questions/ideas in the audio above and will likely turn this audio post into several written posts. For those of who don’t listen to any or just catch a part of it we talk about several things:
- What can we do to stimulate conversation/comments on our blogs?
- Is there is a benefit to sticky posts?
- The influence of community on a blog.
To be fair I skim through some of those topics and don’t cover them in depth, but that is not what this post is/was about. This is more of a “let’s think out loud and see who joins in” kind of post.
It is also about 30 minutes before candle lighting and since we are in the midst of Chanukah I won’t ask my kids to wait for me to finish a blog post. Dinner and celebration come first, blogging later.
BTW, if you are new here I always encourage you to check out some of the posts on the Who Is Jack page and to look at some of these:
- Is There Such A Thing As Too Many Gifts?
- Your Social Media Blog Is My Favorite Cure For Insomnia
- What Happens When You Get Bored With Blogging
- The Moments Matter
- How To Be A Man
- Two Things That Are Killing Twitter
And tomorrow you may hear the tale of my fight with a beloved mythical character.
Is There Such A Thing As Too Many Gifts?
Is there such a thing as too many gifts? As a child I would have laughed in your face and said no way, but as a parent I feel differently.
It surprises me a bit to feel like this, but I do. I think sometimes relatives go overboard with the gifts and my kids get more than they need. The children deserve the moon and I am frustrated because right now I simply can’t give them gifts as I would like to, but that doesn’t mean they go without.
They don’t.
They get and they receive and they give back so good things are happening.
In the grand scheme of things my concern about too many gifts is a good problem to have. It is far better than what we could face and I am grateful for that. I know from experience how things can go a different direction.
Maybe that is part of the issue. Maybe it is because this week I spoke the siblings of a friend we lost long ago. Maybe that is why I feel the weight.
Yet there is so much joy now too. When we lit the candles last night it was impossible not to smile and be excited. The look on their faces and the smiles that we saw were amazing.
Real hugs. They stopped fighting and worked together.
They are normal siblings. Don’t fight or argue more than any other set, but sometimes you forget.
All I want to do is raise kids who will grow up to be productive members of society and who understand there is more to life than gifts.
**********************
This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…
- Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
- Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
- Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
- Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post (in the sidebar). .
- Link up your post below.
- Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.
The Search For Layers
Have you ever listened to If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot? Sometimes when I am working on my fiction I’ll put that one and use it as musical inspiration.
That is because those lyrics are filled with layer that I can pull from. Layers add depth to stories and I love depth and searching for the background on why things are as they are.
Some of those who know me might be surprised by that because when you ask me to share details about some things I don’t say much. It is not unusual for me to keep things close to the vest, but still waters run deep.
Changes With Age
My paternal grandfather wasn’t big on small talk. He was a friendly man with bright blue eyes who knew how to tell a story that held your attention, but if he chose to be silent, he was.
It took some time for me to recognize that silence didn’t indicate that anything was wrong or that grandpa might be thinking about something.
My father is quite similar and as I grow older I see it happening with me too. I haven’t any problem carrying on a conversation and when I am in the mood I can be the life of the party, but it happens less than it once did. Don’t know if that is good or bad, it just is.
The Blog Has Multiple Uses
Sometimes I like sifting through the posts here to see what I find. It reminds me a bit of an archeological dig with layers upon layers of things waiting to be discovered:
- Writing Tips & Tools Part 1
- I Told You She Is a Bitch
- Useful Information Used Usefully
- The Rules of The Game
- Inside the Blogger’s Studio- A Dream, Er Nightmare
- The GermoPhobe
There are all sorts of nuggets of gold in that pile there. Of course it might not look like that you, but to paraphrase a line, “value is in the eye of the beholder” and what I see makes me smile.
Bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam that cover the beginning and middle of this blog lie in the midst of it all. Alongside those pieces are stories about my kids from when they were quite little up until the present.
When I look at it I see the layers I am searching for and think about how to try to build those layers into the things I write. I stop, stare, look and think about what is important and what is not.
I don’t just do it from my perspective either.
Reader and Writer
There is a symbiotic relationship between reader and writer. Writers can say we don’t care whether people read our words because we will write them regardless with supreme confidence but still accept that there is an advantage to being read by others.
It is part of why I sometimes write paragraphs like the following:
Some things make me so angry I want to kick the dog and drown the cat. I want to drive down the sidewalk and run over all of the pedestrians and then for good measure do something far more heinous than all of those put together.
It is the kind of thing that captures eyeballs. People read that and stop to find out what else has come from the lunatic scribe who flung such things at the page.
Layers are one of the things that keeps those eyeballs from pointing and clicking elsewhere. Layers help add value to our posts and provide a sort of secret sauce that makes the soup something special instead of just bland and dull.
And now my friends my time here is done.
Don’t fret, this isn’t the end of this blog it is just the conclusion of this post. Chanukah starts soon and the time has come to prepare for the festivities.