The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for June 2013

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

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(Editor’s Note: technically this ran here first. But since that other blog isn’t self-hosted I make a point to back up my files by including copies of those posts here. And now feel free to read this work of fiction)

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face is the song that I wanted to write for you. It is the song that I should write for you and maybe one day I shall. It is not an exaggeration to say that you are the song of my heart and that when you left it went silent.

I promised to be your knight and your protector. I promised to be your best friend and your lover. I told you that when you were sad I would kiss your tears away and rock you to sleep.

And I was and I did.

Some might suggest that it makes me less of a man to ask you to give me your hand again. Some might say that I give you too much power by doing so but I don’t think that is so. Maybe it is because I once tamed your heart and touched your soul. Maybe it is because I know that you remember how we learned together how to love and live more deeply than ever before.

Or maybe it is for none of those reasons. Maybe it is for all of those reasons. I really don’t spend much time thinking about how and why because this is not a math problem or some sort of scientific formula that must be followed or needs to be answered.

If I had to answer the question I would tell you to shut up and kiss me. Stop thinking and do. And when you did you would remember and you would know.

You would know that love is wild and that love is real. You would know that sometimes it is like standing in the eye of the storm. Everywhere you look there is wind, rain and lightning, except for that one place that we are standing together holding hands.

And sometimes you find yourself standing inside the storm and find yourself searching for shelter but if you can hold on long enough you always find it in the same place it was before.

Red dress, blue dress- it doesn’t matter because I don’t just love you. I fucking love you.

So here we are in the places we stand today farther apart than ever before and still as close as we once were. For it wouldn’t take but a moment for us to remember who we are apart and who we are together. It wouldn’t take but one kiss for our souls to soar and our hearts to surrender.

Sooner or later we shall put intellect aside and surrender to the point, purpose and passion that never left us. It may have gone dormant but not dead. Give it some water and sunshine and its petals will open wide and bloom as brightly as they ever have.

Come let me love you again and let’s resume our journey together. There is still much time and more than a few adventures to be had.

Five Stories Of Sexual Conquest In Social Media

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Boy and Sheep

Confession: there probably won’t be any stories about sexual conquests in blogging here. If you want to read that kind of thing you can find some of it over here or you sift through the posts here because sex is covered.

Yeah, there are posts here that talk about sex but I am not going to whip those out for you right now because I am in a different sort of mood. So those of you who weren’t scared off by the headline can take the proverbial walk with me and share some time.

But before we do that I need to apologize to those of you who comment on a regular basis. You have been great at supporting me and I am grateful for it but I haven’t been real good at responding. Just been caught in my world so I have been slow to get to them. My apologies.

Social Media Is About Engagement

I often talk about how there is no single way to be successful in social media but also say that engagement is the secret sauce. Engagement is what makes this bus fun to drive and that is where the real magic happens.

It used to be something I was really good at. I read lots of blogs and commented all over. It was easy. It was fun and it didn’t impinge upon my ability to do other things.

But that is past. That is not working for me now and I am not sure why.

Maybe it is because work is taking a ton out of me. It is a good thing. I love what I am doing and I look forward to being there, but I am devoting a ton of energy to it so maybe that is why I am not getting it done like I used to.

Or maybe it is not.

Father’s Day Is Coming

Father’s Day is coming and I am not going to spend it with my kids. It is funny because I am not the dad who gets worked up over Father’s Day. I like spending time with the family but I don’t have to have a special day for that.

But I am very conscious of it because I can count the number of days I have spent with my children on two hands and maybe a foot. That is since January 31st, that is.

I can tell you that I moved because of work and that it was the right move, the smart move, the one to make for all of us. I can tell you this isn’t forever and that one day the kids will appreciate what I did.

But I didn’t do it so that one day they could thank me. I did it because I am their father and we do what we can to provide the best life we can for our children.

This isn’t a situation of good intentions gone bad either. This was and is the right move.

Nonetheless I miss those little buggers.

Things I Never Miss

I never missed school performances, soccer games and all of the other stuff that kids do. I was the dad that was always there middle of the day and after hours. I didn’t miss any of those things, even the awful performances and let’s face it, some of it is awful.

Sometimes you go to a school performance and you know you are going to be bored out of your mind. You know you are going to have to deal with some obnoxious parent who insists on standing up to photograph or videotape the performance regardless of whose view they block.

You know you are going to have to work late or bring work home but you do it because that is your son/daughter and you don’t want them to be the only one without a parent at the show.

Well, I know that my kids haven’t had to deal with that. There is always someone there, but I am not someone. I am dad and I missed a bunch of those.

Sometimes doing the right thing is hard.

One More thing

Have you read When Blogging Became a Popularity Contest? If not I would sure love it if you did and while I am asking a favor I probably should ask you to become a fan of TheJackB Facebook page too.

I appreciate your time. See you in the comments.

When Blogging Became a Popularity Contest

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“I am my own man now and you don’t have to agree or like my decisions but you have to accept them.”

Sometimes your kids say things to you that just make you want to beam with pride and that was one of them. Little Jack is 12.5 now and I couldn’t have been prouder than to hear and watch him tell me how things were going to be.

Sadly for him I hid my smile and told him that was not how things were going to be because I am his father and sometimes he is going to have to do things that he doesn’t like to do. I would have liked to have told him he was channeling me and that this attitude would take him far in life but it wasn’t appropriate for the moment.

Blogging As A Popularity Contest

Maybe I am still thinking about a writer’s voice and maybe I am still stuck on monetizing the blog but I get fed up with the popularity contests surrounding blogging.

All I Want To Do Is Write and not worry about the nonsense that comes with blogging. Believe it or not I sometimes get tired or writing posts like How To Make More Money and Have Better Sex Through Blogging and The Dad Bloggers Guide To Blogging- A Writers Tool Kit Part One.

But I always come back to the same places that I addressed inThe Problem With Blogging Conference Speakers and that is the question of is what I am doing now going to help me reach where I want to go.

If I want to make more money as a writer and use the blog to help me get there do I have to spend more time playing the popularity game. Or alternatively can I adjust that and spend more time on my marketing efforts.

Is it a reasonable compromise and am I willing to do the work.

Do The Work

The willingness to do the work is a huge part of how far we go in life. I can complain about blogging being a popularity contest and point out that a lack of invitations to some events and addition to some lists is because I don’t play that game.

But I can also be accountable for not doing other things too to make that happen.

I can say without question that my not being in the kind of shape I want to be in is because I haven’t adjusted my eating habits. I am 44 but I like to eat like I am still 24. Either I adjust my diet or increase how long I spend in the gym.

Ok, it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition, I could do some of both, but whose talking. Shut up.

If I want to be a published author I have to do more than just say I need an agent/publisher/willingness to self publish. I have to do the work that is required to make those things happen.

I write more than most people do because I love it and because it is part of doing the work to become a better writer but it is not enough.

Accountability

Accountability is a big part of my life and something I keep talking to my kids about. If we have goals and desires we have to be accountable to ourselves first or we dramatically impact our ability to live our dreams and not dream our lives.

I don’t want to be the guy that always points the finger. I don’t want to wake up and say that if I had a new computer I could do better. It is true, this  laptop is dying and it is getting harder to work on it but that shouldn’t be the primary reason why I am not getting it done.

The primary reason has to be the guy in the mirror, the reflection. It has to be me because I am the only one I can control and even that is questionable at times.

We really have limited control in life, most of the time the best we can do is manage the situations we find ourselves in and go from there.

Is that a contradiction? Did I just say we can only control one thing and then in the next breath say we can’t.]

Yeah, I did, but that is life, a contradiction.

My Own Man

Fifteen hundred miles from here there is a 12.5 year-old boy who is working on becoming his own man. He is focused on trying to figure out how to find the path that suits him best.

I just hope that as I blaze my trail he figures out that sometimes I am going to force him to walk on my path but only because it is part how he’ll learn where and when he can branch off and truly become his own man.