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 2014

The Art Of Blogging & Bad Meatloaf

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The Art Of Blogging
I spent money I don’t have to purchase pictures I can use to try and help illustrate the stories I tell and the points I want to make.

When you ask me why I did it I don’t know if I will tell you it is because I have complete confidence in my ability to earn it back or if it is because I am committing myself to my art.

But if you ask me if blogging is an art I will say yes because blogging is writing and writing is storytelling and that is undoubtedly and most assuredly an ancient art.

The Art Of Blogging & Bad Meatloaf

Several weeks ago I ran some errands for my parents and helped them do a few things around their house. They were the kinds of things that irritated me as a kid but don’t bother me now because I see mom and dad are a few steps slower than they used to be and I am still happy to be on a ladder.

Ma and Pa Steiner were two days away from leaving for a trip so my dad asked me to take some groceries back home so that they wouldn’t spoil and go to waste.

One of them was a meatloaf from one of the fancy shmancy supermarkets, you know the kind that specialize in organic foods in which kind farmers sing the cows and sheep to sleep because slitting their throats.

I thanked my dad, grabbed the meatloaf, some burgers and a few other perishables and headed back home.

When I got to the house I found out we had plans for dinner that night so instead of eating the meatloaf I froze it and it sat in the freezer judging the other meats for two weeks.

Monday morning I took it out to defrost and ignored the sigh of relief that came from the other meat it had been keeping company with. By the time Monday evening came I had worked up quite the hunger and was excited to sink my teeth into it.

And then life played a big joke on me and turned that fancy meatloaf into a cardboard box that looked like meatloaf but tasted like a box that had been used to store musty sheets.

In spite of what some people might say or tell you there are moments when I am detail oriented, thorough and relentless in my preparation which is why before I called my dad to suggest he never buy this again I made a point to confirm I hadn’t pissed off the house elves.

Why?

Because everyone knows if you piss off the house elves they turn your food into something that looks good and tastes awful. The sad truth is this sort of disappointment isn’t limited to meals because we find it in the blogosphere on a regular basis.

Think about how many times you come across a headline that looks awesome and dive into the post expecting to enjoy something tasty and fulfilling only to discover someone just poured motor oil down your throat.

What is even worse is when you write something you think is great and then discover it is awful. None of us are immune to that particular ill either, if you have never written a piece of garbage you have never written.

A Good Writer Is A Naked Dreamer

The longer I do this the more certain I become that a good writer is a naked dreamer who sheds their skin and lets their readers see them for who they are, or at least major parts and pieces.

There are boundaries and lines we shouldn’t or don’t cross but I am not very good about paying attention to those lines. Some of it is because by nature I am someone who wants to know what lies on the other side of the rainbow and because when you say ‘no’ I want to find out why.

But it is also because I am a dreamer and I don’t always walk upon the same ground as you do.

“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.” ― Mark Twain

A year ago I thought I had figured out most of the answers to the biggest questions I had in my life. It was just a matter of taking care of a few things before it was all going to fall into place and then life decided I needed to be humbled again.

I didn’t see either sword coming but I felt them go in one side and come out the other. I am not a man who cries but you damn well better believe I screamed because that shit hurt.

People forget the funny thing about pain is that once you take a deep breath and figure out what you are feeling you adjust to it. It is like jumping into really hot or really cold water, startles you for a moment and then you adjust.

Except when I adjusted to it the people that stabbed me pushed me over a cliff and walked away. Didn’t stick around long enough to see me bounce off of every pointy outcropping nor did they witness the cactus that broke my fall.

That’s when I realized that 2011, a year I had described as being a real motherfucker had an identical twin named 2014.

Someone should have told 2014 that when you rip man’s heart out you better not leave him with the means to repair and reinsert it.

Words Power The Resurrection

That money I spent that I don’t have is going to be part of the resurrection. It is tied into words and storytelling and there is more power there than people realize.

You remember Crazy Old Ben Kenobi who lived in the desert for his actions but that in large part is because of the words he used. When he waved his hands and said “these are not the droids you are looking for” he used The Force to make the storm troopers turn away but words are the motor that powers The Force.

That Emily Dickinson quote makes me smile because I understand and respect the truth it set forth. It is a power I hope to wield wisely and often.

My children know there words we never use and some we rarely use. They also recognize there are moments when I am precise and intentional with them.

You won’t hear me say I am sorry often but it happens with far greater ease and frequency than it once did. Nor will you hear me say “I love you” unless I am very certain.

That meatloaf was a significant disappointment but then again, bad meals are one of the things I like least. With some hard work and a bit of luck and cooperation the worst thing I’ll face in 2015 is a bad meal or two.

But if I don’t, I’ll be fine because I’ll find the write words.

How Bad Bloggers Make Good Bloggers Sexier

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shareasimage (5)
He tells me he has been blogging for almost eight months now and that if I want to succeed I need to do precisely as he says because he knows how to build a successful blog.

When I ask if he misses old fashioned blogging he tells me the old timers didn’t understand what they were doing. I tell him I hear there was a time when people used to comment on blogs and ask what happens if people don’t comment any more and he rolls his eyes at me.

“Commenting is dead and so is that antiquated way of doing things you are talking about. No one comments any more, they just talk about the posts on Facebook or giggle about it in a bar.

I can’t help myself and tell him that sounds like a 20th century way of doing things.

“Can you imagine how uncomfortable it must have been to have had to make eye contact with other people and to use a phone as a phone. How did they manage to socialize when they had to look at each others faces.”

The expression on his face makes me wonder if he realizes I am not serious but I don’t care. When he asks me how long I have been blogging I tell him since May of 2004 and talk about how I like WordPress better than Blogger, Typepad, Posterous and Moving Type.

“What rankles my heart and kills my soul is the thought that I might die one day saying “If I had” or “I could of done/been” blah, blah, blah. These are not things that should be part of …”- It is Not a Midlife Crisis

What Keeps Blogging Interesting

What keeps blogging interesting to me is a cross between the people I meet, the stories I tell and the things I learn about myself.

Every day is filled with the same mundane activities and a few moments in which I try to tell a story about the ordinary in a way that builds connections between you and I.

This where I see a distinction between the bad bloggers and myself.

Bad bloggers spend too much time trying to turn the ordinary into extraordinary and trying to find a way to go viral. They search for clever and captivating not recognizing that our stories are usually the ties that bind us.

They spend too much time trying to reach too many people while not understanding it is more effective to really engage with just a few than to blow by many.

“And then sometimes you’ll find that something trivial sends you right over the edge. You’ll scream and rant about something so dumb you can’t believe it. The embarrassment you feel will cause you to…”- A Father Describes Parenting

Sometimes people ask me if I have trouble focusing on one topic and I laugh because those who really know me understand I have a laser focus most people can’t match.

That question about focus makes me laugh because if I wanted to I could write solely about one topic. I could tell you about arguing with my 8th grader about bedtime tonight.

I could tell you about how he didn’t want to go to bed because he was working on a group project and wasn’t satisfied with what they had come up with. I could tell about how he complained to me about how much he dislikes group projects where everyone gets the same grade for different amounts of work.

If I did you would know I am proud of him and his work ethic. You’d know my laser focus has been passed on and you’d know I talk to him about the importance of learning many different things.

You’d know my own interests expand well beyond one topic and that sometimes I make a point to cover the more popular topics here. Blogging and writing always get a very solid response and so does fiction.

Except the fiction that gets the biggest response is this love story that people seem to want to know more about. It used to make me feel a little awkward to see the response because I never saw myself as that kind of writer, especially because I don’t know how it even started but I found a hook and people asked for more.

So sometimes I write about it.

Blogging Keeps The Dead Alive

I listened to the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt tonight and wondered if my grandfathers would enjoy it as much as I do. I wondered if they would identify with it and if it would bother them to know how much of it resonates with me.

It has been three years since I lost my maternal grandfather and eight since I lost my paternal.

I was lucky because they lived long enough for me to know them as both a child and a man. Long enough for them to speak with me about what it means to be a boy, a man, husband and father.

Long enough to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of life. We went over both the sweet and the bitter.

They surprised everyone by outliving my grandmothers. I stood next to them at two different funerals and did my best to support them.

Two very different men yet at the funerals they shared something in common. They both leaned against me, literally and figuratively.

I put an arm around my paternal grandfather and felt his weight shift against my side and noticed he wasn’t leaning on the cane any more. Did my best to let him know I had him yet not steal his dignity by making eye contact.

That might sound silly or contradictory to you, but I knew my grandfather and I knew he needed that space to lean on me and grieve without the intimacy of the eye contact.

******

My maternal grandfather was a man who could dance. I saw him dance with grandma many times as well as daughters, granddaughters and nieces.

The last time I saw him and grandma dance was at their 75th wedding anniversary. For a moment I watched the two of them forget they were in their nineties.

They stood a little straighter and became a little taller. It lasted for just a moment but when I saw grandpa kiss grandma I got a glimpse of a much younger man than the one I knew.

He died 18 months after she said goodbye to him. I don’t care what the docs say, it wasn’t old age, it was a broken heart that took him.

How Bad Bloggers Make Good Bloggers Sexier

That is not the silliest headline I have ever written but  there is a lot of truth in it.

Bad bloggers make the rest of us hacks look brighter and shinier than we really are, don’t know if that really makes us sexier and don’t care. I just know that anyone who tries to tell you there is one path to becoming a successful blogger is selling something you really don’t want to buy.

If you have the write stuff and sustain your effort good things will happen.

Why You Should Never Blog About Sex With Clergy Members

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Won’t be long before the terrible beauty of November is eclipsed by a midnight moon and I’ll roll into the final month of a year that has been filled with as many ups and downs as any I can think of.

Flip on iTunes, turn on The Immigrant Song, close my eyes and think about what stories to share with you. I participated in NaBloPoMo, the blog every fucking day of the month exercise…again.

Sometimes I wonder it is an appropriate writing exercise for a man who has multiple blogs because I update all of them on a regular basis and though I  am a proponent of the value/importance of writing regularly I have come to appreciate the beauty of disconnecting from my electronic gear and world.

View from Glacier Point, Yosemite, CA
My favorite synagogue.

Why You Should Never Blog About Sex With Clergy Members

Sometimes we talk about the importance of being part of a community and how it can help you become a better blogger. While there is merit in doing so I am not one who likes to be labeled or pigeonholed as being part of one group which is why one of my favorite posts is Do I Need A Tribe or Must I Have a Label?

There is a line in it about Sister Mary Incredible but nothing about sleeping with a woman who would one day become a rabbi. Is it wrong that I want to say I am responsible for helping her find God?

Don’t tell the Shmata Queen about that one because she might forget I am not invisible and come looking for me. And if she opens her eyes and discovers mine staring into hers she might ask questions no one really needs to know the answers to. Or she might ask me if I am baiting her by writing these words.

If she did ask I’d smile and tell her it just doesn’t matter and then she’d yell at me and I’d tell her to close her eyes and ask her heart not to try not to stomp on mine when she closed the door.

And then I’d apologize and she’d ask me why I do that and I’d say because I can’t pull her pigtails and she’d roll her eyes at me and I’d say you know we can’t stay angry with each other.

Damn woman.

*****

Three beers and two shots of something that burns your throat do a fine job of giving you liquid courage not that I really wanted or needed any because I am good at coming up with this crap without any assistance.

Probably should have mentioned earlier that sometimes I exaggerate, embellish and or elaborate in ways that are designed to engage. Call that a long winded way of trying to find more ways to suck you in and keep you reading.

Johnny Cash is singing In My Life and I am smiling because it is so very appropriate for this time and this moment.

FWIW, I am not aware of having ever had sexual relations with a member of the clergy but I admit to wanting to have a story about Sister Mary Incredible.

Who wouldn’t want to share a tale of nunsense.

Movies & Children

Saturday night my daughter asked if we could have a family movie night. I said sure and asked her if she still wanted to see Guardians of The Galaxy.

I wasn’t certain if she would like it but some time back she complained that she was the only kid in her class that hadn’t seen it and said it was unfair I had taken her older brother.

When she pushed me to take her then I told her she needed a better reason than “because everyone else did it” and we let it go.

Anyhoo when she asked me if we could have a family movie night I thought Guardians might offer a painless solution, something that we would all agree up and it would have been fine had it been available for rent.

Turned out the damn flick was available for purchase only so I apologized and said we would have to make another choice.

She said ok but told me she wanted to see it more now because she likes the soundtrack. Somewhere between Hooked on a Feeling and Fooled Around and Fell In Love she decided it is something she needs to see.

Sunday morning rolled around and I told the kids if they finished their homework we could go see something at the AMC. The kids said the  Penguins of Madagascar was a good movie but I know it for being a great place for taking a nap.

Do Things Happen For a Reason?

I can’t play the guitar nor sing but if a genie gave me a bunch of wishes those would be on my list of thing I want.

That is because a good storyteller wants more than one way to tell the tales he sees in his head and feels in his heart. But sometimes I think I wasn’t given that particular gift because it would have made some things too damn easy and many things have come easily to me.

It is kind of funny to say that because as often as I say life is too damn hard I have to say how easy it has been. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had rough moments or that there aren’t times where I wonder how the hell I am going to get myself through a particular moment because that crap has been around more times than I can tell you.

This moment now, this moment before midnight is one of those. One of those times where I want to go look up at the moon and ask the universe to give me a straight answer about why things are cocked up and twisted.

If you told me to hold the castle for a while I’d nod my head, tell you to pull up the draw bridge and recite some kind of oath, maybe something like this.

Maybe I’d be like Raoul in Phantom of The Opera or maybe Gandalf would appear and share some sort of inspirational vision with me. Hell it would be cool to have Dumbledore come out of the sky and provide some sort of wisdom I could hold onto.

But none of those things have happened and none of those people have appeared.

It has always been just old Jack, his heart and common sense.

Most of the time that has been enough.

But if the universe did answer, if a voice did come from the sky I think it would say leave your comfort zone and trust your feet to help you dance to the song of your heart.

 

Contradictions

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Tower Bridge At Night 2. Black & White. Nikon D300s. DSC_4452.
A thousand years ago I wandered through the streets of London knowing it wouldn’t take any effort to leave everything behind and start a new life there.

Did the normal tourist stuff, saw the things I had to see and wandered back to our host’s home and stood inside a shower built for a man that was smaller than I was in every way.

When it came time to wash my back or my front I had to do a funny sort of twist and turn type dance step that might have looked good in a square dancing contest but in reality had to look as awkward as it felt.

Sat at a dining room table looking out at  real English garden and wondered where life was going to take me. Two years of marriage, no kids and a job I could take or leave made it easy for my natural wanderlust to run free.

Made it easy to think there might not be a better time to shake things up and live a different life. My plans had already changed significantly. I had decided not to move to Israel before and gotten married thinking we would go later.

Yet in the midst of thinking about a life in London I heard Jerusalem calling out to me. It was three years since I had last been there and I missed it.

But it was part of the current trip, the stop in London had broken what would have been a 15 hour flight into a shorter trip and provided an opportunity to experience part of England, something I had never done before.

London was great but when we left four days later I was crawling out of my skin, desperate to get back to Israel because the hole inside me recognized how close it was to being filled again.

Jerusalem

When the flight landed at Ben Gurion and we got off of the plane I felt like the piece of my heart that had been torn out was repaired and the joints that had been out of place slid back to where they were supposed to be.

I knew I was in one of my homes. Didn’t know if it would turn into a place I lived in for a week, a decade or a generation but I knew it would be ok because I would live a lifetime during the moments I had there.

It was how it was and how it always went.

Showed my wife around the city and the country. Took her places that meant something to me and did my best to explain what you can’t understand unless you have lived it.

One night in Jerusalem I walked around the city by myself. Wandered through the ancient and the new and listened to the voices inside and out and heard things that have stayed with me to this day.

If I told you some of those things were messages that make sense now but did not then you might think I am crazy or maybe you’d wonder if I was lucky. Maybe you wouldn’t think anything about it at all.

When it came time to leave I thought again about not getting on the plane. I thought about calling home and telling them I didn’t need to come home because I was and that some day I would visit again.

Thought about how many people I had unexpectedly run into around Israel. Friends from high school and college in Tel Aviv, in Haifa and Jerusalem.

Wasn’t truly surprised to see any of them because there is a magnet there that pulls us in, a spiritual or cultural tractor beam.

And yet when the plane took off I sat in my seat and remained silent as that piece of me was ripped out of my body again. Tried not to scream because I felt like I was hurting myself unnecessarily and stayed still.

Somewhere during the flight I made the same promise to myself to return that I always made when I left. Back in LA I hugged my parents, grandparents and siblings hello and tried to make myself accept that I had made the right decision, that I had done the right thing.

You Know That Ghost Is Me

Gordon Lightfoot is singing If You Could Read My Mind and I lost in lyrics that are hauntingly familiar. I hear a section and something inside my head clicks:

‘Bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong.
With chains upon my feet.
But stories always end,

I am not the Edmund Fitzgerald and you won’t find me at the bottom of Lake Erie but you’ll find parts and pieces of the man I once was and the guy I am becoming floating around here and there.

Somewhere on the streets of Texas the boy who walked through Jerusalem in the ’80s came to life again. The parts and pieces that had lain sleeping inside had woken up each time he had been back to Israel in the 90s.

Every time he had come back to America he had pushed them down and forced them to slumber because they wouldn’t let him live as he was but under that Texas sky they broke free of the chains and swore to never be fettered again.

“Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time” Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) Green Day

If I told you I am walking down a lonely road you might wonder if I was being melodramatic or serious. If you asked for an explanation I’d tell that what I heard in Jerusalem is playing out now and I am doing what I have to do.

I’d tell you for the moment I am walking by myself because no one else can do it for me. There are no substitutes or pinch hitters for what has to be done. You can’t go where I need to go or do what I need to do.

This one is all me and I can tell I have got this.

The tears that do not fall won’t stain my cheek this time either because they won’t help me get through it any faster. But I got this. I have moved heaven and earth before and I will do what is required again.

I am a Taurus.

But I won’t lie and say I am not a little scared nor will I say I am not excited. I am both.

Life is filled with contradictions.

It Is More Than Just Bad Timing

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Brokenness
It was a bad Thanksgiving dinner but not because the turkey was dry or because any of the other food was sub par.

I was the reason it was bad or rather it was my bad attitude and bad mood.

This year I didn’t want to do anything or be a part of any sort of celebration because I didn’t feel like I had anything to celebrate. Doesn’t mean I am not grateful for my health and for those I love because I am but this year it wasn’t enough to keep my frustration from spilling over a bit.

Job interviews have come and gone, some have resulted in definitive no’s and others have not said one way or another but the long silence between conversations doesn’t lend itself to optimism.

Dancing on the razor’s edge has become a way of life for me and though I have become adept at finding ways to avoid serious injury it doesn’t mean I haven’t suffered from a thousand tiny paper cuts nor does it mean I have cried about them either.

I have accepted what I could and done my best to just roll with whatever has come my way but that doesn’t provide me with much patience and the internal stores are almost all depleted.

That is probably why when the independently wealthy who had the good fortune to marry into money and or inherit very successful businesses made me so angry.

I couldn’t listen to them complain about hard lives because when money is the cure for what ails you and you have ample supply it is hard for me to feel badly.

It Is More Than Just Bad Timing

This post was going to be called Write Under The Write Conditions and it was going to be about writing but I decided to save it.

Decided to save it because I want it to run when it has a chance to get a little more play and see a bit more sunshine than is likely to come at almost midnight on the Friday night of Thanksgiving weekend.

****

Got a bottle of Scotch and a new cellphone eyeballing me. Tempted to pour more than a snort, grab my headphones and phone and take a few quiet moments to do nothing.

But I promised to participate in the daily posting required of Naboplomo so I can’t stop for the drink or to grab that single piece of pumpkin pie that is taunting me from the refrigerator.

The Beatles are singing “Once there was a way to get back home” and I am thinking about how much I relate to that, but mostly in an optimistic way.

I wrote earlier this week or last about how I miss having a home. It is not because I am homeless because I am not now nor have I ever been such.

But I haven’t lived in a place that I though of as being mine in a long time. Every where I have been has been a stop on a way to something better. Maybe it is tied into the storm I wrote about here.

storm

Frankly the hardest part about this particular storm isn’t the length as much as it is the dust it has stirred up. Got me thinking long and hard about multiple choices and decisions in ways that aren’t particularly helpful nor useful.

Got me wondering how I could have been stupid so many times, but when I take a deep breath it is clear that I wasn’t…most of the time.

There are one or two things where I can concede they weren’t the smartest choices but when I am fair to myself it is clear that some of the criticism is unfair.

I did the best I could given the information I had and some of what happened truly had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t responsible for deregulation or for the crash in 2008.

Wasn’t responsible for banks losing their minds or bosses who thought it was better to cut their employees compensation because it enabled them to maintain their lifestyles.

shareasimage

I could have taken a different path than I did and have. Could have walked a more common road and put myself in a position to have better handled the hard moments of this storm but I didn’t.

Didn’t become an attorney like I had intended or take some other positions that would have paid more than some of what I have done.

Spent most of my life doing things my way, even when I was going along with the crowd I was still doing it my way because it is all I know how to do/be.

There are moments when I remind myself that I am who I am by choice and that I am accountable for all that I have or don’t have. Moments where I accuse my ‘do things my way’ nature as being an excuse for being a fuck up but I don’t really believe I am.

Even when I am most frustrated, most upset and most nervous I never believe that.

I am just a storm walker searching for the eye of the storm. I have found it before and I’ll find it again.

When I do things will improve and life will be different than it is now.

But if I win the lottery, inherit mega millions or make it all on my own I hope I am never as jaded or as obnoxious as the people I heard the other night. I am sure they meant well but it just chapped my hide and the reason for it was more than just bad timing.

It Is Not An Illusion

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12 segundos de oscuridad
The tick-tocking of the clock is pushing me to write faster so that I might finish this post before the time comes to shave, shower and change into proper clothes for Thanksgiving.

I am torn about dressing up for a day when we are supposed to give thanks for what we have and who has it with us because it seems to me comfort should play a role.

That is not to say I can’t wear something other than shorts and a t-shirt and be comfortable but some days that is what I really want because it is how I prefer to be.

Suppose some people might look at this moment and ask me what the hell I am doing on the computer when I should be preparing for what is to come and I’d answer that when the mood to write comes I answer the call because you never know what your muse will provide you with.

I am operating under the presumption that I’ll produce something worth sharing. A post that has meaning, insight and worth.

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”― Robert Frost”

It is not an illusion is an expression I have used a handful of times to describe certain moments or situations I have found myself in.

When I finally break through the wall that has prevented me from publishing I’ll use it again to describe the feeling I get when I find out that people actually read my words and follow what I have to say.

Or at least that is what I think/hope will happen.

You never really know which group you’ll fall into and for whom.

I have no doubt there will be some who read my words and put me into Frost’s second category but if I have my way you won’t ever find me in the first group.

That is because I operate off of  the you miss ever shot you don’t take theory. I think that line can be attributed to Wayne Gretzky but I am not positive and since I am short on time I’ll let it stand.

Swing From The Heels

In the days in which I was an active baseball player I tended to swing from the heels because I knew that if I got a hold of the ball I could hit a home run.

I felt like that every time at the plate and like most home run hitters I struck out more often than I connected.

But I hit a bunch of home runs, didn’t matter if it was a good pitch or a bad one if I got a piece I gave it a good ride.

That swing from the heels mentality has been with me my entire life. It is my default setting. If I am playing football and I am a linebacker I want to blitz because I feel like I can get that quarterback every time.

Yet age has softened that approach somewhat because I have learned to enjoy mixing things up a bit and doing the little things that lead to victory too.

Maybe it is because I have learned that sometimes success comes from grinding it out and not worrying about making a big play every time because you can win by other means too.

I suppose if I had the time I’d flesh this out and talk about how much I have come to enjoy doing the things that cause plays to develop. The chess game that goes with it all is enjoyable to me too, but time is short.

Write Under The Write Conditions

Consider this a placeholder, a note for a post I want to write about the myth of only writing under the write conditions. That write  condition for me is where I am at, within the few moments I have, with the tools I have at hand and the understanding that I can write now and might not be able to later.

It is why I take posts like the one you are reading now and this one and work at them on a regular basis because my goal is to teach myself to give my best whenever, wherever and however.

Because when you do that you are always prepared to take that swing and even if you go to the default swing-from-the-heels mode you are more likely to make contact because you are ready.

And maybe, just maybe you’ll find yourself saying it is not an illusion from a place that serves as your perfect writing spot/environment because you did what you had to do to make it possible.