Archives for October 2015

I am not built for grace but I am not clumsy either.

Wasn’t built to be like Baryshnikov but if you need someone to tear down a wall, move heavy stuff up/down stairs or from point A to B you might think I am the guy to do it.

If you need someone to carry the ball up the middle or to be willing to block the guys trying to get to the ball, well I might be that guy too.

And if you need someone to put on the yoke and pull the plow through the field, well I am that guy too.

You won’t call me pretty, smooth or suave but you will know that when I set my mind to doing something it will happen or I’ll keep trying to find a way.

Yeah, I am the fool who would try to capture the moon, but I am smart enough to recognize that capturing its reflection in a barrel isn’t really capturing it at all.

That is why I’ll think about tying a rope around the moon so that I can tug it back to earth. I am just dumb enough to think I might be able to do it and determined enough to try, even if I am the only one pulling.

Sometimes You Have To Stop & Live

I have been in so many different places that I barely recognize the one that is supposedly my own. Been racing at full speed for extended periods not just because I do what is required to get things done but because to do it right you need to do more.

Because I am determined to build a deeper and stronger foundation and this is how you do it.

Intensity and I have been brothers for as long as I can remember but for the past eon we have been closer than that and sometimes I have forgotten about the importance of getting off of the hamster wheel.

Forgotten that sometimes you have to stop and live and that when you do you need to ignore the whisper in your head that you can’t get everything done unless you keep moving.

I drove 460 some miles on Monday and at the end of the day somewhere between miles 308 and 460 I pulled the car over and stared at a sun dropping behind the mountains and enjoyed the silence of my mind.

Closed my eyes and thought about how it was a moment I want my kids to experience, how I want them to see veil between day and night and the magic of what lies between.

And then I got back into the car and pushed on to the next place.

That Shelley quote is a favorite of mine.

My teenage son scrunched up his face when he read it and said he hoped it didn’t refer to girls. I told him sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, context is everything.

He asked me if I really liked kissing girls and I told him that when you are kissing the right one life stops and that you capture a moment.

He didn’t like how I laughed at his expression but he mellowed when I assured him there was a time I felt the same way and that even now it still happens.

“Girls are magical, sometimes they know exactly how to make you feel like you have never felt before. The challenge that comes with that is sometimes it is good and sometimes it is…not.”

He told me that he would win the bet, the one we made where he promised he would never kiss a girl and asked me why I want to win.

I said it is not because I am competitive and he made another face.

“Dad, you are the crazy father who almost always plays hard. You just keep going.”

“I don’t know how to be any other way, but I don’t want this because I want to win. I want this because I think you’ll benefit from it.

It is a funny thing to think about and not one I think about often, but more now than before.

That is because my almost 16 year-old nephew had a girlfriend for a while and my almost 14-year-old niece has kissed a boy.

It is because friends whose kids are slightly older than mine have talked about the minefield of teenage dating and I know it is probably going to be part of my life soon.

I remember when I started to think of girls as being interesting in a good way and how it was like someone had flipped a switch.

One day they were just annoying and the next day…not so annoying, at least some of them. Little sisters were still annoying, but even they got better with time.

Just A Moment

It was hard getting out of bed because I was physically and mentally exhausted.

I had pushed myself to the limit and kept going and then pushed a bit farther. I sat on the edge of the bed and grunted at the not so little people that walked by and pondered whether I would go straight to work or take a moment.

Then I decided to take one, just a moment to try to catch my breath and hear the quiet of my soul. A moment to remember I am only human and that even the fool who tries to rope the moon needs rest.

And so I did and I waited as long as I could and then it was over. It was just a moment in time.

I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying feels like the perfect song to accompany this picture, not sure why, just fits.

Listening the Toby Keith cover thinking about the last five posts I wrote and how they are all tied into this itch I can’t quite scratch.

• Water Won’t Wash It Away
• Will Your Soul Sing Your Story?
• They Lost Their Virginity While Blogging
• The Beauty Of Sunday Rituals
• The Ghost In Your Blog

Thinking about the boy who was the six million dollar man and how in some ways I am more like that kid than ever and that is a good thing.

Your Kiss Is On My List

Sometimes when someone has heard many or most of your stories they listen to the things you tell them in the present and apply what you say against what they have heard in the past.

Can’t say I don’t do the same, but I try to remember to look at the present too.

You can blame Hall & Oates for the line of thought. I heard Kiss On My List and thought about some goofy moments in college and how someone might have asked some women if they wanted to participate in a kissing contest to see who the best kisser was.

I suspect age, time and place might impact whether one thinks that is cool, silly or dumb. If I based it upon my current perspective I’d say it is more important to be the best or most important kiss for one person than the one who after a few drinks was crowned king or queen.

That is the kind of advice I’d give to my kids if they asked about it, but I am sort of hoping I don’t have to deal with their dating and relationship stuff for a little while longer.

Not because I can’t deal with it but because I am not in a rush for them to be that old. That time will come soon enough.

Blame that sort of feeling on having a kid in high school and the realization as to just how long I have been a father for and how close we are to the place where they head off on their own.

Win A Chance To Shoot Cecil’s Cubs

I got sucked into a conversation on the soccer field with some people who were irate about guns and gun control. I told them I probably wasn’t a good person to have this discussion with because every time I have seen them have a disagreement with others it has gotten ugly.

Ugly because they don’t do well accepting that not everyone agrees with them, but since they insisted and I was feeling mischievous I indulged them.

I listened to their breathless rant about how guns have to be banned and how anyone that doesn’t agree with them is clearly deranged and told them I thought we ought to have a contest to protect endangered species.

When they asked me what I was talking about I said we ought to auction off the chance to hunt down and kill some lion cubs, specifically the cubs that belonged to Cecil, the lion who was shot by the dentist this past summer.

I don’t know if they were more horrified by that or my asking if I could arrange for a Japanese whaler to provide me with the bones of a whale because I wanted to use them to build a jungle gym and staircase.

Wonder if she would be more offended by that or if I asked her to participate in a kissing contest and told her she didn’t place because no one with common sense would put their lips against hers.

Go Blog About Yourself

I keep harping about old fashioned blogging and how I wish that bloggers spent more time focusing on good content than marketing and promotion and that is not going to change.

Won’t be the central theme or focus here but you’ll see it pop up because part of influencing change comes from making sure you get your message out there and you never know who is reading.

One of the reasons I dislike social proof is because those share numbers you post don’t provide proof of influence, just proof that someone shared your link.

It doesn’t tell me whether it was read by anyone and or if they thought it was good, useful or educational.

One of the things I’d like to see more of is more personal stories. Blog about yourself a bit, share a tale or two about who you are and what makes you tick.

Put something up about an experience or funny story like that time you went on a lion hunt and had a kissing contest with a bunch of strangers in a hut in the jungle.

****

I could tell you a story about how I once called The Shmata Queen a crazy broad and how she laughed and about how a different time she reacted by swinging that massive black purse at my head.

If I did I would talk about double standards and the difference in how we react when we are happy or angry with people but I don’t know if people really want to hear about that.

Might be more interesting to share more of the conversation with the people who can’t stand opinions that aren’t their own and how after I talked about whales I wondered if you can buy an orangutan jacket in black or blood red.

Not Quite The End

I am serious about putting together the Kindle Single, not sure if I am going to use Plenty of Time as the basis or something else, but I’ll figure it out.

Yeah, I’ll figure it out just as I’ll figure out the answers to How To Catch A Dragon. Got to run for a while because it takes some significant energy to rope the moon and that is my next trick.

Been listening to Led Zeppelin all night long, letting the music from the past take me from the present into the future knowing full well that relatively few will read along and fewer yet will go the distance.

Sat through a day at half boil until the words spilled out of my mouth surrounding my anger with the silence of those who blind themselves to the reality of the day willfully or intentionally pretending that massacre bingo is acceptable.

The replies came as I knew they would about how stupid we are and how this will keep happening because laws don’t stop crazy or because crazy won’t take the initiative to try to stop the mindless hordes from taking what they consider to be their god given right.

Are we stupid?

That’s the rhetorical question some pose and the one I refuse to accept.

What I wonder is when we’ll collectively set aside the anger and work together to find a solution because it is out there. We may do stupid things and make act like morons but the collective we isn’t stupid.

Donald Trump Could Make Heads Explode

Imagine what would happen if Trump said as part of his candidacy he was going to work to find a solution to the gun problem and that because he is not beholden to any party or any group he was confident he could make it happen.

That would make some heads spin right off of the shoulders of the people that once wore them. As a certified troublemaker and muckraker it is the kind of thing I’d be interested in seeing.

But Trump won’t get my vote and it is not because of what he has said or not said but because I don’t think he has got the goods to get it done in D.C.

I don’t think he’ll last long enough to be the candidate for a host of reasons none of which really matter now because this post isn’t about politics.

It is about the journey of life and the funny stuff that comes along with it. It is about trying to tell the most honest story we can.

Sick Teenagers Remind Me Of Toddlers

Little Jack isn’t particularly little anymore, life, time and puberty have slammed into each other at the intersection of “I’m too old for that” and “sometimes you can treat me like a kid.”

He says he doesn’t want to be hugged by his parents but that is based upon some illogical and irrational teenage rules that only he can follow.

So sometimes he hugs us and sometimes he doesn’t. We do our best to respect his wishes but every now and then he’ll hear “it is time for a hug” and he’ll do so willingly.

Tonight the almost 15-year-old boy told me that his cold was killing him and asked if “daddy would carry him to bed.”

It took less than an instant for him to realize that his old man would scoop him up and carry him. He mustered enough energy to stand up and I looked at him and wondered again how much longer I have before he can look me in the eye.

He is not quite there yet, but every day it comes closer. It is actually pretty damn cool, a bit surreal, but cool.

The voice that belonged to the little boy has been replaced by something that is almost deep enough to fool people into thinking he is me.

It is both wonderful and frightening because it is a sign that the day when he won’t live with me is barreling down at break neck speed.

And if all goes as hoped he’ll prove his parents did their job by becoming a productive and self-sufficient member of society.

The war that is most interesting to me is the one I wage each day to tell a better story. The battle to create a tapestry of images inside your heads that is too compelling to put down never ends.

Maybe that means I have found the perfect match, because a true idiot like myself who is always willing to take another swing or to be swung at one more time is always willing to continue to engage.

Sometimes I read the work and or comments of the masters and nod my head because what they said resonates with me, because it matches my truth.

And sometimes I read their stuff and wonder why it is praised because what I see is so fucking stupid I want to slap the 298 English teachers who decided that Schlatter Ripper is a classic.

Really who decides that the story of a boy fighting his cousin’s ex-boyfriend is the kind of thing everyone has to read because once you do that the author of said story is suddenly seen as having expertise they haven’t earned.

Maybe that makes me sound bitter and jealous. Maybe it means I am just another blogger with blog envy, a writer who splashes cold water on other’s success and deems it luck.

But then again, maybe I am not.

Sometimes when I’m uncertain about what direction to go in I ask myself how I would advise my children. It is a good resource but so is saying ‘do as I say and not as I do.”

So I sit here at the intersection of science and superstition thinking about whether to share something that would add more depth to this.

Science and superstition prevent me from sharing those thoughts because sometimes your better served by sharing when you are certain and because sometimes whispering words aloud is jinxes your effort.

Will Your Soul Sing Your Story?

Mine is and I am doing my best to answer it. I am trying to write the truest and most honest sentences I know how.

When people ask are we stupid my children won’t say yes because they know better. Bad things happen when no one does anything and we aren’t that stupid.