Archives for May 2016

I would tell you to go read The Lazy Guardian Angel but I don’t think that would be any more effective in making you point and click your way over than just asking.

Ask me why I wouldn’t start by asking and I’d probably say that I am skeptical about whether you would do so and that led to the more aggressive request.

Reminds me that I have always said that true influence in social media comes from those whose readers/followers respond to their requests.

Doesn’t matter if you have a million if they don’t respond to your call-to-action.

Since I have been doing such a piss poor job of commenting and engaging elsewhere I have noticed a drop in traffic and commenting.

It is not the only reason(s) for that but it is the most obvious one nonetheless I thought it might be interesting to see if more interesting headlines like Confessions of Sexual Conquests In Social Media pulled in more people.

Thus far it has done as I expected and traffic has increased but I haven’t seen a significant difference in comments.

Maybe Dad Ought To Buy Facebook Fans & A Life

If you have been following the wall scribblings in this joint and paying attention you know I write first for me and then for you.

You also know I go through periods of time where I wrestle with whether I want to invest more time and energy in marketing this blog so that I have more readers and gain all of the benefits that come with that.

Ask me if I know how to market myself and this place and I’ll tell you I know a bunch of tricks and tools I can use.

There are resources available but I haven’t been real aggressive about using them. It is kind of similar to how I diet.

I see myself in the mirror and think “FUCK! That can’t be right” and decide I am going to fix it and for a while I am good about it.

Better diet, more exercise and all that jazz lead to pants that feel better and a happier Jack.

For a while all is good and than some mishap comes along and mucks up my progress and I figure eating 98 pizzas, 78 donuts and dozen six packs ought to be ok.

Really, instead of playing ball twice this week I’ll add a third day and lift weights longer and harder.

Sometimes it happens but usually I hit a point where work, family and life conspire against me and the exercise shrinks while the eating continues.

Not a great formula, but I accept responsibility for letting some of that go/happen.

And I accept responsibility for not doing more to promote this place, for not pushing to get published in more places and for not spending more engaging with  the hoity-toity popular bloggers who could help pull or push me along.

The bottom line is if it is really important than dear old dad will do what he needs to do to make it happen.

When I choose to stay focused and be relentless that is exactly what happens.

I tell my kids to remember this.

I tell them to not think about being lost but of being in a place where they are learning how to create themselves and remind them I am still doing it.

If dear old dad is still doing it at 47 they shouldn’t feel discouraged or disappointed about not knowing precisely what they want or who they are.

Confession: I know a boatload more about who I am, what I want and what I need than I let on with them.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t portray myself as a complete misfit or fool because I am neither of those things.

I might share parts and pieces of them, but I am certainly not a fool or misfit. Outsider maybe, but not the latter.

Anyhoo the point of not telling them how close I am to having figured it out is I’ll have to tell them that I am 98.5% focused on getting a job out of state and I expect it is going to happen soon.

It is not because I dislike living here, but because it is cheaper to live elsewhere and I see that as providing more opportunity.

Can’t turn my nose up at that and ignore it.

Did I mention my landlord decided he needs my place?

I have been month-to-month for a long time now so I can’t say I am really suprised, just that this is the universe pushing me to find that job and to grab it elsewhere.

I would have preferred if I had more time to work on finding that perfect position and didn’t have to deal with moving but I can roll with this.

Dad is a ordinary man trying to play hero and heroes know how to make the best out of any situation.

What I think/Feel

If you believe me when I say I can picture some of what is to come and that I feel these things then you might appreciate some more details.

I see myself making good money using my creativity and writing while living somewhere with a higher quality of life.

When I close my eyes I always picture the way I looked at 25 or younger.

I can see myself busting my ass to get that body back  not because of vanity (well, maybe a little) but because I know I will feel better.

I know it will be helpful personally and professionally for now and the future.

So if what I see is real I expect that in a short time I’ll find myself scratching my head and wondering what took it so long to happen but very grateful that it did.

The best is yet to come not because I am lost but because I am in the process of creating that space and the elements that are needed to make it into reality.

Watch and see.

She asked me to explain what I meant when I wrote about The Death Of All Things and I shook my head no and walked away.

“Jack, you owe me an explanation and I want it now.”

I borrowed a line from The Princess Bride and said, “Get used to disappointment.”

Didn’t turn around or wait to see if she heard what I said or responded.

Life is too short to give time and power to those who don’t deserve our attention.

I am more myself now than I have ever been and walking towards becoming who I want to be.

Some will debate whether that intersects with who I am meant to be but I won’t be among them because there is no time to spare.

“I never worry about walls because I have never met one I couldn’t tear the fuck down. Never found one I couldn’t scale, dig under or build a door through.

That is as true today as it ever was but the difference is my awareness is a thousand percent better than it once was.

It is a lesson I would share with my children but I am not sure it is one anyone can learn without having a certain amount of life experience behind them.

Almost True Confessions Of A Dad

Lost in thought somewhere between The Beach Boys God Only Knows and Jimi Hendrix’s May This Be Love I look out the window at the California sunshine and wonder if today is a beach day or not.

Don’t have nearly enough time to lie upon the sand or swim in the water, but I could sit on the shore, Ipad and phone in hand and work.

Can’t remember the first time I heard that Hendrix song, but it was long before it was featured in Singles, except the thing is I was single then and finishing college.

I remember the movie and that time as if it was yesterday, how time felt endless and how many choices were open to me.

Except the movie wasn’t yesterday, it was 1992 and the 23-year-old I was has been replaced by the older and wiser version of today.

****

Inside my head I can hear Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble start playing The House Is Rockin’ and I can’t help but smile because every time it comes on the internal jukebox I know I am about to start another adventure.

My teenager pulls himself up to his full height and glares at me, “dad, I am almost 16. Stop treating me like I don’t know how to take care of myself.”

I tell him I have a history of jumping off of cliffs and out of planes without checking to see if I have a parachute.

“That doesn’t make sense to me. Where is the relevance?”

In many ways my kid is smarter than I was at his age but then again some of it is because he is far more concerned about not making mistakes and dealing with the consequences than I was.

I don’t want him to lose all of his caution but I want him to be more willing to take chances. This disagreement is about one of the rare moments when he really is going to do something stupid.

Could tell him in simple terms about some of the stupid moments, could give him details but some of those are moments he doesn’t really want to know about and I don’t really want to share.

****

I stand in the woods facing the castle, the trees hiding my presence from the people on the ramparts and watch.

The 23-year-old would have sprinted for the walls, tossed up a grappling hook and scrambled over without a second thought.

That kid was a physical beast and smart enough to deal with anything he encountered but that is not who I am anymore.

Still have the physical skills and ability to get up and over but lack the stamina to be confident I can keep up the physical needs for as long as might be required.

Better to work smarter and not harder.

****

I look at my teen and tell him I can explain.

“What do you think he happens if you jump out of a plane without a parachute?”

“You die.”

“What do you think happens when you jump off of a cliff into a lake?”

“You hope you don’t belly flop or break a leg. Now what does this have to do with me?”

“I have bellyflopped into the lake and I have proven you don’t always die when you jump out of that plane.”

“Dad, I know you are not serious.”

“Actually I am, I have belly flopped off of the cliff and though I haven’t I haven’t had the literal experience of jumping out of a plane the analogy still works for me. Why? Because dying would have been easier than having to clean up some of the messes I got into when I was younger.”

We argue and debate and I win but only because he reluctantly accepts my authority…for now.

I know as he lives and experiences more he’ll question more of my choices and decisions and I applaud that.

It is good for him, albeit painful for both of us at times.

Peter Pan Got Old

If you read The Death Of All Things (link above) you saw the line about Peter Pan got old but I am here to say that old doesn’t mean dead.

Here to say that Peter may have aged but he never forgot he once knew how to fly or doubted that one day he would again.

That is part of the magic and the trick that keeps us going. The willingness to jump out of the fucking plane and flap our arms hard enough to fly or to have the presence of mind to figure out what you need to do it.

 

****

There are still those moments where I feel like Jon Snow and Ygritte has told me I know nothing.

But I know what song my heart sings and can see the path just well enough to follow it.

There will still be times when I am asked to hold the gate against the giant and it shall be done, but that won’t stop me from following the fairy dust path only I can see.

The uncensored, unvarnished and no-holds-barred truth is I have grown to have the same warm feelings about Mother’s Day that I do regarding colonoscopy.

Ask me if I am exaggerating and I might tell you I am referring to a colonoscopy without the comfort of anesthesia and that might be kind.

Why have I come to this place where Mother’s Day has become a day of dread and disgust?

It is because the day is a giant pain-in-the-ass where there are too many people to please and no way to make everyone happy.

By everyone I refer to the mothers in my life who only a short time ago numbered wife, mother, mother-in-law and three grandmothers.

That is six different women and six different ideas about what would make a nice Mother’s Day.

I did my best to try and find a way to have one big celebration but that never seemed to work and so we spent the day roaming from place to place.

Did I mention the complaints I heard from the younger women who all told me they couldn’t wait for the day when they didn’t have to cater to their own mothers and could simply have their own day.

As keeper of the local grandchildren we were in high demand and since we couldn’t seem to find a way to get that bigger celebration together it didn’t take long for the aforementioned grandchildren to tire of being dragged around.

Since it was Mother’s Day I did my best to take those kids and find ways to entertain them. Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes, well not so much.

That is part of having kids.

The Fundamental Issue

Some of you may consider this to be a first world problem or ask why I find it difficult to cooperate on the one day of the year dedicated to mothers.

The answer is it always made me crazy that we couldn’t just have everyone together for one celebration.

I didn’t care if it was a brunch or dinner.

I would be happy to cook or to pay for a meal somewhere, but that never worked and so we spent and spend the day shlepping around town.

And the other part of the equation is my birthday is May 9 which means that sometimes my birthday and Mother’s Day coincide.

Even when they don’t my birthday weekend always seems to have some crossover.

Call me what you will, but there have been some years where I kind of wanted my birthday to be the big deal and didn’t want it to be the afterthought.

If you are still reading this we’ll move along to other big issues such as are we going to hold International Link To Jack Day this year.

The answer is I don’t know and I haven’t planned for it. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I did it but I will tell you that it has been a pretty rousing success.

Call it part of silly tricks bloggers use to gain backlinks.

*****

I was looking at A Partial Tale Of Two Liars, Is Your Life What You Expected It To Be? and Some Things I’ll Teach My Children to see if they could give me some insight on this restless feeling that is sitting in the back of my head.

If you have been around long enough you know I am a restless soul and that it is not unusual for me to dig around in the back closet of my head to see what is hiding in the dark.

You’ll also know I recognized a while ago that I was in the midst of some major sea changes and that part of the reason I feel unsettled is I haven’t yet become who I am going to be.

That is a fancy-shmancy way of saying I am conscious of the changes and actively working on moving from transition into the next phase of my life.

Did I mention it is both exciting and scary?

The Uncensored Truth About Mother’s Day

I probably haven’t mentioned my own mother always tells me I was the best Mother’s Day gift she ever got.

She brought it up a couple of weeks ago and surprised me by how sentimental she got.

Mom asked me if I remembered something she said when I was around 20 or so. I told her I wasn’t sure what she was talking about and she said that Mother’s Day where I yelled at grandma.

Funny thing is I had forgotten about it.

Mom and grandma got along very well so this moment is one of the few times I remember any sort of disagreement.

I don’t remember what led to their words, assuming I ever did.

What I do remember is hearing something to the effect of, “mom, I am 46-years-old, when do I get a Mother’s Day where someone else plans it all and I get to just relax.”

Grandma looked at her and said something and for just a moment I got some insight into what things must have looked like when mom was a teen.

They worked whatever it was in a moment and hugged.

My dad told me not to ask about it and to accept that there was always going to be a certain amount of chaos around the day.

“Isn’t there something we can do?”

He shrugged his shoulders and told me if I could figure out a way to convince the mothers to go out to eat and not to have a meal at home it might work.

“But dad, they always say they don’t want to spend money on an overpriced meal at a crowded restaurant because we can have a nice family meal at home.”

Dad laughed and told me to just accept it because they weren’t going to change and I wasn’t going to convince them.

Almost thirty years later and he is still right.

We’ll probably shlep all over the place on Sunday and I’ll have to remind the kids to make an effort not to fight on Mother’s Day.

And somewhere in the midst of the chaos I’ll think about my grandmothers. I suppose I’ll always miss them.