Just Write

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.

The boy who made me a father is almost 12 now. He tells me he wants to know how long it will be before he is my size and I shrug.

“I don’t know. If you grow like I did it will be another five years before you can look me in the eye and close to eight before you fill out enough to wear one of my suits.”

He nods his head at me and smiles. I smile back at him. We are wandering through the car show and enjoying a moment.

That is an Aston Martin DB5, the same model James Bond drove in Goldfinger. It doesn’t do a good job of showing off the ejector seat, machine guns or any of the other tricks that car hid inside.

Nor does it show you the smile my son gave me when he asked why I was so excited to see the car and I told him about what it was like when I was 12.

He is growing up in a different world than I did so he won’t appreciate why I can look at that car and remember how “advanced” it was and how we rode our bikes and pretended that we had all of the cool tools too.

But he knows me well enough to recognize my moods, even when disguised by a poker face and that was enough to help accentuate the moment for him. “Dad is excited, maybe I should be too.”

The Auto Show

I spend vast amounts of time trying to generate new business and to do what has to be done to keep things going here. It often translates as my walking around the world with my “business face” on and my eye searching for opportunity.

That happened at the show, but most of the time it was relegated to the background. That is because the big guy at my side kept me grounded.

He kept me from getting lost in thoughts about what I would do if I were in charge of marketing for the show or for brands. It didn’t stop me from noticing who used social media to help promote their vehicles or what companies did the best job of trying to create a relationship with the people who wandered by their booths.

We looked at the Bentley above and talked about how much it would cost to buy one. His eyes grew wide and then expanded when I explained it wasn’t the most “expensive” car at the show.

Later on we wandered over to look at a Ford Fusion hybrid and I asked him to figure out how many Fusions you could buy for the price of the Bentley.

I smiled as I watched him figure it out in his head. His math skills are really strong and the day will come where I won’t be able to help him with his homework. It is not a question of if, but when.

Are You Going To Write About This?

We stop to take more pictures and he asks if I plan on writing about our experience. I smile and nod my head. He smiles back and I ask him if he is tired.

He says no, but I see he is starting to fade. It has been a busy day, two soccer games were played earlier and it is a bit after 9 PM.

For a moment I can see hints of the baby and the toddler in his face and I remember how I used to scoop him up and carry him.

I can still carry him but he is about 85 pounds now and that gets heavy much more quickly than it used to. For a moment I wonder if he would be willing to let me do it, or if he has reached the place where he is too cool to be carried.

It is an odd juxtaposition of my feeling proud of how big he is now and a moment of sadness at the passing of the time that was.

This is good. This is ok. This is natural and expected, but I feel like the countdown is almost beginning.

In a year we’ll have a Bar Mitzvah and then life will really begin to accelerate. I don’t mind waiting a while before that happens.

“You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.”
The Gambler– Kenny Rogers

 

It is 10:30 on Monday night and I am listening to With or Without You from U2’s Joshua Tree album. If I had to choose my top ten favorite albums this would definitely be on it.

Maybe it is because it came out during my senior year of high school and it is tied into a collective set of memories of hope, endless opportunities and more. Maybe it is because there are a few women who it reminds me of, girls with long hair who shared more than just moments in time.

They are part of my past but once they were part of my present and the future.

Past, Present and Future

Yesterday I took my son to see SkyFall with me. It was a fantastic movie and an exceptional moment in time for us. Movies have been our thing. This year we also saw The Avengers, Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises.

His eyes get so wide and he gets so excited to share these experiences. I can’t properly express how much fun it is for me. I always say that every age is my favorite, but this one really takes it to a new level.

That is because he really is old enough to appreciate and enjoy these films. He understands the difference between right and wrong, fake and fantasy.

And me, well I get to be dad and remember what it was like to be 12. It makes my heart swell two or three sizes.

I watch him and wonder who my son will grow up to be. He is a cross between his mother and I with a double dose of himself. The days of the little boy he was are rapidly disappearing into the past.

Faith Under Fire

The headline might make some of you wonder about whether this is a religious post, but that is not really it. Sure, I could go there. I could tell you about days of walking through the streets of Jerusalem and moments spent swimming in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

I could tell you about when I planned on becoming a rabbi and why I didn’t. I could tell you that it might happen one day, but that is not what this post is about.

This post is about many things and one of them is my struggle to sort and suss out a few things. I am waiting for the click to come and trying to be patient. I can feel it lurking in the recesses of my mind, it is something big.

I think I have figured out the answers to some major stuff but I can’t quite put my finger on it. So I am trying to focus on other things to give it time to surface.

My Best Work

Been trying to figure out which of my posts to recommend people read. If someone asked for writing samples I’d want to be able to say look at X, Y and Z. I’d want them to be representative of my work, but I haven’t decided which of those deserve the recognition.

I have a bunch listed on the About Me page but I don’t know if those are the best. They are good. They are solid and I am not embarrassed by them, but are they my best? I don’t know.

Can’t for perfection because it never comes, but can’t live on good enough either.

Writing is Cathartic

I write because it is part of how I release the things I carry. It is where I say I have to put together a Bar Mitzvah in a year and I haven’t figured out how to pay for it.

Faith says I will figure it out because I always do. I am active, ever moving forward, why won’t it happen again. But that is the thing, the wrestling with faith that comes along with it all.

What if it doesn’t. What if this is the time I drop the ball. What if Lucy pulls the ball out from under me and I don’t see it in time to course correct.

Go West Young Man

My son asks me to tell him who my favorite superhero is. He wants me to tell him who and why so that he can tell me who his is.

I tell him I am partial to Wolverine but that I would include James Bond in all this and he is up there too. I like the guys with edge and attitude, but I like them because they are human.

If we focus on those who truly have no superpowers we are down to Batman and James Bond. I suppose what excites me is that they get by on hard work, wits and luck.

That is enough for me. It is all I can count on. I am confident about the future, but damn, that little voice is still there and so the wrestling continues.

This was part of Just Write #61.

Rufus T. Firefly: Not that I care, but where is your husband?
Mrs. Teasdale: Why, he’s dead.
Rufus T. Firefly: I bet he’s just using that as an excuse.
Mrs. Teasdale: I was with him to the very end.
Rufus T. Firefly: No wonder he passed away.
Mrs. Teasdale: I held him in my arms and kissed him.
Rufus T. Firefly: Oh, I see, then it was murder. Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.
Duck Soup 1933

My daughter says she doesn’t like Movember because my face is too scratchy and that girls don’t like hairy faces. I told her I don’t like girls with hairy faces either and she rolled her eyes at me.

She asks me if I ever had any girlfriends before mommy and I tell her I can’t remember that far back but am positive none of them had hairy faces either, but that some of them might have had hairy legs.

“Daddy, I am serious. I want to know.”

Girls and their Questions

I know where these questions come from. My little girl found a bunch of “old” pictures of me from college and wants to know why I had more hair and if I can get the cuts in my stomach back.

She stares at pictures of me at fraternity formals and wants to know why I am wearing a tuxedo and why I didn’t take mommy to those parties. I smile again and remind her that I didn’t know mommy then.

I blame Disney for some of these questions or maybe I should blame myself for letting her watch these shows because that is the source of some of this.

Her brother is tired of these questions and says he doesn’t want to hear about girls. All he wants to talk about are cars and the election.

Boys And Their Questions

Some of this is gender related and some of it age. Both schools are talking about the election but middle school classes have made a bigger push to incorporate it into the curriculum.

He shares with me his concerns and tells me about the things he has heard about President Obama and Governor Romney. We talk about how the presidency is important and about how it is really not just one person running the government.

There is a team of people who come along with POTUS. We need to consider that along with our choice of incumbent or candidate.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my father when I was about the same age. President Carter was running against Ronald Reagan and school was filled with rumors about what would happen if Reagan came into office or if Carter got another four years.

“Daddy, did you like this girl? Why is she hugging you like that”

“Dad, isn’t there a movie about that hostage thing you mentioned from when you were a kid? Why is she hugging you like that? Her legs are wrapped around you?”

It is not the first time they have tag teamed me with questions. I smile and tell them to take a breath and I will answer their questions.

“Her name is Lori. I was giving her a piggy back ride and yes, there is a movie called Argo that deals with things that happened during the hostage crisis.”

They look down at the picture and back up at me. I haven’t exaggerated or made anything up. I remember the picture. I did give Lori a piggyback ride.

“She was just a friend. We had races at the fraternity. Lori and I took on a few other people”

My daughter looks at me and says, “you didn’t shave in that photo. Maybe if you had she would have been a girlfriend.”

I can’t help but laugh, she is cute.

Words About Writing

I am supposed to be the featured writer at another site tomorrow. As part of that I turned in a post about writing that is supposed to share some of my thoughts about writing.

It is not as eloquent as I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be distilled wisdom from Twenty-Five Links That Will Make You A Better Writer/Blogger but think I might have fallen short.

I need to go back to Building a Future and some of the other stories and weave them together.

If you asked me to share a post I am proud of I might suggest you read Blogging Every Day Is Easy- The Class Of ’69 Speaks. I like that one. It was fun and it flowed freely from my fingertips.

Bed time calls to me

This was part of Just Write #60. It has become a post I look forward to writing each week.

P.S. If you are in the U.S. and eligible to vote please remember to go out and do so. If I had my druthers I might vote for Rufus T. Firefly. 😉