every breath & blink
Writing is hard. I am distracted. Nights I just want to read or sleep or think. I'll come back.
Weather here turned sunny and cloudless and hit the 90s. Far from melting in misery I've been drinking it in; letting the heat warm my cold bones - bake the chill from my soul. In the morning when it's early, before 6am - it gets light so early now, I like to go outside barefoot. Sometimes there's still residual heat in the pavement, or at least some neutral temperature that feels warmer than the outside air. It's like some perfect non-temperature suspended between the cool of night and coming heat of the day. Sometimes I imagine it like the perfect temperature of a womb; just a built-in sense of pure comfort. Not hot; not cold; just comfortable.
May through August is full of holes: travel; relatives in town; progeny. Work is suffering from my swiss-cheese-focus. The simplicity of a day off here, a day off there, crushed by the weight of the requisite catch-up. And this baby is coming. Like a train at night I'm not going to see it until the light is on me. I can hear it coming, echoing somewhere far away and I can put my ears on the track and listen to the rolling steel. I've been feeling guilty. When Keaton came my entire brain, my every breath and blink, was consumed with thoughts of her. The second time around it feels almost "routine." Sure we've planned and readied but it's nothing like what it was with Keaton. I guess that's to be expected... but it still makes me feel... guilty.
Such a random bit of writing. Told you it's hard. Goodnight.
the right time to write
Friday. Finally.
A long week and barely any entries. That happens when I don't write on a Sunday. Sunday writing has become the key to a good week of entries. Typically, I'll get at least one full post knocked out (Monday's) and a couple outlines or ideas captured down as drafts. Then I'll work on those drafts during weeknight evenings or over lunch break at work. But when I don't do Sunday, and I don't crib down ideas... I'm stuck for the week. Work wrings any free thought from my brain and I end up staring at a blank page most nights. Such was this week... there was a bunch to write about but never the right time to write.
It's 9:30pm now and I'm just thirty minutes out of my last meeting of the day. I'm reclined on the couch, typing, and my toes are icy cold. I'm wondering what I can snack on. I finished off the bag of Goldfish Sharaun got in the bulk aisle upon getting home from work. Sharaun, in some fit of sweet-deprivation, baked a box of pre-mixed chocolate chip muffins (I didn't even know we had them), but I don't feel like that. Late night snacks should be spicy.
I shaved my head last Friday, and have shaved it twice again since then. I like the way it looks, all bald and smooth. Keaton also likes it and has taken to calling me "bald head." Sharaun is not so sure. I've taken to calling it my "last haircut."
Goodnight.
triumphant
Good evening internet. Hope your week is winding down well.
Last night Sharaun realized midway through preparing the fajitas for dinner that we had no sour cream. To me this would have been fine. Yes the integrity of the resultant sour cream-less fajitas would most certainly be compromised, but what can a body do when there's no sour cream in the house? It's not like I have time to maybe wait for some regular cream to go sour, so I made my peace. Sharaun, however, couldn't abide the situation. Deciphering her complicated series of pointed exhales and sighs, Keaton and I made a quick run to the store; or, as quick as is possible with Keaton along, she really wanted to accompany me. We came home triumphant, and had fajitas to celebrate.
I sat and stared at this page most nights this week and nothing ever came. Over and over again all I could bring to mind were thoughts of work. Work. It's been consuming me lately. Tonight I got home late and sat and worked even after that. I had to forcefully turn off my brain and get disconnected enough to read some Hobbit with Keaton. Even now as I write this last paragraph about not being able to write just so I have something to write, I'm distracted.
I had a meeting this morning with a co-worker near London. It was his Thursday evening as we spoke and he told me he was readying for the Easter holiday, where they are off Friday and Monday for a four-day weekend. Man I wish we got an Easter holiday. I could use a four-day weekend about now.
Goodnight.
tied together
Happy Tuesday.
I wrote nearly a week's worth of entries this past weekend and set them all up to auto-post each successive day this week. See, I already know this week is going to be hectic at work (and not at work) and figured this would work best. Here's today's bits.
The other morning on the way to work the day's burgeoning weather was so inviting I rolled down all the windows in the car. It was only a few minutes before I realized I had been a bit over-zealous in my enthusiasm, as the sun hadn't quite had a chance to warm the morning chill and it really wasn't, after all, windows-down weather just yet.
Too stubborn to admit this even to myself, however, I continued on in goose-pimpled protest, attempting to project a face of "What? You think it's odd all my windows are down and it's in the low 50s? It's you that has the problem, then" to the other drives eying me sideways. And since we all know that windows-down driving only feels right when accompanied by ear-splitting grooves, I cranked the stereo and isolated myself from any sound other than what blared from the speakers.
Half way to work a bird broke from the shrubbery in the median, perhaps spooked by my deafening music but more likely just the routine approach of a vehicle. As he climbed from his hiding place on the ground he paced me perfectly, gliding low at first and then slowly adjusting his pitch to come near level with my head alongside the window. Here we are both traveling at something over forty miles and hour in near perfect lock-step and it was like I could just turn my and look over and say "Hey, what's up bird?" We were that well-matched.
It was only for a second, though, before he took a stiff turn away from the vehicle and slowed steeply to land again, presumably until the next car came along. For some reason that brief moment of unison spoke to me. Machine and nature, tied together on an invisible string or something.
Goodnight.
elevated
Back from Florida and things are still non-stop.
I do, however, feel the writing bug coming back. Now just to find time. Recently work has stepped it up a notch. Not like those times when I write things like, "Man work was killer this week," or "Work is kicking my butt this week," but rather a real sustained uptick in activity. If I wanted to I think I could make a DHS-like "threat chart" for work, something like a "bandwidth-demand" chart that'd be similarly color-coded for how much of my mental time (not necessarily just at-work hours) work commands. Right now I'd say things have moved from "guarded" to "elevated." Only problem is that the time in between each threat level, moving upwards, becomes increasingly smaller. So before I know it I'll be dealing with "high" and then "severe." Not surprisingly, like the Department of Homeland Security we'll never actually get to "low," and the longest-lasting phase, the one you tend to get "stuck" on, is "high."
But, since it's already half-past midnight on Wednesday and I'm tired and need sleep, instead of trying to flex my quill and write a masterpiece I'm instead going to post a video. I took the following a couple weeks ago when Sharaun was in Florida and Keaton and I were alone for an extended weekend. I had just gotten into the 1981 Human League record Dare (after hearing that's what Lester Bangs was listening to when he committed suicide) and had been wearing the grooves out of the thing (virtually, of course) all weekend. Keaton began to pick up on the lyrics and started to really dig the first track. She even developed her own dance to the song, which is what I taped here. Her choice of 80s glasses was all solo, I didn't foist them on her as a prop. Check out the moves:
Someone call Soul Train.
Goodnight.
writer’s block
What a gorgeous Sunday. Didn't expect this sunshine.
I forsook the assembly this morning. Left God hanging for the first time in a long time. Last night got a little tight with friends. At some point switched to onions instead of olives. I'd never had a martini with onions before. The taste simply will not leave my mouth this morning, even after multiple cups of coffee. Tastes like shame and a fleeting false sensation of youth.
Keaton and I spent most of Saturday afternoon working on the garden together. I built a set of stairs up the hill and laid some pavers to form a walkway between the gardenbox and the grape row. Access to the grapes for pruning will be key so I needed something. Afterward we refreshed the mix in the box and picked and planted the spring crop.
Oh man I have some serious writer's block. I haven't been able to come up with anything good in weeks.
Tonight is apparently no exception.
sun dried tomatoes
Today I write non-linearly. Or, every day I write non-linearly. But today I tried to write non-linearly. Happy Thursday.
I hate to say it because I’ll probably jinx it, but I do believe I’m back.
Writing is coming to me more easily than it has in months, and the blog has benefited from it with a return to the daily posting heyday of years past. Honestly, I think it’s taken me getting back between the pages of some good books for this to happen. When I read more, I want to write more. Seems backwards since both take time and time is scarce, but allot budget for both. I’ve come to conclude, then, that being involved in a good book is key for me in terms of my motivation to write. I read words put together so nicely, see concepts created with sentences, and I want to rush off to the keyboard and do the same. I’m fairly transparent, so you’ll see my “style” shift to the style of what I’m reading at the moment… but that’s OK with me.
Yesterday’s fog lifted today, made for a slightly warmer but equally as gray day comparatively. At night the solid blanket of clouds distributes the light from the moon (now waning gibbous and just slightly out of round) throughout the sky. You'd think that the diffusion would waste some of the brightness, but going to bed last night whole of the sky was like a pale lighted sheet. It was so bright, in fact, that I said something to Sharaun about it as we climbed into bed. She said something contrary; "It isn't all that bright," or similar. "Sure looks bright to me," I thought silently, not rising to the moment.
In the morning when I woke up the pants and shirt I wanted to wear were in a crumple on top of the dryer. I had to pull out the wad of clothes currently in there, add it to the bigger crumple on top, and give them a ten minute whirl before I was even halfway comfortable wearing them. While I waited, I paced the house in my boxers.
I looked out the window in the front room, the one that looks out onto the garden box. I never did plant a winter crop this year. I even had Cynthia donate all her wonderful organic seeds to me before moving out of the country. She and I went as far as to pick out and bundle up a selection of winter crops to plant. Never got around to it. The garden is a massive tangle of dead dried tomato bushes. Amazingly, though, although everything else has returned to the dust from whence it came I spotted some green sprigs. Imagine my surprise when I pulled four well-developed carrots from the soil. Plants, they want to grow.
After getting dressed I roused Sharaun, my chauffeur at present. Keaton was in the bed with us so she woke too. Almost every night she calls from her bedroom and asks if she can come sleep with us. We deny her gently almost always, and she goes back to sleep. This is actually a vast improvement from her older M.O. where she’d simply wander up to the bedside and tap your shoulder to wake you, asking to join us under the covers. It was harder to say “no” then as “no” involved walking her back to her bedroom and re-tucking her in (I know, it didn’t have to involve that… but it did, to avoid complications). Not sure why she started calling from her bed instead, but she’s effectively solved that problem for us.
She got invited in last night because she called out around 3:30am saying, “Dad, I have to go potty!” I sometimes wonder how I’m always able to wake and post-process what I’ve heard when it comes to Keaton. Other noises and other voices would likely go by unnoticed. Must have something to do with what’s good for the species; genetics; God. But I do wake and my brain replays for me what did the waking. I sat up slightly and re-heard, “Dad, I have to go potty!” “Go ahead baby. Get up and go potty.” She was wearing a pull-up. “Just pull down your pull-up.” Light flooded into the hallway and I heard the tinkle and the flush and the faucet. When she was done the light flicked off and I heard, “Dad, can I come into your bed?” It was Sharaun who answered.
“Yes baby, come on in.” This surprised me a little, although not much in my half-awake state. Sharaun’s usually a big proponent of Keaton staying in her bed for the nights. She came to my side. I hoisted her under her arms and rolled her over me into the canyon between Sharaun and I. “I’m so proud of you Keaton,” Sharaun said. Now I get it. Maybe this is a reward for her waking to use the potty. “Yeah babe,” I said, “You woke up and used the potty just like we talked about. That’s great!” We snuggled us three. I took one last look out the window to marvel at that glowing fleece of a sky, the moon's glow doled out even across the suspended droplets of cloud, before sleep took its revenge on us all.
Even though there was still pee in the pull-up come morning, I can’t help but see it as progress. Tonight we’ll reiterate the get up if you need to get up thing, see if we can provoke a repeat performance. One step at a time.
Goodnight.
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