These days, the ones where you work twelve or thirteen hours, these days are going to pay off.  OK maybe not in dollars.  Or maybe not in respect or position or stature, either.  OK what then?  Self-respect?  Don't think so.  Personal satisfaction; yeah that's got to be it.  Some Eagle Scout sense of selfless fulfillment.  Maybe if it was thirteen hours in a soup kitchen.  Thirteen hours, a daily 1/100,000th of a hundredth of a dollar change in stock price.  OK so yeah it's not all toil and not a scrap of enjoyment.  The chase; the race; the smugness of high performance.

More and more I want to steal some time back and writing gives me that.  If I'm sitting here writing I'm not working or thinking about work.  More: I've been wanting to write.  I get home and I think about what I might write.  I email one-line ideas to myself when I'm on the go.  Motivation is a strange thing.  Did you know that during the "break" this year, the one I may or may not still be on, I let the ten year anniversary of this blog pass silently by?  Earlier in the year I had big plans for that September date... was going to do some big self-indulgent "look back" kind of feature... go all out.  Alas, it came and went unnoticed whilst I wasn't writing.

Like I said, thought to day about how I wanted to write tonight; wrote tonight.  To me that's good.

We're off, traveling again for weeks running, this weekend.  Away from work for a while.  Look for me.

Goodnight.

Upon seeing this shiny place ringed by desert again, I didn't expect to have such a strong emotional reaction.  Maybe the jetlag contributed, but being here again after this summer's RV trip, for only the second time in my life, just smashed down on me and almost made my eyes water.  It's not like I'm remembering something that happened twenty years ago, either - we were here back in July.  I think it's a testament to just how impactful that trip was on me.

Maybe I didn't realize exactly how broadly the journey effected me, and to some extent maybe I'm still settling back into things and coming off that road-high.  Writing might be one example of this.  I know in my head that at some point I'm going to call this sounds familiar dead-time "the big gap."  That I've already named it for future writing means I'm getting closer.  More telling still are the ideas for entries that have been jumping into my head again; on plane flights, in taxis, on the soccer field, the shower; the usual places.

It could be that I haven't seen my family in two weeks, and won't for another few days before we meet again in Portland.  Missing them and being here, a place where, even if we didn't really have the best time in the world, I was last together with them on this wild transforming journey, surely plays a part.  I miss my family.

So I don't know... but I'm going to go out and walk the strip a bit (after a shower to wash the full day's travel off me) and see if I can catch further nostalgia.

Until later then.

Seems I've traded writing for something else.  Not sure what it is yet, but pretty certain the swap came on the RV trip.  Sharaun suggested perhaps it's a better sex life.  If so, I made the right choice and the writing will come back eventually, it's all about the balance.  No but really, being on that trip made me think about how the folks of old and how they lived in much closer quarters than do we today - coexisting in a one-room cabin in relative isolation from other humans aside from your spouse; no wonder they had bigger litters in the old days.

Wait; where was I... oh, yeah.

To put it simply: writing has been hard.  I sit down almost every night with the best intentions and end up with nothing.  I feel surprisingly little guilt about it, which I think means that it's not something I've "given up" but rather something that's not coming easy these days.  I've been writing so long that I don't think it's something I can just quit.  Until I get back on the horse though, I'm going to be unashamed about how long I go between posts here.  I just don't care enough to force it when it's not right.  Like other "healthy" habits I've let go the way of the dodo, writing will return and return strong... I'm just going to have to wait it out.

Let's see... what's going on...

Oh, Coco is crawling now - crawling all over the place, no need to call the developmental people with their slide rules and pocket protectors and physical training.  In fact, in the past week Cohen's been all about what they call "cruising," which is where he pulls up and "walks" by aid of his hands on tabletops, couches, or anything else.  He spends more time on his feet now than crawling, which I consider a clear signal that he's wanting to be walking, and likely will be here shortly.  Like Keaton, he'll be late gauged against "the norm" or other kids his age, but like with Keaton I couldn't care less.

Don't know if I wrote about it, but he can talk too.  His first word was "uh-oh," and now he's got "mama," "daddy," "sister," "Keaton," and "kitty" too.  He also recently got an award from President Obama for being the "Cutest Baby on the West Coast."  OK that last part is bunk; but he can talk and crawl and is almost walking.  In fact I told Sharaun I think he'll be walking on his own by month's end.  She says I'm optimistic, but it's true so I didn't punch her or anything for sullying my good name.

Things at home are normal: Sharaun let me get a flagpole and an American flag.  I fly it most days, putting it up in the morning and taking it down again at night.  She bought a UF flag and we fly that on Saturdays instead.  I tried to do laundary and threw in some orange leggings at the bottom of Keaton's hamper and they bled all over everything and ruined stuff.  Sharaun said they were dyed for Keaton's Halloween costume last year and she had purposely been avoiding them down there at the bottom of the hamper.  Last Halloween?, I asked incredulously.  One year in the bottom of a hamper.  Keaton's doing well in kindergarten and playing soccer on the weekends and dancing too - I believe we've got our yuppie-parent dance card all filled.

See, first time I've written in weeks where it felt good.  It'll come; just give me time.  Goodnight.

No; I want more than anything to write.  About Keaton's first day of kindergarten; about how I'm working from 6am to 11pm on daily basis; about how we visited my brother and his wife for the first time since they moved to California.  So many things to write about but not a spare second.  Writing this in between answering email at 1035pm on a Monday.  Got home at 915pm.

I've not abandoned anything, I just need to re-fit this thing into my day and haven't figured out just where to do that.  Maybe at lunch.  Maybe I need to do it early, before work.  Nights aren't working.  Days are too busy and stifle thinking.  I just have to pick a new sweet-spot and get to work.

Aside from work, things have been rosy.  Having sex often enough, eating well, weather is nice, money in the bank.

Be back later.  Goodnight.

Man what a disgusting, childish, disappointing and disheartening bout of playground name-calling.  If the goal here was to further alienate the American people, to perhaps convince those remaining few optimists that the system really is broken, to appear petty and stubborn and pouty - mission accomplished.  I both love and hate politics, but lately I've stopped caring because it's just a joke.  If you weren't convinced yet that US politics has entered the era of reality TV, you likely are after tonight.  Puerile, simply shameful - embarrassing on a global scale.

In the space where you are now reading this sentence I have typed, then deleted, three separate paragraphs.  Most were about music, or about how I'm sitting here with the windows open at night waiting for my 10pm meeting to start, or about something silly that happened at work today - but all of them were boring.

Goodnight.

A long-ago/still-today friend was in town from a world away and we spent the night imbibing and jawing together.  After midnight the place turned up the mood lighting as a signal to the last few holdout drunkards: It's over; you have families; go home to them.  We all filed out and I did that "I'm perfectly fine" walk for the hundred yards or so back to our house.  Called Sharaun on the phone as I was walking up the driveway so as not to scare her when I jiggled the (inevitably locked) front door.  Got in, took the trash to the curb, did the nighttime disrobe and teeth-scrub and was ready to count sheep.

Wanted to write, though.  I see this guy - the guy that brought me out to the bar, something I don't do all that much anymore - maybe twice a year.  We shared some fantastic times in years gone by and it's always good to sit with him and catch up.  I like to think we share some similar motivations when it comes to work, and some of the talk is all high-school coed gossip-central but... I knew that when I paid the admission.  I came for it, in fact.  Why dodge?  While it's good to remember the old days, it's even better to gnaw on the now; compare notes, talk shop.  If you're a soap-opera kind of guy you can get swept away in the politics of it all.  Big companies are all politics and the sawmill is a big company.

More than wanting to write about that, though, I wanted to just write.  I missed writing whilst on the big RV trip and want to get back to it even if it's a strange not-so-complete sentence thing ala tonight.  I don't care because what's important to me is the writing itself.  Even if it's just a stray thought that's captured perfectly in two sentences; I don't know why I sometimes impose a stupid "album-length" mandate on writing anyway... it's stupid.  A good sentence, a good paragraph, needs to be written.

Bah, it's obviously time to sleep.  This has gone on too long.  Fun tonight.  See ya.

At work it was annual review time and there's never enough money or accolades for those deserving of money and accolades.  At one point during the week I actually thought I might be cracking up.  Like, there's too much to do cracking up.  Because I had a full eight hours of work every day, I have not checked email (no, like really not touched it) since Monday.

When I last checked, there were close to nine-hundred unread messages in my inbox.  I'm not exaggerating.  Nine-hundred.  I have allocated the first six hours of tomorrow morning (this week I have been arriving around 6am to get some extra hours) to killing the inbox.  I will find a private place where people can't get to me and I will respond to mail all morning.  Six hours of email.  This is how I make bread.  This is my worth.

The day reeked.  Reeked.  I hated it but I struggled through it with folded hands, propriety, and a smile.  Tonight was beer with an old friend.  Reparations, perhaps.  It was a welcome nightcap to the day, and set me in a much better mood for the end of the evening.  Actually I feel great.  I am eating potatoes out of a ziplock back with a fork.

Sorry no writing this week.  Remember, it reeked.

Goodnight.

I don't know who likes baking together more... because, man, I get some serious enjoyment out of it.  I like "teaching" Keaton how things go together to make other things, and we enjoy experimenting with recipes by brainstorming what might taste good as additions.  This Sunday we kept it simple and made sugar cookies.  Partway through rolling out more dough-balls and baking the ones we'd already put on sheets, she wondered if adding cinnamon might be good.  "Let's try it," I said.  I let her work a liberal sprinkling into the remaining dough.  When we'd rolled a few more balls, Sharaun got home and suggested we use cookie-cutters to make some cool shapes.  Keaton chose hearts.

In the end, the hearts were too thin and burned in the time it took to cook the regular cookies.  Even that was OK, though.  Gave me a chance to explain about the beauty of trial and error.  Next time, we know that rolled-out cookie-cutter cookies are too thin and only need to bake for about half the time.  Live and learn.

Now if only the recipe hadn't made five-thousand cookies.  Sharaun, the more diligent of us in the realm of calorie-limiting, has been steadfastly ignoring them.  Meanwhile I feel I have an imperative to consume them... I'm responsible for their existence, after all.  I don't want to be a deadbeat baker.  I've got the Tupperware thing right next to me, a little glass of milk on the arm of the couch to my left, and I'm wondering how many times one person can lie to themselves about "Just one more."

Gosh, I sound like a chick in this thing.  I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette and drink beer and watch sports.

Goodnight.

I would estimate that at least 60% of my workdays are spent in meetings.  I've written about it before, but meetings are a large part of what I do.  Of those meetings, probably 75% are taken via phone.  This means that I sit at my desk with a little wireless headset, muted, often only distractedly paying attention, listening for keywords while trying to get real work done at the same time.  Sometimes I have to give 100% attention, maybe 40% of the time.  That's a lot of percentages, and it makes me think there's an equation in there which could give me an idea of the ROI I get from these things.  But I digress.

When I'm not on meetings, I'm listening to music.  I log onto the Subsonic server I have running at home and I stream tunes right from the machine in my closet.  While it never really happens, you can bet that if there were a day where I had zero meetings that that's also be a day where I listened to nearly eight hours of music.  There are no moments, aside from meetings, where I'm not listening to music.  Because music is so ever-present in my working day (heck, in my waking day, for that matter), a good pair of headphones is essential.  I paid $80 for this latest pair.  German jobs; an audiophile rig although I didn't realize this when I bought them.  They just looked comfortable and I like comfortable.  I don't want active noise cancelling, but they have to be over-ear ("circumaural," says the package) and they need to have padding at the top so they don't dig into my bald head.

I am trying them out right now as I write.  Sharaun is watching American Idol but the room is dead to me.  I'm using Grooveshark to evaluate a bunch of new records which I've heard people say are good. They are comfortable and they sound good so I'm happy I bought them.  I'm not happy I spent $80 but I suppose if you amortize that over years I hope to use them before the biodegrade or disintegrate or whatever it's not bad.

Why even publish this?  Makes the month count look better.  Goodnight.

Spent most of the night working on the blog I setup for Keaton to document the RV trip.  I get pretty silly about making it look and feel just so, and tend to spend way yonder too much time tweaking.  I think, however, that I got it just how I want it.  I also spent time mucking with my cellphone and laptop, getting things just right so we'll be able to use the cellular signal/network to post from the road when there's not a proper internet hookup available. I like to think that I'll have energy and desire to update the page as we travel, but I also have doubts.  And again, yes I am obsessed, quite so.

Flying home yesterday we were the Van Winkle family. Each one of us, from the biggest and strongest down to me took advantage of the snap-quick flight from Portland back home to sunny California.  Cohen napped in Sharaun's arms and Keaton fought it as long as she could, long enough to get her apple juice - you better believe that.  I was out with my paperback in my lap, I never even cracked the cover, and Sharaun with her head on my shoulder.

Three times on planes now I've had a front row seat to a guy having a stroke.  It didn't happen yesterday or anything, but when I fly now it almost always crosses my mind sometime during the flight.  It's a horrible sight, the muscled rigor and robotic vomiting and bulging full-of-fear prisoner's eyes, stuck in a body that's plain-out short-circuited.   I once watched it happen to a gentlemen just behind me and across the aisle, his wife was seated next to him and was first to notice something was amiss.  I turned to look as I heard her calling his name, at first with simple curiosity and later, by the fourth or fifth time unanswered, with panic 'round the edges.  You know that special "thing" you have with your mate, the "thing" where, with just a glance or maybe even conversation over the phone, you can tell something's not right.  I imagine this wife having that feeling about as intensely as one can as she began to realize her husband was stroking out.

The poor guy was as stiff as a board, muscles standing out in knots like his whole body was a Charley horse.  His fingers were clutched in claws, and I could see his slacks straining against his clenched thighs.  His teeth were clamped shut but his lips were parted just a little in this confused and pained expression.  And his eyes, maybe that's why the memory is so clear in my head, I can see his eyes.  I remember at the time, as I stole my quick glance at the poor man and his wife, that there were two likliehoods behind what I saw in those eyes.  One, the man's eyes were the only part of him still "connected" and outputting the right readings.  Two, his brain had shut down and frozen them as they were, stuck.  Either way, they bulged and just looked terrified.  At the time I could almost read them, "Oh dear God what is happening to me?!  I can't talk; I can't move; there's an electrical storm in my head."  He vomited copiously through clenched teeth.  All this I saw in the span of one or two quick backwards glances; I didn't want to treat it like entertainment.

Once in the third grade Sarah Bean had an epileptic seizure in class.  I was off to one side of the room and only heard the commotion, not really seeing the action.  I can remember Mrs. Forinash talking to the aide in the room, hollering about, "Hold her tongue!  She's choking on her tongue!"  At the time I thought choking on your own tongue seemed about the most impossible notion in the world to me.  Everything turned out OK, however, but it's another one of those indelible things scored into my gray matter.  Sometime shortly after Sarah's mom came into the classroom and talked about epilepsy and what a seizure is; I remember being fascinated.  Poor Sarah Bean, whose body had turned against her, just like these unlucky fellows whose relays and synapses revolted on them while we shared a flight together.

I honestly have no idea where this all came from.  Something about flying home from Oregon.  So... maybe I meant to say, "We're home from Oregon."

And... we are.  Home from Oregon that is.  Goodnight.