sounds familiar Musing on the present. Reminiscing about the past. Posturing for the future.

been here before

I wrote something tonight that I really liked.   Then I deleted it.

It was some artsy bit about gaining perspective, brought about by re-reading yesterday's entry.  It had a caveman and something about DNA and guilt over prayers for clean water.  Man it was bad.  Written well, but bad.

Lately I just can't write anything I like.  I write it and abandon it or delete it.  I thought tonight about writing about how I've been using a couple new pieces of software I really like, but then that seemed boring.  I thought of doing the standard "Cohen is getting older" or "Keaton did something cute" retell.  Nothing seemed right and it all seemed boring.   And then here I am writing about how I can't write again; probably the most trotted-out rehash I have and here I go pulling it down again.

Maybe it's just adjusting to the new schedule.  The new baby, work in constant overload, the old baby.  It's not like I'm lacking sleep, I still get most of it.  I've weathered storms in writing before.  In 1997 I took a three month break.  I opened that return to writing with these words, "It's really been a while...  A lot has happened since I've last cared to write."  Well it's really been a while since I've not written for a period of more than a week... so ultimately I feel OK.  It'll come back.

And anyway, while looking back to judge breaks-in-writing of the past I found this:

4/10/98

So many things have been going on, it's hard to choose which to write about.  I truly am so busy lately, I have no time for the things that I wish I could be doing right now.  I guess that's how it happens though, by the time you get old enough to realize that you could be doing something else - you're too busy to be doing it.  Does that make sense?  I mean that, every day I can think of one-thousand things that I could be doing rather than what I am doing at that time, but - now that I am finally realizing what I could be doing, I am too busy to even keep that thought in my head long enough to imagine it.  It's life setting in I suppose, the more things I can do, the less time I have to do them.

I laughed.  Goodnight.

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.