A hodge-podge of stuff today. I almost didn’t write, started falling asleep watching that Discovery channel “The Tomb of Jesus” documentary (not because it was boring, but because I was all alone and reclined on the couch). But, then Sharaun got back from the gym and I got up and forced myself to do the dishes and I got a second wind. So here I am then, let’s go. Oh, before we start, I updated Keaton’s gallery – check it out.
My throat is sore and raw, and I have a raspy cough. I know that it’s not sick though, it’s allergies, and it sucks. When I was a kid, I had asthma and allergies. Asthma bad enough that I remember gaspingly wheezing for air in the back seat as my parents drove me to the emergency room, and allerigies bad enough that my parents had to take me in each week to get a shot in the arm.
As I got older, both the asthma and allergies waned in strength, and by the time I was a teenager in Florida – I was pretty much allergy-free. At the time, I thought it was just the natural “growing out of it” that many allergists will advise you is probable as you age. Now, however, after my return to California, and my allergies’ return to me – I’m beginning to think it’s more likely I “geographied” out of my allergies than I did grew out of them. For now, friends, they are back with a vengeance. A mere seven years back in California and they plague me come Springtime. What do you know, another tick in the “pro” column for the good ol’ South.
Straightening the other day after bending down to retrieve a little toy monkey for Keaton, I smacked the top of my head on the underside of the little niche where our TV lives. Man it hurt. I immediately put Keaton down and grabbed my poor skull, considering, as all men do when in severe pain, what the best curses would be to communicate my feelings, and in which direction and how hard to throw the little plastic monkey that was responsible. In the end, I just groaned and squeezed the monkey tight – not wanting to go all Hulk out-of-control with Keaton watching. My head was bruised, and my teeth hurt from clacking together, but I lived. I did, however, somehow end up with a smallish pimple-like thing right where I bumped my noggin. I find this painful, disgusting, and embarrassing. Who gets a zit on the very crown of their dome? Right there where I’m my baldest, right there in plain view, dead-smack on the perihelion of my melon.
I think I need to change my strategy at work a bit, need to add a little more “dick” to how I manage. I say this because I think it’s a semi-fault of mine to be a little too friendly and kind, and I’ve found that lately those traits have been getting in the way (somewhat) of the “hardness” with which I want to communicate some things. I don’t want to be a jerk boss, no, I’d always like to be the nice boss – but I think I need to flex some muscle, bring some thunder, in order to shed that schoolboy image of someone who can’t get all iron-fisted when the need arises. Yes, I think this is something I’ll have to do. Learn to be brusque, learn to be curt, firm, and more unwavering in the face of strong emotion. What I’m saying is, I have to learn to lock my tear-drenched heart away inside a steel box when necessary. Come then, the new age of me – the dick.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- thinking - 2019
- writer's block - 2010
- the times they are a-changin' - 2006
- the new transformers - 2005
- ghostwriting about ghosts - 2004