Day 21: What Knockers!

Look at this face. Who couldn't love a face like this? I love this face. I love this face so much, I've watched Mr. Monster get a spanking new brain plopped into his dome dozens and dozens of time. I love this face so much, I'm going to watch it sing and dance on stage today at the Lied Theater. This face made such a lasting impression on me the first time I saw it in the movie theater all those years ago as a teenager, I'll never forget it. This face reminds me of my friends Brett and Bobby, who saw this face with me in that theater. This face reminds me of my children and how we laughed at it over the years as it tried to sing and dance in tux and top hat. This face reminds me of my wife's laugh and how it cackles when this face appears on screen.This face reminds me of my teenage crush on Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn. This face reminds me of "I-gor" and blind monks and wayward darts and sausage and a woman's love of horses. Look at this face. Who couldn't find it adorable?

It's the small things, always the small things that make life a treasure. A movie may just be a movie, but it just may be something a whole lot more, as well.

Day 20: Force Of Will

These, honestly, are the type of days I find it hard to find some positive in. These are the days when I don't want to write. Don't want to think. Don't want to create. I just want to wallow. Just want to sink. No, it's not that difficult really to pick out something positive here and there. There are a lot of things to be optimistic about really. It's a definite positive that I have a job, food to eat, good kids, and all that stuff. But personally, trying really hard to find some deeper meaning for getting off the couch where there doesn't seem to be too many signs, that's hardl positive about. There are days like these during which I wonder about the difference I'm making and I don't find too many positive indicators. And yet, I only have to think of all the men and women who sacrificed so much and received far less than they deserved in return. So many mothers and fathers who pushed their personal  gratification aside to commit fully to their children's happiness. I find something very positive in that, and the bonus is that forcing myself to think of those things forces me to think a lot less about myself, and that's always a good thing. In fact, taking the focus off of myself by thinking about anyone or anything else is the most positive thing I've done today. I'll take it. 

Day 19: I'm in love with a cabin, and I don't care who knows it.

I have something to get off my chest. Something I must admit.

I am an addict. I am hopelessly addicted. I am hopelessly suffering from a lust stronger than I. I’m perpetually drawn to a mysterious power that draws me closer to reckless abandonment each passing day, to something that blankets me in positiveness. 

Friends, I am addicted to cabin porn.

Its power over me is remarkable. Look for yourself. Try and deny it organic beauty. Try to resist its sultry gaze. It is magnificence personified.

Yet, I’m saddened to the soul that I’ve yet to experience my addiction in the flesh, and in fact, I may never. It pains me further to know that although our interaction may never transpire, it has carved an impression so profoundly deep and wide into my heart and mind, I’ll be haunted for all time.

I dare not speak of my obsession too frequently for fear that any remaining power I have against its charm will evaporate, a loss that I can’t afford if I am to weather on. Still, I’m powerless to its invitation, wisdom, natural curves, lines, and endless color. I am at its delightful mercy. I’ve given my thoughts over.  I no longer function as I once did.

As much as I struggle to break free of its hold, I know I don’t want to. I don’t want to escape. I want to give into its allure, which swells more intensely each day. I want to be summoned. Teased. Enticed. Invited. I want to hear promises whispered that if I should bring myself, I’ll never have to leave, that if I arrive, I will be provided everything needed to live unhinged, unbridled, unrestricted.

I know if I don’t terminate this yearning soon, it will swarm my senses, and I’ll wind up alone in a room with only my books, paper and pen, and thoughts. Nothing outside but expanse. Nothingness. Sweet, delicious, glorious nothingness.  

Day 18: Now & Then

I wonder sometimes how differently my life would be today if I had had a smartphone in my pocket at age 13 and could talk to whoever I wanted anytime I wanted. I wonder how differently I would have turned out if my parents let me play games on their iPhone as a preschooler or if in high school I would have had the choice of 10,000 movies to watch anytime I wanted or I could have dialed in virtually any song ever recorded. Would I have the same tastes I do now? Would I have talked to my friends more or less? Would I have more friends or less really good ones? Would I have learned too much too soon? Would my friends and family have learned too much about me? How would have I have felt about them having a separate digital presence? Would had having so many avenues in which to express my opinion made me less shy? Would I have only ended up echoing someone else’s opinion because I was too distracted to develop my own?

I wonder how life would have been different if I had had a digital camera at my fingertips to document the world and share what I saw so easily with others. I wonder what life would have looked like to have had a blog or Web site at my disposal to spread my teenage-aged whims globally. Would I communicate or write differently today? Would I have discovered my beliefs and fears and aspirations and strengths and weaknesses in the same way? I wonder what it would have been like playing games online with perfect strangers. I wonder if watching and reading about sports would have mattered as much or would I have spent more time exploring other interests that weren’t available to me back then? I wonder if I would have grown up too soon.

That last point is the one I spend a considerable amount of time contemplating where my kids and their friends and others in general are concerned. Did my kids grow up or are they growing up too quickly due to technology constantly inundating them with ideas, images, and more that were beyond my scope at a similar age? I’m not sure.

I’m not someone who bemoans all the ways technology is ruining society, cheapening culture, inflating egos, and destroying interpersonal communication. All of those things are probably true to some extent, but for every negative stemming from technology, I believe I can point out 10 positives technology enables. Beyond that, life simply changes. My time as a youth isn’t supposed to be the same as my kids’ time. Mine wasn’t the same as my parents’, and theirs’ not the same as their parents’. My kids know of no other life than one that puts technology right at the core. So, while I despised the influence that something like MySpace and its “look at me being so risqué” culture had on my older kids and accelerated the rate at which they grew up, I’m filled with gratitude for things like the vast amount of diverse and eclectic people my kids have encountered and interact with daily thanks to technology.

Day 17: Yes, you will be mine one day, friend.

I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles--unhealthy in the sense that my soul is aching to own one but reality keeps crushing my soul with brutal force. Reality can be a bastard.

There are any number of reasons I'm not riding the bad boy pictured above or one like it to work everyday or through the city streets on a Sunday afternoon or on the back roads running through the hills outside of town. Chief  among them is the fact that growing children apparently need food, water, clothes, a safe place to sleep, and a few other odds and ends to survive. Odds and ends don't come cheap these days. Thus, the dreaded Priority List rears its ugly head. Priorities can be a bastard.

Middle-aged men riding a foreign bike, unfortunately, doesn't rate too highly on the "must-have" list. As bad ass as I would look propped up on this Royal Enfield, and trust me, I would look bad ass, reality isn't having any part of it.

"Sorry, man. Can't swing it right now," he'll say.

"What about tomorrow?" I'll ask.

"Doesn't look good, kid. Daycare, pre-school, car insurance, braces, vet bills . . . You know the routine, man."

"Yeah, I know. I was just hoping."

"Well, that's your problem, brother. Stop hoping."

And there you go.

But "this is the year the Fink beats the Stomach." (Look it up.) This is the year I become an optimist of the highest order. I won't allow myself to go all, "Well, I guess it's not meant to be. Not everyone is cut out to hit the open road."

Hell, no. This year, I'll keep socking away a buck or two here and there and keep thinking, "Oh, how much greater the sights I'll see one day will be for having worked and waited for these bad ass two wheels."

Day 16: Story time

Every night, right after my four-year-old daughter crawls underneath her covers to head off for another night of sleep, I tell her a story. I make it up on the spot and then let it twist and wind and curve and cross wherever it take us. The results are mixed. Once in a while, something comes out that makes me think, “I better write this one down while I still remember it.” No matter the quality, though, my daughter has come to expect this routine to occur nightly. Doesn’t matter how late or early it is, where we are, if she’s nodding off or is wide awake. On the rare occasion when a story didn’t go down, there was big trouble.

Sometimes, my daughter will return the favor and tell me her own story. These are my favorite nights. If I’m patient enough and really listen, I never fail to learn something new about her and the way she feels and thinks and reasons and ponders. Other nights, we talk for a while about birthday parties or bikes or swimming or snacks or whatever is on her mind as she’s crawling into bed and then there is a story. It doesn’t matter if I have a headache, stomachache, or brain-ache. It doesn’t matter if I’m mentally exhausted and would rather watch butter melt than have to think up new characters and take them through new deeds in new lands with new beginnings and endings. It doesn’t matter; story time goes on as scheduled.

This has been our way for three years, and I can’t imagine not having this time. I know how lucky I am to have it. I don’t waste it. I don’t take it for granted. I might complain (mostly) silently some nights that I’m not feeling story time, but I still do it. I like that my daughter needs me in this way. I like that she’s come to depend on something that involves me to make her feel good and content. I like that when the story is really good, she tells me, and when it’s really lacking effort or creativity or I’ve slugged my way through it, she lets me know that, too. I like that she’s honest with me and there are no barriers or boundaries keeping her from being true with me. I like that her thoughts are innocent and broad and intentional and pointed and without a filter. I like that she pays attention and isn’t too proud to ask questions.

Having older kids (19, 17, and 14) has taught me this won’t always be the case. At some point, she will start heading off to bed without pomp and circumstance because she wants to be alone or has some thinking to do or she just doesn’t want to be around anyone, including me. At some point, she’ll keep more of her thoughts to herself where they’re well-guarded and safe. At some point, she’ll find that telling stories with her dad isn’t as fun as it used to be and it isn’t what girls her age do.

That’s why now, no matter the conditions or situation, telling my daughter stories is something I make a point of doing. I know there will come a day when she probably won’t remember all these nights of stories. But I will, and I’ll know that I got as much, if not more, from the experience.

Day 15: Writer's block

I write pretty much every day. Writer's block does exist. So does deadline anxiety. So does being out of your element and not being familiar with the terrain. Some days, writing is just a burden. Another chore. A means to the end. Mostly, though, writing is a godsend. It's an instrument, a device. Writing is a honed tool. It's the gateway and a damn good therapist. But writer's block does exist. Some sentences sizzle. Some are just born from laziness. Sometimes, you're in the zone. Sometimes, the zone disappears before you see it. Writer's block does exist. 

The upside, though, is that if you have something to say and writing is the best or only way you have to express it, you don't tend to suffer from writer's block too long.