• Blocked

    I can’t imagine writing a book. I read authors’ blogs, both published and not. I see the frustrations and the rewards. I look at myself and I think, “Whoa, that is so not me.” There are days when I don’t have the patience to finish a single blog post. I’ve been tinkering with a post for a few weeks now and I’m not sure I’ll ever finish. It’s only a few scattered lines looking back at me from an unassuming text editor, but it fills me with dread. It wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t want to finish this one.

    There’s more to it than patience. The topic inspired me and still does, but it feels stalled. No, it’s worse. It feels like it’s missing an essential element – perhaps a little soul, something to bring it to life. There’s something in my head, in my heart, waiting there to be expressed, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how. It’s nothing new, having a post stall out on me, but I was sure this one had the necessary spark. There’s passion in me but it’s locked up tight. It’s fitting it’s a post about intellectual struggle, about choosing the right path.

    Boiled down to its essence, it’s a post about Adam, his autistic friend, and a falling out. It’s about seeing a family and the neighborhood failing this child, the responsibility I feel to keep open a safe haven, and the sometimes conflicting need to act in my own child’s best interest.

    One side won out for a while and I felt terribly selfish. I felt like I’d become part of the problem for this boy who faces what I believe are terrible odds.

    As a parent of a child with special needs myself, I felt double the guilt. He was back over today though and they picked up right where they left off. Kids can be resilient that way. Friendship makes it that much easier.

    The episode and the weeks that followed still have me tweaked, and not in a good way. We pat ourselves on the back when we respond with charity and grace to regional and national crises. “The American spirit is alive and well,” we delude ourselves. But the myriad of small crises happening every day go ignored, or worse. We blame the victim, our minds desperately trying to shift any and all responsibility from ourselves.

    Maybe that’s what I was trying to say all along. Maybe I just needed to blow up the old post and start over.

  • The boss

    So the wife called me from the gym, asking if I’d taken the whites out of the dryer and put them away.

    You know what? I was pretty ticked off. Who is she to call me, checking up as if I was some kind of delinquent child.

    I hadn’t, but that’s beside the point. There’s a principle that’s been violated and I have every right to be upset about it.

    I’m going to let you know as soon as I figure out what it is.

  • Sweet sweats

    The last few days were the coldest this fall, here in the (brighter than tolerable) Sunshine State.

    That means one thing: warm sweatpants.

    Warm sweatpants means one thing: a pair I bought in college my freshman year. The beginning of my freshman year. Twenty-one years ago.

    My wife warns me she’ll deny any relation to me if I go outside wearing them.

    “Hey, isn’t that your husband?”

    “No, he was killed last year.”

    “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! How did it happen? He was so young.”

    “Well, he was hit by a Target truck carrying new sweatpants stock.”

    Man, that’s harsh.

    What’s not to love about a pair of twenty year old sweatpants? I was pretty skinny in college so they are a little tight… in spots. If I may be so bold, they show off my spectacular, nearly 40 year old ass, well – spectacularly. They’re skin tight down just past my knees, showcasing my most prominent feature (not counting my unusually large head on my unusually narrow shoulders) – my unusually large knee-caps. Them babies knife out like they want to hurt someone. Unfortunately it’s usually me, when they bump into something. You know how it feels when something hits you in that spot between the knee joint and the patella, and it feels like it’s gonna sheer off? Well, that’s the price I pay for a great pair of knees.

    The other cool feature is the inseam. Even with the waistband pulled up to my navel (on a man that’s normally a recipe for a great deal of discomfort), the inseam comes up to about mid-thigh. It makes it a little hard to do splits (HAH! FOOLED YOU! I can’t really do splits.) and things like walking are a little more difficult, but I’m willing to pay that price for comfort.