• Retail Hell.

    “Let’s just go to Wal-Mart.” I could say that it all started innocently enough, but my father would assert that there is no innocence in admitting to shopping at Wal-Mart. The problem was not wholly my choice of retail establishments, but also the timing: back-to-school shopping was in full, last minute swing and we were to be right in the thick of it. I think back to school shopping might even be worse than Christmas shopping. At Christmas, the items you are buying are at least interesting. There is nothing sexy about number two pencils. Then there are the crowds, and there’s no contest there, Christmas crowds are bigger. However, the crowds for back to school shopping at Wal-Mart were fairly big, and they were concentrated in one place: two isles of back to school supplies. Two isles of shoulder to shoulder humanity fighting over the two pairs of blunt nose safety scissors left on the shelf. Shangri-La it was not.

  • Thank you.

    for the loving and understanding wife, for the cool daughter, for the job I like, for the father I could look up to, for the mother who did her best, for the sisters whom I’m so proud of (like I had anything to do with it), for my grandmother who gave us so much, for Pops and Honey – who packed a lot of love in the short time I had with them, for my only aunt who I always thought was really cool, for my in laws who tolerate me even when I don’t deserve it, for all of the other family members who I didn’t mention but deserved to be, for the people who appeared in my life to give me timely guidance just when I needed it, for my good fortune to have so much provided for me growing up, for having the time to show my daughter I love her, for all of the cool stuff I have at home to play with, for the time to sit here and relax, for my relatively new found confidence in myself, for just enough humility to keep it from going to my head, for what little sense of humor I have, for my first thirty years, and for teaching me that any thing can happen and being able to look forward to the next thirty because of it, instead of in spite of it.

  • What are you looking at?

    I’m admitting more here than I should, in the even that anyone should actually read this. What I’m about to say next will surely convince you that I’ve gone over the edge. If that is so, then you should know that I really went long ago. So here I go. Do you ever find yourself in a contemplative mood? Do you ever find yourself wandering about the house admiring your surroundings? I do. I see it as a sign of happiness. Its kind of like meditation for me. Everyone has downshifted into slumber and the house is quiet. I see the house in a new light, and not just because it is darker. I need to see the house when it is quiet to understand what it means in my life. During the day life is in full swing and you can’t see it. You can’t see it because your in the middle of it. Night falls, and with it falls everything else. You get to step outside of it all and see it from outside. It is part of who we are, part of our life. Over there is where Beth learned to walk. Over there is step where Beth constantly bruised her shins. This is where we finally decided to pull up carpet and install the Pergo. Over in corner over there is where I found out my sister was pregnant. Out there is where we celebrated countless birthdays. In the next room is where I spent countless nights trying to be creative, and fantasizing that I actually was. People come to our house and we give them the tour. At some point I always admit that the house is small, but that we like it here. At some point they always reply that it’s really nice for a first house, a starter house. To me, walking around the house tonight, it doesn’t feel like a starter house. It feels like my only house. It feels like home.