We've been in this house for a year, and it's time to paint. Let me state, for the record, in language as plain as possible, that this fat boy does not like to paint. I never have, and there little likelihood that I will change.
The wife, on the other hand, loves it.
My contribution to the project will be to go help choose colors (a task that I admit I am not suited for) lug the paint to the car, wash brushes, spread drop cloths, etc. I will also agree to tape off windows and such.
Any activity that involves actually transferring paint from bucket to brush or roller to wall is not my concern.
The wife actually prefers this division of labor, I think.
I'm pretty sure that these walls have never been painted. They are all painted, those that aren't wallpapered (which is a discussion for another day), in a flat "white." I don't know if it's ecru, eggshell, white, off white, etc. Who can say?
We have been discussing painting off and on since we moved in. I knew we wouldn't do it during the Spring and Summer, as we both enjoy being outside whenever we can. But with the girl's wedding over and winter upon us, with temperatures plunging into the '50s, it is time.
Earlier this week we drove to Livingston to prowl through Lowe's in search of paint samples. We had decided to stick with paint samples that come with complimentary colors. You know what I'm talking about...a strip of paper with three shades of the same color on them. We figured this would be a fool-proof way to pick wall colors and trim colors that would match, rather than try to match the shades ourselves from among the thousands of various shades that Lowe's is stocked with.
That may be a good plan, in theory, but the cold reality is that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of these three-shades-on-a-single-piece-of-paper samples out there.
After 40 minutes of poking about, picking up dozens of samples, only to wrinkle our noses in disgust and discard them, we finally picked a couple of samples, one in blue and one in some sort of gray. Don't know what we were thinking with the gray one.
The wife has spent a good amount of time over the last few days painting trim and walls in the samples that we came home with, and now it looks like a toddler amped-up on Benedryl was let loose in the living room with a paint brush and no supervision.
We don't like either sample.
The wife said that the question is do we want to go with an elegant paint scheme (which would match the antiques that we inherited from my grandparents), or do we want the house to look "lakey?"
What's really funny is that we catch each other staring at these haphazardly painted walls, as if the colors might somehow change.
Back to the drawing board for more samples. At the very least our walls will begin to look like some sort of psychedelic art project.
Maybe we should just leave it alone; that'll give the neighbors something to think about.
More to come.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Hello? Hello? Anyone there?
Being the parents of three kids, my wife and I have been, for the last 25 years or so, been very (perhaps overly) concerned with always knowing, "Where are you...who are you with...when will we hear from you." There are all sorts of criminals out there who prey on kids, and I we just had the normal parental concern.
That's all well and good when the kids are little and their safety are the parents' responsibility. As they were growing up our kids were very good about always letting us know where they were, who they were with, and when they'd be home. I'm not so naive as to believe that there wasn't a lot going on that they didn't want us to know about, but everyone played their part in the charade and no one got hurt.
Now, with all three of them grown and out of the house with various levels of independence (two of them are still tethered to us financially) it seems that they have all lost the skills to communicate.
To put it bluntly, the kids don't call.
I don't know if it is different with boys. I do know that when I was in my 20s there was no way that I wanted my parents, especially my Dad, to know what I was up to. Still, I managed to call my Mom every so often, and to stop by my Dad's office every couple of weeks, if only to let them know that I was still alive.
(A bit of a diversion, here...When I was about 19 and attending the same college where my Dad taught, I went missing, at least in my parents' view, for such a long time that ol' Dad strolled into the fraternity house where I was living to at least make sure that I was still alive. He went upstairs and ran into my roommate in the hallway, who was in his underwear, massively hung over and barely coherent at noon. Dad managed to pry enough information out of my roommate to be convinced that I was still among the living and attending classes.)
Not so with our girls. Although the oldest and youngest are very outgoing and will talk to anyone at any time about any subject, those conversations seldom include us. The middle one is intensely private. "I don't want anyone to know my thoughts," she once told us, when she was little.
So here we are. My wife and I have done our jobs too well, I guess. We raised daughters of such an independent nature that they forget, or choose not to, call once in awhile just to let us know that they are still out there.
We don't expect them, and don't really want them, to call every day (at least I don't; the wife, who talks to her Mom almost every day, may feel otherwise). We would like to hear from them at least once in awhile, though. Shouldn't there be a happy medium that everyone can be happy with?
That's all well and good when the kids are little and their safety are the parents' responsibility. As they were growing up our kids were very good about always letting us know where they were, who they were with, and when they'd be home. I'm not so naive as to believe that there wasn't a lot going on that they didn't want us to know about, but everyone played their part in the charade and no one got hurt.
Now, with all three of them grown and out of the house with various levels of independence (two of them are still tethered to us financially) it seems that they have all lost the skills to communicate.
To put it bluntly, the kids don't call.
I don't know if it is different with boys. I do know that when I was in my 20s there was no way that I wanted my parents, especially my Dad, to know what I was up to. Still, I managed to call my Mom every so often, and to stop by my Dad's office every couple of weeks, if only to let them know that I was still alive.
(A bit of a diversion, here...When I was about 19 and attending the same college where my Dad taught, I went missing, at least in my parents' view, for such a long time that ol' Dad strolled into the fraternity house where I was living to at least make sure that I was still alive. He went upstairs and ran into my roommate in the hallway, who was in his underwear, massively hung over and barely coherent at noon. Dad managed to pry enough information out of my roommate to be convinced that I was still among the living and attending classes.)
Not so with our girls. Although the oldest and youngest are very outgoing and will talk to anyone at any time about any subject, those conversations seldom include us. The middle one is intensely private. "I don't want anyone to know my thoughts," she once told us, when she was little.
So here we are. My wife and I have done our jobs too well, I guess. We raised daughters of such an independent nature that they forget, or choose not to, call once in awhile just to let us know that they are still out there.
We don't expect them, and don't really want them, to call every day (at least I don't; the wife, who talks to her Mom almost every day, may feel otherwise). We would like to hear from them at least once in awhile, though. Shouldn't there be a happy medium that everyone can be happy with?
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The empty nest: "...whispered in the sounds of silence"
While taking an early morning drive to the Polk County dump (you know where it is, just off the Onalaska Loop) to rid myself of Christmas debris, I was sipping some coffee and pondering what to write about today.
The house is quiet, with the exception of Ruby The Dog who still wanders over a few times a day to nap and eat. The kids and relations have all gone their separate ways for the New Year. K1 and our new son in law are off to Las Vegas for their honeymoon, K2 is back to work, and K3 has wandered back with her Grandma to Arlington to stay for a few days before going back to Texas Tech in Lubbock.
So on the way home, back down the Onalaska Loop, I had considered and discarded a few potential blog topics, and had about decided to forgo a post today for lack of inspiration. But then it dawned on me that maybe the perfect topic isn't about what is going on in my post-holiday house, but what isn't going on, and how the wife and I are reacting to that lack of familial activity.
With three girls wandering in and out of the house over the last 25 years or so there was always a certain level of ambient noise. I could always tell which combination of kids were in the house by what types of conversations were going on; not just by the actual words, but by the pitch and volume of the voices, or by the music from whatever TV shows happened to be on. I could tell which daughter came in the house by how the door opened, and by how it closed. All that combined into a kind of heartbeat of the house, and of the family itself.
And now the opposite: When kids started to move out I realized that when someone is out of the house for a period of time, the volume and type noise in the house is altered, and when enough people (in my case the kids) leave the house for an extended period of time, that "heartbeat" changes for good, and the silence that results from them leaving has an ambient noise all its own.
That new silence has its own levels and characteristics. Early morning silence, I think, in that wonderful period of time between wakefulness and rising, is a kind of quiet that envelopes the mind in a warm embrace that invites you to just be, without taking that next step to actually think constructive thoughts. Once that first thought forms, though, that warm embrace of quiet evaporates like mist and it becomes just another day.
But in the absence of the ambient noise that people produce the resulting silence can weigh heavy on the home, as if the houses itself is waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. For me, at least, this sinister quiet always pops up when I start to think about my youngest daughter driving nine hours back to Lubbock, the oldest daughter going through a tough stretch at work, or the middle daughter driving across the county at three in the morning to go to work.
So I guess the question is if the sound of silence is there all the time, and is just masked by the everyday ambient noise of family life, or if the sounds of silence are a result of a lack of that every day noise?
Silence, I think, is just silence; it's a lack of noise. The labels we put on it are just a result of the human obsession with trying to categorize whatever emotions are percolating at the time.
Which brings me back to the sounds of a quiet house, after the kids and other relatives have gone home. In the quiet of early morning, or late night, I can hear the past echos of that family noise. The actual sounds escape me, but I can hear the echos of what used to be, when the girls were little.
And that's the hell of the empty nest syndrome. It's not the actual sounds of hectic noise that are missed, that cause the mind to think back fondly to the kids being little. What is missed is what those sounds represent, what you think they signified.
I guess that's the boomerang effect of having enjoyed raising the kids we were blessed with. Now that they're gone, I miss the little ones that they used to be. I even kind of miss the teenagers they used to be, though not as much. Each of them were challenging in their own way, though none of them were bad kids. The memories of their teenage years are actually good, though that ambient "heartbeat of the home" tended to be much louder in those years.
<...yelling...shouts of outraged denial...&^&##!!!...final poke in the eye...chair turns over, flees the room>
OK, James is back, now.
That rat bastard Inner Self stole my password, logged on and tried to sneak a post by me.
I'm glad the little estrogenic wallet-lifters are out of the house. Much quieter and more peaceful now.
The house is quiet, with the exception of Ruby The Dog who still wanders over a few times a day to nap and eat. The kids and relations have all gone their separate ways for the New Year. K1 and our new son in law are off to Las Vegas for their honeymoon, K2 is back to work, and K3 has wandered back with her Grandma to Arlington to stay for a few days before going back to Texas Tech in Lubbock.
So on the way home, back down the Onalaska Loop, I had considered and discarded a few potential blog topics, and had about decided to forgo a post today for lack of inspiration. But then it dawned on me that maybe the perfect topic isn't about what is going on in my post-holiday house, but what isn't going on, and how the wife and I are reacting to that lack of familial activity.
With three girls wandering in and out of the house over the last 25 years or so there was always a certain level of ambient noise. I could always tell which combination of kids were in the house by what types of conversations were going on; not just by the actual words, but by the pitch and volume of the voices, or by the music from whatever TV shows happened to be on. I could tell which daughter came in the house by how the door opened, and by how it closed. All that combined into a kind of heartbeat of the house, and of the family itself.
And now the opposite: When kids started to move out I realized that when someone is out of the house for a period of time, the volume and type noise in the house is altered, and when enough people (in my case the kids) leave the house for an extended period of time, that "heartbeat" changes for good, and the silence that results from them leaving has an ambient noise all its own.
That new silence has its own levels and characteristics. Early morning silence, I think, in that wonderful period of time between wakefulness and rising, is a kind of quiet that envelopes the mind in a warm embrace that invites you to just be, without taking that next step to actually think constructive thoughts. Once that first thought forms, though, that warm embrace of quiet evaporates like mist and it becomes just another day.
But in the absence of the ambient noise that people produce the resulting silence can weigh heavy on the home, as if the houses itself is waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. For me, at least, this sinister quiet always pops up when I start to think about my youngest daughter driving nine hours back to Lubbock, the oldest daughter going through a tough stretch at work, or the middle daughter driving across the county at three in the morning to go to work.
So I guess the question is if the sound of silence is there all the time, and is just masked by the everyday ambient noise of family life, or if the sounds of silence are a result of a lack of that every day noise?
Silence, I think, is just silence; it's a lack of noise. The labels we put on it are just a result of the human obsession with trying to categorize whatever emotions are percolating at the time.
Which brings me back to the sounds of a quiet house, after the kids and other relatives have gone home. In the quiet of early morning, or late night, I can hear the past echos of that family noise. The actual sounds escape me, but I can hear the echos of what used to be, when the girls were little.
And that's the hell of the empty nest syndrome. It's not the actual sounds of hectic noise that are missed, that cause the mind to think back fondly to the kids being little. What is missed is what those sounds represent, what you think they signified.
I guess that's the boomerang effect of having enjoyed raising the kids we were blessed with. Now that they're gone, I miss the little ones that they used to be. I even kind of miss the teenagers they used to be, though not as much. Each of them were challenging in their own way, though none of them were bad kids. The memories of their teenage years are actually good, though that ambient "heartbeat of the home" tended to be much louder in those years.
<...yelling...shouts of outraged denial...&^&##!!!...final poke in the eye...chair turns over, flees the room>
OK, James is back, now.
That rat bastard Inner Self stole my password, logged on and tried to sneak a post by me.
I'm glad the little estrogenic wallet-lifters are out of the house. Much quieter and more peaceful now.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Happy New Year!
There has been no real reason for this dearth of postings, other than the sad fact that I lost interest in my own blog.
However, the new year has visited upon me a new energy, at least for the time being.
I was sitting on the back patio this morning, enjoying a quiet cup of coffee and watching the rain fall on the lake, when Inner Self showed up, uninvited, as always.
IS: Hey there; it's been awhile. How have you been?
Me: Go away.
IS: Didn't your oldest daughter get married a few days ago?
Me: Yep; what's it to you?
IS: How are you holding up? First daughter getting married, after all...that's gotta be rough.
Me: (in spite of myself, warming to the conversation) Well, I guess I'm OK. It's a hell of a thing, you know. One of those "circle of life" moments. I mean, here I am, closing in on 50 years old, which can be a fairly traumatic event, anyway, and not only that but my oldest girl is getting married. That's a lot of pretty heavy stuff to lay on a man all at once.
IS: Well, but you like the boy, right? How long had they dated?
Me: Oh, yeah, we like him a lot; love him to death. They dated about five years or so, so he's seen the girl at her best, and at her worst. You've met her; you know she can be a bit melodramatic, and more than a little strong-willed. "Terrier mode," we call it.
IS: (chuckling) Yeah, I've seen her best work. Think he's up to the challenge?
Me: Oh, yeah, I think so. He seems to be able to calm her down quite a bit. He's a good guy. Plus, he had to impress not only the wife and I, which had to be hard enough, but he also had to pass her sisters' inspection. I know that was tough. Those girls are really protective of each other. If one of them didn't like him they'd have made short work of him. "Put him back on the path to righteousness," they call it. They're tough.
IS: Well, if he passed all inspections, why so down?
Me: It's my first daughter, dumbass. From the moment I first held her, when she was born, it was my job to protect her from all the "bad guys" (she used to call them) that are out there. I did that for twenty-plus years, now all of a sudden that's not my job any longer.
IS: Well, did you do your job right as a Dad? Did you let her make all those little mistakes so she could grow up and be independent?
Me: Well, I tried. The wife and I both tried our best. But you never know how you did until the kid is out on her own. Maybe we missed something somewhere along the way. Maybe we forgot to teach her something that she'll need to know. I don't know; it's hard to explain.
IS: Hmm...if you like the guy, if everyone else in your family likes the guy, seems like you should be able to let him do the protecting from now on.
Me: I hear what you're saying, but it's awfully hard to let go of that role.
IS: Well, you have two other daughters, right? They still need you to protect them, don't they?
Me: Yeah; well, I hope so. I'm sure that I'll feel the same way when they get married, but this is a very new emotion; I guess I'm still trying to sort through it all.
IS: Drink some beer? In vino veritas?
Me: (laughs) Tempting, but probably not the best way to deal with powerful emotions.
IS: Well, grab that new pellet gun and shoot that damn dog that craps in your yard.
Me: Also tempting, and definitely more therapeutic. I got plans for that little spotted bastard.
IS: (getting up) I gotta go. See you later, old man.
Me: (sighs, doesn't respond...stares out at the lake)
There has been no real reason for this dearth of postings, other than the sad fact that I lost interest in my own blog.
However, the new year has visited upon me a new energy, at least for the time being.
I was sitting on the back patio this morning, enjoying a quiet cup of coffee and watching the rain fall on the lake, when Inner Self showed up, uninvited, as always.
IS: Hey there; it's been awhile. How have you been?
Me: Go away.
IS: Didn't your oldest daughter get married a few days ago?
Me: Yep; what's it to you?
IS: How are you holding up? First daughter getting married, after all...that's gotta be rough.
Me: (in spite of myself, warming to the conversation) Well, I guess I'm OK. It's a hell of a thing, you know. One of those "circle of life" moments. I mean, here I am, closing in on 50 years old, which can be a fairly traumatic event, anyway, and not only that but my oldest girl is getting married. That's a lot of pretty heavy stuff to lay on a man all at once.
IS: Well, but you like the boy, right? How long had they dated?
Me: Oh, yeah, we like him a lot; love him to death. They dated about five years or so, so he's seen the girl at her best, and at her worst. You've met her; you know she can be a bit melodramatic, and more than a little strong-willed. "Terrier mode," we call it.
IS: (chuckling) Yeah, I've seen her best work. Think he's up to the challenge?
Me: Oh, yeah, I think so. He seems to be able to calm her down quite a bit. He's a good guy. Plus, he had to impress not only the wife and I, which had to be hard enough, but he also had to pass her sisters' inspection. I know that was tough. Those girls are really protective of each other. If one of them didn't like him they'd have made short work of him. "Put him back on the path to righteousness," they call it. They're tough.
IS: Well, if he passed all inspections, why so down?
Me: It's my first daughter, dumbass. From the moment I first held her, when she was born, it was my job to protect her from all the "bad guys" (she used to call them) that are out there. I did that for twenty-plus years, now all of a sudden that's not my job any longer.
IS: Well, did you do your job right as a Dad? Did you let her make all those little mistakes so she could grow up and be independent?
Me: Well, I tried. The wife and I both tried our best. But you never know how you did until the kid is out on her own. Maybe we missed something somewhere along the way. Maybe we forgot to teach her something that she'll need to know. I don't know; it's hard to explain.
IS: Hmm...if you like the guy, if everyone else in your family likes the guy, seems like you should be able to let him do the protecting from now on.
Me: I hear what you're saying, but it's awfully hard to let go of that role.
IS: Well, you have two other daughters, right? They still need you to protect them, don't they?
Me: Yeah; well, I hope so. I'm sure that I'll feel the same way when they get married, but this is a very new emotion; I guess I'm still trying to sort through it all.
IS: Drink some beer? In vino veritas?
Me: (laughs) Tempting, but probably not the best way to deal with powerful emotions.
IS: Well, grab that new pellet gun and shoot that damn dog that craps in your yard.
Me: Also tempting, and definitely more therapeutic. I got plans for that little spotted bastard.
IS: (getting up) I gotta go. See you later, old man.
Me: (sighs, doesn't respond...stares out at the lake)
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Jarred back to reality, not quite believing what he'd just heard, and with no idea what to say next...
K3 is home for a week, mostly to take advantage of the laundry facilities, before we pack her up and move her back to Lubbock to start school at Texas Tech in a few weeks.
At any rate, I was on my joyful journey today, sitting in the living room today on the couch (the "davenport" as my Grandmother used to call it). K3 was in the chair on my right, and the wife was on the couch to my left.
As it often happens when any combination of my daughters and wife are in the room, each was talking about different things, and I was listening to neither one talk about either subject. All I hear from both sides is, "natter, natter, natter."
Presently, though, I was shocked back to the here and now when my wife proclaimed that she'd like to read "Fifty Shades of Gray." Like I said, I was daydreaming before that, so I'm not sure where the conversation was before it wandered into literature.
While pondering how, or even if, I should comment on the wife's summer reading list, K3 chimed in that she wants to read it, too.
Now I'm in the middle of something that I really don't want any part of. On the one hand the wife can read whatever she wants. On the other hand, what K3 reads is a concern, even though she's 19, and even if I know (logically) that her little mind has probably pursued trains of thought that I'd really rather not think about (emotionally).
Rallying a bit I said something like, "Never thought I'd see the day when my wife and youngest daughter discuss the pornographic books that they read."
These are the types of things that no one tells you about when you have daughters.
At any rate, I was on my joyful journey today, sitting in the living room today on the couch (the "davenport" as my Grandmother used to call it). K3 was in the chair on my right, and the wife was on the couch to my left.
As it often happens when any combination of my daughters and wife are in the room, each was talking about different things, and I was listening to neither one talk about either subject. All I hear from both sides is, "natter, natter, natter."
Presently, though, I was shocked back to the here and now when my wife proclaimed that she'd like to read "Fifty Shades of Gray." Like I said, I was daydreaming before that, so I'm not sure where the conversation was before it wandered into literature.
While pondering how, or even if, I should comment on the wife's summer reading list, K3 chimed in that she wants to read it, too.
Now I'm in the middle of something that I really don't want any part of. On the one hand the wife can read whatever she wants. On the other hand, what K3 reads is a concern, even though she's 19, and even if I know (logically) that her little mind has probably pursued trains of thought that I'd really rather not think about (emotionally).
Rallying a bit I said something like, "Never thought I'd see the day when my wife and youngest daughter discuss the pornographic books that they read."
These are the types of things that no one tells you about when you have daughters.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Wanted: Monsters
I ran across this story on Foxnews.com: Beast of Brooklyn. I know, I know...you are asking what's a nice Polk County boy like me doing reading that incendiary Web site.
I read it every day, and I won't apologize for it. I get a kick out of reading what they consider to be "news."
However, this story caught my eye because I'm a big fan of local monsters (always have been), and I believe that what this world needs is more monsters. I mean the crypto-zoology kind, not the mass murderer or Tea Party kind.
In our world today, thanks to all manner of technological advancements, we can zoom into pretty close detail on any spot on the planet, thanks to GPS systems. The result of this is that there are fewer and fewer places where the monsters of our childhood imaginations can hide.
When I was little I was fascinated with the Boggy Creek Monster. Those old enough to remember the cheesy 1970's movie will be familiar with this one. Tucked away into a (then) remote corner of southwest Arkansas it was a mysterious and creepy place, even though on my family's frequent trips to see my grandparents in Arkansas we traveled right through Boggy Creek country, which was not too far from Interstate 30.
This Bigfoot-type creature still shows up every once in awhile, with someone finding a footprint, or hearing an unidentified scream in the night, or reporting seeing "something" while out and about in the woods.
About that same time I learned about the Lake Worth Monster. This was in Fort Worth, TX, which was much closer to my home. This monster was truly local in scale, though, never having the benefit of big screen promotion.
Since then, here in Texas, we have seen reports of Chupacabre, which is a type of blood sucking monster. I'm waiting, and hoping, that I'll get to see that one. I'm a little leery of Chupacabre, though. From what I can determine this seems to be a late entry into the monster world, only showing up a few decades ago. He also seems to change description as he migrates around. On the other hand, though, I don't guess that monsters are required to keep a consistent shape or form. Since they are largely legendary creations I suppose they should be allowed some leeway as to what shape they take.
One positive aspect of Chupacabre is that he, so far at least, doesn't seem to target humans. He's mostly a menace to livestock. I think that people will be a little more forgiving of a monster that focuses on regular animals and that doesn't try to eat them.
I read it every day, and I won't apologize for it. I get a kick out of reading what they consider to be "news."
However, this story caught my eye because I'm a big fan of local monsters (always have been), and I believe that what this world needs is more monsters. I mean the crypto-zoology kind, not the mass murderer or Tea Party kind.
In our world today, thanks to all manner of technological advancements, we can zoom into pretty close detail on any spot on the planet, thanks to GPS systems. The result of this is that there are fewer and fewer places where the monsters of our childhood imaginations can hide.
When I was little I was fascinated with the Boggy Creek Monster. Those old enough to remember the cheesy 1970's movie will be familiar with this one. Tucked away into a (then) remote corner of southwest Arkansas it was a mysterious and creepy place, even though on my family's frequent trips to see my grandparents in Arkansas we traveled right through Boggy Creek country, which was not too far from Interstate 30.
This Bigfoot-type creature still shows up every once in awhile, with someone finding a footprint, or hearing an unidentified scream in the night, or reporting seeing "something" while out and about in the woods.
About that same time I learned about the Lake Worth Monster. This was in Fort Worth, TX, which was much closer to my home. This monster was truly local in scale, though, never having the benefit of big screen promotion.
Since then, here in Texas, we have seen reports of Chupacabre, which is a type of blood sucking monster. I'm waiting, and hoping, that I'll get to see that one. I'm a little leery of Chupacabre, though. From what I can determine this seems to be a late entry into the monster world, only showing up a few decades ago. He also seems to change description as he migrates around. On the other hand, though, I don't guess that monsters are required to keep a consistent shape or form. Since they are largely legendary creations I suppose they should be allowed some leeway as to what shape they take.
One positive aspect of Chupacabre is that he, so far at least, doesn't seem to target humans. He's mostly a menace to livestock. I think that people will be a little more forgiving of a monster that focuses on regular animals and that doesn't try to eat them.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Finally remembered my own password!
...actually, that's not the case at all...writer's block...severe case...bad stuff.
9:30 AM, Saturday, June 16, 2012
<sits down, proper cup of coffee at the ready. Paper is read. Online news sites (cbsnews.com, msnbc.com, foxnews.com) checked. Took two Tums after reading foxnews.com. Wife is outside interrogating the backyard azaleas that are not performing up to snuff. Ruby the dog still has not reported in from her morning patrol.
Fires up computer, elbows resting on table, fingertips tapping together, brow furrowed in fierce concentration. Places fingertips on the keys, awaits inspiration...>
"I got nothin'..."
This post brought to you today by my wife, three daughters and mother in law, each of whom has, over the last couple of weeks, chastised me for not writing more frequently.
From Kid 2: Daddy, when are you going to post again? That's the first thing I check every day.
Me: "Don't know. Leave me alone.
Mother in Law on the phone with my wife: Is James almost done with his next book?
Wife to me: Mama wants to know if you are almost done with your next book.
Me to wife: Haven't even started it. All I have is the outline. Leave me alone.
Wife to MIL: He hasn't even started it.
MIL to wife: Well tell him to get on it! I just finished his last one!
Let's cut to the chase: Writing, for me at least, is hard work, even on the best of days. I'm not one of those writers like Frederick Forsyth (in my estimation the best novelist at work today) who can sit down and crank out 10 perfect pages a day.
On a good day I can write 10 pages, bit those 10 pages are fraught with self doubt and impressive amounts of editing and revisions.
Lately I've been beset by a bad case of the, "ations." I've got no inspiration, and no motivation. Combine those two and I get a severe case of frustration, which is tempting to treat with some adult libations, which will likely lead to intoxication. After that all I'll have is a hangover, and still won't have written a thing.
I think that there's a tendency among those folks who don't like to write to think that writers just channel this inner stream of words that flow from their mind through their fingers and finally onto the screen, or paper.
It ain't like that, at least for me. In my case it's like I can see, or at least sense, all of these great sentences and paragraphs somewhere inside my brain, but the trick is getting them through the filters and into my fingertips. It's as if the fingers know what keys to hit, if only my mind would get out of the way. Put another way, it's like I can see what the final puzzle is supposed to look like, it's just difficult (and frustrating) to try to put the pieces together.
As the saying goes, "All the words are there, they're just in the wrong order."
On the other hand, sometimes, when the moon is right and the stars align just so, the words can flow pretty easily. For instance, an old friend of mine that I used to work with told a story over a few beers one night after work. It inspired this, which I wrote in about five minutes. It's not great, but it's a good illustration of how the elusive "inspiration" can strike:
So see, it can happen. Maybe there's still hope...
9:30 AM, Saturday, June 16, 2012
<sits down, proper cup of coffee at the ready. Paper is read. Online news sites (cbsnews.com, msnbc.com, foxnews.com) checked. Took two Tums after reading foxnews.com. Wife is outside interrogating the backyard azaleas that are not performing up to snuff. Ruby the dog still has not reported in from her morning patrol.
Fires up computer, elbows resting on table, fingertips tapping together, brow furrowed in fierce concentration. Places fingertips on the keys, awaits inspiration...>
"I got nothin'..."
This post brought to you today by my wife, three daughters and mother in law, each of whom has, over the last couple of weeks, chastised me for not writing more frequently.
From Kid 2: Daddy, when are you going to post again? That's the first thing I check every day.
Me: "Don't know. Leave me alone.
Mother in Law on the phone with my wife: Is James almost done with his next book?
Wife to me: Mama wants to know if you are almost done with your next book.
Me to wife: Haven't even started it. All I have is the outline. Leave me alone.
Wife to MIL: He hasn't even started it.
MIL to wife: Well tell him to get on it! I just finished his last one!
Let's cut to the chase: Writing, for me at least, is hard work, even on the best of days. I'm not one of those writers like Frederick Forsyth (in my estimation the best novelist at work today) who can sit down and crank out 10 perfect pages a day.
On a good day I can write 10 pages, bit those 10 pages are fraught with self doubt and impressive amounts of editing and revisions.
Lately I've been beset by a bad case of the, "ations." I've got no inspiration, and no motivation. Combine those two and I get a severe case of frustration, which is tempting to treat with some adult libations, which will likely lead to intoxication. After that all I'll have is a hangover, and still won't have written a thing.
I think that there's a tendency among those folks who don't like to write to think that writers just channel this inner stream of words that flow from their mind through their fingers and finally onto the screen, or paper.
It ain't like that, at least for me. In my case it's like I can see, or at least sense, all of these great sentences and paragraphs somewhere inside my brain, but the trick is getting them through the filters and into my fingertips. It's as if the fingers know what keys to hit, if only my mind would get out of the way. Put another way, it's like I can see what the final puzzle is supposed to look like, it's just difficult (and frustrating) to try to put the pieces together.
As the saying goes, "All the words are there, they're just in the wrong order."
On the other hand, sometimes, when the moon is right and the stars align just so, the words can flow pretty easily. For instance, an old friend of mine that I used to work with told a story over a few beers one night after work. It inspired this, which I wrote in about five minutes. It's not great, but it's a good illustration of how the elusive "inspiration" can strike:
Moralis was a reporter, a newspaperman, one of the small
school of freelancers who wandered the world turning over strange rocks in odd
places, asking tough questions to the
suits, the men who didn’t want to be identified, or quoted. He was skilled and experienced at sifting
through the ambiguous mist of official lies to draw out small nuggets of the
truth.
As he drove his old Jaguar west out of Austin through the rain he fished a Marlboro
out of his pocket and lit it with an old steel Zippo. He’d borrowed the lighter from a source in Nuevo Laredo , but both
men were drunk at the time, and Moralis had kept it by mistake. Before he could return it the man had been
found floating face down in the Rio
Grande , his throat cut from ear to ear.
He thought about that man, and humming an old Methodist hymn,
fished in the glove box and pulled out the bottle of tequila that he’d boosted
from a Mexican whorehouse in Matamoros
three days before.
A man who wasn’t comfortable working in the shadows wouldn’t
have taken the midnight call, much less agreed to drive two hours to meet with
a man he hadn’t seen since the end of the last war.
Garcia-the name brought back a lot of memories, few of them
good….
So see, it can happen. Maybe there's still hope...
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