Tag Archives: blogging

January 4, 2012 · 11:10 am

Mr. Mom

I have not worked since November 3rd, 2011. To give any new readers a little background, the family business where I had worked the past eighteen years was sold and I chose to move on to a new opportunity that starts… well… now. But I have been off for about two months, and during those two months I have acted as a “Mr. Mom”, or a “stay-at-home Dad”, or whatever other term people choose to call it. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not sure I would have survived being home with the kids when they were toddlers.  I read stories about stay-at-home parents on a daily basis via several of my blog subscriptions and it is a much different situation than being home with a pre-teen and a teenager who are in school part of the day. But I have enjoyed every last-minute of these two months.

I have been happier than I have been in a long time. My stress levels have returned back to what I would consider normal. I sleep better and I have had a brief opportunity to pursue some creative outlets.  I have had time to breathe and think and philosophize and reflect. More importantly, I have connected with my kids in ways that I had not had the opportunity to at any other time in their lives. My wife has been working full-time while she has a staff member on leave and I have temporarily become the primary care-giver in many ways, cooking them meals, driving them to and from school and their myriad activities, being home with them during the holiday breaks and basically seeing a part of their lives that occurs during “normal working hours” that I, for the most part, had never really seen.  We have sat together in coffee shops and Subway restaurants and other places and had conversations about school and life and family and friends.  I have experienced what it is like to be a family that is more than just four people indiscriminately passing each other on the way to wherever we all need to be next.  Unfortunately, while I have reconnected, my wife has admitted to feeling somewhat disconnected from them. I guess that is the ebb and flow of life in a two parent household.

If I could do this forever, I would, but financially, although we could continue to survive for a while longer, it is not realistic to do so.  So, I move onto the next chapter. I will be self-employed and will keep a home office but will also be on the road for a portion of time.  I mourn the loss of this freedom but understand that the challenge is to find a balance between a rewarding home-life and a consistent work schedule. I don’t know if I have that capability and I worry about which direction the scales will tip.

On the other hand, I will always remember these days, so relaxed and peaceful and contemplative… an opportunity I may not have again for a long time.

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January 3, 2012 · 12:34 pm

I Wanna Write (Write!)

All you readers who, like me, grew up on 1980’s hair bands remember the classic Twisted Sister song “I Wanna Rock”. I heard this on the radio on New Years Eve and it reminded me what an amazingly profound and lyrical song it was, especially coming from a crazy, make-up covered heavy metal band from Long Island where I lived as a kid.

Then it hit me what a great song it would be to scream out loud for all of us that wish we could be writers, but who know that you can’t really make a living that way… or at least the odds are pretty bad… and you’ll most likely just end up a drunken, depressed mess, living in a van down by the river.

So I edited the words a little bit.  It wasn’t that hard because… well… umm… there are not a lot of words… but make sure you read all the way to the end because there’s some good stuff towards the end.  Now, go ahead and put on your head-banging, big hair and your leopard patterned stretch pants and sing along and have fun! You know you want to!

If you aren’t familiar with the song… well, shame on you… but here’s a video to remind you!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcy84t_twisted-sister-i-wanna-rock_music

I Wanna Write!

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

Get a life, you say
Well, all I got to say to you is time and time again
I say “No, no, no, no, no, no, no”

Go to work, you say
Well, all I got to say to you when you tell me go to work
I say, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no”

So, if you ask me why I like the way I write it
There’s only one thing I can say to you

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

There’s a feelin’ that I get from writin’ words
And there ain’t nothin’ in the world
That makes me go, go, go, go, go, go, go

Turn the laptop on
I’ve waited for so long so I could write a famous book
So let’s go, go, go, go, go, go, go

When it’s like this I feel the words shootin’ through me
There’s nothin’ else that I would rather do

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
I wanna write!

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
I wanna write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)
write!
(write!)

I wanna write!

Good stuff, huh? Now, perhaps if I stopped wasting time on silly posts like this I’d get something accomplished!

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December 22, 2011 · 2:29 pm

Christmas Shopping

I spent this morning doing some Christmas shopping. Unlike many people I actually enjoy shopping on the last few days before Christmas because everyone is in a good mood… well, except maybe some of the sales clerks. I believe it’s a myth that everybody is bitchy and pissed off and crotchety on the last few shopping days before Christmas. Most people are just off from work for a little while so they’re able to be finally feel happy about the upcoming holiday… or maybe they’re just drunk… whatever…

Here are a few observations:

I was in a bookstore for about an hour. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I just thought it would be fun to look around. Some of you know, until this past November I worked in a family business… a bookstore… for the last eighteen years. It was a college bookstore, so we sold textbooks, rather than general reading books, but a bookstore nonetheless. Books became business to me. We made good incomes selling books, but I started hating books. The last thing I wanted to do was look at a book. Plus, as a retail store, we were always busy this time of year and didn’t get much time off. But today, I stood in a bookstore and looked through books and had a grand old time. I held them in my hands and stared at the covers and browsed the pages inside and even bought a few things. It was a renewed love affair.

I was in a store that sold wine today.  When I brought my purchase up to the cashier’s desk, she asked to see my ID.  I’m pretty sure that she didn’t think I was under twenty-one, this was just a store policy that they ask everyone to show an ID so they can enter their birth year into the cash register. I pulled out my wallet and flashed my driver’s license.  As I was closing my wallet back up, I noticed sticking out from behind my license was the appointment card for my upcoming, long overdue vasectomy surgery.  In big green letters on the top of the card, clearly visible to the cashier was the word UROLOGY.  Probably not too many guys under twenty-one spending time at the urologist’s office.

I’m a pretty friendly, people-person kind of guy… but have you ever seen someone who you don’t know, a complete stranger, and think “God, I hate that person.” I saw a woman today who was all scrunched up and angry-looking and that thought ran through my head… then I said to myself “thank God, I don’t have to spend the holidays with that woman.” Then I felt bad… because that scrunched up, angry woman is probably somebody’s wife, mother, sister, aunt… whatever. Oh well, hopefully she has a Merry Christmas and isn’t so fucking scrunched up when she’s with her family.

Hip stores play great Christmas music that really gets me in the holiday mood. Not that crap Christmas music you hear on the radio where they play “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” six hundred times a day, but funky, jazzy, cool Christmas tunes that you haven’t necessarily heard before. I like Christmas music like that… it’s fun and it makes me happy. By the way… whoever the hell wrote and sang “Grandma got runover…” should be locked up for torturing us all these years with that shitty, douche-bag song.

When you shop where I live, everybody says “Merry Christmas” to you. “What’s wrong with that” you ask? Well, nothing really… except… although I’ve lived in Michigan now for the past 18 years, I grew up on Long Island, New York where there is a large Jewish population. So you didn’t say Merry Christmas to everyone because there was a good possibility that they were not Christian and didn’t celebrate Christmas. Apparently I am still under the influence of that upbringing and I tend not to say Merry Christmas to people unless they say it first.

Even then I say it with a sense of… “I know you just said Merry Christmas to me… so I feel somewhat confident that I can say it back to you… perhaps… so… Merry Christmas to you too… ummmm… I think… you know… unless you happen to be Jewish… or Muslim… or Hindu… or Atheist… and you were just saying it to me because you figured I live in Michigan so the odds are pretty good that I celebrate Christmas… you know… so have a nice holiday, whatever you happen to be celebrating.”

Lastly on the subject of Christmas… man the freakin’ Christmas cards are pouring in. We get a shit-load of Christmas cards this time of year. I never get Christmas cards in February or May… or even September… but they roll in by the dozens this time of year. We are not good at reciprocating and sending out Christmas cards to all of our friends and family. If it were solely my responsibility… frankly it would never happen. My wife pulls it together some years and sends out “New Year’s” cards sometime in January.

I’ve always wondered why people send Christmas cards with only pictures of their kids on the card. Are you and your spouse that hideous that you can’t be on the card as well? If you’re my friend, I want to see a picture of you on the Christmas card, especially if I haven’t seen you in a while… you know… so I can see if you’ve gotten fat and bald. Then I can feel better about myself and everybody needs a little bit of that, especially around the holidays.

I’d love to see a Christmas card with me on it… you know… perhaps in a red Speedo with a Santa Clause hat on.  Hey, if that just made you throw up in your mouth a little… well, I hope you get coal in your stocking!

Merry Christmas… ummmm… I think… you know… whatever… just have a nice holiday, whatever you happen to be celebrating.

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December 15, 2011 · 11:51 am

The First Noel

The dirty, slushy, wet city snow soaked my black wingtip dress shoes and the cuffs of my suit pants as I walked through downtown Boston towards the subway station. I had left work a little early to finish some last-minute Christmas shopping, but was now headed home, towards a Red Line train that would take me from Park Street to the Harvard Square stop in Cambridge where I was living, just outside of the Harvard University campus with my fiance.

It had been another shit day in a job that I was starting to hate. Christmas was on the doorstep and I was struggling to find any semblance of holiday spirit. I have always been a person who finds it difficult to compartmentalize my life, to shut one part off, while enjoying the others, and animosity and dissatisfaction in one part of my psyche quickly seeps through the rest of me, just as water will always find a level spot by creeping into the smallest crevices of wherever it’s flowing.

When I reached the station I walked from street level down the stairs into the cement abyss. The blast of heat and the usual stench of city life and homelessness and urine overwhelmed me. As usual, the station was packed full of people waiting for the next train, people headed somewhere, anywhere. Looking for an open place to stand on the train platform, I noticed a scraggly, young man, dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, sneakers and a black, denim style jacket, standing against the wall with an acoustic guitar, hooked to a small amplifier. His guitar case sat open on the floor with a few coins and dollar bills inside. I didn’t think anything of it. He was just another hardened street musician trying to make a few bucks by performing to the masses in a stinky, smelly train station. I walked past as I’d walked past hundreds of these performers before, not realizing that this man was about to have a small, but profound effect on my life to this day.

The acoustic guitar notes coming from the small amplifier shouldn’t have been that crisp and clear, they shouldn’t have been that pristine… but they were. The man began singing a version of The First Noel and the song and the sound moved me for some reason in a way that I had not been moved many times before in the twenty-three years I had been alive. It was not the spirituality of the song, I was not and I am still not a religious person. It wasn’t necessarily the quality and talent of the musician either. But for a moment I was transfixed on this performance as if sitting in the famed Boston Colonial Theater listening to a Christmas concert. Something clicked and for a moment, I felt a kind of peace and happiness that has become so difficult to obtain amongst the commercialism of the holiday season.

The train approached as this man was playing the last few notes. On a whim, I reached into my wallet and pulled out a ten dollar bill and ran over to him and placed the money into his guitar case. The man smiled and said thank you and wished me a Merry Christmas as I turned to run back to the train. With a smile myself, I wished him the same blessings, not realizing that this would be one of those seemingly inconsequential moments in life that would somehow register in the front of my memory banks, easily accessible every December when Christmas Songs begin playing on the radio. I boarded the train and although I could no longer hear the music playing, I peered out the window and as this man began his next song, I wondered if anyone else standing on that platform had experienced anything magical, as I had.

Of course I never saw this man again. That’s life, especially in a large city with millions of people, where a fleeting, yet profound interaction with a complete stranger is always possible. As I contemplate my life these days, with the anxiety of a new career on the horizon, with the ongoing challenge of striving to find some level of success as a writer, with the persistent struggle to compartmentalize my life into those compact little pieces, and with another Christmas on the doorstep, I sometimes wish I could stand in the Park Street subway station and listen to that man play his version of The First Noel.

What seemingly inconsequential moments have you had in your life that you will always remember?

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