100 words a day

My unemployed/overweight slump has been going on for awhile now, but I knew eventually I’d snap out of it.

A favorite author (who’s become a friend) hosted a book party recently.  I put on makeup and a cute outfit, and felt a little better.   

She asked if I’d been running lately, as she signed my book.   (“Labor Day” by Joyce Maynard)

Later, I read her message.  The writer who inspires me to no end had written, “For Rose, the person who has inspired me to someday run a marathon.”

And I’ve been feeling like my old self again, ever since.

My son turns 10-years-old tomorrow which means 90 more years in double-digits before he’s lucky enough to reach 100.  All celebrations of your birth are important, but the first one of 90 more is significant and for the first time in his young life I won’t be spending it with him.

This indeed makes me sad, but it’s not “my” day.  I remember every one of his and my daughter’s like it is happening right now.  I remember every other single day and moment of their lives; it’s my only solace for not being included.  Happy birthday my dear son.    

A small portion in the 44^th principle of Tao states “Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

My whole world doesn’t feel like it belongs to me; my daughter has become unavailable.  The rare times she does touch base, I’m reminded that I “bother” her too much.  I’m being a parent; she’s the smartest-teenager-in-the-world.  That combination doesn’t elicit “rejoicing.” 

I realize with more sadness than I’ve ever felt I’ve lost more than just a child.  My heart is missing its biggest piece.

One of my absolute favorite days is September 19^th.  What could be better than “Talk Like A Pirate Day?”  I’ve had a connection with everything pirate since I was a kid and that love affair continues today.  I know the difference between a Buccaneer, a Corsair and a Privateer.  I’ve been lucky enough to have sailed their waters and have visited many of their ports.  I know as much about Edward Teach, Anne Bonny and Captain Kidd as I do about Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson.

So hoist the Jolly Rodger, grab some rum and a wench and shiver yer timbers.

My cat cozied up against my chest as I lay on my bed in the dim of my bedroom.  I surveyed the room, imagining its habitants in another room.  A room 40 miles north.

Would the dresser still be to the right of my bed?  Would I pack away the stuffed giraffes finally?  Will the ceiling be higher as I gaze sleeplessly up at it?  Would the sounds of the Emerald City reach through the panes of glass?  Would it feel like I belonged in it?

I stroked her dense fur, her head lifting slightly to my touch.

It would.

I hate buying cars.  I like having cars, but I’ve purchased enough of them from dealerships that my blood pressure increases and my heart jumps at the mere thought of dealing with a salesperson, finance director, and their impossible-to-please supervisors.

I’m not exactly an assertive person.  When faced with conflict, I tend to back down, and that’s exactly why I’m bothered by car dealerships.  I know it’s in my nature to allow myself to be manipulated, which fits nicely with their training to control the transaction.

Not this time.  I can always walk off the lot if I’m not happy.

I offered to attach my boyfriend’s timing chip for his race Saturday, and he put his sneaker on my bed for me to do so. 

I sort of freaked out (not being a neat freak myself), said to never put a shoe that’s touched a NYC sidewalk on my bed. 

He thought I was being neurotic, until we watched the women’s race and some poor runner stopped near us, and vomited.    

“Mr. Shoe on the Bed” pulled me away, to avoid the splash as runners stomped through it. 

I said, “You see my point, about no shoes on the bed?”

I like to think of myself as an individual, stand-alone, el lobo solo kind-of-guy.  Truth be told, I’m more of groupie person.  I thought of every group I’ve been associated with and there are way too many.

Little League, YMCA, Catholic Church, Boy Scouts, Choirs, Awana, Carpenter’s Union, a ton of teams from age five through now, Sigma Delta Chi, Better Business Bureau, PTA, AA, School Board, National Geographic, PADI, Young Republicans, Students for a Democratic Change, NOW, NRA, CoSIDA and a bunch more involving boats, Mother Earth and my kids.

I just want to belong and lately I don’t.  

Addiction is a complicated word.  Addict even more so.  People who stand up in a group setting and admit they are addicts are usually seeking help overcoming a situation they find unpleasant or unmanageable – usually.

The rest of the world is comfortable saying “chocoholic” or “shopaholic” and can joke about addiction to the internet or a television show.   One is about a problem, the other about an enjoyable liking.  Complicated words indeed.

I’ve been running into a fair amount of people lately who are addicted to being addicts.  They’re only comfortable with letting everyone know their addiction; over and over.

Women, more than men have shaped my life.  Women have shared their wisdom and given me the most confusion.  Women have shared in my successes and blamed me when anything in the universe went wrong.

When the joy of fatherhood first came, a daughter was my gift.  When my world went dark a few times I needed a woman to light the way.  I am grateful for the all-encompassing role women play in my life.

Three of those women; my daughter, her mome and my future girl all met this weekend for the first time.  I am a lucky man.

It taunts me.  It mocks me, this blank page.  It dares me to fill it with worth, but it jabs at me with its vast possibilities, its limitlessness. 

There are times where I easily plunder it; I tromp through its snowy canvas with my ink-covered boots with a swiftness and an eagerness that thrills me to near orgasmic heights.

Yet there are other times, darker times, where its face could not be brighter.  I scribble nonsense just to see the contrast. No more white!  God, let there be no more white!

 Tonight, one more victory for me. Tonight, it loses.

I work with two hideous people.  And though I never wish anyone warm, I hope Someone is watching.  Some karmic accountant who ensures what goes around will also come.

But then I realize Someone may have already settled up.  One has had breast cancer, repeatedly.  The other bore a son who has been plagued by health problems since birth.

This makes me curious.  Have their past problems toughened them and made them hard or were those problems a result of past mistreatment of others who wished the same things I do now?

Which came first: the chicken or the bitch?

“We’re being kicked out of our house”, the text reads.

I call my mom immediately. She cries into the phone, “I’m just so angry!”

The nutshell:  My dad has run my grandfather’s contracting business for 20+ years - and very successfully, at that.

My grandfather explodes into the office one day and announces to his son that he hates him, he’s fired and that he’s out of the house (which he owns) in two months - for no apparent reason!

I knew my grandfather was an asshole, but to throw his own son and grandchildren out into the street?

Pure evil.

Everyone experiences the occasional moment of clarity; that exact second when you “get it.”
Somehow we all have “known” something was going to happen or we’ve all known beyond a shadow of a doubt something wonderfully good or horribly bad would occur.
Yesterday my father was hit with the overwhelming truth he is dying of cancer.  For three years, a million tests, surgery to remove his kidney and enough worry and weight on his shoulders to sink anyone, my dad knew he had cancer.
Now he’ll wake up every day and go to sleep every night knowing cancer has him.  

I apologize in advance.

I don’t want to say what’s on my mind, because it sounds weak, frail, and childish, so this post will be intentionally vague, a roundabout way of addressing my need to write publicly while acknowledging my need for privacy.

That’s probably maddening to read, and I bet I just lost half of you, less than halfway through the post.

I’m questioning my dream of writing right now, the fiction dream.  The only fiction I’ve published was in my college literary magazine nearly a quarter century ago.

The rub:  I’m still afraid of submitting fiction to editors.

This feeling is all too familiar.

It’s as if I’m standing at a great crossroads.  I’m at the crux of a grapevine of opportunity, of possibility.  There are many dark and gleaming roads laid out before me.

Yet I do not move.  I pull uncertainty and analysis from my satchel.  I rest upon rote and reasoning.  I pick apart the pros and cons of each path, ascertaining which will lead to destruction and which to contentment.

And yet here I stay, unmoving; stagnant with my scales in hand. 

“Adventure lies in the uncertain,” something whispers.

I wait, but for what?

I’d been putting off the inevitable, accepting that for the first time in five years, I won’t be running the NYC Marathon on November 1.

This kills me.  I wanted my annual streak to only be broken by injury or pregnancy.  I sort of have an injury and I definitely have a ‘not-fit-enough’ problem.

The race takes over the city.  The course goes up First Avenue, six doors away, for hours that day. 

The advertising before, the screaming fans during, my regret after.  I won’t be able to handle it.

So I am running that day.  I’m running away.  To Paris.