Sticky Notes

Several weeks ago I lost a note book. It's a small spiral notebook the size of a mini legal pad. It's where I would write down thoughts so I won't forget them. In grad school I used to journal in a nice hardbound book type journal that I would pick up a Barns & Noble or somewhere like that. They had wonderful textures on the covers, or fantastic and inspiring illustrations. They smelled good.

I enjoyed writing in those books but I did find that I tended to reserve entry in them for only the thoughts that I found most deserving to be written down in such a nice book. That's why I just got a more down to earth simple book. So I could put anything in there. Which I had done. Thoughts that wouldn't mean anything to anyone. But I was glad to have them somewhere.

Then it was gone. And it bugged the heck out of me.

It really did. I would just be walking through my day, doing something totally unrelated to anything in my personal life and this pang would hit me. This faint little whisper of frustration and mild little imitation of sadness that said "man, I'd really feel more complete right now if I knew where that stupid book was." It felt like I had written down all my best, most wise inspirations in that book and now I would never be able to recapture those thoughts and mankind would suffer as a result, or at least my destiny would flounder. I knew that was a little over the top, but it still rattled around in my head like that, buzzing like a mesquito in my ear.

After a couple weeks without it I got desperate. I dug out the nice fancy journal with the satin place marker from the back of the roll top desk, buried under the clutter of all the unpaid bills and old bank statements yet to be filed. The one that I had put away because of my constant hesitation to write in it. I'd just have to start from scratch. And this time I was determined. I was even going to degrade the nice book by putting fragmented, disjointed thoughts in it. I wasn't going to self censor.

And about the time I'd entirely given up on finding my little spiral and was only thinking ahead about what I would write in my good book----I found it. Like a frantic, unplanned game of hide and seek with a three year old you suddenly can't locate who ends up just playing quitely in the back corner of the attic or something, it just popped up. Holding out the bear with the missing button eye and looking back at me in my frazzled state with an expression that said, "What? I've been safely over here they whole time. Would you like to come play? I think you'd feel better if you did."

The relief was tangible. It was like an irritant had been washed away from the surface of my skin. Like a shower after a day at the beach, washing off the sand and salt and making you feel new again. Human again. The stars and planets could all go back to orbiting properly now.

But I hesitated to open it. When it was gone I remembered everything so profoundly. Would I start to read and find it was all just a joke? That my deepest thoughts were just bla bla blather. Would I read what I had written and judge myself as too mundane and inarticulate to have even worried about it? Was this going to be a little paper mirror to show me things about myself that were clumsy and ugly? Would I feel like it would be better if I had never found it?

But in the end I did read it. And it was good. It was like a divine hand had hidden it from me to read again at a later time. This very moment. Because it was like a letter to me from a very different me. A me from just several weeks ago, but who seemed so vastly different. The me that stood on the other side of my time with our house guest and my bruising confrontation with my own limitations. A me that was inspired, hopeful, optimistic, who thought he could have thoughts that would make a difference in the lives of people. A me who had yet to be so challenged by an experience and fail so deeply that he would think that nothing he could do would amount to any significant change in anything. A me that didn't pull back out of concern for doing more harm than good. A me that wasn't ashamed of these feelings yet because he still had a vision. For something. Not sure what. But it was some something better that he could contribute. Somewhere.

I liked this other me. And I wanted to believe what he wrote. I'm trying to believe again. The first step was that I picked up a pen and began writing again in that little black book. Hopefully I'll find myself in a place again where I'm not writing like a maudlin 14 year old girl feeling sorry for herself (like I have here).

I look forward to then.

Now if I can just find that rook missing from the chess set on the entertainment center in the living room. Man, I wish I knew where that thing was.

New Release Tues: Relient k - Who I am hates who I've been

This is another one of our family faves. Never seen them in concert though. We hope to someday.

Well, hello there Mr Stork!

Check it out! I'm an Uncle again! My brother and his wife brought a baby boy into the world this afternoon. All are well, I'm to understand.

His first two children were little miracles because my Bro and his wife had to go through such trying fertility assistance and ongoing care with the pregnancies (including daily shots!) to make it happen. But this little one just came Surprise---doubly unexpected. Still, just as exciting.

Read more about the last few days leading up to it here.

On that note, I heard a beautiful "birds and bees" story this week end. We were talking to the friend from church (the one who had labeled us hippies) at a get together this weekend when she told us this story of her kids.

One of her younger boys had come up to her and asked, "Mom, I know that babies come from mommies tummies. But how do they get out?"

Well, being a good mom, she set down and calmly described how it happened. Not too graphically, she said, but she let him know straight how it took place. She said he was a kind of taken aback, and perhaps a little grossed out, and sat there for a second processing this new information.

Then he became concerned for his little sister. He asked his mom if his little sister realized what would happen to her someday? (Which we thought was an amazingly sensitive thought for such a young little guy.)

She said that yes, she did. Apparently she and her daughter frequently watch the birth shows on some lifestyle channel on cable.

At that moment the little girl came up to the kitchen table. Upon her arrival, one of two told her that they were talking about babies and asked her to tell what she understood about how they come out.

She was reported to say, "Well, babies either come out through the vagina, or the make a cut in the tummy and they come out that way. But if they can't come out through the vagina or a cut in the tummy, then you go to the airport and get a brown one."

At that statement, of course, there looks of confusion between the mom and her son as to what on earth this little girl could possibly be talking about.

Then the mom remembered; the last episode of their baby show was about a mom who adopted a baby from overseas!

Our friend was still laughing tears down her cheeks about that when she was telling us days later.

Going to a Concert on New release Tues

We don't usually go to another concert this quickly, but this show tonight is the only big concert in the area that I'm seeing for the summer. So we going to just cut loose and have a good time. These guys, Hawk Nelson, are the headliners. The other bands will be Falling Up (Robos favorite), Project 86, the band I'm looking forward to, and a new group called Run Kid Run. Should be a good time.

Eowyn's Music Video

We're going to see this young lady rock tonight. Finally, a concert. She's very very indy. Check her out at www.myspace.com/eowynmusic

Quote Floats

Today my daughter filled me in.

She quoted a friend from school who told her (after finding out about my secret goth make-up stash): "Your dad is so cool! I mean, you're cool too [refering to my daughter], but your dad is Wooo-cool! But don't worry, someday you too will have the Woo."

So apparently her friends think I'm cool.

Prepare for the apocolypse.

Actually, I think what's going on here is that the bar has just gotten low enough that I can finally jump it. Parents, or people my age, aren't expected to be cool. In fact, the expectation is quite the opposite. I'm approaching the time where the gap between a person my age and cool should be getting larger and larger. But I seem to be parlaying that effect to my advantage (without even intending to). It seems to be like this, if I listened to the music I do and I was 20, that would be expected. But at almost 40 with a teen-age daughter, it's extraordinary! Excellent. I should be able to leverage this for all it's worth. At this rate, the older I become, the cooler I'll be. Nice.

That was a quote that really sparked my day when my daughter told me about it. Another one was when one of her friends from school came in for a surprise visit. It was the first time this friend had been in our house. When she knocked on the door, Leemur answered and just let her in. He then went back to his Saturday morning dance party there in the living room with Bear. He's not to up on the whole host thing so he just let her wander in of her own accord to where I was in the kitchen. While making to that point, she had to walk by a doorway where she could hear Robo's stereo blasting from his room. After I guided her to where she could find my daughter, she wandered down to Kitten's room where Kitten's iPod was playing hooked up to her computer speakers. Later Kitten told me that her guest had said,

"I love your house. It's so full of music!"

That was also very cool. But the quote that I come back to again and again was one that my wife told me about after she had a little picnic in the backyard with another couple of stay-at-home moms from church. One of the women was a young mom and new to town. We had met and talked a little in a church group, but nothing enough to really imprint on. So when she was telling her husband about this picnic she would be attending, he was having trouble placing the people's house (ours) where she was going to be. He couldn't bring us to mind until she said with all affection,

"You know----the hippies!"

Then he knew exactly who she was talking about.

I floated on that one all day.

Celebrate New Release Tuesday! POLYSICS - Baby BIAS

Here is a new band that I'm getting into. It's like an aggressive reincarnation of DEVO from Japan. If you can't understand what they are saying, that's because it's not all in english. I realize that it's not for everybody. My daughter says "it's too beepy". I'd love to see these guys in concert, but they don't come to the midwest right now. Maybe someday soon.

Hello Again

Yes, I'm still here. Yes, I miss you guys.

Sorry for getting carried away with the youtube video posts. But hey, you go to a video site and find videos from your favorite bands and a link that says "blog this" and you're just supposed to do nothing?

I promise to keep it under control. I'm thinking that I'll just post on New Music Tuesdays. Kind of a fun way to celebrate the day that new videos and CDs are released. And maybe cartoons on Sat, or something. But control, yes, that's the key. Otherwise this'll end up looking like a crazy myspace page.

These have also kind of been "yes I'm alive" posts" too. So it doesn't seem like I've fallen off the edge of the Net. As always, my absence means that I've gone through some stuff. And yes, it involved our house guest. It didn't exactly work out. She's not at our house any longer. I realize, too, that it didn't seem to last very long. That's one of the things that makes me saddest of all.

I've thought a thousand times about how I would blog about this, and I'm honestly not sure I ever will. I'm not sure it would be fair to talk about her here in this very public forum. She didn't sign up for that. So to respect her privacy, I probably never will go into it much. Yet even that can sound kind of incriminating. But it wasn't her, really, it was us. We just didn't truly realize how full our plate was, or how fragile. I must tell you that nothing incredibly dramatic happened that caused some catastrophic trauma to bring this chapter of our lives to a close. Any time I think about describing any particular incident, it just seems like a pebble. But like my wife said, an avalanche of pebbles can still crush you.

It all came very clear when during a discussion with Robo when I asked him what was wrong. He shrugged and simply said, "I dunno---we just don't laugh anymore."

It's all creating a log jam in my brain. Keeping me from writing anything here till I get it sorted out. So I'm just going to try to get on with things.

I do have some unexpected emotional recovery to do. This episode has kind of challanged me emotionally in a way that I've never experienced before. You think you reach almost 40 and life is just variations on an theme--you pretty much know what's out there and what to expect from yourself. But I was caught completely off guard---it's not how I anticipated I would react based on how I thought I knew myself. All on the inside.

I sort of don't trust myself as much as I used to. This has all taken me very off guard and pushed me onto a path I have no map for. So I just have to try and trust and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It's left me struggling with a duality in my mind that feels like I'm recovering from some sort of trauma. To say it was a trauma kind of overstates it, though---kind of like saying "oh I understand the feeling of shrapnel, I had a splinter once. Hey, it got infected". I feel ridiculous. But it is there, and it keeps me from snapping back.

It's as if that barrier that we form in our mind to separate the sadness that constantly exists in the world from our personal day to day lives (so that we can actually enjoy life) has been removed. You know, that mental skill we develop in our teens which accepts that there are bad things that go on every second of every day, but we kind of subconsciously forget them so we can live and love and laugh. It's a good thing--an essential thing. Otherwise it all just becomes too overwhelming, and any chance at creating beauty and life and all that makes everything worthwhile would be lost.

That's the part of me that's gone missing some how. It's like when you're playing in the park with your kids and experiencing that joy where you feel "this is what it's all about", when suddenly you notice a funeral procession going by. And suddenly you are vividly aware that for some people this same day, this same moment, is probably the toughest day of their life. And it kind of takes the wind out of your sails.

I constantly seem to have several thoughts bouncing around in my head at the same time. I feel blessed with life, because I still truly don't take for granted all the wonderful things around me. Then a side of me says, "yeah, go ahead, enjoy yourself. Don't think about all the children not as lucky as yours to know a parent's love." Then I start to feel sad. That's when another side of me will scoff and mock my blues, "oh yeah, like you have it so tough. Not like those service men and women in Iraq who wake up every morning knowing that their day will be full of TRYING NOT TO GET KILLED!!"

It's all out of control. I'm trying to get it back in order. I don't know if it will every be quite the same, but it gets better each day.

I don't want to talk a whole lot about it here. I just don't think it would make for very good reading. I just thought my absence required some sort of explanation.

We'll try to move forward from here. Focus on positive things that are still happening around me.

Like the fact that I'm writing this sitting outside my daughter's Japanese class that she began tonight. At a local college! Fifteen years old, and taking a college language course. I'm very proud of her. It's time like these that I think I need my people as much as they need me. Maybe more.

6-6-06--spooky. And it's here

Stryper on VH1

Well, on the what is being billed as the "Devil's Day", here's a little video from the "To Hell with the Devil" boys. If you don't remember them, or never heard of them, this'll give you the skinny.

Strong Bad Email--gotta have blue hair.

What's Saturday Morning without a cartoon! Forget t.v., HomestarRunner.com is my current fav.

Thousand Foot Krutch-Move

I've taken the kids to see these guys like three time now. They Rock!

Eleventyseven -

Check out the next thing in pop punk.