Category: blogging

Where write about writing, and my website sounds familiar.

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ain’t no flies on me

At the top of my lungs I yelled, “I DIDN’T WRITE YET THIS WEEK BECAUSE I WAS BUSY.”  The emptiness of the void brought my own voice back to me, diminished just a little, ‘I DIDN’T WRITE THIS WEEK BECAUSE I WAS BUSY.”  Turns out that few minutes each night I don’t write where I feel pangs of regret and maybe even some kind of personal-guilt (which is, I think, a mostly Catholic thing) really don’t matter.  There’s much to be proud of of and happy about.  Out here in my corner of the internet are some 900,000 words, so there ain’t no flies on me.

I guess the past two nights I’ve been doing work.  Not sawmill-work but instead the lustful work that is getting to 80% on the itinerary for our coming RV odyssey.  The approach has been more structured than I first thought it would have to be.  At first I was trying to fit a trip into a number of days, but realized quickly this wasn’t working.  Realizing I had to first set some boundaries, I instead started by defining the average miles we’d be willing to drive on a driving day.  Next, I defined a driving vs. not-driving ratio to ensure we had sufficient “off time” to where things would feel like a vacation instead of an extremely long drive with no real destination.  With those two guideposts, it was easy to come to reasonable totals for both total trip miles and total trip days.

Oh and things are moving forward.  We have a start date, we have budget, we have an end date, we have a better-than-rough route, we have a good number of “zero days” sprinkled throughout.  In fact, today I put $300 down to reserve our thirty foot RV.  Not only that, but I made the motions at work to get the slotted time away.  I mean, things are coming together, and I’m a little more sure this thing is actually happening – even if the cost is somewhat “extravagant” for a family vacation (although, as six-week-long vacations go… eh…).  One day in the future, when I get each night’s campgrounds defined, I’ll share a more detailed itinerary.  But tonight I’m excited enough about the major stops and locations that I just wanted to run them down.

8,200 miles.  Where are we going?  What are we seeing?  A day at Crater Lake.  A stay with my family in Oregon.  Four days in Yellowstone.  Half a day at Mt. Rushmore.  A morning at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  A day at Niagara Falls and a day at Antietam.  A couple days to tour DC.  A two-day drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway with a back-country overnighter.  A dip into the deep south to hang with our southern folk.  A day in the Ozarks.  The better part of three days in the Grand Canyon.  Hoover Dam and a day in Death Valley.  Independence day with friends in the California high desert and then back home again some forty-five days after we leave.  Those “days” I mention are what I call “zero days,” no-driving days, stoppage days.  On top of that we put thousands of (hopefully scenic) road underneath us.

Yes I’m sad that we had to cut Glacier and Badlands and Arches and the Rockies and the Keys and New Orleans.  But man, I think we’re doing really well for six weeks.

There’s still lots to be defined and tons of details to settle.  That means I should get my nose back in these books and websites and sign off now.

Goodnight.

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$100 easy dollars

Tuesday night on the internet and I’m writing right up until my 9:30pm call from Shanghai comes in.  I’ll take what time I can get.

In January of 2007 I decided to integrate some small Google ads into a couple of my more “highly-trafficked” websites, namely my blog and a now ridiculous-looking page I made back in highschool which I maintain partly because it’s got a decent pagerank, partly because it gets hits, and partly because it’s such a funny example of my 1995 webpagin’ skills.  Despite my meager readership and small search traffic, I figured some unobtrusive Google ads wouldn’t hurt – and I might even make a little money over time.

Once upon a time I used to check my progress, but slowly forgot I even had ads on the pages.  Last week I got a $100 payout from Google.  It took me three and three-quarter years to earn that $100, which is something like 2¢ per day.  (As an aside to that sentence, I always found it confusing that the dollars sign goes before a number and the cents sign goes after.  Just seems needlessly confusing.)  I guess that falls in line with my “might as well; might earn some money” attitude about the whole thing… but man that’s some sloooow earning.

I’m already looking forward to my next $100 (they only pay once you hit that mark) in July 2014.

Goodnight.

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been here before

I wrote something tonight that I really liked.   Then I deleted it.

It was some artsy bit about gaining perspective, brought about by re-reading yesterday’s entry.  It had a caveman and something about DNA and guilt over prayers for clean water.  Man it was bad.  Written well, but bad.

Lately I just can’t write anything I like.  I write it and abandon it or delete it.  I thought tonight about writing about how I’ve been using a couple new pieces of software I really like, but then that seemed boring.  I thought of doing the standard “Cohen is getting older” or “Keaton did something cute” retell.  Nothing seemed right and it all seemed boring.   And then here I am writing about how I can’t write again; probably the most trotted-out rehash I have and here I go pulling it down again.

Maybe it’s just adjusting to the new schedule.  The new baby, work in constant overload, the old baby.  It’s not like I’m lacking sleep, I still get most of it.  I’ve weathered storms in writing before.  In 1997 I took a three month break.  I opened that return to writing with these words, “It’s really been a while…  A lot has happened since I’ve last cared to write.”  Well it’s really been a while since I’ve not written for a period of more than a week… so ultimately I feel OK.  It’ll come back.

And anyway, while looking back to judge breaks-in-writing of the past I found this:

4/10/98

So many things have been going on, it’s hard to choose which to write about.  I truly am so busy lately, I have no time for the things that I wish I could be doing right now.  I guess that’s how it happens though, by the time you get old enough to realize that you could be doing something else – you’re too busy to be doing it.  Does that make sense?  I mean that, every day I can think of one-thousand things that I could be doing rather than what I am doing at that time, but – now that I am finally realizing what I could be doing, I am too busy to even keep that thought in my head long enough to imagine it.  It’s life setting in I suppose, the more things I can do, the less time I have to do them.

I laughed.  Goodnight.

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not the week for writing

It rained today, the first time since the summer’s heat.

Makes me think that Fall is truly coming.  Football is here; I’ve started thinking about Halloween; and we’ve got all our holiday travel booked.  Maybe Fall is truly coming.  Maybe that’s good, might give me something to write about.  I’ve had so many things to write about this week and absolutely no time to get them out.  Work again, as my primary foe, has proven resourceful this week at keeping me away from it.  Sometimes work should take a hike.

Cohen turns two months old next week.  I find this hard to believe even though I know it to be true.  He has gained more than two pounds from his birthweight, and while I don’t have measurements I can already see he’s so much “longer” than he used to be.  He’s still a perfect little newborn, sleeping most of the time but spending an increasing amount of time awake and “playful” post feeding.  He’s great at night, doesn’t fuss too much and, like Keaton, never spits up. Knowing what some people go through with babies, he’s been our second blessing in that regard.

It’s like 11pm and I’m stuck again.  Maybe just not the week for writing.  Goodnight.

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every breath & blink

Writing is hard.  I am distracted.  Nights I just want to read or sleep or think.  I’ll come back.

Weather here turned sunny and cloudless and hit the 90s. Far from melting in misery I’ve been drinking it in; letting the heat warm my cold bones – bake the chill from my soul.  In the morning when it’s early, before 6am – it gets light so early now, I like to go outside barefoot.  Sometimes there’s still residual heat in the pavement, or at least some neutral temperature that feels warmer than the outside air.  It’s like some perfect non-temperature suspended between the cool of night and coming heat of the day.  Sometimes I imagine it like the perfect temperature of a womb; just a built-in sense of pure comfort.  Not hot; not cold; just comfortable.

May through August is full of holes: travel; relatives in town; progeny.  Work is suffering from my swiss-cheese-focus.  The simplicity of a day off here, a day off there, crushed by the weight of the requisite catch-up.  And this baby is coming.  Like a train at night I’m not going to see it until the light is on me.  I can hear it coming, echoing somewhere far away and I can put my ears on the track and listen to the rolling steel.  I’ve been feeling guilty.  When Keaton came my entire brain, my every breath and blink, was consumed with thoughts of her.  The second time around it feels almost “routine.”  Sure we’ve planned and readied but it’s nothing like what it was with Keaton.  I guess that’s to be expected… but it still makes me feel… guilty.

Such a random bit of writing.  Told you it’s hard.  Goodnight.

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the right time to write

Friday.  Finally.

A long week and barely any entries.  That happens when I don’t write on a Sunday.  Sunday writing has become the key to a good week of entries.  Typically, I’ll get at least one full post knocked out (Monday’s) and a couple outlines or ideas captured down as drafts.  Then I’ll work on those drafts during weeknight evenings or over lunch break at work.  But when I don’t do Sunday, and I don’t crib down ideas… I’m stuck for the week.  Work wrings any free thought from my brain and I end up staring at a blank page most nights.  Such was this week… there was a bunch to write about but never the right time to write.

It’s 9:30pm now and I’m just thirty minutes out of my last meeting of the day.  I’m reclined on the couch, typing, and my toes are icy cold.  I’m wondering what I can snack on.  I finished off the bag of Goldfish Sharaun got in the bulk aisle upon getting home from work.  Sharaun, in some fit of sweet-deprivation, baked a box of pre-mixed chocolate chip muffins (I didn’t even know we had them), but I don’t feel like that.  Late night snacks should be spicy.

I shaved my head last Friday, and have shaved it twice again since then.  I like the way it looks, all bald and smooth.  Keaton also likes it and has taken to calling me “bald head.”  Sharaun is not so sure.  I’ve taken to calling it my “last haircut.”

Goodnight.

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triumphant

Good evening internet. Hope your week is winding down well.

Last night Sharaun realized midway through preparing the fajitas for dinner that we had no sour cream. To me this would have been fine. Yes the integrity of the resultant sour cream-less fajitas would most certainly be compromised, but what can a body do when there’s no sour cream in the house? It’s not like I have time to maybe wait for some regular cream to go sour, so I made my peace. Sharaun, however, couldn’t abide the situation. Deciphering her complicated series of pointed exhales and sighs, Keaton and I made a quick run to the store; or, as quick as is possible with Keaton along, she really wanted to accompany me. We came home triumphant, and had fajitas to celebrate.

I sat and stared at this page most nights this week and nothing ever came. Over and over again all I could bring to mind were thoughts of work. Work. It’s been consuming me lately. Tonight I got home late and sat and worked even after that. I had to forcefully turn off my brain and get disconnected enough to read some Hobbit with Keaton. Even now as I write this last paragraph about not being able to write just so I have something to write, I’m distracted.

I had a meeting this morning with a co-worker near London. It was his Thursday evening as we spoke and he told me he was readying for the Easter holiday, where they are off Friday and Monday for a four-day weekend. Man I wish we got an Easter holiday. I could use a four-day weekend about now.

Goodnight.