Cleaver, Chapter 12, p. 161

A USB cable is a fine toddler toy. Soft outside, crunchy copper strands within, rectangular connector to fill with spit, pretty necklace for the doggie. I think it works, and at least you're consistent in your hi-tech chew toy theme. Your boy is the younest Treo owner I've ever known. But I don't understand his text messages... they all read like ma-ma... dad-da.... doggie... You need to work with him on his IM abbreviations.

So... Jerry Cleaver, Chapter 12, p. 161 - The Ticking Clock

I know you're like me in that you need a good fifteen minutes or so of psychological foreplay and at least a solid hour of genuine quiet to write anything substantial. I know how it goes.

But Cleaver offers some good tips... and you're already following his first (and most important) - you're doing a little bit... even just that little blog entry is enough to keep the mind clicking, juices flowing, a placeholder in your subconcious that says I'm going to be writing during this time, so get that frame of mind stuck right here every day.

Here's some of the other stuff he talks about in that chapter (my highlights):
- p. 170 he talks about doing "some drudgery" after your five minutes (or ten or fifteen, or whatever you're able to tweak out of your crazy life)... I like this idea... plan to sort some laundry or mow the lawn or something work-related that requires grunt work but very little mental effort (you're saying, yeah... like what...) but the idea of putting that little bit of time in and then staying in that mental zone while you move on to some drudgery, allowing your mind to continue, allowing the subconscious to keep writing in the background (like a "terminate, but stay resident" application...yeah, I'm still a geek)... I like it... I've done it... usually just walking the dog.
- p. 171 - "Two old writing rules are relevant here. The first is "Gently but always." The other is "Not a day without a line." 'nuff said.
- p. 181 - "The worst thing you can do in all of this is to not write and not make meaningful contact with your writing for an extended or not so extended period."
- p. 182 (***** AND YOU TURNED ME ON TO THIS AND NOW IT HAS BECOME CRITICAL FOR ME ****) "Do your thinking on the page........"

- Now, here's the coolest part.... the goosebumps part. My plan was to write out the highlights for you here... talk you down from the roof of the Fine Arts building... and then go back full circle to the last part of your post... a gentle reminder that you're absolutely right to focus on that third step... cuz ultimately, that's what it's all about. And you've been on target with that lately.

So here's the goosebumps... I'm thinking about what to write to wrap this up, and I look at the second to last page of that chapter, and God is right there, talking to us about the third step through Jerry Cleaver (little did he know)...


"What you can do is get in the way... The more you push it, the less you get, etc..... So, you don't train it. If anything, it trains you."

No Time to Write

I have two minutes until I take the boy to daycare. A software installer is in town from Boston. My wife is freaking out because of her job situation and requires constant emotional care. I keep telling myself that she'll settle down and become reasonable again soon. I just grabbed a camera away from my young son.

I have no time to write. This is it, right now. And I'm getting this time because I'm letting my son play with USB cord.

3rd step. 3rd step. Right?

I Love Tom Brady

He's very handsome.

Just write the story, just write the story.

And I love your hair...lush silvery waves...ah, it's very nice. I truly have remarked on its texture (to myself) before. This is sad but true. As a writer? I do these things..notice all details...deconstruct and reconstruct. Yesterday lying in bed I came up with a brilliant dream-sentence...something about pixels coalescing into globs, giving the whole picture an abstract look.

There is nothing better than a good haircut and nothing worse than a bad one (okay there's halitosis, death, taxes, un-lubricated trim, toothaches, warts, but other than that...). However, it's not always clear at first blush whether you've gotten a truly good cut. This only comes clear after about a week. If it ruled the first day but you think you need another one a week later, you got suckered. Mine looked absolutely horrible last week but is growing in nicely...a creeper cut.

Haircut

Got my haircut today... finally... I was starting to worry about catching on fire, the wisps of gray fluff that have become my hair are perfect tinder... a stray beam of sunlight magnified through a crack in the windshield resulting in a quiet spontaneous combustion on the highway... screams muffled by the droning AC and closed windows... smashing to a stop against the guardrail, unable to pat out the flames, running away from the car and across lanes of traffic, people wide-eyed and pointing, slowing down and rubbernecking to see the crazy old guy doing the "I'm Mr. Heat Miser..." dance in the middle of I-95.

The woman who cut my hair today was very nice (what is it about the people who cut my hair? why do they become such important parts of my life?) but she had a major, major acne problem. I'm talking zits on top of zits - volcanic formations, redness, swelling... her cheeks were like cavern ceilings, stalactites formed by millions of years of pus formations... bizarre... I found myself wondering why she doesn't do the Proactiv thing with Jessica Simpson... or God knows what... there has to be a solution... but I wonder if maybe she just doesn't give a shit. Bizarre... I noticed that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring (I always look, don't I...) and I couldn't help but wonder if she was happy. I don't think she is. Maybe I'm completely wrong and she's living a fine life, but I just don't think so... I think she's probably goes home and cracks open a lot of cans of gourmet kitty food... She's probably got some guy who lives downstairs who gets drunk enough every few weeks to knock on her door in the middle of the night and give her a quick and nasty boinking before passing out on her living room floor....

I just don't know... But I do know one thing... All zits aside, she gives good haircut.

Why Do I HateTom Brady?

Really, why do I hate the guy? He went to Michigan, after all, so I should love him. I like Charles Woodson just fine, and liked Desmond Howard (even when I was rooting against the Packers). I liked Jon Jansen and even Drew Henson, who took time off to play baseball and then came back and got worked by the Cowboys.

Point is, I like all these other ex-Michigan guys but I can't stand Tom Brady. Just jealousy, you say. Well, yes, but I'm jealous of everyone. I'm jealous of plenty of guys who don't have a chin-dimple and Giselle. So it's not as simple as that.

I think I'm just fatigued. I think I'm just tired of hearing about Brady and Bellicose...er, Bellichek. Can they please go away already? It's like Joe Montana; he was a great quarterback, but my god did I get tired of hearing about him after awhile. Remember when he was on the Kansas City Chiefs and he was doing all those advertisements, for like Isotoner gloves and Chunky Soup? Jesus...even now, just thinking about Joe Montana, my poor bruised consciousness rises up in anger to defend itself against yet another marketing onslaught.

And so I come to the answer. I don't hate Brady, per se. I'm sure that if I were ever allowed to share a limo with him and his hot chicks I'd exit thinking he was the coolest guy ever. No, I'm sick of the media. I'm done with it. Over it. I'm going to try something, a grand experiment, to see if I can recover my childhood love affair with football.

I'm going to boycott all non-statistical information. That is, I'm going to watch the games with the sound turned off and I'm not going to read any more football websites or newspaper articles aside from the box scores. I'm going to de-hype myself. Go on a hype fast. What is left should be pure sport. And maybe then I'll find myself, god knows, even liking Brady.

The Deep Deep Silence of the Blogosphere

I just wanted to talk for a moment about a kid I know. His name is Trevor, although I always forget his name whenever I talk to his mother, and so I resort to asking about "her son".

He's a senior in High School this year and is quite interested in all things software/computer. He even has a web page explaining some of the simpler Java concepts. One night when I was in another major city on business, Trevor's mother asked if I'd go out to dinner with him and share some of my experiences in the software business with her tech-obsessed son.

We ate in this little downtown bistro that featured the large open space with the track lighting and various boutique colors such as "avocado" and "chinchilla" on the walls, floor and tableware, all subtly matching/clashing with the abstract art on display.

Trevor explained to me his ambition: it was quite simple. He was going to get great grades, get into MIT, get his bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and then go to work for Google (or its future equivalent). The more I talked to him, the more I could see it. The more I could see his life flowing smoothly along on this perfect track to technical superstardom. I had no trouble believing it would happen.

As the meal went on I encouraged Trevor and related various experiences which I thought might be useful to him, but mostly I listened to him talk and admired his focus. I had this idea then, listening to him, that the hardest part of anyone's life is figuring out what you want. And that once you have that, the rest is really just a formality.

After dinner we went for dessert to this hip little candy shop with glass racks full of delectables and a full L-shaped ice cream bar complete with gleaming soda taps and hot young oriental chicks perched on the art-deco stools. I chose some chocolate-covered pretzels. My young charge and his mother both ordered ice cream. We sat down to check out a jazz trio that had wedged itself in the corner was busy thrumming and honking to the vague accompaniment of the traffic on the other side of the glass.

I pointed out the cute Asian girls to Trevor. He replied that he'd never had a girlfriend. He did not seem particularly proud of this; it seemed to perplex and upset him. It was then I realized that he was really only 17 and that life had lots of curves left to throw him. And I realized that it takes more than knowing what you want out of life; it takes luck, too. Luck with women (or men, of course), luck with health, luck with your friends and enemies. luck with the things in your own mind. Life has a funny way of testing us all.

I didn't say any of this to Trevor, of course, and it's just as well. He wouldn't have understood. His emotional vocabulary has no definition for disappointment, perplexity, mystification, crushing. And it's just as well. He'll learn all of that soon enough. For now, he can go on eating his chocolate and watching the jazz trio.

Florida in Winter

From the far side of the lake my house was clearly visible even in the darkness, this towering blue box; its blueness leeched the color from everything around it. Palm trees were silent brown explosions on the gray canvas of the sky. Everything had been laid out for me by some delicate surrealist, all the components moving in harmony; trees slid in front of the houses while the houses inched in front of the clouds while the clouds drifted past the fixed bright stars. Disconnected shadows, going the wrong direction, floated in the lake. The wind was so cool and steady it could only be mechanical. None of it was real.

"In the summer," I said to my wife, and then stopped, unable to finish.
"In the summer it seethes," my wife said.
"And now it's fine," I said. We walked some more. The dog stopped and tinkled a round glittering stream onto the scales of a palm tree. "I think we went crazy again this summer," I said.
"I think so, too."