Fascinating.

As I do myriad laps in the pool of self-reflection, like some sort of eternal penance, realizations slowly dawn on me. This is the most recent: my problem is not clarity (at least, not just clarity), but fascination. I am easily fascinated, and when something captures my imagination, all of the energy in the manic portion of a manic-depressive's personality catalog is fully available. It is truly a wonderful feeling, where literally all things are possible.

The downsides are that the sensation is temporary, and its end does not simply indicate a return to normal, but necessitates that the pendulum swing fully to the other end of the mental and emotional spectrum, where depression and malaise await. But once this is identified, the fear that it will never lift is largely nullified, and that alleviates half the concern involved. I digress.

I think that my trouble is that I have trouble staying fascinated. Take stand up comedy: it is one of the toughest gigs a person can undertake. It requires some sort of talent, and it helps if you have a distinct world view (solid grasp on reality not required). Both of these are hard to fake. Also, it involves public speaking, often listed as one of the top fears among humans. Slather on top of that that the things typically spoken of during the public speaking mentioned above are the most personal, fundamental perceptions a person can develop, and you have a recipe for one daunting undertaking, my friend.

So all of this perceived downside makes for one hell of a thrill ride, and the apparent cost of admission is to grab a mike, check your ego and try not to puke until your set is over. What a rush! Until... there you are, six months, two years, or however long into your daring endeavor, and you've exhausted your primary lineup of custom-tailored oratory. Your momentum has been consumed by all of the unpaid performances, late-starting open mikes and the occasional bombing inherent to all stand up wanna-bes. Your fascination has fed upon itself as much as it's going to, and ground to a pathetic halt.

Enter our hero.

What do you do? Well, if you're not as self-aware as you thought you were, you try the old remedies, and try to kick-start the old magic that used to be a given. Failing that, you whine about it internally and externally. None of that shit works, so you just... coast for a while. Lacking a better alternative, you free fall, and try not to think about what you've lost.

Then you have some minor revelation (caption reads: "Present Day"), and hope to the Jesus you don't believe in that you've at least identified the problem, if not its solution. You realize that you'll have to renew your fascination with the "task" at hand. It shouldn't be too hard - as with any art, there is as much or as little challenge there as you choose to seek. Yes, getting on stage was a hurdle, a hurdle you've now cleared. Yes, finding some shit that total strangers are likely to regard as funny was as much magic as science, but you've done it. Now though - now comes a bigger challenge, engaging creative potential you'd never considered before: now you must imagine new ways to flagellate yourself. You devise your own challenges, and surmount them. You must find ways to impel yourself towards self-imagined horizons, summoning not only the strength but the very desire (this type of dramatic phrasing is necessary, I assure you) necessary for the journey!

Making people laugh is hard enough. Making people laugh via a specific technique (one liners? prop comedy? music?) is a more focused goal, and therefore more difficult. More fascinating. Why, it's almost enough to challenge a person. Some people thrive on challenges.

And then there are half-assed adrenaline junkies who wouldn't call it thriving, but something basic and necessary, to be sure.

Genius

Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," from the chapter "Sounds:"

"Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour."

Man, that's good stuff.

Gotta get back on the horse

What the hell is wrong with me, that's what I'd like to know.

I used to relish stealing a few moments and write about the thoughts, inspirations and urges that occurred to me throughout the day. For this whole year, I can't be bothered to hock up so much as one passionate, thoughtful or funny contemplation? Oh, the shame.

It was one of my favorite things to do: sit down, pour out and sift through the little notes in my head. It's a little embarrassing, but I love reading my own writing, at least when it's any good. It's the literary form of loving the sound of your own voice. It was sloppily (if lovingly) proofread and occasionally pretentious, but it was mine and I really dug it. My brother liked it, too.

Now? The well has gone dry. The Muse is silent. Shit! I used to think I knew what to do when the creative cupboard was bare:

I'd take in something that inspired me, like music, television, current events. Something would always rise to the surface. Lately, I take in all the entertainment I can process, and... zero.

Or, I could sit down and write something, anything. Get the mental motor running and see where it takes me. I am ashamed that the only place it takes me these days is right here: moping aloud about my inability to do something besides mope aloud, and waiting for that old feeling to recur. It's fucking sad.

Is there nothing worth writing about? Of course that's not the case. I've got a son whose vocabulary is quickly outstripping his mother's and approaching his father's; I've got a daughter whose right to vote and ability to procreate had a foot race, and voting won, but not by fucking much; I've got a job whose many dynamics deny those of what other people call the real world; I've got a good friend who always has something stuck in his nose hair or the corners of his mouth. The shit is out there, and I'm... just blind to it. How can this be??

So, I dunno. I'm sad about it. My madness has abated, possibly even died outright. I feel like I've lost a limb, and I don't even have the ghostly itches and pains that sometimes accompany such a loss. It's just numb. All I'm left with is a funk, a foggy void that would pull something into it if there was anything to draw in.

I am so sick of writing about how I have nothing to say. It's paradoxical and stupid and depressing. I wish I could blame it on too much drink, not enough sleep, too much work, not enough stress, but the fact is that these have all fluctuated enormously in recent months, and none of the extremes have brought me the raw materials or the fire that I crave.

Ech, Jesus, am I becoming normal? For all the troubles I've ever had, that taught me to love and appreciate humor (and its children: sarcasm and irony and mirth and glee and joy and playfulness) in a way that only someone whose life has been saved by it can, I never wished that Pinocchio would become a real boy. I've never wanted to trade all the woes as a square peg in this world for a smooth, comfortable fit into a round hole. And now I seem to have it forced upon me. If I was on medications, I'd go off of them. I'd rather suffer and laugh at life's irritants than be free of them. Horrible, horrible freedom.

But fuck it, I'm not quitting yet. Where there's life, there's hope, right? (Right...??)

I've got all the tools I could possibly ask for to broadcast my stupid opinions and desires all across the planet. While it's unfortunate that I currently have nothing to say, I'm going to keep the light on so that that fucking bitch Muse can find her way back when she gets done farting around at whatever she's doing, and starts feeding me the spark of life that I miss so profoundly. I'm going to keep my mind open and write stupid shit like the 571 words above, and putting it where anyone can see it and almost no one will and I don't blame them.

Because I'm not about to stand around barking and braying mindlessly like so many of the other zoo animals that harp about Dancing with the Stars and Sarah Palin like they really matter; because if nothing else, if I still have the sense to realize there's something missing, then I haven't faded into the herd completely and I'm not going there without a fucking struggle. A loud, profane, kicking-like-a-little-girl struggle.

So there. Nyah!

Snit

I'm pissed off this morning, for no apparent reason whatsoever. Everything's in the way, nothing works out, computers too slow, the time goes by too fast. I think this is what the hipsters mean when they type "FML," or "Fuck My Life."

If you're gonna have the highs, you've gotta tolerate the lows.

I am this close to punching myself in the face for thinking that, and typing it out.

Paris beckons

Yesterday, I sat down with French wine, French cheese and some French websites. And some not-overcooked lamb. And I dreamed of going back to Paris.

I just might make it this spring (he said, as he crossed his fingers).

I really thought I was going to go this fall, but it didn't work out, mostly because I let it ride. Ever since though, I've been eyeballing the prices of a hotel and a round-trip flight. They've dropped over two hundred dollars in the last month or two, and it's making my feet itchy.

I had never traveled, unless you count San Francisco as a teen, and Utah as an idiot in search of love (and you shouldn't count it, I assure you). I had such a ridiculous, cartoonish expectation of the city and the country on my first trip. What's bizarre is that Paris and France still met and exceeded my expectations. History, art, architecture, big-city bustle - it was like meeting a celebrity every single day.

Pretty much the day I got back from that trip, I let my French language studies collapse, making only occasional attempts to revive them. Having a sense of the language made all of the difference in the world, and improving it would make that much more.

So would the ability to walk for hours on end and pay for the occasional meal. So would studying up on the place's history, and the art in the galleries. On our last trip, I gaped dumbly at hall after hall in the Louvre, packed with paintings, statues and other near-priceless items, things that kings and heads of state would be proud to display. I stared, and only slightly sensed the massive aesthetic and historic value before me. They could have been bumper stickers, as far as my expertise was concerned. Pearls before swine, to be sure.

If you're reading this and have advice on how you improved the value of your trip abroad, please share them with me. I have lots of work to do to get ready. Wish me luck!

Connecting the dots

It's funny where the little things will take you.

A Facebook pal of mine ran some app that tracks how many times he swore in his status updates. I left my own, two-word silly remark, and noticed that one of his entries that said: "Wierd shit: google your name and look in images..." It sounded sufficiently goofy, so I did it, and the first click was ThomasBickle.blogspot.com.

The last entry was from 2008; I figured it was another neglected blog, lost to the ages. Then I see in the upper-right corner: "How Thomas is Bashing a Big Bad Brain Tumor." "Oh, no, some guy has a similar affliction to my brother's," I think to myself. Then I realized that the child's photos that are plastered all over this thing are those of a little boy who didn't survive his condition. The last post, entitled: "How This Story Ends," is headed with "Sad News." the description of this little boy's last day is sweet and heartbreaking.

I've sat here for a time, trying to think of something to write. I've got nothing, except affection for this little boy, sadness for his family and a bottomless well of rage for the unfairness of life.

Weighting game

Several months ago, I had done so well. I watched what I ate and lost over 10 pounds. Then the inevitable backslide that so many supposed experts predict (and it burns me up that they were right).

However, I'm not taking this lying down. I have made specific efforts to exercise more and more-regularly. What really gets me is that for some reason, when I do these things, I reliably put on more weight than when I'm inactive, and immediately as well. I went from 215 to 218 pounds in just a few days, after running and lifting weights three or four times per week. This improvement borders on the miraculous for me, and I am discouraged at the Bizarro-world rules that seem to apply.

Is it water weight? Is it (snicker) muscle mass? Is it an increase in appetite or entitlement due to increase activity that causes me to eat more?

I don't know, but I know I don't like it. I know damned well that exercise provides a multitude of benefits, and that I'd be a fool to let weight fluctuations put me off. So, I won't.But still, it's troubling...

It's written all over my face

I have and love a singular inability to control my face.

If I inwardly suspect that you are full of shit, the muscles behind my eyebrows will contract, pulling the corners just a few centimeters to the left. My face will betray the rest of my body and silently but undeniably broadcast undiluted skepticism.

Similarly, if you've just barfed a half-baked conspiracy theory into my face or displayed a staggering ignorance of the subject upon which you're expounding, my eyelids will flap rapidly up and down, like psychic windshield wipers, trying to flick away the stupid before it really sets in.

This all amounts to a low-grade sort of mental telepathy, and over time I've noticed that my interlocutors have the ability to read my mind. What would seem like a disadvantage often turns out to be a subtle plus. Where it can be prohibitively awkward to verbally reject someone's whole program, it can be equally advantageous to do so visually. I've found that when people are trying to rent space inside your head for their own shabby luggage, the very wisps of doubt about their motives (or indeed their mental stability) can be expressed so quickly and directly that they themselves don't consciously perceive it, but nonetheless will pack up their ideological goods and make their way to the next sucker without so much as a sour puss and tip of the hat.

I do notice that I am more skilled at expressing hostility than welcome, but hey - stick with what you know. I wouldn't change a thing.

Happy faces for Uncle Cliff

I used to chat online with my brother a lot. Since he had moved away our busy lives made voice calls difficult, and since he got sick, he was stranded next to the computer a lot. It was a huge help in keeping us connected and rebuilding the tattered relationship left over from our youths.

My son would frequently want attention during these chat sessions, and he was very attracted to the cartoonish emoticons and other brief, goofy animations you could send to your correspondent; to say hi with a mummy, or let a vampire tell them their breath stank, or whatever. Pretty soon, Brian would want to "send happy faces to Uncle Cliff" all the time. Sometimes Uncle Cliff was at the computer on the other end, sometimes not; Brian like to interact with him, but was also well-entertained just clicking on the cartoons, which worked fine even if no one was watching on the other end.

My brother was good with my little son. He'd tolerate the toddling imp, his ridiculous energy, and even enjoy his crazy kid nonsense much more than I did. He could key into it in a way that I still wish I could better emulate. He also enjoyed the chat interaction with Brian, and would throw all the weirdest animations right back at Brian that he could find, and crack him up.

Right after my brother died, Brian would still want to "send happy faces to Uncle Cliff." I couldn't tell whether he intended that Uncle Cliff was on the other end of it, or if that's just what he'd come to call the act of clicking on those cartoons. Just to be sure, I had to gently explain that Uncle Cliff couldn't send happy faces back any more. It kills me, this contrast between nostalgia, tragedy and the unknowing innocence of a five year-old boy.

I still remember you, bro. We all still have happy faces for Uncle Cliff.

Aim for the moon

"Aim for the moon - even if you miss you'll still be amongst the stars." - W. Clement

I've seen or heard that quote three times in the space of as many days this past week. I'm not superstitious, but there are worse creeds to keep in mind as you go about your busy day. Perhaps I should grind a little harder and aim my sights a little higher for a while, see what happens.

My son, the new Buddha

My son has a friend at school who wasn't always a friend. As a matter of fact, they didn't get along at all for the first several months they knew each other. Then suddenly, he didn't speak with his usual youthful bitterness about his little foe, so his Momma asked him why.

"We just looked into each other's hearts, saw the good in each other and set aside our differences, and now we're friends."

Kids say the darnedest, most philosophical things.

Where does the time go? It goes, that's for sure

The last year or so has been a turning point in the way I think.

I've wasted many seasons, and usually the most I can generate is a little passing regret, like: "darn it, didn't go camping again this year." I've always had an "eye on the clock" when it comes to my own mortality, but this is the first time in my life where my thoughts have frequently have been on terms like: "Brian will never have another summer at six years old."

It's troubling, but at the same time I'm glad. Time is all we really have, and anything that helps me avoid taking it for granted is a welcome thing.

>sigh<

Time to get ready for work.

One more reason

CBS reports from Paris, France:

Two teens ... took to flashing their breasts to get money from unsuspecting men using ATM machines

Just one more reason I wish I was in Paris (currently $1204 per person with hotel thru Expedia.com). At least when you get mugged, you get groped and a look at some young tits. Beats getting hit over the head like an American.

Europeans are so far ahead of us, socially.

Voicemail grating

When I call you and get your voicemail, I make an effort that the message I leave is complete but brief, informative with as little unnecessary blather as I can manage. When you call me back immediately, without listening to that voicemail, and require that I relay all of that information again, it makes me want to stab you in the face with an icepick.

Perhaps this answers my previous open question to the universe: why do people leave cryptic, informationally barren voicemail messages? It is very possible that this tactic is not necessarily the mark of a lazy, socially inept shitbag, but simply a defense mechanism against such people.

Interesting animals, these humans...

Ha, ha

"Joke" on boat leads to four deaths

The men had been boating at the reservoir Sunday, when one man was pushed into the water as a joke. According to the Power County sheriff, that man couldn't swim. The other three men jumped in after him, and all four drowned.

Holy crap, this is just pathetic. I know there's some jokes in there, but I can't see weeding them out. This is human stupidity made thick and real. Ech, I can hardly imagine.

Cliff's funeral

We had Cliff's funeral yesterday. It was brief, but it did the job.

By "did the job," I mean that it gave a lot of us a chance to get together as a unique community and remember him. I'm turning out to be quite an isolationist, but I have to say it felt proper and natural to sit with people in this grief, and stand in front of them and try to tell them what I had lost, what they had lost.

Through lack of preparation (mostly my own), I allowed someone else to give Cliff's eulogy: his ex-wife's brother Chris. He did a fine job, and I felt a stab of shame that I wasn't up there doing it myself. Kirk, the pastor/priest/religious muckety-muck (I can't keep the titles straight) neared the end of the prayers and speeches, he offerred to let some of the attendees say a few words about Cliff. I was grateful for the chance to do so, and I sprinted out of my pew like a runner off the mark. I had been thinking for weeks about what I would say about my brother, and although wisps of thought would blow through my empty head, somehow a lifetime of experiences wouldn't line up and play nice for this presentation.

Still, I had been able to cobble together a few key points, that my brother was intelligent, compassionate and courageous, and that we'd lost a good man. I managed to walk the line between grief and stoicism without disintegrating and croak out a few minutes of this tribute in an anguish groan of a voice, which I wasn't at all sure that I could manage until it was done. It's not as good as he deserved (my brother deserved an army of people to fill that place and take a week to wail and praise his humanity), but it was an able attempt.

I was tremendously heartened by others who stood up to say a few words on my brother's behalf, two of whom were from his ex-wife's family. My brother had taken them into his home for months at a time when they had pitifully few other options, and helped to raise their children as some sort of a family unit at a time when their lives were in a tremendous state of fluctuation. I knew in the back of my mind that he had done things like that, but it was wildly bolstering to be reminded, and to know that those people remembered and still appreciated his generosity and sacrifice on their behalf. When I said he was a better man than me, this is just one example.

We collected afterward and I reflected on his openness with people and how it contrasts with my own detachment. He took to people much better than I ever did, warmed to them and accepted them with an open and generous heart, and I am only beginning to realize and admire the courage that that took. I am getting to an age where I can see more and more clearly that my own detachment is a huge mistake.

This is just one of the lessons I am taking from Cliff's loss. It's been a lesson for which the price was far too great - I'd much rather be ignorant and have my brother back. Since that's not an option, I'll have to do my best not to waste what benefit his passing has bestowed.

Cliff is gone.

My brother, Cliff Bickle, passed away yesterday at 6:20 a.m. after a long fight with a brain stem tumor that took nearly everything from him over time, before it finally did take everything, and a damn good chunk of something from me and the rest of his family, too.

I can't take the time to memorialize in this space or anywhere else just now because I have to work and it tears at my heart to think about it (although my wife and I celebrated and remembered his life just a bit last night). This post is just to plant a temporal flag that it happened and when. Soon, I'll have the opportunity to grieve and remember more appropriately one the damned few friends I had in this world.

Nadir

Today's post brought to you by Thesaurus.com.

Man, I've been feeling puny lately. Too much smoke and too much drink had apparently weakened me; that's all I can surmise. Then I caught a flu-like bug that raided each system that workaday illnesses can attack, starting in the gut, working into my sinuses and then through the throat, finally settling in my lungs, which feel coated with a layer of goo (probably because they are).

As fat and likely to thoughtlessly scarf junk food as I have always been, I've rarely had a problem with stamina. As little as my regular life demands of me, I've always been able to meet the challenge. Lately however, I've been panting for breath after only a few minutes' exertion, winded after what is even for a pudgy office-jockey a meager imposition. This must not stand.

The good news is that I have somehow managed to lose about 15 pounds in the last month or three, owing to a more careful examination of what slips into my shameless, vacuous maw. I am jealously vigilant of this recent development, being mindful of how difficult and near-magical the alchemy is that brought me to this improvement. While I am not impervious to temptation, I do make more room for resistance to the temptations of beer and sweets.

Even so, I have never felt so old, even as I acknowledge that each day I am literally older than I have ever been. Weakness and fatigue are not welcome in my shabby temple, even as I admit that I have taken it for granted for so long.

Let today be the low point, even as I hoist a few tributes to another tick on life's odometer. Let today be as shallow as my breath can be found to be. Let my energy reserves only climb from this point, my stamina increasing to new heights. Let my lazy, flabby ass find ways and pockets of time that I may put some lean, slow-twitch beef on this overly-marbled frame, and not be found so soft a target for life's challenges anon.

There's always a Hitch.

Christopher Hitchens is at it again.

Hitch 22: A Memoir

Writing books, being clever, and getting all showy about how book-writingly clever he is, living life to its fullest and skewering others in a manner verbally brilliant, (a manner that is both harmless and crushing to anyone found on the business end of his pen) Hitchens is so compelling that I am helpless not to watch whenever he is on-screen, online, or in print. If Mr. Hitchens took a grunting dump between two hardcovers and signed the front, you better believe I'd pay top dollar for it. And proudly show it to company.

This time, however, the subjects of the book are his own exploits and experiences. If you haven't seen portions of the media blitz he has undertaken, it's your loss. Rarely have I found promotional propaganda so enthralling.

I have added this to my birthday wish list and sent a quick e-mail to my loving wife, so if you're thinking of buying it for me (bless you), coordinate with my gal so as not to duplicate efforts.

I'm afraid I'm gaining my mind

All my life I've had this feeling of being out of sync. Apart, and wondering at all the strange activity of the collective I beheld. Who are these people, and why do they do this or that? It was an off-kilter view of the world and although it could be painfully lonely sometimes, it was loads of fun, and that more than balanced feelings of isolation.

One thing that has always generated lots of friction and heat in my head was my habit of contemplating, but comparatively little 'doing.' Of anything much at all. Not even self-interest or interest on behalf of others motivated me. That sort of cognitive lopsidedness generated jokes, quips, blog posts and general nervous energy that created lots of fun content inside my head.

Now though, I am doing more, learning more, opening my mind up to real possibilities in ways I never had before. I can't be sure, but I suspect that getting out of my mental Lazy-Boy and embracing the real world may have diverted or stunted what I thought was a more ingrained character trait, my out-of-step experience of the world.

I am improving the frequency in which I pick up my guitar. I bought an old, hand-me-down electronic keyboard at a yard sale and have ordered a used book to learn it. I am awash in a river of data at my day job, whether I like it or not. I am drinking from the fire hose, and it feels a lot like it sounds: overwhelming.

One regret: my creativity for comedy has waned to a frightening degree. I will head to an open mike this week, but not because of a burning desire to get onstage again or a bursting sensation that I must get some new material out.

All comics experience lulls or writer's block or periods of doubt, like any creative artist. I hope it passes, because it feels like impotence, and I'm not okay with that.

Birthday wishes

Oh, another birthday is rounding third and about to steal home. I am thrilled and feel what the religious folks called "blessed" that I have no material or emotional desire that has not already been met. What luck and joy that I can honestly say that a giftless birthday would not leave me lacking in any way.

As true as that statement is, I'd be mad not to ask the universe for a few small things. One of my good fortunes is that some people in my inner circle might want to buy me something. It would be downright selfish of me not to make a list of birthday wants, I tell ya!

This is all I can think of for now. I used to own the two movies below, but I was foolish enough to lend them to a stupid, blackhearted dog who never returned them. Live and learn.

Amazon.com: Thomas Bickle: my stuff

Movie: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Movie: Shallow Hal

Blue Devil Action Figure

That's all I can think of for now.

Appended 5/22/10:

Religulous (2008)

Hitch 22: A Memoir

Bobbing in the surf

Holy crap.

The tempo of my day job has gone from Hank Williams to Metallica. Chores at home lay incomplete. Comedy and other interests have taken a back seat to... to what? Nothing, apparently.

Life has got me by the tail, and I struggle to catch up, keep up. Keeping a minimum of commitments is the most I can do right now. I am the master of nothing. I feel like a sock trapped at the bottom of a load of laundry, jostled and sloshed about.

I expect that balance, strength and confidence will return eventually, but for now, I am treading water.

Rejuvenated

I just wrapped up a luxurious stint of 5 days off work in a row. I admit that I am a somewhat happy with myself for finding the right attitude towards this time off, and spending it wisely. It was rejuvenating, as it should be.

How could someone screw up days off work? Me, that's who. Usually I get so tensed up at the opportunity to embrace the gift of unrestrained time I get set on this frenzied autopilot and do nothing but housework until a better idea comes along. Inevitably I end up at the end of a stretch of time and look back at a trail of domestic breadcrumbs that the birds are nearly finished eating already. Laundry and dishes are a noble-enough goal, but there's got to be more to life.

And so there was.

• I took my family to a trout internment camp in Sonora with my wife & son and "caught" some of the easiest fish on the planet.
  
• I ate like a king (but not like a hog), including genuine French red wine and Brie cheese. Also including some fresh trout.
  
• I picked up that damned electric guitar and dumbly plowed forward with attempts to look less like a chimp with a slippery handgun. Minor progress made, but progress!
  
• I picked up a book on 3D animation that I've had for months and ignored with heroically stupid stoicism.
  
• I got some exercise, which is always a good, if intermittent thing.
• I performed comedy at a place two hours away for no money; kicked a fair bit of ass at it, too.
  

...and some other stuff, but that's the lion's share of it. I am facing a stunted work week without much regret at all, and that is a very good thing. There's a lot of good in my life, but chances to stop and breathe and reflect are too few. I'm very glad I had my head on straight for it, rather than screwing myself out of it with a the wrong attitude.

I bore myself, sometimes

Ach. I'm sick of my own navel-gazing. Looking back over my blog, it's not (quite) as full of self-interested, how-do-I-feel-about-me narcissism as I recalled, but it's still too much. Even this post is all about it, even as I reject it.

I've tried to let it flow, write it out of my system and look towards the day when I have something external and interesting to blog about. You've got to give yourself creative space to deal with the things that bother you, and work it out.

I suspect part of it is that I've increased the "action" side of the ledger, which has always been disproportionately small compared to the "ruminate" column. I've spent most of my life up in my frontal lobe, gnashing my teeth about all the things I could do. Now that I'm doing a little more about all these Big Ideas, I think there is less friction, less heat and less light generated there. Less goes in the blog, but more is going into real life, and that's not a bad thing. Unless you're a blog reader. Sorry about that!

But, enough is enough. One reason I haven't blogged more lately is that I can't think of anything to write that I or others would want to read. I've reached the end of the creative cycle, the well is dry and I've got nothing new to rant or lament. Until I kick start that process, I'm just gonna be quiet.

Something will come around. If it doesn't, I know how to prime the pump. Failing that, I'll just wait some more.

Talk soon!

Let's get the obligatory, "I haven't blogged in a while" B.S. out of the way:

Holy shit, has it been more than two weeks since I blogged? Gee.

There, that's better. For a little more thought on that:

As I've mentioned before, I have a problem with focus. When I can arrange my thoughts and efforts toward a specific goal or topic, my ability to remain creative with that goal vanishes. It is a maddening blind spot on my mind's eye. The flip side of that is that when I am forced to labor for another's ends, as most of us are for much of our adult lives, the peripheral items that catch my eye seem to stir up much more useful grist.

In other words, when I'm stuck at work mining for cubicle lint, I am much more likely to dream up and obsess about things that strike my fancy. Things about which I might blog someday. Which brings me to my point:

Whilst I do still toil under the master's yoke, I have been engaging more and more in activities and experiments that, rather than insult and spurn my creativity and such-as-it-is intellect, they yank them in, grind and twist them in their ruthless clockwork and spit them out dirty, tattered and exhausted.

I have more to do and less to bitch about, which makes for a spindly blog entry, especially when you're accustomed to belly-aching about things outside your control.

This turn of events should make for an entirely different and no less interesting blog - one that describes the acquisition of hilltops and slaying of dragons. But it involves a switching of gears that I have hardly pondered until now, much less undertaken. I'm not used to acknowledging solutions and goals attained and describing successes; I find that it puts me back a bit!

In any event, I have been doing more 'doing,' and less postulating and navel-gazing. Therefore, the skimpier blog. This is a good thing. Once I can rework the machinery of my self-expression, it's entirely possible I have much to say.

We'll see!

Tired

Yesterday was just about perfect.

I woke up early, felt pretty good, and started the day by lifting some weights. I've been making another in a string of countless attempts to exercise with regular frequency, and over the last two weeks I've made a good run at it.

After that, it was housework for several hours straight. My brother-in-law John is coming for a visit this week, and if we don't make a big push over the weekend, there's no chance the place won't look like Hell when he arrives mid-week. We should have company every week; maybe then the place won't look like we rent it out to slaughterhouses and fraternities on the weekends.

Weather was perfect, and the afternoon and evening saw me building a nice little campfire in the firepit, and farting around with it (and a few Red Tail Ales) until after the sun went down. I played with my son throughout the evening, and generally had a great time.

One drawback of note: spring is here, and on the very day we set the clocks forward, I started a familiar routine of waking up sneezing. Here we go again.

Creative myopia

I am blessed and cursed with a powerful combination of cognitive short-circuits.

I am blessed in that I find many topics wildly fascinating at the outset. This is a blessing in that I can summon great amounts of interest and energy, sufficient to support an initial onslaught of research and genuine engrossment, some of which actually survives the rigors of time and occasional intoxication.

I am cursed in that this interest and energy necessarily abate over the medium term, at best. Always! No matter what the subject - computers, guitar, comedy and others - my fascination and ability wane after the first blush, and I am frustratingly unable to generate the wondrous blossoming of creativity (that sounds admittedly flowery, but it really is wondrous to me) that originally characterized my introduction or re-introduction.

Take comedy for example: for the longest time, questions abounded. "How do you start an open mike comedy night?" "What's the best way to light a comedy show?" "How much do comedians command for a given performance?" (If you've searched your way to this blog entry for answers to these types of questions, by all means, go to my comedy-related website, www.HumorMeComedy.com, for answers to questions like these, and more!) As I've progressed, I'm proud of the fact that I've answered many of these questions to my own satisfaction, and moved on to new ones. However, the levels of wonder and fascination have waned.

It's not that I don't still love comedy (for example); I certainly do. But I am no longer on the outside looking in. I am still near the outside of course, but have passed the most daunting palace gates. The waves of lust have broken against the honeymoon period regarding a topic, and at the end of it I find the reservoir of "I must know" drawn low. I feel like a honeybee or hummingbird flitting maniacally from flower to flower, sucking up nectar but rarely finding a reserve that lasts.

Currently, I maintain the will to see through the content-building necessitated to continue an endeavor like my comedy website - it's a potentially huge draw to create content of any kind for public consumption; the only constant requirement is to produce more - only because I remember, with active (though minimal) effort how much joy it has brought to me. The camaraderie of others with a similar love of the art, the creative challenge of putting a few minutes' material together, the joy when its success brings laughter from others, and the technical challenge of coordinating a real, live, no-shit comedy show like those I've attended myself and thought "I must be involved with that, too."

Even with that happiness firmly in recent memory, I can feel the intoxicating romance of firsts dim. Although it's never quite drudgery, my legs become heavy as I trudge around in my mind, trying to arouse again the springtime of wonder I felt before. I am not discouraged, because I find that I still can rouse it readily enough, but it does cause me to wonder if it's like this for everyone. It also causes me to suspect that genius may simply the ability to maintain a grip on this mental inertia, this wonder, allowing it to ford the obstructions of weariness, ignorance and other difficulties that keep us from excellence and success.

I'm glad I don't ultimately tire of writing/blogging, though. Although I tend to repeatedly (maybe tediously) revisit and dissect topics like this over periods of time, it still feels good and useful to me.

Sometimes you eat the gator, sometimes it eats you

I went to our local meat market, minutes from closing time. As I scanned the displays, the clerk behind the counter asked if he could help me find anything. I said: "Yeah, ya got anything weird? Snake, alligator, anything unusual like that?"

And by golly, he had a deep-frozen plastic pouch packed with alligator portions. My dubious wife sauteed the meat for me and my son, using her patented, secret spice recipe. By the time she was done, well, I can say that was the best damned alligator I've ever had.

My wife thought that it (the one whole bite of "it" she had) tasted like chicken. I disagree: it tasted like alligator. I'm beginning to think that that oft-noted chicken reference is the product of a limited frame of reference, both of vocabulary and culinary comparison. I'll take my own whack at it:

It had a mild flavor, similar to pork. I didn't know that alligator meat had light and dark portions (you know, like chicken! and other meats). Although I've read it has a low fat content, the dark meat had the luxurious, gelatino-fatty texture I would compare to catfish or pork. The white meat was a leaner, stiffer version of the same, but I've always been partial to dark meat.

I guess it should be no surprise that a land-and-water creature should have comparisons to land and water creatures, but I was pleasantly surprised that the comparisons are so favorable. I look forward to having alligator again, although its expense ($20 for two, hand-sized gobs of meat) will relegate it to "special treat" status.

I knew it

No political issues stick in my craw like those associated with "The Nanny State." The government putting its nose in your business and its hand up your shirt, telling you what to drink, smoke, eat, wear, do - it drives me absolutely mad. "Sin taxes" are among the worst, with elected officials (and don't forget, they're just a bunch of clumsy dicks like you and me, only less intelligent on average) deciding it's appropriate to discourage you from doing things that it thinks are naughty (though not naughty enough to be illegal) through exorbitant taxation - and by the way, if it fills their coffers quite a bit faster, so much the better, yes?

That's why I'm glad to see this study: Cell phone bans don't reduce accidents - CNN.com. I shudder to think of the slicing and chiseling of personal freedoms in pursuit of the illusion of a little more safety, while it's been determined that another of the measures that crowd your personal rights don't have any beneficial effect (except to extract funds for government accounts, of course).

Bah!

What if...

Given the amount of unnecessary anxiety and negativity that I for some reason inject into my every waking thought (I do, and it only sounds unnatural when I say it externally like this), it occurred to me to wonder the other day: what if I were to replace all that tension with joy?

Odd, introspective and to me, bizarrely revolutionary, but a useful proposition nonetheless. What if I just unclenched my butt cheeks, trusted that the universe is one of plenty, and just let it go? What if I replaced the sniveling, risk-averse functions of my thought process with those that have a measure of hope, trust and (if I must say it) faith in them?

Other people do it; live without making every decision like there is a Murphy's-law boogeyman, gunning for them around every corner. It seems to me that it serves them really well for the most part.

With that, I also realize that choosing joy is a tricky maneuver on several levels. For one thing, I imagine that doing or not doing it is largely a matter of psychology and/or chemistry, and unless I devoted the next two lifetimes to developing the physiological control of a Tibetan monk until I can choose to sweat out of only every other pore, I'll not likely achieve such a degree of control over this flabby vessel of mine. Indeed, it would be something of a miracle if I could simply lose 30 pounds.

Back on the other hand, negativity and fear are a choice, and changing my mind to think more positively is the type of incremental, ongoing task that I think suits me.

I get these minor epiphanies, and not only do I wonder how such a departure would manifest itself, I wonder what my wife would think of me embracing such a core change, to make a true break with the reservations I've known much longer than I've known her. There are a number of weird-ass things I might have done by now, if not for her to keep me grounded. Some good, some potentially not-so-much. She said something to me recently, something she'd never said before: "I just want you to be happy." I nearly collapsed!

Now, I know she loves me and it's no surprise to hear it said out loud, but I know she feels the same worries and responsibilities as I do, at least as keenly. Maybe I'm not explaining it sufficiently, but to hear my stoic darling say such a thing out loud, it was overwhelming. Maybe it's because I've been pondering these things on the sputtering back-burner of my consciousness. Maybe it's because my woman, as my delicate, late, saintly mother used to say: "wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful."

In any event, such a change, like all change, involves fear and uncertainty, which is the subject at hand, isn't it? Dragging others into such trepidating exploration sounds selfish to me. On the other hand (Daddy has a lot of hands), maybe it's just one more excuse not to make a hard decision, to stay on the same, dumb, apparently-safe path I'm on.

Don't be a pussy, Tom.

Plug in

There has been a thread that has run through my life, and it always will; that of turning away, flinching, retreating from things that sound difficult, tedious, un-fun. That of avoiding a person whom I have failed, ignoring an unpleasant circumstance, pretending that something bad will get better with abject, single-minded neglect.

This condition is not a thorough one. Certainly, I have embraced difficulties, met challenges and steamed through tough spots with courage, confidence and certainty. I don't run from every spooky corner, but I've tiptoed away from enough to recognize a pattern.

As with most of my areas of progress, recognizing and correcting this trend has been glacially slow, but I'm glad to say that it's persistent. I'm getting engaged in areas that were always walled off in my mind, stenciled garishly: "Not My Problem." I'm opening up to more, accepting more, embracing more readily than before. I feel like a cable box that's been upgraded to the Premium Package: "Holy shit, there's a lot going on out there."

It's not always easy, but it's always the right thing to do. I'm growing from it and I recognize the old traits in people around me who keep their narrow blinders clamped on tight. I feel better this way.

Nothing

I have nothing to say. I don't like it, but there it is.