As I sat down to edit this entry I noticed a couple of goofs as the 300s wound down. I hope they've been fixed and I apologize for any redundancy you might see in this (or other recent) entry.
Something that's been on my mind a lot lately has to do with whether or not I'm coming up with all of the right things in this project. That is, I've touched on particular subjects and offshoots of them on countless occasions and, in doing so, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm now leaving out something crucial.
I feel certain that, at the conclusion of this project, many things will spring to mind that I would like to have included, but the book will have been closed. I know it doesn't matter, that the list of gratitudes should be a lifelong accumulation, but I don't want to come across as arrogant. We have a lot to be thankful for in this part of the world -- some of us more so than others -- and I'm trying to grow my mindfulness of that truth.
My wife also asked me where I was with it and whether or not it had changed me.
I guess I wish she would have known the answer to both of those questions, but maybe that just means I've overlooked a particular gratitude. Or several. Or maybe it's one I haven't even realized yet.
Anyway, thanks -- as always -- for reading.
Three Hundred: faith
I sat solo through nine o’clock Mass
a few Sundays ago, and Father Steve’s homily about race in our community and in
our country reverberated off of the parish walls. I don’t know how to measure
my faith, and I don’t think great importance lies in doing so, but getting in
touch with having it feels necessary. We read and we hear all kinds of
definitions and ideas for what faith looks like, for how we should understand
it. I think, for now, faith has everything to do with doing what’s right,
giving when you can give, and thinking about others. I’m happy to have that
glimmer of personal clarity in a world that so often feels obscured by darkness.
Two Hundred Ninety-Nine: the feeling when
I get out of bed (and stay out of bed) the first time my alarm sounds
Feels good to have power over
“snooze.”
Two Hundred Ninety-Eight: the feeling of
going to bed at the same time every night, staying asleep for the whole night,
and waking up rested at the same time every morning
Just kidding. That so doesn’t
happen. I do have a vision for it happening, though. And I know that whe--
Whoops. Sorry. That’s someone else’s life.
Two Hundred Ninety-Seven: another kid
weekend
My wife returned home from her
girls-trip lake stay a few Sundays ago, and I had mixed feelings about how the
weekend went. Don’t recall much about Friday night so I must not’ve scheduled
any future therapy sessions for my children there, but, oh, Saturday -- you lengthy,
lengthy bastard.
We woke early and hit the gym after
breakfast. They had a bit of free play/movie time back at the house while I
wrote, and around lunch I allowed myself to get short with the boy. At the time
he was dismounting one of those tweener waves where one day he still needed two
naps and the next day one sufficed. I didn’t give him a morning nap on Saturday
and right around the time his hunger and fatigue probably peaked, I allowed my
frustration with some other thing I don’t even remember to get the best of me.
Elihu will turn two in October,
which, in and of itself, is insane, but until then he remains one. I don’t
quite know what it is, but he has always seemed so much older than he is. Or
maybe I treat him different because I think I know how boys should feel and
operate. Or maybe it’s like everyone says: Boys and girls are just different.
I’m sure it’s all of these things and more, but when Elihu doesn’t get his way,
he will say, “No,” and then when he sees that it’s for real, he cocks his head
back (Note: I’ve been looking for 40
years, bud. The ceiling’s got no answers for us.), conjures up the saddest
sad face he can, and caps it off with a running-in-place mini tantrum.
I see this and it pisses me off. I
hate that he acts like, um, a baby in those moments. I’ll do or say something
jerky, which -- surprise -- really upsets him, and it tends to be right about
that time that I realize my error.
This had to do with picking up
books, though. He wanted to already be eating his way into a naptime coma, and
I wanted the books picked up first. He resisted. I pressed. One of us sat there
crying while the other picked up the books.
We ate, though, and after naps the
kids did some crafts and played tag, followed by a game of what Adeline calls
“Family.” In essence this means that she puts on high heels, strolls around the
house giving orders and solving problems. I decided we’d go out for dinner, and
upon our return we went out back so the kids could play while I mowed. Once I
had a square cut out, I set up the water table and they went nuts at it. With
the back complete, we moved everything around front, and early on I had a few
strips of the side yard to hit, which would leave them out of my line of sight
for about 30 seconds every other minute.
They remained in place at the table
until Adeline saw the neighbor boys come home, and I hollered over the engine’s
roar for her to stay at the table which I’d positioned by the front porch. She
shot me some sinister look from the driveway, and when I saw that she’d chosen
to stage a refusal I shut the mower off, causing her to rush back up the
sidewalk to her brother and their toy. I twice interrupted her attempts at
justification and went back to my task, thinking of the day that will come when
I’ll have to explain to her that the world has evil -- and people who do bad
things to others -- in it.
With the mower put up, I ran the
blower, and while I knocked out the sidewalk she retrieved some chalk from the
back of a tricycle and piled it on the driveway. When I discovered this I hollered
at her over the electric motor.
“Get this chalk out of my way,” I
said.
As I coiled the extension cord and
put the last of my things back in the garage she approached me from the
driveway.
“What happened to you being nice?”
My four-year-old daughter looked at me, seriousness in her voice and on her
face.
“That’s a good question,” I said,
feeling the guilt of my pre-lunch snap at the boy wash over me again. “I’m
sorry I snapped. I’m hot and tired and sweaty, but I should’ve used a nicer
tone.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll
forgive you always.”
With both sets of feet hosed off and
dried, everyone bathed and jammied, we brushed teeth and read prayers. I gave
each of them their token rocks and goodnight kisses and asked -- in a
silent-and-hasty fashion -- for the gift of patience.
My children have a sweetness about
them and they don’t deserve the wrath of my short temper.
I’m grateful that -- for now --
their youth makes them recognize that I help them meet enough of their needs to
overlook it.
Two Hundred Ninety-Six: my boss has a
lot of vacation time
Around two years ago I sent my boss
an e-mail message telling him I thought he should hire me. I’ve had (what I’d
call typical) learning-curve growth with a few errors and some successes, and
we’ve worked hard to get to the spot we’re in now, which I’d call a decent
relationship.
I think at some point I thought I
didn’t need him, that I had this thing figured out, which I’ll stamp as false
today.
I do need him. He teaches me things and
approves stuff and sometimes he’s nice.
He has a lot of vacation time,
though, and when he’s gone I can do my thing and send my approval-needed items
to the person that’s covering him, and for the most part those things get
funneled through with no resistance.
As his vacation week winds down I
tend to wind up looking forward to his return, but while he’s gone -- at least
for a minute -- it’s nice to do my thing with the confidence that he will have
approved of my work once he’s back.
Two Hundred Ninety-Five: stuff and
things, things and stuff
One day my wife and I will make
arrangements to have the kids away for the weekend and we’ll tackle our garage
and basement. We’ll eliminate the things we no longer need and organize the
stuff we do.
And it will be nice -- a huge weight lift -- when we’re done.
Two Hundred Ninety-Four: a little box of
Scout stuff
While tearing through a trunk of my
belongings looking for a picture I came across a small box containing almost
all of the most important pieces of my Boy Scout memorabilia.
I’m glad I saved them and plan to
one day wear many of them with my son.
Two Hundred Ninety-Three: Office Space
From “PC Load Letter” to “a case of
the Mondays” to “Yeeeeeeeeaaaahhh” to Milton’s stapler mumblings to “doin’ the
drywall up there at the new McDonald’s” and so much more, I gotta give thanks
to the people that made this movie happen. Good stuff.
Two Hundred Ninety-Two: Mystery, Alaska
An all-time favorite.
Two Hundred Ninety-One: buying a firepit
We made a crabby, whole-family visit
to Lowe’s a number of weeks ago and got a firepit. I haven’t put it together
yet, but I envision us being able to hang out under the massive leaning
evergreen in our back yard.
I hope we can make s’mores in it
before said evergreen falls and destroys our home.
Two Hundred Ninety: using all of the
piles of sticks around our property that I used to find obnoxious
Assuming I get that firepit put
together and assuming that we use it before the evergreen destroys our home and
our neighbors along with it, it will be nice to utilize all of the limbs and
kindling that have probably become quaint little homes for various animals in
our front, side, and back yards.
Two Hundred Eighty-Nine: Page McConnell
Phish’s keyboardist and chairman of
the boards, held the favorite-band-member slot for me for many years. I can’t
say for certain if he still does, but Trey Anastasio has made a huge pressing
for usurping “Leo.”
It doesn’t matter in the end; I’ll
always love McConnell.
He brings such talent, wit, energy,
and charisma to the band that those attributes almost match his ability to
produce audio soul.
I love his baby grand, his voice,
his clav’, and his countless other toys, but his keyboard work stole my heart
in the early 1990s, and that’s where I put my Phish root down.
Even though I wouldn’t know it for
almost 10 years, I’m grateful that, in 1985, McConnell joined the outfit as an
official member, and has remained one since.
Two Hundred Eighty-Eight: Jeff Holdsworth
Thanks for going to look for God,
dude. Phish just wouldn’t be the same without you not in it.
Two Hundred Eighty-Seven: the Murphy’s
Grand Lake home in Grove, Oklahoma
That 12 months have passed since our
friends invited us to spend the fourth of July with them blows my mind yet -- at
the time of writing this -- here I sat again on their spacious deck, relaxing,
feeling grateful.
While I could’ve carve five separate gratitudes out of this
entry, it feels right to compile them into one. While I’ve lived 34 of my years
in a state that borders Oklahoma, I’ve spent little time inside the Sooner
State.
This leaves me with an element of
mystery about the state, an appealing feeling about what’s gone on in this sauce-pot-shaped
piece of land both prior to being given the boundary lines, and since. I dig
the place. It’s got the coolness of desolate Kansas with the added awesomeness
of Native American presence, culture, and vibe. I can’t say much about Grove
itself, save that it’s the town in which the Murphy’s joint sits. Can’t say a lot
about the lake either, save for the soothing element of being near water.
I’m thankful to be friends with the
Murphys. I’m thankful for the organic circumstances under which the women
became friends, and gave birth to children of similar ages.
I’m thankful that
the man of the house turned out to be a cool -- albeit a Denver Broncos fan -- dude,
and I’m thankful that they appear to like us enough to invite us to spend the
fourth with them at their lake home.
Two Hundred Eighty-Six: entry into the
world of iPhone
Circa the week of July fourth my
phone hit (as close as I can remember to) the two-year mark, and -- no
coincidence to me -- had struggled to execute flawless basic functioning for
several months, just like my previous device did when it reached that age. My
wife -- as she does for so many things -- did the legwork for this particular
task, which meant digging in to a dilemma we both felt: content with the
overall experience of being Android owners and operators, but use our devices
for work to an extent that does not allow for product failure. At the same
time, an element of making the switch to iPhone felt nothing short of putting
on sheep outfits and joining the herd.
The explanation we got looked
something like this: The software that goes into Android devices registers as
nothing shy of exceptional, but remains a better fit for computers; it falters
-- in the long run -- in its handset state. The other piece had to do with the
claim that Android uses a lower quality of parts inside its units, a second
contribution to the lack of longevity.
Having obtained the information, I
wavered, non-committal to the necessary decision. In the end I took the chance
and my wife got me an iPhone. At writing time I was not yet 72 hours into it
and already loving it. The true consensus won’t be made until around the summer
of 2017, but so far I’m a fan. I guess being a sheep doesn’t always have to be
a bad thing.
Two Hundred Eighty-Five: that Vince
Vaughn xbox scene in The Breakup
I can’t offer precise quotes for the
scene in which Vaughn’s character plays online and trash talks the kid opponent
on the other end of the Internet connection, but I love that scene.
Two Hundred Eighty-Four: YouTube user
“evenstev”
I streamed night one of the Santa
Clara Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead shows and I enjoyed it, but the second set
didn’t pick up where the first set left off, and I ended up thinking of the
experience as a) something I enjoyed spending with a friend, and b) fun because
of novelty. The next morning (and ensuing days) it appeared that the second
night resembled the proverbial bees knees. I imagine it to be available in
sundry cyber locales, but I came across this user’s account first, and I’m
thankful he did what he did here.
Two Hundred Eighty-Three: Anastasio’s solo
on that first-set, second-night “Hell in a Bucket”
Never loved the In the Dark album, and I never understood the appeal of “Hell in a
Bucket” but the septet knocked this one out of the park in Santa Clara, and
Anastasio killed it. So grateful.
Two Hundred Eighty-Two: The Phil Zone
I don’t remember the first time I
wandered down Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, Kansas, but I remember the
first time I found myself at the crossroads of 14th and Mass. I
didn’t know (then) why the shop bore the name it did, and I couldn’t imagine
being able to afford shopping there, but one certainty rang true that first
time I entered the store (and every subsequent occasion): this was my kind of
joint.
I couldn’t quite put a finger on it
yet, but something about Birkenstocks, tapestries, smoking goods, and
Volkswagen buses told me -- to borrow a Talking Heads song title -- this must
be the place. Hard to believe the Zone has now been closed a shade longer than
its 12-year run in business, but Lawrence in the 1990s had a magic about it,
and The Phil Zone contributed to it. Grateful for its existence, its vibe, and
the epiphany it gave me.
Two Hundred Eighty-One: breezes
Nothing like some comforting wind to
cool your brow, give your body some respite on a warm afternoon. Amazing place
this planet.
Two Hundred Eighty: working on a
portion of this outside
To date, about 97 percent of this
series found its keystrokes clicking from within the man cave. I generated
almost all of the rest from our dining-room table. Writing outdoors brings a
welcome change of environment. Grateful for the opportunity.
Two Hundred Seventy-Nine: den-den daiko
Whether they’ll always make me think
of The Karate Kid II or not, I love
these little Japanese pellet drums. I appreciate thinking about the thought process
that led to such a creation.
Beautiful human experience.
Two Hundred Seventy-Eight: Lake Powell
Lake Powell might be the most
beautiful body of water I’ve ever seen. I can’t describe why; perhaps the
surroundings in which it exists, or maybe because of the silent stories it
seems to tell. I love that lake, though, and look forward to taking my children
there.
Two Hundred Seventy-Seven: eastern Utah
Hard, unfair, and not necessary to
compare it with the mountains, the ocean, or the forest, but I call eastern
Utah a gorgeous, stunning, mind-blowing portion of this land that I anticipate
exploring a second time later in life. Don’t think a sight has ever left me as
speechless.
Two Hundred Seventy-Six: watching infants
learn
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