The master closet is off of our master bathroom.  That’s a little strange for me, as I’ve never had a master closet that wasn’t actually in the bedroom.  There are some shelves in there, between the two sides of the closet--mine, too organized, shirts broken up by different categories: sports T-shirts; wrestling T-shirts; music T-shirts; location (usually bought on vacation) T-shirts; Christmas T-shirts; humor T-shirts; pop culture T-shirts; logo T-shirts; dress shirts; collared shirts.  I think I might be a little OCD. 

I’ve used one of the shelves in there to store my notebooks.  There are probably about four dozen of them.  Except for two or three of them, every one of them has at least a quarter of its pages blank.  It is with only a little shame that I admit I’ve bought six new notebooks in the last couple of weeks--five for classes I am taking and one for my to-do lists.  I already have a weekly planner (which I bought last July), which is decent, but I found that two pages it allows for a week’s worth of to-doness is not quite enough for me.  I was using another notebook to do my list, but then I decided to change my process, and I found it difficult to do so within that same notebook. 

These are some of the things I’ve found scattered in the notebooks:

-- to-do lists--probably the number one usage
-- journal entries, some as far back as 1994, with the most recent being somewhere around 2003 (most of my writing is on the computer now)
-- story fragments and ideas
-- I’ll call it poetry, but only in a Henry Rollinsish kind of way.  If you read the earlier stuff, you would think, “man, this guy doesn’t like his dad”, and if you read my later stuff from the 90s, you would think, “man, this guy needs to get laid”. 
-- grocery lists
-- food diaries
-- exercise diaries
-- budgets
-- school notes
-- episodes from favorite shows I hadn’t seen
-- Christmas lists (usually what gifts I’ve wrapped for people and what elf is giving it)
-- Easter egg list.  One year we found an Easter egg that had been hidden the previous years (luckily we don’t use real eggs, just plastic), so ever since then I’ve written down where I’m hiding stuff
-- Packing lists (packing lists were sometimes for vacations, and vacations often had their own binder, with maps, coupons, itineraries, and a multitude of other goodies guaranteed to take more time than we had, and would drive my wife insane)
-- Names.  This was before Tatiana was born and we were trying to figure out names.  This was an epic process that lasted weeks (weeks spent over books that would have rivaled the preparation of any fantasy league fanatic), and which almost led to divorce when Missa decided she didn’t like the name we had agreed on.  Tatiana came very close to being called Gwendolyn, which, after knowing her, would not have sat well on her.  Of course, I’m still hoping she’ll go by Reese’s Peanut Butter Cutlip. 

There are a good two or three dozen other uses these notebooks have served.  As I went through them the other day, it was like looking at a photo album of faded pictures, trying to figure out what this or that meant.  And who was the person that wrote these things?  What was that life he led?

In the blankness, maddening scribbles.

There are many things about me that frustrate my wife. 

There are many reasons why people stay together in marriage.  I think, although it is mentioned most often, love is one of the slightest of these.  Love will bring people together; I don’t think it’s what keeps them together.  People say opposite attracts or that people who share a common interest will be able to stay together.  I don’t know.  I agree that there are things about a spouse you need to like, you need to love, but I think  it’s the things about your betrothed that you dislike that keep you together.  Or, rather, how you are able to incorporate them into your life and live with them, or else turn into The War of the Roses and end up dead in a chandelier. 

We’ve been together over seven years, longer than any other relationship I’ve had combined, and it seems that, at least right now, that she has been able to survive with my flaws.

As I have written, there are many things about me that are frustrating, but I will just cover the top three.  I don’t want my faults to be my magnum opus. 

 I don’t do well with confrontation.  Whenever Missa and I disagree about something, she wants to get right into it.  And I want to ruminate over it, to let it swish around in my brain before I discuss it with the other person.  Chances are if I am allowed this time, I will be able to have a civil discussion with the other person and concede to them if I realize they are actually right about something.  If I am forced to confront the matter right away, I, quite frankly, can be an asshole.  That really hurts Missa, who feels better when she is able to get right into something and get it over with, even if feelings are hurt  for a short time. 

 I don’t take things seriously.  Or at least I don’t appear to.  There’s hardly an event in my life that I won’t respond to with a smart-ass remark.  True, occasionally I get off a rather delicious bon mot.  But I know, especially in times of stress, the humor does not help her.  A few years ago, when we shortly thought (because of the incompetence of the military medical services--who would’ve thought?) that I might be having serious kidney issues, I reacted to it with jokes, some of which dealt with my (supposedly) imminent demise.  She was not amused.  Of course, for me to not be able to deal with things humorously would cause a burden on me, so I try to balance sometimes, so that the comments don’t come out as much.  At least not right away, when we’re in the thick of it.

 I can’t stand when people repeat themselves, when they say something to me when they’ve already said it a time or twenty before.  Unfortunately, my response to this is a somewhat rude acknowledgement that I’ve heard it before. 

Of course, I think those are my top three.  Missa might have an entirely different set, including some that I hadn’t even thought of.  But she takes them in stride, biding her time until she can cash in the insurance (that’s another one she doesn’t find funny at all).

I'm stressing out about different things right now, so I found it difficult to come up with something to write here.  So I cheated a little (okay, a lot) and decided to post something I blogged on MySpace about three years ago.  It was on MySpace, so it's almost as if it were completely new for the world.  A little warning, if you're squeamish about some sexual discussion (even solitary) you might want to skip:

***

On Friday it was finally time for me to check whether or not my vasectomy had taken. I certainly hoped so, because I didn't want to go through the process again, especially after I recently also had to suffer through a kidney stone. It's not been a good time for stuff going through my penis.

I had my own vision of what it would be like when I went to the lab to take care of business. The lab would be staffed with buxom young redheads who would hand my specimen container in a discrete carrying device, then lead me to a luxurious room containing a king-sized bed covered in satin. There would also be a plasma TV and plenty of adult DVDs to assist me in what I needed to do.

Here is what happened. I come to the lab, which looks like pretty much every other part of the hospital. The are no buxom young women. No women at all, actually. I tell the guy at the counter I need to give a specimen. He makes me clarify just what kind of specimen. Thanks, man. He asks me loudly if I've had intercourse in the last three days. Considering they tell you not to have intercourse three days before you give a sample, I thought this was a superfluous question, or at least one I could have checked yes or no on a piece of paper.

After filling out my paperwork, he places a specimen jar down on the counter. I wait for a paper bag or something to put it in, but, nope, just the little jar. He points behind a glass door and tells me I can use one of the bathrooms.

One of the bathrooms?

For some reason I thank him and take my specimen jar, palming it close to my thigh so nobody sees it. I walk toward the bathrooms and try to visually pick one. I decide on the one farthest away from the waiting room, although it is right next to another bathroom. I step in and close and lock the door.

Once I entered the room, I surveyed my surroundings. To my left was a sink with a mirror above it. A trash can was next to it. To my right was the toilet. Next to it was the cord to call help if it was needed. Not going to use that. I turned around. Hmm. Nothing else there. No satin sheets. No DVDs. Not even a tattered copy of a Playboy magazine. This was going to be interesting.

The first thing I did was stare into the mirror. Then I checked out the ceiling tiles. As far as I could tell, there were no recording devices there, but you can make really small cameras nowadays.

The next thing I did was take out my iPod. I wasn't smart enough to download some viewing material onto it, but it did have a stopwatch. This was a very delicate operation. If I was too fast, they would think I was some type of premature freak. If I took too long, somebody might come in check on me, startling me so much I dropped the specimen on the floor. I started the timer.

Not to get too much into the graphics of it, but I assume for most men there are certain ways that work better than others (in much the same way that a sexual position might be da bomb for one couple, while the same position for another couple might be one of those "well, we're never trying that again"s. There was really nothing in this bathroom that was necessarily helpful for me. I couldn't do it standing it up, because my legs might lock, and the last thing I wanted was for somebody to have to break into the bathroom to find me lying on the floor with a bruise on my head and my junk in my hand and my little shot of evidence creeping sadly down the side of the trash can.

I could sit on the toilet, but that presented additional problems. First, I would have the cold metal backing of the flusher to contend with. Second, and more problematic, is that sitting on the toilet with the specimen bottle did not present an easy-catch system. I obviously couldn't go up into the bottle, as everything would fall back out. And anatomy prevented me from making any changes to meet the bottle halfway.

What I ended up doing was leaning diagonally across the toilet, so that I was resting my head against the wall and suspending my back above the empty spot between the toilet and wall. This way I could lean both myself and the bottle together to make everything work out. This still didn't work out very well, as at the moment of culmination I decided to position everything to prevent any spillage. Doing so made me lose my mojo, though--actually I thought I lost everything and would have to come back in three days. Finally, I made a sad little deposit (nerves, I tell ya!), positive that when I brought it up I would be laughed at and told I need to do better than that.

I checked my stopwatch and waited a few moments more just to make sure. Then, cupping the bottle again and walking sideways, I went up to the counter. Now, there were women. Three sitting in the waiting area. And one buxom blonde standing at the counter. I did everything I could do to prevent her from thinking I needed assistance, so I wouldn't have to explain what was in my hand. The guy came back and had me sit the bottle on the counter for what was approximately 10 hours, but may have been for 20 seconds. Finally, he let me go and I booked out of there.

Later, after they called me and let me know my gun had been fully unloaded, Missa told me her breasts were sore and she was...concerned. Me, too. So I went to Walgreens and grabbed a pregnancy test. Negative. Thank God.

He sits.  The monitor is in front of him.  His hands are on the keyboard.  He looks at the wall, wondering if he should put decorations there.  The wall seems bare.  A Diet Coke is within reach, but it only has a puddle left.  He is unwilling to get up and get more.  He stares at the monitor.  The page is still blank.  On his desk are bills to pay, packages to send, pictures to download, games to play.  The page is still blank.

Beginning is the hardest part, they say.  Who are they?  They are they--that’s all I can say.  Ideas in his mind ricochet, dissolve and reform, build like DNA.  The page is blank.

A cat stares at him.  It wants food.  Or attention.  The cat is staring, and the blank page can be blamed on it.  His heart rate increases and he gently pushed the cat away with his foot.  The cat moves back, spins around once, and stares at him.  The page, that canvas, is blank.

Perhaps, he thinks, he can do this tomorrow.  Or the next day.  There are so many things to do, for this and that.  What is one blank page after one blank page.  One click on one button, and the page will be gone.  He will not see it, but he will still feel its blankness. 

What if, he thinks, I take these characters and ideas and send them dancing on the blank page, directing like an orchestra, setting them to play?  Will I then look at them and only see a child’s clumsy scissored figure?  The page is blank.

I imagine that the moment you die you don’t even see it coming.  You get no more than “what the...” and it’s all over.  I don’t mean the death that is expected, whether from a long illness or jumping out of a plane without a parachute, but the one that just comes out of nowhere, that’s just Atropos cutting the thread.  I could be wrong.

I do know the moment you almost die is not like that.  This moment is one that runs longer than Harry Potter movies, one that needs to be broken into a Christmas and Summer release.  I’ve had a few moments like that.  Today, as I was driving on slushy roads with Arkansas drivers who look at snow like it was a public school history course that taught you something, I felt like that moment might come to me.  It did not.

In 2008 I fell through the attic onto the garage floor.  Well, not the garage floor...on the stuff on the garage floor.  That included books, toys, and a picture frame.  The reason I fell is because I was reaching for a small stuffed pumpkin, so that I could store it (the moral of this story is Halloween sucks.  I’m just saying, this never would have happened to me with Christmas decorations).  The first thing I noticed as I fell was that the ceiling in the garage was very flimsy.  It was not like I jumped on that spot.  It was not even as if I had put my full weight on that spot.  I leaned forward slightly and put my arm forward, reaching for the pumpkin, and I just slipped.  Whee.

The thing is that I think I actually landed on the floor before my mind decided I had landed on the floor.  I was already there, on books, toys, and picture frames, and yet I was slowly spinning in air, trying to be a professional wrestler, knowing I could land right, seeing the garage door go from sunrise to sunset, thinking to myself, well, I guess I’m gonna die.

It takes a few moments for me to realize that, yay, I’m not dead and, huh, I’m bleeding.  Bella comes into the garage and asks if I’m okay.  I’m on the floor, there’s a large section of the ceiling hanging loosely, my shirt is torn, and there’s a long bloody streak down my back, and she asks if I’m okay.  I do the same thing with my wife all the time when I know she’s not okay, like I’m Charlie Brown just so sure the football will be there this time. 

I call my wife and start to talk to her about my audition for the Flying Wallendas, but before I was able to, she told me she was with her patient at the time.  So I said she could call me back.  She did and then freaked out when I told her I had fallen through the attic.  Oh my God, are you okay?  You are?  Maybe you should come here so I can fix you up.

Say, can you stop and get me something at Wendy’s on the way?

This is something we joke about now, especially since we are now in a new house with a new attic (one that is much sturdier than the old one).  But sometimes I think--what if there was nothing on the floor; what if I didn’t rotate like I did; what if; what if?  So even over two years later, the moment of near-death is still happening. 

Why don’t you ever look at me, she asks?

I can’t.

One time, while I was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, my lieutenant held inspections every once in a while (something a little less common in the Air Force than in other branches, and especially in an office environment like the one I was in).  He marked me off for not staring straight ahead, until I pointed out I really couldn’t.  For the same reason I kept getting yelled at by my TI in Basic Training. 

I don’t see out of my left eye.  I don’t mean to say I am blind in it, but my right eye is so much stronger that, unless I cover my right eye, the left is always neglected.  My left eye also points inward.  People have asked me what I’m looking at or wondered why I was looking at them when I was doing no such thing.  I actually don’t look at anything straight on; I see better when I tilt my head so that I am looking out of the corner of my eye.

This could have been corrected when I was younger, I suppose.  But, much as I dread anything being close to my eye right now (or seeing somebody else put something near their eye), I apparently have disliked anything at all near my eyes for much of my life, to include glasses.

I have of a picture of me as a toddler, surely at a time when I was still wearing diapers, and I am wearing glasses.  I know one time, while we lived in Florida, we drove back from the optometrist’s office with my new pair of glasses...which I promptly threw out of the car, off of the bridge, and into the water.  I cannot remember how my mother reacted to that, but I can only say, since I still have skin on my ass, she showed a saintlike restraint.

Today is no different.  I have my glasses, but I only wear them when I have to --when I am driving.  Or today, when I am at school and can’t see the board. 

Tomorrow is my first day of college.  I’m totally freaking out.  This will be the first time I’ve set foot inside a college classroom in about ten years.  I have a Bachelor’s of Art in English, but that has been accomplished generally in online courses, where it didn’t matter much if participated while sitting in my underwear.  Somehow I think, if I were to do that in these classes, there might be an issue.

I found out the Dalai Lama is going to be coming to our campus in May, which is awesome.  I hope I can get a ticket to see him. 

Also, I wonder if there will be any keggers.

Are togas still in fashion?

There is a huge street lamp in the middle of our yard.  Theoretically, this is a good thing.  We live in an area where I could step into the backyard and look into the sky, able to see each star.  Without that street lamp (yard lamp?  There is no street near it, so...) it would be quite dark, a sea of blackness.  As I drove down the dirt road to our house one night I turned off the lights, just to see what it would be like.  I had to turn them back on quickly, as it was as if I had closed my eyes in a darkened room.  Plus, it was pretty stupid, since we still had deer that seemed to appear in our yard every day (at least until hunting season came around).

Even so, I wish the light were not there.  I want to be blanketed in that blackness, to be able to stand in my front yard and see all the stars, to feel the light breeze touch me as I walked upon fallen leaves and gravel.  The light is society, it is community, it is now.  And that has its place.  But sometimes I want to stand in time-forgotten, time that never was, a time that does not move, that has no people in it.  Just for a moment.

I could say that I am blessed that I have not lost many people close to me.  My grandfather died when I was ten; my grandmother died during my early to mid twenties (not exactly sure when, but between the ages of 23 and 26, as I was stationed in Germany at the time); and one of my Air Force friends died when I was 25.  I’m sure there have been other deaths, both familial and work-centered, but if so, they happened after I lost touch with people (my contact with my father has been minimal since I was two and pretty much non-existent for the last 15 years or so, and except for my aunt, I’ve had no contact with anybody else on that side of my family). 

Although death has touched me lightly, I didn’t have any real fear of death, until sometime in my twenties, when my younger brother, Patrick, who is apparently a bit of a hypochondriac, passed the fear to me.  I don’t know why, but I listened to him talk of all the horrible things that could happen, and I just realized--I could die (you could say I wasn’t that bright, only realizing it then). 

I’ve told my wife many times that “bad” things that happen don’t bother me that much, because I have already imagined them happening--them and other, much worse things.  Generally, when something does happen, my thought tends to be, well, that wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.  I haven’t been able to test this theory with death yet, but I am willing to wait a while to get into the lab on that one.  I have had a few occasions when I thought I was going to die (two of them vehicle-related, one which was nowhere near my fault and one that was sort of; and one where I feel through the attic roof onto the garage floor below), and the feeling that came over me was a surprising level of acceptance--surprising to me because all moments I am not facing immediate death I get freaked out about it.

My most common death scenario was air travel (so good thing I was in the Air Force, right?).  I had minimal fear of anything going wrong once we had settled in the air, none while we were coming in for a landing (foolish since as many crashes have occurred upon landing as takeoff), and an incredible amount upon takeoff.  I used to sit in the window seat, not so much for the view, but because I believed my concentration was the only thing keeping us in the air (I have a touch of narcissism about me).  I would say that this fear is almost non-existent now that I am no longer in the military and see little reason to fly, but I also have the fear that an engine will fall off a plane and crush me from miles above (Donnie Darko didn’t help with this one).  This fear has actually increased a little since I’ve bought a house.

Top 10 ways my mind has told me I’m going to die--

1.  Airplane accident
2. The evil cat tripping me and causing me to hit my head on the TV stand (and breaking the TV, too)
3. Falling from the attic
4. My wife’s driving
5. Garbage disposal (I know if I don’t go to it, it will come to me)
6. Suffocation by cat (seriously, get off me)
7. Cheese blockage (ah, taken down by a love)
8. Paper cut gets infected--damn books with their uneven pages
9. Internet overload
10. Whale attack

I love food.  My relationship with food is somewhat like the one Mike Birbiglia has with pizza: “I love pizza so much that I would marry it, but it would really just be an elaborate plot to eat her whole family at the reception.”  My relationship with food is a wonderful one--but also a destructive one.  I made one of my resolutions this year to get down to 180 pounds, something I haven’t been at in about eight years, although I came within about six about a year-and-a-half ago (that’s what happens when you are deployed for six months with no family and no worry about leftovers). 

Today I have to squeeze into my jeans.  I won’t buy a bigger size, because to me that is just permission to gain more weight.  Tomorrow I start to work out.  Once I set a goal and have specific rules to follow, I do pretty well.  The problem is one, that if I get off course, I often let myself stay off course, and two, I have a major feast-or-famine problem.

By feast or famine, I mean that I can either go without eating hardly anything or I end up eating thirds on meals and then throwing dessert on top of it.  I just have a problem with excess (the bags of Diet Coke cans in recycling, 99.9% of which are mine, give proof to that).  So if I’m gonna eat, I’m gonna eat. 

I think my issue with excess is why I haven’t done many things that others might experiment with.  I have never done a drug that been for medicinal or Diet Cokian purposes (although, if you ask my wife, she will tell you I often don’t take those medicinal ones, even if I should).  I joined the Air Force when I was 19 and was often subject to drug testing, so that pretty much guaranteed I wouldn’t do them even if I wanted (drug testing was supposedly random, but, man, did I get picked a lot).  I don’t have any of those things blocking me, but I also don’t have any desire (and if I did, I would have the fear that trying once, even once, would turn me into an addict...but, hey, maybe it would end up making me skinny).  Even if I wanted to smoke (as my wife has said she wants to do about two dozen times this week), I would not because of the price.  And because I can’t stand the smell.

I had my first drink when I was 18.  On average I only drank about four times a year until I was 26, but when I did drink, I drank to get drunk (until I discovered rum, I didn’t understand any other reason, as I thought most alcohol tasted horrible).  When I was 26, I got my first hangover.  I stopped drinking after December that year and ended up not having another drink for seven years.  I haven’t really made a conscious decision to keep alcohol out of my life right now, but I still haven’t had a drink in two years (six months in the Middle East helped with that, too).

So again I take up my suit of armor (with stretch lining) to battle my excess.  I have a fresh notebook to keep track of my food and exercise (I’ve found I always underestimate the former and overestimate the latter if I don’t). 

Today I’m just going throw some topics against the wall and see what sticks.

I finished the Thriller DVD set last week.  This is the Boris Karloff series that aired from 1960 to 1962.  I am glad I bought it, but I don’t think I can agree with Stephen King that it was one of the best horror shows on television.  For one thing, the series had too many episodes that were purely crime shows (generally not that good).  And some of the horror episodes were not that great.  And any episode with Edward Andrews meant he would kill his wife (and that you would want to, also) and would not get away with it.  However, there were quite a few good episodes, including “The Grim Reaper” (starring a young William Shatner, who acted...), “The Incredible Doktor Markusen” (with Boris Karloff), “Pigeons from Hell”, and “The Cheaters”, plus a good dozen or so others that are well worth your time to check out (some of these episodes can be found online).

I’m glad I am starting classes on Tuesday, as I’m getting a bit of cabin fever.  This is in no way a condemnation of my family, but I have always been the type of person who needs some alone time, who can’t spend a huge amount of time with the same people day-in and day-out.  I’ve been having a small battle of the wills with my 23-month-old, and she is handing me my ass on many occasions.  The prime example being the living room--I prefer things to be neat (neat and clean is better, but if I had to decide between the two, I would go for a place for everything and everything in its place over ensuring there is no dust on the bookcases.  I picked up the living room today and went to do something else--came back and there were about six things on the floor. 

A lot of the debate on television about liberals/conservatives, Republicans/Democrats, etc. makes me shake my head.  I don’t understand why people feel the need to fit themselves into checkboxes and force other people into them, also.  I consider myself in none of those designations, and if I were asked to describe myself, I would not do so in a way that would allow somebody else to easily say, oh, he’s a lib/conservative/whatever and I can hate/like/punch/whatever based on that.

I think Twitter is stifling me.  It turns out I’m a 160-character man in a 140-character world.

I watch too much reality television (although I’m nowhere near as bad as my wife in that regard; she watches much more than me, and a lot of it is what I would call car-crash TV--she just can’t avoid looking at the miseries of others).  And I don’t even know why.  Why do I watch Survivor?  It is rarely good, and I’m tired of them putting on people they pick off the street--surely they have plenty of volunteers who want to be on the show.  And Russell is coming back?  No, thank you.

One of the resolutions I made was to read at least 150 books over the year.  I decided that I could count books I have read previously (although I feel that at least three out of every four books should be new to me) and that I could not count any books, if any, that I read multiple times during the year, which I sometimes do.

I will update the blog occasionally about the books I’ve read.  I will do this once or twice a month, depending on how many books I have gone through at the time.  Since now is after Christmas and before school starts for me, I’ve been able to go through many books, so this one is coming a bit early.  I will try to avoid spoilers (except for those that should already be widely known or are common knowledge).

1.  Sleepwalk With Me, by Mike Birbiglia.  Mike Birbiglia is a stand-up comic.  I have two of his albums, Two-Drink Mike and My Secret Public Journal Live (he has other CDs, but they are largely out-of-print), in addition to his DVD, What I Should Have Said Was Nothing.  I also read his blog (also called My Secret Public Journal) and follow him on FaceBook and Twitter (actually, I just now started, after realizing I am not).  So, I am a fan.  The title of the book comes from the name of his off-Broadway play--and based on the fact that he is indeed a sleepwalker, so much that he ran out the window of a motel’s second story.  That particular topic is brought up in the last chapter of the book and is to me the most powerful.  I have to admit that I at first felt some apprehension as I realized that many of the tales in the book where ones he covered in his CDs (mainly My Secret Public Journal Live).  However, these stories receive some expansion in the book, plus Birbiglia covers many topics that aren’t in his CDs.  I recommend the book whether or not you have heard his stand-up.  There is some interestingly poignant father-son dynamics that I was not prepared for based on is stand-up.

2. Last Words, by George Carlin.  Carlin’s book is roughly the same length as Birbiglia’s (somewhat longer).  Considering Birbiglia is in his early 30s, and this book covered Carlin’s entire life, I was somewhat disappointed by it.  I would still recommend the book, as I find Carlin extremely funny and I like the insight into the man.  He is candid about his failings as a husband and father (not to mention entertainer, airman, and more).  I think if the book was only about his life up until his first few albums, it would have been a great work.  Unfortunately, I feel that after the first few albums, the rest of his work is glossed over (although I can’t place much blame for those in the 1970s, as he admits there are several things he cannot remember during that time).  Again, I still recommend this book, but I wish he had been able to be more analytical about his later works.

3. Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King.  This is King’s third quartet of novellas.  The gold standard is the first, Different Seasons.  Four Past Midnight, the second was, to me, not as successful, but still contained one of my favorite of King’s works, “The Library Policeman”.  I do not think this one equals the power of the first, but is still a great work.  The first story in the book, “1922”, is well-written, but does not appear to cover more ground than Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (there are many differences between the two works, but this is the first comparison I thought of when I read it).  Although the cover notes suggest that “A Good Marriage” is the most disturbing of the novellas, I would say “Big Driver” is.  It, like the other stories, is about retribution, and I wasn’t bothered by said retribution, but found myself thrown in the final part of the story by what the protagonist was going to do to herself.  I haven’t decided if that makes the story a success or failure.  “Fair Extension” is the shortest of the novellas.  It’s an interesting read, but I kept waiting for the “moral”, which never came, which was probably the intention.  “A Good Marriage” is the best of the works and likely the one I will most return to in later years.  Just a great, great work.  What if you had found the person you married had a secret?  What if you sharing that secret would destroy you?  Or your children?  What would you do?  I recommend the book, especially “A Good Marriage” and “Big Driver”.

4.  The War for Late Night, by Bill Carter.  I have never read The Late Shift and have only seen about five minutes of the movie, so I can’t judge that book against this one or how the people may have reacted differently in each book.  I came into the book Team Coco and as a person who disliked Jay Leno (not funny, quasi-racist).  I still enjoy Conan, even though the book displayed a darker side to him (of course, darker on Conan is essentially like getting a light tan).  Leno comes off as less scheming than I supposed.  He also comes off as less human.  Today, Conan has his own show on TBS, where he is beginning to show some of the creativity that first delighted me (and which had been somewhat muted on the Tonight Show until the last few weeks), Jay Leno still works, The Tonight Show no longer has any luster on it, TV execs are still assholes.  Recommended.

5. Pork Pie Hat, by Peter Straub.  This is a short book I got from a grab bag from Cemetery Dance Publications.  Harlan Ellison once wrote (and I am paraphrasing from memory here) that there is no story that needs to be written beyond short story length (he wrote this in reference to Stephen King, I believe).  Pork Pie Hat works as the short work it is, but I actually think it could have been expanded to novel-length, and it would have been a richer work than it already is.  Straub is a powerful, controlled writer, and it works well in this book.  I read this one day while sitting first in a dentist’s office and then a doctor’s.  I recommend the book (as well as Ghost Story, Shadowland, and the Blue Rose Trilogy) and also recommend, if you are a fan of horror, Cemetery Dance Publications.

6.  The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub (re-read; audiobook).  I have read this book before, probably five or six times over the last 25 years or so.  This time I listened to it on audiobook (as I am doing now with its sequel, Black House), as read by Frank Muller.  This book is a quest book.  Many characters in the book, as I read it now, come across as one-dimensional, but the book is still very powerful.  The book really picks up when Jack finds fellow travelers on his journey, first Wolf, and then Richard (who gets somewhat slighted, coming in after the beloved Wolf).  I think Black House is a better work, but The Talisman is better loved. I just discovered today, as I was going to link to his site, that Frank Muller died in 2008 after complications from a 2001 motorcycle accident.  Mr. Muller read many books, some of which you can find at Audible.  I've only listened to him reading Stephen King books, but I can recommend any of them, especially The Green Mile or The Body.  Recommended.

7.  Monkey Love, by John Paul Allen.  Up until this point I had read six books in January and felt that I could recommend all of them (although I knew that already with The Talisman).  This is my first non-recommended.  This is also my first “If you see this book, piss on it”.  This book (which includes the title novella, as well as a short story) is roughly the same length as Pork Pie Hat.  If Straub’s tale could have been expended to novel-length, Allen’s should have, at the very least, been reduced to short story length.  Or better, forgotten after a drunken pub crawl.  There are way too many words to culminate in what is essentially a misogynistic joke as told by a rejected frat boy.  There are chapters wasted on characters who have no purpose except to place a camera.  The short story is better.  There is still a misogynistic tint to it, but it seems to at least have a purpose.  I got this, too, in my Cemetery Dance grab bag, and I am very appreciative that I did not pay money individually for it.

8. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris.  Most of the tales in here are humorous.  I thought “The Crow and the Lamb” sucked, but that was mainly because I have eye issues (and it includes illustrations).  Two of the stories, “The Faithful Setter” and “The Grieving Owl” go beyond mere humor and are just great stories on their own (and unlike many of the other stories, they actually benefit from the characters in them being animals).  I recommend the book, and most specifically those two stories.

9.  The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr and E. B. White.  Re-read.  I highly recommend this book for anybody who has to write anything.  Ever.  Please, please read this.  I have read this book roughly once a year for the last decade or so.  Read it.

10. The Book of Dead Philosophers, by Simon Critchly.  Critchly discusses philosophers, covering some of their theories and also the manner in which each died.  Some of them are poignant, some of them are sad, many disgusting.  If you didn’t know, some of the Greeks were freaks.  One of the most interesting sections was those philosophers of German and Jewish descent who were alive during World War II.  Recommend.

11. Columbine, by Dave Cullen.  Cullen covers the Columbine High School Massacre, including the lead-up and after-math.  It appears that on some occasions Cullen makes guesses, but for the most part this appears to be a well-researched and written book.  Cullen appears to attempt to be fair to all participants in his writing, although there are some (including one victim’s father) who do not come out well.  At the very least, I wonder what the world would be like if Dylan Klebold had not met Eric Harris.  Recommended.

Okay, eleven books down, 139+ to go.

“When I retire, I’m going to grow a beard, grow my hair, and wear earrings.”  I’ve heard one, two, or all three from most people people I’ve known who retired from the Air Force.  I’ve said the same thing.  Well, I tried the beard--I look like one of those people on the ID channel you already know is a serial killer.  So I generally just wear a goatee.  I have earring holes (I have since 1994 or 1995), but I still haven’t put earrings in.  And the hair...well, Missa was against me growing the hair long, and I was agreeable to that.  But I went much longer between haircuts, and I didn’t see any reason to pay somebody to do it, since I was no longer in the military.  So Missa had cut my hair a few times, with minimal damage.  But it’s been roughly two months since the last one.

I got a wild hair up my butt (and now some down my shirt) today that I needed to get my hair cut (I was supposed to go to my orientation at the University tomorrow).  I still don’t like the idea of paying somebody else to cut it, plus there was snow outside, school had been canceled (as was my orientation, I was soon to learn), and the mailman said the roads were fairly bad.  So I asked Missa if she would cut my hair, because it was bothering me (specifically my sideburns, hair above (or not so much anymore) my ears, and on my neck. 
One problem--my wife had unplugged my trimmer, and the battery had died down.  And apparently it takes a while to charge.  We didn’t realize this until partway through the haircut, though, so she ended up stopping after one side and part of the back.

And then she got a little more...about three hours later.

And then finally I look like some synth-rock asshole 80’s reject who is just asking for an ass-kicking. 


That is what I am at now, because my wife fell asleep.  “Wake me up, and I’ll finish it,” she says.  So now I’m sitting her deciding whether to trust what is left of my follicles to somebody who’s been asleep for three hours.

The year I went to high school (which was in the 10th grade--in Fort Smith, students in the ninth grade were in their last year of junior high) my family moved to Kinkead Avenue, to a house that is no longer there.It was a fixer-upper, with most of the fixing-upping to be done on the second floor, which had two bedrooms and a bathroom, which were generally unfinished.  Except for some drywall, we never really got around to the fixing.

My sister and I occupied the upstairs, except during the winter, when my sister slept downstairs, where the heat was.  I stayed upstairs.  I enjoyed the ability to separate from others on occasion, so being upstairs worked for me.  The only real problem with my situation was that the upstairs bathroom did not work, and I was too lazy to go downstairs to use the restroom (then, as now, I drank a large quantity of soda, so the need to flow happened often).  That problem was solved by opening my window and stepping onto the roof over my parents’ bedroom and wetting the bushes below.  There were neighbors behind us, only partially blocked by a lattice of tree branches, but it never crossed my mind at the time that an inopportune sighting might have earned me a conversation with officers of the law.

During cold winter nights I was not able to use such methods, as the drop in temperature caused my window to freeze over.  The trade-off was worth it to me.  Cold winter nights meant burrowing under multiple blankets, my breath curling like a low fire, and the moon’s reflection shattered on the iced window.  It seemed the world was naught but cold and silence, as if the ice had cut off the noise from the outside world.  It seemed there, in my room, in that time between sliding under the blankets and the moment sleep took me, that the world had not stopped, but had slowed down--that everything was in slow motion. 

Tonight snow blankets my yard.  I walked outside, feeling the slight crackle as I did so.  It’s a wondrous thing (at least until I have to drive in it), but to me, it is not Winter.  Winter will always be that reflection of the moon on the iced window as I huddle under my covers, the same way that Spring will always be walking past the cemetery on Greenwood Avenue as a slight breeze caresses me, the same way that Summer will always be going to the store in Indian Rocks Beach, my skin already peeling.  And Autumn...well, that is the fake mummy being pushed off the roof on Halloween; I don’t want to talk about--it took me a while to get on good terms with Fall.

Until I joined the Air Force in 1990, my access to computers was essentially limited to two classes in high school, as well as being able to look over the shoulder of a friend at his Texas Instruments computer.  When I enlisted, computers became a part of my daily work life and eventually most other aspects of my life (I got my first Bachelor’s degree online and am on the computer daily).  It’s hard to imagine a life without computers (I know some people who are going to give them up for a week, which I don’t think I could do at this point in my life).

In many ways the computer has been a boon to me (the aforementioned degree, contact with people I would have not otherwise kept in touch), but it’s also sometimes a horrible place, for a variety of reasons (cyberbullying, stalking, Rick-rolling).  Another thing I have noticed is the cowardice of anonymity.  On sites such as Yahoo, CNN.com, Ain’t It Cool News and many others, people write in comment sections mean, nasty, vile, disgusting, etc. type things, that they would never post under their own name or say in a person-to-person meeting.  Some people call it “trolling” or “flaming”.  I don’t have a problem with people being an asshole--I’m often an asshole myself.  However, I’m willing to stand behind what I write; everything I post is easily identified by me, and I do not use pseudonyms beyond the same ID I have used for nearly fifteen years.  And I would never think to comment on a page about somebody’s death to rejoice in that death, no matter what I thought of that person.  But I see it frequently, on every type of page.  I have seen liberal/conservative battles on sports pages.  I’ve seen personnel attacks from people I just know would not open their mouths in public.

I am trying to avoid reading comment sections, even on subjects I’m invested in (I love Bruce Springsteen, and I can’t stand to read the Backstreets comments because of some of the moronic comments of his “fans”), but it’s hard, like not staring at the side of the road where the crunched-up car and police lights are. 

Today there was a shooting in an Arizona grocery store.  At last report, it appears that six people have died, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old.  At least twelve other people have been shot, including A United States Representative, who was shot in the head.  You can read on almost any news site that includes comments that is the liberals’ fault, the conservatives’ fault.  Many people have pointed already to Sarah Palin, who had an advertisement last year which listed the Representative as a person to be targeted in the November elections.  Sadly, the targeting included a map in which her district was covered with a rifle scope.  There is no indication that the shooter was a Palin supporter, but it could turn out he was.  Hell, it could turn out the advertisement motivated him to do the shooting, but I can no more blame Palin than I can blame Marilyn Manson for the Columbine shooters (and I don’t).  I have no problem heaping harsh words upon Palin and her brood.  I think she is a dangerous woman.  She is not stupid, but she is ignorant, and she plays upon the hatred and prejudices of others to get her way.  But people blaming her are making the same mistake as those blaming Manson and video games for Columbine--they are going around the problem and not confronting it.  If too much anger turns toward her, she will be able to convert it for usage in her martyr complex.  Don’t let that happen.  For now, I will grieve for those killed and injured and hope that America can step from behind their monitors and see human beings all around them.

***

Five days ago I brought up the plan to change the word “nigger” to “slave” in Huckleberry Finn.  Since then I have read many things about this, including one person’s observation that the change doesn’t even make much sense, since not all slaves were of African descent (and not only an American issue; also does not include sex slaves, etc.).  Also, the word “nigger”, when directed to a person, is most often (if not always) done in a disparaging manner, while “slave” is not quite the same (although obviously not all puppy dogs and rainbows).  I’ve seen some people opine that white people (and in some cases, any people) should not use the word at all, even in print (which would also include me), as there is no case in which the word is not offensive.  I cannot use “N-word” instead of “nigger”, not because I hope to provoke or insult, but because to me it is no better than putting asterisks over the “g”s.  We all know what it means and the word forms in our minds.  I guarantee if you were to go up to an African-American and said, “get out of my way, you N-word” you would get the same reaction from them if you called them a “nigger”.  The word is a disparagement and putting a coat of paint on it protects the word’s intent, not those the word is used against.

Obviously, that is the case for some people, and some people have a valid reason to say that the word is offensive, but I have several issues with that.  First, I cannot find any word offensive.  Words are malleable--they can be wielded as weapons or salve.  Words that are considered lovely and harmless can cut deeply based on intent.  To me, no word is off-limits.  There are some words I do not use, because my wife does consider them off-limits (“cunt” and “goddamn”), although I have to admit I have used both of these, in times of anger (“cunt” was never directed towards my wife; in truth, that word has been only directed to people on the highway).  I cannot mount a defense of the use of those words, as they seldom come up in an intellectual debate (“do you not see how valid it is that Hemingway described her as a ‘cunt’?”).  But I do not see any reason to strike these, or “nigger”, from the dictionary, even if, like “xenophobic” or “tintinnabulation”, they are words I seldom use. 

If I happen to die in any type of strange circumstance, this is my plea to the world to look to the cat.  The cat is trying to kill me!

Now, so that an innocent feline does not get falsely accused, I must tell you that we have three pets.  One is a dog, a poodle, the type you feel has mixed speed and caffeine and has a propensity to hump anything in sight, despite the fact that it is female and has been fixed.  There is the Grand Dame of the house, our cat, Jaden, who has been with me nearly a decade.  She has been often standoffish in the past, but has become more sociable in recent years.

But then there is the dark mistress, that black widow, a most malicious creature.  I knew she was trouble when we first came upon her, somehow wedged in the engine block of my wife’s car.  “Ah, a pity,” I thought, and was urged by my wife to assist in saving her.  What a fool I was.  I know now she had only been trapped while attempting her own sabotage--cutting the brakes or rigging explosives to the car.  We named her Beetle, after the vehicle she was found in, but perhaps BeezleBeetle should be her name.

Of course, she is subtle, as cunning and slippery as a serpent.  She hides in the shadows, her perfectly black features blending into the night, so that if she were to slowly move in front of a foot in the blackness, the victim would not see her until too late.  So many stumbles! 

But if she cannot defeat by being underfoot, she will attack by being under bum, pressed against the blackness of a chair, so that a person will not see her as he sits, only to jump in fear at the bulk beneath him--a bulk that will not move despite a person’s full weight upon her--a bulk that will not move even when the chair is angled over drastically. 

She claims her ground on our bed, so that I must ever put my legs over her or scrunch them up.  And too many times I have woken to see that dark face staring into mine, her massive weight upon my chest, the knowledge she shares with me that soon she shall take me, this fiendish feline.  Save me!

On an unrelated note, does anybody want a cat?

I served for a little over twenty years in the Air Force, retiring a little over four months ago.  Last month Congress finally repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which has always seemed like the most foolish of policies, allowing homosexuals to serve, but only if they act as asexual bachelors/bachelorettes.  In those twenty years I have served with people who I knew to be gay.  And I have served with people who I assumed to be gay, one of whom was one of my closest Air Force friends during the first half of my enlistment. 

I don’t have much to say about DADT, as it has been repealed and as there seems little reason to discuss it.  If somebody wants to serve his or her country, it seems foolish to put limits on that person that we do not put on others.  The arguments against the repeal of DADT make no more sense to me than an argument for segregation or keeping women out of the military.  The argument that some make that this places undue stress on our military members undercuts the strength and bravery of them.  If they cannot fight well because there is a homosexual in their midst, then they are cowards who discredit their country.  I do not think this is true, just as I know that even though I have worked with many people who I did not agree with, people who I found reprehensible, I still did my job. 

What I find sad and disconcerting, beyond what I have mentioned before, is DADT’s most ardent supporter, Senator John McCain.  He once said that he would give full review to DADT, but has recently cited the repeal of it as a “sad day”.  John McCain served in the military, and from what I know of him, he did so admirably.  He was a prisoner of war for many years, something that I can barely even comprehend going through.  I give nothing but admiration to that John McCain.  That John McCain is dead, however.  I don’t know when that happened exactly, but I know the last shovelful of dirt was dumped on the coffin sometime in 2008, when he reversed what he had previously stood for to try to get votes.  I have to admit that early in the presidential race (before Sarah Palin was even heard of outside of Alaska for most Americans) I thought I might vote for him.  I don’t know if Barack Obama will turn out to be a good president or not, but I do not regret voting for him, because I am afraid of what would be with John McCain in the White House.  He has sold his principles; he has sacrificed his integrity.  And he has made his legacy to be the voice against Americans wanting to serve their country.  I recently watched a television show in which a World-War-II era Japanese-American, born in this country, voiced his disbelief that he should serve the country while his family was in an interment camp.  I look at John McCain now and I do not see the brave military man or the principle Senator--I see the redneck guard telling homosexuals that you can’t even do that.

I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what to write for this blog.  I have to write it, of course, as it was one of the resolutions I made.  Right now, I have so much noise going on around me that it’s hard to concentrate on what I might want to write about.  I’m not sure why that is bothering me, because I often have the ability to function in chaos.  I remember when I was younger that I was able to do homework, watch TV, and read a book at the same time.  When I was in Italy I was able to read the latest installment of The Green Mile as I drove back from the bookstore (not a wise thing to do, obviously, but I was also in a place where they fit four cars in two lanes).

But I have the TV on in the living room that everybody is watching, my TV on in here (as I am switching back and forth between writing this and watching Top Chef), the dog barking at any movement or sound within the vicinity of the house, and the cats notifying me that they must be fed before I go to bed.  Plus I have a headache, and I’ve become obsessed with finishing my Thriller DVDs (I’m currently on episode 45 of 67).  I guess I can just be thankful that I hadn’t asked Missa for the complete Twilight Zone series or I would have been screwed for the week.

So I just spent over 250 words writing that I really didn’t have very much to write currently.  I feel like I’m my daughter writing a school report.

I came to Piglet late in my life.  I actually don't recall anything (books, movies, toys, etc.) from my childhood in which the residents of 100-Acre Woods were a part.  Although I had heard of Piglet, I think the first time he really became a focus in my mind was after I read Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet.  I became quite enamored of Piglet at that point.  Piglet is neither the smartest or the strongest of the creatures, but I believe he is the most compassionate and the bravest.  I have become as equally disenchanted with Pooh.  For years I have requested for Christmas that my wife get me a T-shirt with "Fuck Pooh" on it.  I didn't this year, as she has been steadfast in her refusal (I will accept it from anybody who would like to give me one; remember, though, that "Pooh" is spelled with an "h"--"Fuck Poo" would be something else entirely).  To me, Pooh is not a force at all, but only a tree that stands in the water and is formed by the current.  I have no respect for such a creature.

My obsession with Piglet has grown quite a bit.  I used to have all my stuff on my side table, then on one bookshelf.  Now, I am already filling two large bookshelves. 

Publisher's Weekly Article

I put the above article for anybody who wanted to read it themselves, but the gist of it is that NewSouth is going to publish a version of Huckleberry Finn that replaces the word "nigger" with "slave" and also removes "Injun" (I'm not sure what the replacement word for that is going to be).  The man who is the driving force behind this says that the intent is to view race through a 21st century viewpoint.  But it's not a 21st century book; otherwise Tom and Huck would be texting and poking each other on FaceBook. 

I understand that many view "nigger" as a hurtful word.  I don't myself, because I prefer to look at the intent of language rather than, as George Carlin points out, automatically make a word a "bad word".  It is not a word I generally use, but I have--mostly when I am singing along to the Too Short song, "Don't Fight the Feeling", which I am sensible enough to not do around others; and in discussions about race or language. 

Huckleberry Finn was written during a time in which "nigger" was used much more freely than it is now; to remove it from the book is another attempt to whitewash what is a part of our history.  Not the history that is taught in school, which, in general, is one in which America is generally right (and by America, I mean white America) and not one that destroyed cultures and killed people for land, profit, or fun.  This censorship in the classroom is one of the reasons we are among the dumbest Western societies in the world.  It is also why I get closer and closer to deciding once and for all to homeschool my youngest daughter.  If you can't get students to understand Twain's use of the language, you shouldn't be a teacher; and if you stop the teacher from teaching this book, you should not be involved in the school at all.

I find it interesting that there is such an effort to erase this word from Twain's book, but to not have any issue with the violence in the book.  You can explain the violence and how the use in the book doesn't mean you should go out and off drunk-ass pappies, but you can't explain the language in the context of the time.  Was there no conversation about what the cross-dressing scenes might have done to impressionable youth (there probably was).

Of course, the copyright on this book is long gone (I assume, based merely on my knowledge I can get a copy of it on my Kindle for free), so it appears that legally people can change the words.  I can't believe that a professor would spearhead this effort.  An author spends a long time on a novel, and he or she generally has specific purpose for the words he or she uses, and for somebody to come after it has been published and say, no, I think we should do it this way instead--that's just lunacy.

I didn't plan on writing another blog today, but this got my Irish up (oh, wait, sorry, is that a stereotype?  I'll have to change that), and I decided this was a better solution than spouting literary crimes to the pets.

As I wrote yesterday, I plan to make resolutions for the year (and, as delaying procrastination is not one of them, I'm a couple of days late).  I've always found that I perform best under a deadline--when I am to be held accountable--which is one reason I am putting my resolutions here, so that those who love me can come back here and point out what a failure I had been. 

I have to set some ground rules for myself.  First, my resolution must be one that must be attainable.  I might decide that I want to fly a plane (I don't).  Many things get into the way of that--lack of resources (both financial and geographical), bad vision, fear of flying, etc.  So something like that is off the list.  As such, my resolutions might seem small to some.  To them, it is better to reach for the highest rung and fail, rather than reach for a middle rung and attain it.  My counter-thought is that I reach the middle rung and slowly move up to the higher rung.

A second rule is that the resolution must be qualifiable, which is why I won't have a resolution like, "show my family more love".  One, I should be doing that anyway; and two, if I were to qualify it (say "I love you" to my wife every day), it would change it from an expression of love to checking off a list.  So I have to be able to say at the end of the year, "I said I would do this and I did it" or "I said I would do this 100 times and I did it 97", and so forth.  I do not expect to meet all of these goals, but my effort will be there.

So, here are my resolutions.  They are fairly simple, and probably ones that many other people make every year.

1.  Write a blog daily.  This is easily qualifiable and can be easily checked.  The problem with this one is that there are going to be days when I will not be able to think of anything to post.  There may be a time or two when I post "school sucked" or "parenting is hard" and be done with it, but I hope to post something with actual content (even if it is content that other people think sucks).

2.  Bring weight down to 180.  I would actually like to make it less, but then my wife starts to make comments about stick figures, which is ridiculous.  However, I think this is a weight both she and I can live with.  Right now I'm storing up weight in case we get stuck in a blizzard, in the aftermath of my post-retirement and holiday binge.

3.  Write three short stories.  My goal on this involves a first draft and a revision.  I would like to make the number higher, but with everything else in my life and on this list, I don't think I would be able to make it. 

4.  Write one long-form fiction.  I would like this to be a novel, but I don't think I can attain that within a year's time.  I have something in my mind right now that would be long enough and that I think I can accomplish before the end of the year.

5.  Read 150 books.  I originally had this as shorter (100; then 125).  150 is a hard goal, but I think I can accomplish it.  It breaks down to a little less than three books a week.  I am counting audiobooks with this, which is why I feel fairly comfortable with 150.  I am going to college full-time, and the University of Arkansas is about 45 minutes away, so I have 90 minutes five days a week to listen to books.  These have to be actual books, although length does not matter.  Short stories do not count, except as part of a book.  Books I read to my daughter do not count.

6.  Read to Tatiana every night.  Sometimes I just let other things get in the way, so setting this goal just reinforces for me the need for effort.  I will still count it if she is read to, even if it is not by me, but will have to consider it a failure if I have not done the majority of the reading.

7.  Take a picture every day.  I tend to be a binge photographer, taking pictures in high volume in concentrated time zones, so I just want to force myself to spread it out some.

So there you have it.  Seven goals to meet.  There are many other things I would have liked to added to this, but I don't want to set myself up for failure.  We'll see in a year if and how many I was able to accomplish.

It is always this way.  The first day of the year (or the second, in my case) a person reviews his or her life and decides to make a change.  A resolution.  As often as not, this resolution does not last the week, much less a year.  But we still continue to make them.  Because we want these changes (even if we are unable or unwilling to put the effort forth for them).  And because sometimes people do actually achieve them.

I am going to attempt them, of course.  I have not in recent years been much of a Resolutionist.  But my life has been full of changes recently anyway, from my retirement in the Air Force, to moving into my first owned house, to starting at a new college, that I thought I would take the leap.  My intention today is to take the time to make a list of the things I want to accomplish this year and list them in this blog, so that they will be there for anyone to see (even if I am the only one to visit this blog).  I do not expect to meet each of these resolutions, although I would be thrilled if I were to do so.  In my life the journey has been just as important (if not more so) than the destination.

I know one of my resolutions will involve writing (to include my intention to blog every day), as it is something that is very important to me and, paradoxically, something I have let slip away, to be taken over by other things, to be put on the shelf, gathering dust, as I tell myself I will get to it when I can.  But of course there is always something I can put my effort to before the writing (and many things I have to), so I let it sit.  Nevermore, cries the Raven.  Or at least it is not my intention, it softly coos and cocks its head.

So tomorrow the resolutions will forever be unleashed, so that others can ask why I did not do this or how I failed that.  Unless I don't type them.  Or I delete them, hoping that nobody has enough computer skill to dig them from the bowels of the Internet.