About: Sleep (or at least that's what they used to call it back in the day)

I wear many hats…I know we all do (but I’m talking literally…my bald head will lobsterize in a matter of moments if I don’t).  Full time husband, full time father, full time son, and full time night watchman.  Now, I don’t mean that I stand guard outside of the local Target in the middle of the night keeping thugs at bay with my flashlight (although there is a bit of romance in that thought for some reason)…I mean I am the keeper of the creatures of the night.  This takes many forms.  But lately, my night-time duties have included roaming the streets on foot pushing  a stroller, and driving aimlessly around the Temecula countryside (sidenote:  both of these activities include the addition of a small human…interesting enough, if there were no small human involved, one might pinpoint this as unsettling behavior…the line between father and social miscreant is more thin than I thought!). 

My daughter and I are locked in a battle of wills that has been going on since May 6^th, 2009 (or at least shortly thereafter).  We have opposing viewpoints on activities post 9pm.  My plans call for quiet, peace, relaxation, a little television perhaps…did I mention quiet?  Her plans call for more Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, more toys, more not being asleep in general.  As you can see, this can bring about conflict in a relationship when two people that are so different are trying to find common ground.  As I lie here in thought I can only imagine that Gorbachev would not close his eyes and lie down, and all Reagan wanted was to find out who killed J.R. (my time-line may be a bit off, but the point was made I believe). 

There have been many lessons on this journey along the way.  First and foremost…you can be guaranteed once you find a routine that works for you 100% of the time you’re about to discover that 100% does not exist in the two year old lexicon.  We’ve gone for weeks, even months with no incidents whatsoever and calm waters each evening…and then all of a sudden an iceberg pops out of nowhere and sinks the unsinkable ship!  WHY?!  WHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We had an agreement Emily!  You’ve been sleeping good, and going down with no problems for months…WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT TONIGHT!!!!????  (note to child protective services, the use of capital letters is the extent of my abuse towards my children…and for the time being, they are unable to read, so we’re good). 

I’ve read to the child…I’ve lied down next to the child for hours…I’ve brought her back downstairs to watch another episode of Mickey…I’ve even tried slipping her a Mickey (the stuffed version c.p.s…please get off my back).    Nada…zippo…zilch…bubkis…screaming…wailing…vomiting…sobbing (and that’s just me).   We’re in that lovely stage where nothing seems to work all the time…and the closest thing we can find is movement.

So now…if it’s late, and you’re trying to track me down…start by searching the Temecula Valley.  You’ll see me pushing a stroller up and down the dark streets of my neighborhood…peering in windows as happy parents gather around their flat-screens for some adult time while their children are nestled all snug in their beds…mocking me in their contentment.  Or better yet switch your gaze to the I-15 as I drive up and down, back and forth, just waiting for those precious eyelids in the backseat to close ever so gently, hoping that I can quickly return to base, gently unlatch the car seat, and scamper upstairs without disturbing the golden slumber. 

This whole thing is hard.  I think in many ways it’s harder than I thought it would be.  But it’s also that much easier when you care that much about the cargo you’re hauling around.  As tired as I am, and as frustrated as I get…come find me in 10 years.  I’ll still be roaming the Temecula Valley on foot or by car on a nightly basis…just wishing the precious cargo from years before still needed hauling around in the middle of the night.

Frustration lasts but mere moments when it rears its ugly head…so own it…embrace it…then let it go as quick as you can.  The moments that cause the frustration last even shorter in the big picture…and God knows I will miss them desperately when they’re gone.

About: Beginnings (New and Old)

My first guitar came in the form of an “Airline” acoustic.  My grandma was visiting a place where people go to die and play chicken with hurricanes (I guess inanimate objects end up there as well) and decided that this hunk of wood would be something I might enjoy. 

I first was introduced to the musical world at the tender age of four (sidebar:  tender age?  Still pliable…able to be shaped and nurtured?  Juicy and delicious?  Just can’t quite wrap my head around this one).  My mom and dad decided to enroll me in piano lessons, because the incessant whining of a four year old boy echoing through the vast expanse of a 950 square foot house wasn’t nearly enough white noise for their liking.  I’m guessing here…I was only four, give me a break.  Apparently, I took to it right away, and went on to play constantly for the next 10 years.  For all you sports fans out there, I was the Allen Iverson of piano players (the disdain of practice thing, not the 6’0”, 165lb African American point guard thing).  I hated practice.  I hated learning the ins and outs of the “theory” as they call it…the structure of music.  I hated it with a passion.  I remember one year I went through a standardized musical test of some sort at San Diego State University and ended up passing the theory portion by one point…but knocking the judges socks off in the performance part (to be fair, when you played “Pop Goes the Weasel” like I did…it was hard for the suits not to take notice).  All this to say, I could play…I could feel the music.  I could take the music off the page, and make it what I thought it should be, structure be damned. 

Well, fast forward to the end of that 10 year period and you have a 14 year old young man tired of the whole thing.  I never allowed piano to really lead me anywhere.  I played recitals, I played for church, I played for school, but I just played because I was the piano guy, not because my heart was in it.  So I quit (in retrospect perhaps an all too recurring theme in my life).  But thanks to my grandma, my musical void would be filled ASAP.

I ended up teaching myself how to play the guitar (with the help of a chord book, time, Alice in Chains, Gregory Page, Live and Dave Matthews Band).  I would lock myself in my room for hours on end learning this chord and that chord, and eventually putting those chords together to sound like something familiar.  I never did learn how to read guitar sheet music or anything like that…but I did learn how to hear what was right, and what was not.  I owe that to the 10 years of piano for sure.  Guitar took me more places than piano ever did…but those are stories for another day. 

Looking back, the purpose of this post is just to introduce the reason I started this blog in the first place.  I’m a hopeless right-brained hack with a terminal case of “quit” who never really gave 100% of myself to anything…and I don’t want that to be on my tombstone.  I’m going to seek out friends to add posts of their own too…their memories…their stories…their honesty.  I would like this to become a place that people can go to either lose themselves in the ridiculousness of others, or maybe even learn something about themselves. 

This kind of got away from me at the end, but I’ll do better next time.  Please join me.  If you have any stories to share about anything at all (I love funny, I love dark, I love real), hit me up on the comments section, or at trad77@aol.com.  Let’s start something cool, for no other reason than it’s cool.  We can build a community of creative people searching for an outlet for that creativity.  We can share knowledge, we can share smiles, we can share tears…we can even share needles (for those that are into that whole sewing subculture)! 

Let’s do this.

About: The Story of Emily (a continuing journey)

Emily showed up on a Wednesday afternoon in May.  An unremarkable day from a cosmic perspective, but on a personal level?...unremarkable would definitely not be the word to use to describe it. 

The journey began the previous June.  My wife and I had been married for four or so months, when for some reason she decided our two bedroom apartment was way too big for only two people.  We needed to fill it up with something.  I thought perhaps some office furniture might be nice for the second bedroom, something that would complement the leopard print futon that served as our guest bed.  She, on the other hand, decided a small human would be a better accent.  I admit that I was initially hesitant to embrace her plans but after she explained to me the process of bringing about said human, I jumped on board.

I don’t know much about anything, and I’ll certainly not claim to be the smartest of men, but I was convinced this process would take months, if not years to produce a result.  So, if you consider a month and half to be “months” than I would have been correct.  I’ll never forget the night we found out.  My wife and I were having a discussion about our state of affairs, our future, etc.  For a reason that escapes me now, I remember being in an extremely stressed state of being (seeing as I’m this way 93.4% of the time, this would probably be a safe guess regardless).  Stressed about theoretical babies, stressed about finances, stressed about living arrangements, stressed about work, stressed about vacation planning…just stressed.  The only phrase I clearly remember uttering on that fateful night was, “finding out you’re pregnant now would be the LAST thing we need”.  Taking this as her cue to turn our lives into a bad rom-com, my wife journeyed into our room to reportedly change for bed.  Her scream a few minutes later was all I needed to know the Big Screenwriter in the Sky was laughing hysterically as the camera panned to my ashen face.  From that moment on, the capital ‘T’ in my first name begin it’s long arduous journey to a lower case ‘d’.