Editing, Beer, Swimming and Sisyphus

My dear wife observed that my posts seem to be stream of consciousness. Well, OK then.

If I wanted to write a damn book I'd be writing a damn book. :-) Just kidding, Deb.

Basically, I may just be too lazy to write anything as disciplined as a book might be. Or maybe it's just that writing a stream of consciousness allows me to do this without being self-conscious. That is the death-knell of much writing. Self consciousness, that is. Instead of hearing an authentic voice, we hear an edited voice. Nothing wrong with editing, I guess, but leave the editing for the editors. Let the writer give birth to the authentic voice.

I used to copyedit people's stuff for a living, and I remember one columnist whose stuff I changed, and he was royally pissed. I made the mistake of using the same editing approach for an opinion column that I was using on news copy. Two different genres, for sure. A lesson learned. I think the columnist, who was actually the owner of the publication I was working for, never did fully forgive me for that. Oh well. I guess that I got in the way of his "authentic voice". I suppose that if you are a writer and somebody is editing you, you have the right to tell them off if they squelch your voice. Of course, if somebody else is publishing it and paying for the cost of publishing, they have the right to squelch your voice.

That is the beauty of the blog. No voice squelching, unless one squelches one's self.

Stream of consciousness continues: I am sitting here eating candy....I almost called it Halloween candy, but it is actually Easter candy. I think that I am the dominant consumer of candy at my house (although our dog, Ruby, would be glad to take that title, if only we would let her). I always buy too much candy for the Easter baskets or the Christmas stockings, and then I throw all the excess in one big pot or plastic container, and I spend the next week or so eating it. My favorites this year are the cream-filled caramels and the black licorice jelly beans. Did I tell you that despite regular exercise I'm not losing much, if any, weight?

While strolling the aisles of the grocery store last night, I was thinking about getting some beers, because I like to have a beer before I go to bed. But then I thought, if I don't have that beer, I'll probably be more likely to lose some weight. And I decided not to get the beer. But when I reached the checkout, I had the beer. Somewhere in the process, a certain portion of my brain seems to have shut out messages from another portion of my brain, and I went fully on habit. It's like when I'm driving somewhere, and I'm not thinking that hard about where I'm going, and instead of going where I'm supposed to be going, I end up driving a different route, the one that I most typically drive when going to the place I usually go to....which is, the indoor pool where I get exercise.

There is a sort of perverted Sisyphean symmetry about this. One part of me subconsciously sends me to the beer aisle, another part of me subconsciously sends me to the pool....where I work off the beer. Sisyphus, of course, being the dude in mythology who is condemned to endlessly roll a stone up a mountain, whereupon the stone rolls back down the other side.

I guess you could say that my drinking and exercise are of mythic proportions.

Skype, School of Rock, distractions, writing projects, Mozart

The beauty of Skype, I realized tonight, is that, although I really had nothing of import to say to my brother Paul, we were able to have a conversation nonetheless, partly, I think, because we spent a lot of the time just looking at each other....which is hard to do on the phone.

Sitting here watching "School of Rock" while Deb and I are drinking wine and she is grading papers. The best way to get through grading papers, I am learning, is to drink and to put fun videos on the TV. The wine is supposed to distract from the boredom of the grading papers, and a fun video that we've seen several times before is supposed to distract from boredom as well, but not too much, because the papers must, nonetheless, be graded. Although it might be a little scary to see how the grading goes after watching Jack Black as a substitute teacher.

My real writing project of the moment is to complete my vacation chronicle from last year. Dozens of pages of minutiae and detail that are probably interesting only to Deb and me. But, that's good enough for me, for reasons that you can probably figure out on your own. And if you can't, well, get with it!

Seriously, this is about as deep as it's going to get for now, because I've got this other writing project awaiting me....sorta like Mozart in that "Amadeus" movie. That requiem mass, asked for after his papa died. Actually, this has nothing do with the fact that my papa died....just a coincidental allusion.

So there.

Tattoos, Brother's Keeper

This might not be a well-thought out post today. For some reason I had thought I was going to try to blog every Monday, because my last post was on Monday...but it wasn't. It was on Sunday, when I was just hanging out, watching some sports on TV. But today I'm working, taking calls on the phone, getting annoyed at times, frustrated at times...you know, the usual. But sometimes it feels good when I'm able to help somebody out. But mostly I'm just trying to get to the end of the work day without driving myself nuts. Just keeping it real, as the cool people say.

At least the dog (I was going to say "damn dog", but my wife reads this, and she loves the dog a lot...I love the dog, but not as much as she does) isn't barking all the time any more while I'm trying to work.

Today, Adam's ankle is barking. My oldest son, age 23 (almost 24) rolled his ankle last night while playing soccer and ended up going to the ER where he was diagnosed with a high ankle sprain. Today he's on Vicodin. Woo-hoo. The big hero in all of this is his 20-year-old brother John, who not only took Adam to the ER last night, but also went out and got his drugs for him today. Legally, that is.

A few years ago Adam and John, as a Mother's Day gift to Deb (ha!) got matching tattoos, which say "Brother's Keeper", which is fitting in that the boys' last name is Bohlmann Kunz. BK. Brother's Keeper. I told John this morning that he was living out his tattoo.

Budweiser, Viagra and folding towels

I'm not sure I have anything really useful to say, but I think usefulness can be overrated. A few friends of mine recently, and independently of each other, asked why I wasn't blogging any more.

There's a certain point at which I wonder whether anybody -- other than myself, of course -- really is interested in what I might be musing about, but since there have been a few queries, I thought, why not. I'm thinking these things, anyway, and, although I certainly can't type them as fast as I can think them, it seems they may amuse, entertain, or at least distract a few people. Which is no worse than most cable TV shows, so here we go.

I'm sitting here watching the Cardinal ballgame while waiting for my food to digest, after which I can go out and take a hike -- it's beautiful outside today - or I can go to the community center and get on the elliptical machine, on which I can actually digitally and numerically track the progress of my workout....but I think fresh air is going to win out. Anyway, the TV commercial is about Budweiser, and you really don't have to convince me of the value of Budweiser, I really only just need a reminder that it is out there. I don't usually drink a Budweiser, but last night they were passing 'em out for free at the trivia night fundraiser for several of the sports at Webster Groves High School. Miriam is playing three sports, including soccer this spring, so Deb and I dutifully went to the event. Our team finished 5th out of about 24 teams, and we were adequately stocked with food and drink, so I didn't get around to drinking the free brew until after we finished our bottle of wine. Part of me hates to see free beer go undrunk, which is a good reason for me not to be eating at the all-you-can-eat buffets, because it always seemed like a waste not to eat as much of the food as possible. This, of course, comes from a mindset that sees the world as having limited resources, and, therefore, I must get as much of them as possible. When, in fact, our faith and religion calls for us to see the resources of God as coming to us with unlimited grace. It's a tough transition of thought, for sure.

Next commerical break has arrived, and now it's about Viagra. I'm not even going to go there, because, thank God, I don't need to go there....yet. Although I always sorta raise my eyebrows when they talk about getting an erection that lasts longer than 4 hours. I can't figure how you can keep one when you're done with it, but I guess that's something I can perhaps anticipate if ever have need of this wonder drug.

These are the musings of a 53-year-old on a Sunday afternoon while watching sports on TV. You've been warned.

Time to fold some towels.

y chromosomes unleashed

Deb and Miriam are in Germany. Which means that the house is ruled by men. Undainty men. Men who like to eat and to watch sports on TV. Men who feel no compulsion to get fully dressed when walking around the house. In other words, men in their natural state.

Adam, John and I reached a pact after Deb and Miriam left for Deutschland. I was the initiator of the agreement, but they heartily went along with it. Rule No. 1: No smoke in the house; rule No. 2: No food left sitting out. Rule No. 3: The house returns to its usual status on or before June 17, when Deb and Miriam return. So far, so good. Actually, John cleaned up his room since the female's departure, and, Adam cleaned out the back of the car he drives. I am not sure what this means, but I'll take it.

We are subsisting on cereal, milk, cut-up fruit, meat (in various forms, including prepackaged hard salami, hamburgers, spaghetti) and gatorade. I ate some leftover broccoli that Deb had prepared before her departure, but I'm not seeing many more vegetables on the horizon....although the boys each ate lettuce on their burgers at yesterday's agreed-upon once-per-week guys' outing at a restaurant.

Conversation at the restaurant included: how long can you go before somebody notices you haven't been shaving (I can go the longest, what with my nearly invisible facial hair); what incidents in your ancestors' lives were crucial in guaranteeing that you actually were conceived (other than the actual event, of course); the nature of fate; the insurgence of motivational/inspirational songs in the hip-hop music world, despite the continued presence of mysogenistic crap; the overall decline in offense in major-league baseball this season; strategies and tactics in getting a summer job; the redeeming qualities of certain cable TV shows, including "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Breaking Bad"; debate over the best view in St. Louis....

and all this, while working on 3 bottomless mugs of root beer....

talk concerning females was noticeably limited, but I think this is because I'm their dad, and they didn't want to hear my views and didn't want to share theirs with me....and I was pretty much of the same mind....x chromosomers (that is, females) can have those conversations, because I think they focus primarily on the relationship stuff, but we y chromosomers are thinking other things, and it just ain't a good conversation to have with your dad....

A certain amount of watching sports on TV has been a touchstone for we guys: NBA playoffs, soccer, baseball, SportsCenter. These guys know more about this stuff than I do, except when it comes to baseball trivia. For instance, here's what I thought about yesterday while swimming my 70 laps: How long has it been since each major-league team last won a World Series? And the scary thing is, I know this stuff! Too many days as a youth, lying on my bed looking at sports books. Well, at least I can read. I also read Huckleberry Finn on my own, as a kid, before high school, just because I was interested. But that's about as far as I got with the classics, unless you consider "The Stan Musial Story" a classic.

That is life in Maplewood (St. Louis) without my girls, Deb and Miriam, to mold me into the cultured being that I am in their presence.

I am,

Michael, in natural state

April Fooled!

I did a number of April Fool's jokes on family members as well as people in the community. My family knows this is one of my favorite holidays of the year, and that I obsess about tricking people on April 1.

So, they nailed me good this year.

My younger brother, Paul, who lives in St. Joe, in northwest Missouri, had told me that he and his wife and kids were going to Chicago this weekend to visit my parents and my older brother and his family. Paul and I were plotting on the phone yesterday on how to pull an April Fool's joke on my parents. We were going to tell my parents that Paul's car had broken down, they had forgotten their cell phones, and that they had remembered my phone number and called me to ask me to call my parents and let them know that Paul and his family would be a day late. So, I unwittingly went along with this. Paul and I also spent a while on the phone, regaling each other with tricks we had already pulled on people that day. Paul asked whether my family had gotten me yet. No, I said, but I suspected that they might be up to something.

Then, late last night while on my way home from chorus rehearsal, I called Deb, who suggested that she order some delivery pizza to celebrate the end of our big April Fool's Day. I agreed. A few minutes after I got home, the doorbell rings, and a kid who looks like he's about 13 is standing at the door holding three boxes of Imo's Pizza. Youngest pizza delivery guy I'd ever seen, thought I. And then my brother and his wife come walking up the steps to the house.

I'd been scammed! My brother Paul was NOT on his way to Chicago. The kid at the door was my 11-year-old nephew, and my brother and his family had actually come to St. Louis to surprise ME on April Fool's Day.

My wife and kids laughed and laughed at my expense, because they had been in on this secret for several days. And every time I had been talking about getting them or somebody else with an April Fool's trick, they knew I was in the process of getting totally tricked.

All I can say is that I'm an amateur dealing with pros.

Whew.

Wake-up call

Just about every Saturday morning I work an extra shift on my job. The pay is pretty good, but the work is even more of a weekend eye-opener.

During the week, the intake calls I take on my job as a call-center phone counselor are primarily of the less-intensive level, although there are occasionally some crisis calls. But mostly it's issues with marriage problems, parenting problems, problems at work, people with addictions, depression, anxiety, stress. Sometimes somebody is having suicidal thoughts or there is some domestic violence. But the majority of calls are fairly routine.

But on the weekend I help take calls for the after-hours room, where all sorts of problems come in, including a lot of calls from hospitals that are asking for authorization for treatment for people who are in life-threatening situations, or employers are calling for assistance when an employee has died. That sort of thing. And I do this for 4 hours on a Saturday, and I realize there are people who do this 5 days a week, or who work in emergency rooms and see this stuff all the time. So I don't feel like I'm any sort of unique person for being exposed to this.

But it's a weekly wakeup call for me. It is a reminder of how fortunate/blessed I am that for the vast majority of my life, I am not facing any of these traumatic issues on a personal basis. That life is manageable.

Now the theologian in me is rearing his head and saying, "Hold on. You're going to die some day. Manage that, will you?" And that theologian is right. Death is a problem. But Jesus Christ is managing that one for me. I'm OK.