A Man, His Nikes, & A Warrior-Sized Hero Complex

My mom texted me the other day. She wanted to know why I haven’t blogged in a while. “Are you mad at me?” she asked. Yes, Mom. I haven’t been blogging the last several weeks because I’m mad at you. You got me. Smiley face.

If you read this blog, you know I hit a wall twice a year: about six weeks before the end of each semester. It’s when I like to think that I’m forcing myself to “buckle down” and focus on school, when really it’s the semester caving in on me.

But these last two months have been different than the previous times. I’ve been reassessing what it is at 36 I want out of life. Is going to school to pursue a writing career really in my best interest, in my family’s best interest?

As many of you may also know, I spent several weeks training for the Warrior Dash. By training, I mean that I ate less pizza and snacked on fewer cookies. I tried to add a jogging regimen to my workout routine. Said routine wanted no part of that, outsiders aren’t welcome. But thanks to an Internet call-out by my baby sister’s husband, I had to man-up…or at least try.

My brother-in-law Jeremy raved of the warrior-sized obstacle course we’d attempt to conquer. He promised the finish line would be waiting with a warrior-sized turkey leg to reward my efforts. There was talk of a warrior-sized beer to wash down my warrior-like feast. All that was missing was a wench to satisfy my warrior-like needs - he’d said I could bring my wife; he was bringing my sister. Yuck.

He’d said that upon completing The Dash there’d be warrior-sized stories to tell my family and friends. I could tell the truth or exaggerate my warrior-sized accomplishments. The choice was mine. So this is where I tell you, my fledgling peons, that I conquered the race in the fastest time ran by any man, woman, and superhero, and despite what the photos-for-purchase that were taken at various points of the course might show, I didn’t walk at all. Not. One. Step. This is where I don’t tell you that my chariot to the Warrior Dash was my mom’s mini-van, because mini-vans aren’t warrior-like…despite the heroic antics of Flynn Rider in the movie Tangled playing for the kids in the back seat.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I was anywhere near ready to commit to something I thought was so challenging. Mentally, I wasn’t ready to do the work, so I didn’t do the work – not really. But as I ran to the first obstacle, I found my inner monologue telling my overactive brain to settle down, just have fun. So I did.

We finished the race in 47 minutes. Not great; not horrible. But being that Jeremy and I were running in the very last heat of the two-day race, my only real goal was to not be lapped by the volunteers cleaning up trash on the trail before calling it a weekend.

Despite as much psyching myself up and psyching myself out that occurred in the weeks leading up to the Warrior Dash, once the race was over, I’d forgotten about everything I’d previously feared. You see, after races like these there’s an option to donate your shoes to charity – they’ll be cleaned and shipped across seas to people in countries where used shoes are better than no shoes. The shoes I’d left behind that day were shoes I didn’t want to let go of. I know, you’re thinking I’m crazy for being so sentimental about a pair of Nike Shox that were nearly four years old. You probably think I’m crazy for spending the three weeks prior to the race questioning my decision to give up those Nike Shox, and instead wondering if buying a new pair of cheaper shoes to run in and then donate would be a better option. But something inside of me, no matter how much I tried to rationalize my reasoning for why I’d miss those shoes, wouldn’t let me run in anything else. So I ran. I walked. I waded through water. I crawled through mud. I crossed the finish line. Then I donated. That’s when it hit me: those Nikes had been with me when I’d experienced some of the most memorable moments of my life.

Those shoes were there when I’d finally gotten to watch a baseball game at Fenway Park. They’d been to famed Dodger Stadium, where Kirk Gibson became a legend, and John Cusack made out with a girl on the hood of a 1967 Camaro that was parked at home plate. They saw Derek Jeter collect his 3000^th hit in front of the home crowd in The Bronx. They’d seen Mickey and Minnie and all of their friends at Disneyland. They were there the day I took my first steps as a grown man and enrolled in classes at a university full of teenagers, and then again the day I almost backed out of going to my first class, a writing class. Those shoes walked down Hollywood Boulevard, and took part as I had my photo taken as I crouched next to Tom Selleck’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Those $140 Nike Shox that had been purchased one hot Texas July evening in 2008 saw Big Ben tower over London, waited patiently outside the Blue Mosque in Istanbul for me but were later allowed to step inside the Hagia Sophia. A few days afterwards, they walked in the rain through Paris at night as my wife and I looked for the perfect souvenirs in shops scattered on various streets at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Those shoes had seen more in four years then some people will ever see in a lifetime – more than I thought I’d ever see in mine. I loved those Nikes, as if they were an extension of my soul. And as I took them off and placed them in the pile of other participants’ memories, I knew they’d soon see a different part of the world without me. I found comfort, not regret.

Donating my tennis shoes that day was just the beginning though, there was a dumpster for unwanted race clothes as well. I’d run the Warrior Dash in a blue T-shirt that on the front read Her Living Room Hero. My Twitter address was on the back. I let it go too. Only fitting that something that represented my entire family and supported some random thoughts and anicdotes on an Internet page read in over thirty countries around the globe should make its way into the world too, apart from us. Somewhere, somebody owns the very first Her Living Room Hero souvenir. Sorry, Mom. I promise I’m really not mad at you.

So today, I write. I’m doing the work – something I’ve started waking up and telling myself every day. I keep those words on an index card, tacked to a corkboard by my desk. A reminder that nothing comes free, that everything requires some level of sacrifice. That effort might lead to frustration and even heartache, but it’s the only thing that’s going to make life happen – not just happen by default, but really happen. If I want to be a writer, I have to write – no excuses. I have to do the work. I want my kids to know that. Kacie turned 14 today. She has eleven days left before the summer that will lead her into her new life in high school begins. I especially want her to know that. Do whatever makes you happy, baby girl. Be who you want to be. Dream of the impossible if that's what you want. But do the work. You won’t get where it is you really want to go if you don’t, no matter how awesome your shoes might be.

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Nowhere Above The Influence

Bad association spoils useful habits. That’s what my mom tried to always teach us when we were kids. She wanted the five of us to surround ourselves with people that we knew wouldn’t willingly try to lead us down paths we had no business going down. She understood that it’s hard to say no to doing things you know you shouldn’t when you’re outnumbered and feel out of place. That’s why it’s ironic that my mom tried to play such a significant role in my demise today.

Those of you who’ve spent any significant time reading Her Living Room Hero know I’ve tried numerous gimmicks to lose weight. I’ve attempted P90X (which is less of a gimmick and more of a crazy, intense workout if you’re up to the task…), wrapping my chest and gut with Saran Wrap while I work out (almost had to turn my Man Card in for this one…), eating more times during the day (seriously trying to figure the logic behind this…), eating less times during the day (actually doesn’t work as well as you’d think…), drinking chocolate milk three times a day (yes, this is an actual diet…), no carbs (boo…), more carbs (hooray!!!...), and so on and so on and so on.

But in the last two months, something’s changed. I’ve found a determination and focus and drive that I haven’t been able to find before. I’ve found within myself an understanding to do what I can rather than worry about what I can’t. With that, I’ve lost 33 pounds. For those who are bad at math like I am and have trouble visualizing calculations of the sort in your head, I’ve lost a petite preschooler. My goal? To lose a full-fledged kindergartner by May.

This time around I’ve done well at making time to exercise; I avoid eating things I shouldn’t eat. But with that, I allow myself to indulge in certain junk foods, to kill the craving before it kills me. Because of this, Santa’s job is safe as I’ve pretty much punted cookies from my diet. Hard to believe, I know. The separation of church and state between cookies and I hasn’t been an easy one, but we’re making progress. I don’t miss cookies nearly as much as they miss me, but I do miss them, as evident by my loss of will Sunday night when I ate an entire sleeve of Thin Mints in what I can only conclude was my body throwing a coup d’état. Those damn Girl Scouts. I seriously hope they make this year’s naughty list.

I was pretty bummed. I felt like all my hard work had been for nothing. Dramatic, I know. Coincidentally, the next day I received quite the random consolation as a friend who lives over 2,100 miles away admitted that she too had eaten a sleeve of Girl Scout Cookies the night before. It was like we were living parallel lives in a land of awesomeness. I told her that if our cycles synced up I was going to be pissed. She laughed. I was being serious.

As crappy as Sunday had turned out to be, Monday proved to be much better. I’d eaten right. I’d worked out, hard. I’d slept seven hours. I’d even watched like six episodes of Good Luck Charlie with Brady. All was right in the world. I’d forgotten about cookies. I'd forgotten that for a moment the day before I'd been human. I was awesome again.

But today being a newer day than yesterday, I get this:

It’s moments like this I think about hitting up Mark Zuckerberg and telling him there needs to be a “Time Out” function on Facebook, you know, for when you want to teach your friends a lesson that it’s not nice to post photos of Oreo Cookies on your wall so early in the morning, especially when you’d give anything to eat three or twelve of them for breakfast. Seriously. That’s like posting photos of Marc Anthony on JLo’s wall, or posting Baseball Hall of Fame updates on Barry Bonds’ wall, or tagging The Hamburglar in your check-ins at McDonald’s even though he’s not even there with you. But being the most awesome, most forgiving guy in the world, I chalked Susan’s moment of what seemed like “haha, suck it!” up to being a good friend who wouldn’t want Oreo’s biggest fan to miss out on celebrating 100 years of yummy goodness and I let it pass. And then my mom decided to chime in:

Rationalization tried to set in. A war between my two selves. I’d been a good boy these last two months. A really good boy. I wanted to go to the ball, but I had nothing to wear because my clothes don’t fit anymore, not like the used to…all snug and tight and huggy-like on my bottom. I decided at that moment I was going to have to miss the festivities, despite the best efforts of my mom and one of my closest friends to sabotage the shrinking confines of my body's mass. I was not going to be influenced by the thought of heaven in my mouth. I was above it all.

But as the day progressed, my willpower faded. How could I let the single greatest union ever known to man go uncelebrated? How could I, on this anniversary of all anniversaries, continue to pull a Chicago and look away every time I passed by that beautiful blue packaging in the grocery store the last two months? Oreos had been there for me when I needed them. They’re even still hanging around now that I don’t. They’ve been a good friend to my many a glass of cold, lonely milk. They’ve comforted me in times of good, bad, and in between. Mostly in between. How could I not, only for today, raise my glass just once more in honor of them? And if not in honor of them, in honour of them? I opted to throw them the best 100 year bash ever. Go big or go home. My only concern: what do you get the cookie that already has everything? More milk, of course.

Look at me. I'm such a bad host. I completely forget to make introductions. Mom, meet Susan. Susan, Mom. Hope you two enjoy Time Out, because I enjoyed my Oreos. All twelve of them. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s not really a party until somebody throws up…

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Redefining Greatness

Perspective. Probably one of the most important words in the English vocabulary. Right up there with love, compassion, understanding, kindness, and baseball.

Without perspective, we’d be a society of robots, all clinging to the same ideas and notions. We’d probably all wear the same, drab clothing. Eat the same, unimaginative foods. Watch the same, uninteresting television shows. Read the same books written in the same style and voice they’ve always been written in. But perspective brings with it a different outlook, a chance to see life through a pair of eyes much different from our own.

In my infinite fatherhood wisdom, I try challenging the kids to see life differently, to dream impossible. But I also hope to impress upon them the notion that sometimes things are just as they seem, that there is no hidden meaning or grand revelation hidden throughout the pages of a book or within the scenes of a movie. Maybe that’s because as an English major, I’m tired of having to explore what it is we’re supposed to think the writer was trying to say, what he wanted us to take away from his piece, what she wanted to tell us but for whatever reason couldn’t just come right out and say. Or as one graduate from the Pac-12 football champion University of Oregon’s English program told me earlier this week: “…but without lit majors, who would dissect the meaning of fog in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? Priorities, Brad.”

A non-fiction essay of mine was critiqued in class last night. I’d written a narrative about the nine months leading up to Kacie’s birth, surrounded by scenes in the delivery room telling of moments from our arrival to hers. The critiques noted the piece to be funny. Endearing. A nice array of emotions from the eyes of a father-to-be. A couple of people couldn’t grasp my non-linear approach to storytelling, how I could shift in an out of time, between being in the delivery room at one moment to remembering key moments from the previous nine months the next, or going from pre-conception to morning sickness to the realization and fear that I was not only going to have a daughter but be in charge of protecting her from every penis in the world. Some felt the funniness of that last part took away from the tenderness of the scene’s self-realization. But I hadn’t written it to be funny. I was serious, and unsure of my abilities as her protector. I mean, name one dad in the history of fatherdom that hasn’t worried about his daughter’s virtue at one point in time. Deadbeat dads don’t count.

Most of the critiques were encouraging. Insightful. As a writer I definitely want to know what works for my audience and what doesn’t. But I also get that not everyone is my intended audience.

Then the critiques got interesting.

One person challenged how I’d crafted my dialogue, saying that she felt it was unrealistic, that she doubts I really speak to my wife in a jocular, slang tone. I knew immediately that she’s not a reader of Her Living Room Hero or else she’d have noticed a common theme, that I’m willing to put all of myself out there to be judged harshly by a world I’ll never meet while simultaneously allowing myself to live up to the cliché of what you see is what you get. In so many words, her critique noted that because of my writing style, my voice (which has always been received well), I’d never be one of the greats because I “don’t use language that is timeless” in my work. I guess that depends on what one’s idea of greatness is. If you ask me, the world can keep Ernest Hemmingway and Joan Didion. I’ll stick with Bill Cosby and Paul Reiser. While we’re at it, give me John Hughes as well. I aspire to suck as badly as these three did as writers.

All of this takes me back to perspective. Can’t something just be what it is because that’s what it is? The obsessive need to pick something apart promotes the notion that without a deeper or hidden meaning to something it holds no value. It’s like having a roundtable to discuss why a green apple is green and concluding after three hours of debate that it’s green, well… because it’s jealous of the red ones. Wasn’t it created to be green? Weren’t we too created to be different? To be unique? To be who we are? That’s my idea of timeless. Of greatness.

Doesn’t obsessing over what we feel someone is trying to say versus what they’ve actually said remove us from their perspective, thus making it our own? Doesn’t seeing something from someone else’s perspective afford us the ability to experience life the way it was meant to be experienced?

I don’t want my kids seeing the world through such a narrow-minded scope, because if they do, they’re going to miss out on so much of it. And life, well…life already goes by too fast. Nine months. Thirteen years. I can’t attest to where the time’s gone, but at least I have my memories, my perspective.

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Falling In Love With the Dog Next Door

Today is February 14^th. For cynics, it’s also Valentine’s Day. So perhaps it’s appropriate that today irony and coincidence collide in my world because I will be teaching my children Life Lesson number 1,429,754: falling in love means getting your heart broken.

I know I’m in no real authoritative position to be a dad. If my kids could just learn from my mistakes rather than my successes they’d be bound for greatness. Unfortunately for them, they have to watch every wild idea that never comes to fruition, strap in during the downward spirals, and laugh when the simplest of projects turns out to be one colossal disaster. But what they’ve seen in the last several days has been a new experience for them, one they haven’t been quite sure what to make of.

It all started on Friday. Had I not gotten home from work early I don’t know that I’d have ever seen her. But I did get home from work early, and I did see her.

She was pacing back and forth in front of our stairway. Short, deliberate steps. At first I thought nothing of her, she was with another guy. But then she looked at me. We held the other’s gaze for what seemed like hours. I couldn’t force myself to look away. There was something about her, something different from the rest, something that made me want to abandon everything I believed in.

The guy she was with caught our mutual affinity for each other. It was impossible not to.

“Hey,” he said. I hey’d him back. He watched as she unapologetically made her way towards me. I could feel my heart quicken in rhythm. I knew that walking past her was the right thing to do, but with each step she took towards me I felt myself losing all sense of right and wrong. “She likes you,” he noted.

Unable to make my legs work, a whirlwind of thoughts bombarded my mind. All of the conversations Traci and I’d had with the kids about choices and responsibility and timing and space began to invade my thoughts, trying to break the focus of my tunnel vision. I forced myself to break away from her stare, tried thinking of baseball. And still I couldn’t get past her.

“How old is she?” I asked, leaning down to pet my neighbor’s puppy.

“Six weeks.”

I ran my hand over her back, massaged her ears. Her black coat was smooth to the touch, interrupted only by the white patch of fur on her breast and a white tip on her tail. With every stroke she inched closer to me, eventually leaning into me as if we hadn’t only just met but instead had known each other our entire lives.

Her owner told me of how he really wasn’t her owner, but her temporary guardian. She was a rescue dog. A rescue dog in need of a permanent home. He continued to tell me how well behaved she was, and that because she was a Black Lab and German Shepard mix she’d be very loyal. He mentioned that for six weeks old she’d yet to have any accidents indoors. What he didn’t say was that she’d also be very big. Too big for our apartment.

For twenty minutes I allowed myself to live in the land of “What If” while I played with her. Despite our short time together, I knew that saying goodbye wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done. Before parting ways I asked my neighbor if he could do me a favor and hide the dog from my kids if he happened to be out walking her again while they were in transit from the car to home or vice versa. He said he would. I knew that he knew I wasn’t talking about the kids.

Over the course of the weekend Traci reminded me of how we’d preached to the kids that we couldn’t get a dog until we made the commitment to get a house. That was still a year off. I rebutted by saying that we weren’t just getting any dog, but a rescue dog – a dog that needed us. She couldn’t deny the idea’s nobility. But my wife defended her stance by noting we’d incur veterinarian bills, cost of food, grooming, our rent would go up, and we’d have to fork over $500 for the pet deposit. I wanted to ask her how she could be so totally right about something but still be so completely wrong. My options were limited to letting the idea go or bringing in reinforcements. I made the best choice I could at the time.

“We’re getting a dog!?” Kacie asked.

“No. We have the opportunity to get a dog,” I corrected her.

“We are not getting a dog,” our resident drill sergeant barked.

“Can it sleep with me?” Kacie asked.

“No, Kacie. It’s going to sleep with me,” Brady said.

“The dog’s not sleeping with anybody, because we’re not getting a dog.”

“Why not?” the kids asked.

“Because a dog is not financially responsible right now.”

“We’ll eat out less,” Kacie offered.

“Yeah. Daddy will eat less Raising Cane’s,” Brady chimed in. I wasn’t a fan of how easily he gave me up. But he had a point. There were a lot of unnecessary extras in our life that we could easily do without, especially if it meant rescuing such a beautiful damsel in distress.

“We’re not getting a dog.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” I said. She was being totally reasonable.

It was three against one, and yet those of us on Team Puppy were severely outnumbered. Before we disbanded, I suggested to the kids that they call their grandparents and hit them up for monetary contributions to our cause. I don’t think they ever did. The little Benedict Arnolds.

The weekend turned into Monday, and I couldn’t get the dog next door out of my mind. The talk of getting a puppy still lingered. Brady was now willing to give up In-N-Out. Kacie was willing to work extra soccer games on the weekends. I was willing to use the toll roads less. Traci wanted to come around, I could tell. My wife’s also the practical one of the lot, so it’s her job to be the killjoy in the family. It’s a role she hates but has become quite good at. Oscar caliber, even.

Monday night while filling a prescription for eye glasses, I tried telling Traci that it’d be pointless to buy a dog further down the road when we could make a difference now. She argued that the thousand dollars it’d take just to get a puppy in our home right now was not in the budget - that the unexpected prescription wasn’t even in the budget. I hadn’t thought about it that way. But I wasn’t going to give up. I reminded her of the things we could live without. She hadn’t forgotten and still had no plans of taking them into consideration. Despite my pleas, Traci wouldn’t waver in her stance on the subject: our family was not going to be a part of this rescue. Someone else would have to play the hero while I was left again as the hero wannabe, watching helplessly on the sidelines. My heart hurt. Weird, right?

My lesson here, kids? Falling in love isn’t as easy as it looks on TV. It’s hard work. Frustrating. That two hearts can fit together so completely and not belong together. That regardless of how cuddly the object of your affection might be, it’s still going to have to be walked at five in the morning and most likely going to chew on your shoes and toys, thus proving your mom right in that waiting to get a dog is probably the best thing to do right now. But please also don’t mistake the point of us not getting a dog to mean we’re going to In-N-Out tonight. That’s not happening either. 

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Creatively Writing...or something like that.

My mom recently told me that reading Her Living Room Hero was her very own way of being able to visit Planet Brad.

I’d never really thought about it that way – what people think when reading my blog. Sure I want readers to like what it is I put into the ether. Yes, I want everyone to tell their friends that they’re missing out on the single-greatest undiscovered talent out there, but I’ve never given much thought to what goes through readers’ minds while taking in what I can really only equate to my written version of diarrhea of the mouth. I write, well, because it feels good. And because I don’t mind telling the world how dysfunctional I can be at times.

With classes starting back up last week, I’m not sure how often I’m going to be able to publicly out myself over the next few months in this forum I've so deftly created. I really want to write for you every week to ten days. I’m not going to even pretend like that’s going to happen. What I am going to do is try something different – at least for this posting.

What you’re about to read is a short piece I just finished for my Advanced Creative Writing Non-Fiction class. The assignment was to write about a place. Any place. A place that holds a special interest to us. A place that we hate. A place we’re indifferent to. We just had to write about a place. Of course I can’t do anything strictly by the book, so I added my own twist. Made it my own. Paula Abdul would be proud. Without further ado, I give you...

Temple of Ted

For Norm it was Cheers. Probably because everyone knew his name. For Clark Kent it was the Daily Planet. Most likely because it was one of the few places he could hide in plain sight. For me, I’d have to say it was in Fort Scott, Kansas at our neighbor Ted’s house, but not because everyone knew my name or because I could hide there in plain sight. I spent many hours of my impressionable youth watching psychotic events unfold in Ted’s front yard, and eventually participating in. I learned something of myself at an early age: who I wanted to be when I grew up, who I didn’t want to be, and maybe more importantly, about who I was capable of becoming.

     It was at Ted’s house I’d learned karate. Sort of.  Not really. But nevertheless, sort of.

Ted lived across the road from us, in a slightly rundown house. With its peeling white outer shell, ripped screen door separating Ted’s private life from the rest of the world, its multiple broken windows bandaged with duct tape in the hopes of minimizing further damage, Ted’s house had seen a lot of abuse, but this was rural Kansas, and a rundown house was often a sign of stature – it meant you had enough money to sparingly invest in maintaining your house, unlike those with dilapidated houses who could not. This particular rundown house was more than just a rundown house though. It was also a dojo. Ish. Funny to think that my new stepdad’s last name was Temple – which in some weird way made it my last name too for the time being - and yet it was at Ted’s house I religiously received most of my early education outside of elementary school.

Ted and my stepdad were best friends, which never really made sense to me because Ted was several years older than my stepdad, and my stepdad, unlike Ted, was pretty cool. Maybe they were friends though because they were both overweight white guys who sported the kind of crazy afros that any self-respecting black man in the 1980s would have been ashamed to don. Maybe it was because they both liked karate. Or maybe it was because neither of them lived in dilapidated houses. I don’t know.

Ted and my stepdad always met up at Ted’s rundown dojo on the weekends to watch old karate movies before recessing to the front yard where they’d proceed to practice the fine art of not killing each other while wielding nun chucks and kendo sticks. They’d see who could break the most stacks of wood with their bare hands. They’d dance around in an oddball cadence of high flying acrobatic leaps and jumps that really weren’t so high flying. Or acrobatic. Instead it was more like a two man circus of idiots, both of them wanting to be Bruce Lee. One would wear a white karate outfit while the other a black, signifying good and bad. Honestly, the only thing they were any good at was being bad at karate. If you lived in southeast Kansas in the early eighties and felt the ground shake, it was sure to be one of two things: The aftershocks of their acrobatorial fleet of foot landings or Bruce Lee rolling over in his grave. Probably both. The nuts and bolts of it were pretty obvious in that neither Ted nor my stepdad were Bruce Lee, and more importantly to me, none of the three came close to being Daniel Larusso.

Wanting me to have a better education than this, my stepdad introduced me to the Church of Miyagi, which is where I became friends with Daniel, despite our own difference in age. Daniel and his instructor, Mister Miyagi, made karate look unlike anything I’d ever known it to be. For once it made sense. Daniel and Mister Miyagi taught me that karate meant more than seeing who could beat the crap out of whom or who could break the most things that were probably better left unbroken…like hands. Karate was about finding within yourself the desire to be something better than you’d been the day before, knowing when to stand up for yourself and when to back down – that backing down didn’t make you less of a man, just a smarter one. That you didn’t have to use nun chucks or be overweight with an angfro to be awesome. Before long I too began practicing karate at Ted’s, minus the nun chucks, garb, and earth shaking stunts.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from my time spent at the Temple of Ted and its eccentric versions of karate was that fear only controls you if you let it. When I moved to Fort Scott in 1980 I was afraid of just about everything. I didn’t really know it at the time, but I had good reason to be. When I left in the fall of 1984, I was stronger. Maybe not physically, but mentally. I was better prepared. Better prepared to face what awaited me in an unknown world called Texas. An unknown world, where, a few years later, I’d find Ted again.

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Now that you've caught my Pinterest...

Because my life needs more excuses, more complications, and more reasons to procrastinate, I have finally given into the craziness that is Pinterest. Shoot me now.

To say that I’ve given in might be a bit of a stretch, when what I’ve actually done is nothing more that visit the web site and piddle around with it. I’d be lying if I said that I was technologically savvy. My kids know more about today’s technology than I do, which I guess in today’s society really doesn’t say much about their ability to adapt as it does about my lack of ability to. So when some new craze hits the Internet I tend to avoid it, not because I doubt its potential to be interesting, but because I know that I’ll fully understand it as much as I fully understand, well…ice hockey, which I’ve been told is more than just hit the puck into the net and celebrate by jumping around in a circle on the ice like a bunch of teenage girls who all just got asked to the 8^th grade dance by the most popular guys in school. I just don’t get it. But after thirty minutes of clicking on pictures on Pinterest I can already see that this site may just be the death of me. Literally.

While mindlessly browsing the different posts (or pins I guess?) I saw everything. Wedding dresses. Wedding photos. Family photos. Furniture ideas. Craft ideas. Wardrobe concoctions. Food concoctions. Who knew there were such things as hula hoop chandeliers, a bedazzled Mercedes Benz, or pepperoni pizza casserole?

As I continued to scroll and click my lunch hour away, I stumbled across something called a no bake cookies and cream bar. What makes it no bake, you ask? Good question. What makes this bar no bake is that the cookies get the snot beat out of them in a food processor before being granted the good fortune of consummating with a melted butter and marshmallow mixture – much like rice krispie treats. Oh, and the cookie portion of the program? That’s right. Oreos. You know how I feel about Oreos.

I told myself that I had to have the recipe, you know, for one day in the future when I’m feeling bad about myself and need to indulge in a pan of creamy, chocolaty forgiveness. But as quickly as I tried to talk myself into finding the recipe I closed the browser. I mean, why would I willingly subject my carb and sugar-starved self to the humiliation of asking that something called Hungry Girl Foldit Flatbread be added to our grocery list if I was only going to give in to the cravings of my more animalistic side?

That lasted all of about fifteen seconds. I convinced myself that just because I download the recipe didn’t mean I’d have to go home and make/eat/suffer from it tonight. Right? So I went back to Pinterest’s web site and tried scrolling through the various needles again. Needle. Pin. Same difference. I was clamoring through the Internet’s newest haystack at a frustratingly slow pace. What I needed was an easier way to sift through the unnecessary stuff to get to my version of heaven. Something that would lead me through the pearly gates and into the eternal bliss my taste buds so intimately desired. If only, if only, if only. And then I remembered seeing a search feature at the top. And you thought I was over exaggerating about not being tech savvy. Told ya so.

So I typed “oreo” into the search field and clicked the little magnifying glass to the right. You know how when Pandora opened the box her whole world changed? Well, she had it easy. All at once I was greeted with picture after picture, recipe after recipe of the kind of Oreo insanity that no one person should ever have to be subjected to all at once, especially when that one person is me and cannot compute words like “restraint” and “moderation” and “willpower” when there are Oreos around.

My eyes focused on cupcakes topped with Oreos, chocolate covered Oreos, Oreos combined with cream cheese and Jell-O to create the effect of dirt, Oreos adorned with candy corn and miniature Reese’s cups transformed into Thanksgiving Day turkeys, and Oreo cheesecake cupcakes. They salivated over a chocolate chip cookie with an Oreo cookie baked into the middle. The coup de grace was chocolate chip cookie dough layered with whole Oreos layered with brownie mix. Parents, don’t leave whatever this is called under the tree on Christmas Eve unless you want your kids to hate you forever for killing Santa.

Now you can begin to see why I said that Pinterest is going to be the death of me. We’re all adults here, mostly. No sense in beating around the bush: I’m going to carpe diem the crap out of every single one of these recipes. So thank you, Sherri Tash, my Facebook friends, and the rest of the Pinterest world for being such a bad influence. I’ll be sure to put your names at the top of the list when I start taking up a collection for a new pairs of fat jeans.

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Awesome Is As Awesome Does

So I get an email from my mom yesterday. She wants to know why I haven’t written anything in a while. I’m afraid to tell her that I’ve been extremely busy with school, because she’ll just say that I’m making excuses and then proceed to ground me from TV. Mom, I’m thirty-six. You can’t ground me anymore. And no, you can’t have my wife ground me either. At least I hope you can’t.

Later on in the day I get an email from a new reader.  “Holy procrastination Batman! Writer’s block? Why nothing since October?” Yes, I’ve been busy. Who are you, my mother? A few minutes later another email from the same reader. “Oh I see…you were in mourning of the Rangers’ loss.”

Like any infomercial I’ve ever been suckered into purchasing stuff I really don’t need from, this is where I say wait, that’s not all.

I wake up this morning to a late-night Facebook post on my wall from a friend noting “October 27^th?!?!?!?!?!? Come On! Quit your tweeting and get those creative juices flowing. Been waiting forever on a new blog from you!”

Now I know what it feels like to be in Nicholas Sparks’ shoes. Being awesome is not easy.

But you know who makes being awesome look easy though? My kids. Seriously. Those turds never cease to amaze me.

Take Sunday, for instance. New Year’s Day, actually. Because the first day of 2012 had decided to disguise itself like any other day throughout the year and not host the Rose Bowl Parade or bowl games, Kacie and Brady and I decided to get out of the house. An unscheduled shopping expedition to Target.

Anyone who has kids knows that you can’t take them shopping without telling them over and over and over again to stop touching every frigging thing on the shelves.

Brady and I are on a mission: Batting tee. Light bulbs. Mechanical pencils.

Kacie has a few things of her own to shop for, not so much out of necessity but because some of the money she’d received over the holidays was burning a hole in her pocket. I get it. What’s money good for if you can’t spend it on useless crap, or in my case when I was her age, pack after pack and box after box of baseball cards that will one day make you rich.  The top item on her list? An iPod docking station that could also function as an alarm clock, which is no Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card if you ask me.

We’re a divide and conquer type of family, so we do just that. Brady and I make our way to the sporting good section while Kacie disappears into the jungle of goods just waiting to be purchased, taken home, used once, and never thought of again.

Things are going according to plan, too according to plan, actually. Kacie’s already back with her must have item. Brady hasn’t touched a single thing that he wasn’t supposed to, which I find to be a bit suspicious. Perhaps he’s turned over a new leaf for the new year. Maybe he’s suffering a hangover from the prior evening’s festivities of college football and an over indulgence of shows on PBS Kids.

And then he seems them: the Valentine’s display of singing stuffed animals. He hits the brakes. Holds the phone. Stops the presses. Backs the truck up. Like a fish drawn to a shiny spinning metal object in a lake that looks nothing like a fish but is supposed to look appetizing, he’s hooked. It’s goodnight, Gracie. Any chance of us getting out of Target without distraction has left the building, without us.

“Brady, seriously, dude. You don’t have to touch every single one of them.”

“But Daddy.” He’s already squeezed the paw on a fourth stuffed animal, triggering another quirky song and dance routine from the toy. Our first shopping trip of the New Year is proving that restraint was not on my son’s list of resolutions.

“No buts.”

“But Daddy.”

“But Brady.”

“But Daddy.”

“But Brady.”

He laughs. This back and forth “Who’s on First” routine of ours is a funny game to him. And now at least ten animals are performing different acts. People are staring. They’re also laughing – probably because they are smarter than I am and left their kids at home.

“But Daddy. Watch this.” He ignites a brown puppy dog – a puppy dog that likes big butts. It must have had a really good upbringing too because it cannot lie either. If only Pinocchio’s daddy could have taken him to Target and bought this singing/dancing dog for him. Perhaps things would have been different for the poor dummy.

“Fine.  You stay here and get whatever this is out of your system. I need to find my mechanical pencils.” I leave my little Baryshnikov dancing with his new playmates at the aisle’s endcap and rummage through the anemic selection of lead writing instruments, breaking focus from my search every few seconds to make sure he hasn’t been shoplifted or wandered away to the next thing that caught his eye.

After several minutes of this, I feel a tug on my jeans pocket.

“Daddy. You have to see this. This dog is sooooooooooo awesome!”

“Kid, I’ve heard it. And seen it. And I’m not so sure that the song is entirely appropriate for you to be dancing to.”

“But Daddy.”

“But Brady.”

“But Daddy. Just. Watch,” he says, using hand gestures to over-emphasize the serious of his last two words. He sets the dog down on the shelf in front of us and proceeds to bust a move.

Dollar signs flood my mind. If he can just learn to also sing and play basketball he’ll have broken down the walls of generations of stereotypes the men in my family have helped live up to and forge a new path of fortune and fame for moi. And to think, I didn’t even have to buy him a voucher for future breast implants like some parents! Best. Father. Ever.

My self-indulgent trance is quickly broken as I hear Kacie giggling from behind me. She covers her mouth, as if my seeing her laughing at her little brother’s antics will cause me to disregard her wanting teenage desire for the world to know that she thinks he’s a pest. Yes, Beezus. We know how you want us to think you feel about Ramona.

Shoppers again stop and watch, this time in droves. Okay, not droves. Handfuls may be more accurate. Nevertheless, they’re laughing, not because I am an idiot and willing brought my children to the store with me, but because they too see how lucky I am, which leads me to this revelation: Best. Father Baby maker. Ever.

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