The Muse...

Posted by The Author , Thursday, May 13, 2010 11:36 PM




Tonight as I sat down before the keyboard intent on writing, I hit that spot I sometimes do when my want of writing is greater than my need for writing. It's times like this that I often lose momentum on a project and end up relegating it the “Visit Later” folder on the hard drive. More often than not those stories and essays languish in the lonesome dregs of the virtual desktop never to be visited again regardless of the title of the folder, almost as if they were a freshly dumped girlfriend whom I just told “Let's be friends”.

Many times when I need to write it is because I have recognized a problem and want to logic out solutions by riffing on the page. I used to write a great deal of poetry. Horrible, overly emotional self indulgent fluff (okay, it wasn't all that bad) but that stopped for the most part when I met my beautiful wife. Oh, I have had resurgences of the poetic muse, but they were when I explored technique and nearly always involved... drinking.

Why? Why did I all but give up poetry as I gave up music and song writing? Easy; because I was no longer sad, no longer wallowing in self pity. Dumb as it may sound, sometimes I'm sad that I'm not sad anymore. I've never had the ego to say that I was good, but god damnit I was prolific! Sometimes I just miss the way the words flowed from my fingers.

So tonight, as I sat here wondering what to write, I thought, well, what's on my mind?

(In no order of importance, Ladies and gentlemen your top ten!)


  1. The Time's Square Bombing (but I get enough of that via the inside-track at work).


  2. Arizona and the immigration issue (but I get enough of that on talk radio and around the water cooler at work as well)


  3. Turns out stem cells work different in space according to recent research (that actually has me pretty intrigued as far as meaning and potential goes)


  4. Voyager 2 stopped transmitting it's usual telemetry and began sending back unintelligible signals which has “The Scientists” scratching their heads. (hey, I like weird stuff)


  5. My Wife is awesome. (Just a fact)



  6. Family's coming to visit soon (Yeah!)


  7. I'm anxious to find out if I got promoted, but the results are going to be late due to the floods in Tennessee. (then again, if the answer is 'no', I can wait)


  8. I'm really digging on the debut album by “Them Crooked Vultures”. ( I mean how does one go about getting John Paul Jones of Led Zep to be your bass player?)


  9. I really enjoyed the grilled Portabellas, squash and Polenta I made for dinner.


  10. My kids are awesome. And a pain in the ass. Sometimes an awesome pain in the ass. And I love them for it.




What's that you say? Really? Number ten? You think so? Hmmmm.... Yeah. I guess besides number five (which doesn't surprise anyone who knows her) it's the only one relevant to this blog. The title of the blog after all is “A Husband and Father” and not “Bored Dude Drinking Wine and spelling Dog backwards”.

So I guess I'll write about their awesomeness and pain in the ass-ness.

The Oldest.... Hmmm... we need new nick-names... We'll call her 'Rosie'. Well, Rosie hit an even 10.0 on the PITA (Pain In The Ass) Scale yesterday. It was just an out and out lousy day behavior wise. Wednesdays are always hard and we may have figured out why. Rosie has (we are finally admitting) some attention issues to go along with her stunning memory, intellect, creativity and ability to just well... figure shit out. Put simply she is a loud wiggle worm. Wednesdays are rough (we figured out) because;

(A) Mom picks her up early from “after school care” to take her to the sitters so she can see her friend. This means that she misses out on that extra recess that let's her get her ya-ya's out.

(B) She goes to Ballet which, though she wants to be a dancer, she just doesn't have the patience for. Add to that that her Ballet Teacher thinks that she is at Julliard and the next recital will be at the Bolshoi, well... Rosie doesn't take well to that level of seriousness... she's six years old damnit.

So the fact is, by the time she gets into our loving-just worked eight hours and am dog tired-arms she has lot's of ya-ya's... Mucho Ya-Ya's... EPIC fricken ya-ya's to get out.

So yesterday she had the privilege to go get frozen yogurt with her friends (Mom Chaperoned) after dance. Let's just say that it did not go well. Ya-yas won over. She had her first ever “Go to your room until bedtime” night. Yes, she was paroled for dinner, but it was a bare bones “eat and don't you dare laugh dinner”. There was crying, there was discussing, there was more crying... and generally, there was crying.

Today, Mom figured out the Ya-Ya connection.

So today (as we often do anyway) we had a family bike ride after work. The route is about four miles round trip over residential, city and then waterfront bike path. It doesn't take too long, today just an hour. Rosie rides her own bike (and today was especially proficient, even experimented with Standing Up and Trying to Pedal) Mom and Dad ride theirs and The Youngest... Hmm... Nick Name... 'Itty Bitty' well... she usually sits in the child seat behing Mom. She's 4 and she is (as her nick name would indicate) little. We are just a about to upgrade Rosie to a larger bike and will re-attach the training wheels and re-gift her old bike to Itty Bitty. In the meantime we have considered getting a “tag along” (the 'half bike' things that connects to the back of a big bike that the kids can peddle but not really control). I digress.

Itty Bitty should be able to get her own ya-ya's out right? Well Dad said (jokingly) that she could chase him by running after him. So, we gave it a try. Now understand something... this kid is little. We can barely force MAYBE a thousand calories into her on a good day... Getting Itty Bitty to eat anything other than cheese, chocolate, yogurt or Pediasure is neither a science nor art... it's a crap shoot.

This little girl ran. She RAN man... She must have run the equivalent of a 5k for her size. Even when she was tired she still wanted to walk and pick flowers. I took a movie of part of it. She was amazing. Just Kept Running. She even had her own little 'kick' (shout out to present or former runners).

It wasn't a perfect night. Dinner and manners and then baths etc were not perfect. But that time on the bikes (and for Itty Bitty; the open road) was awesome. All of those awesome moments, validated by knowing glances between my wife and I, those moments where we acknowledge that “We made these independent miracles before us”, they are what life is... they are why I am happy that I cannot write poetry... The muse can go to hell.

(The author would like to thank his wife, Justin Vineyards, Them Crooked Vultures, The Smiths, Incubus and Outkast for proofreading and the patience to actually link all the things he meant to when he first put fingers to keys)

Still here?

Enjoy the Music






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