Really Back

My girl’s at her first day of preschool today. I hope posts like the last one don’t show that I’m only frustrated by her. Not so at all. Read some Grace Paley or something. Frustration comes with parenting. People who don’t have kids, or who are pregnant, might not get that—I know, I was there. She’s beautiful, smart, good-hearted, talented, everything you could want. Just hard to do my job and take care of her at the same time. Love this new preschool she’s going to. And my wife’s taking her in the morning. For the past two years, I’ve been taking O. to daycare. Now I’ll be picking her up at 4. Small changes mean a lot. Means I’ll be able to hit writing ground running after my first cup of coffee, which is when I work best.

Bought strings for my guitar this weekend. I’ve been missing the low E for two months. That’s not right. At the music store—West L.A. Music where I spent a lot of teenage time—I played drums for the first time in 4 years. An electronic drum set, sounded just fine—a Zeppelin setting, Ringo setting, techno setting. I want that drum set. My dream: a house or apartment with an office, backyard, pets, a studio with a 16 track and electronic drum set in the office, healthier food, a vacation now and again, more time to write. Not a crazy expensive dream.

My dad’s working on something—he’s a writer, you know—that touches on Ufology, except he has no respect for the subject. I probably shouldn’t write that because he reads this and it will be worth a phone call. But if I’m ever going to get rolling with this blog again, I’ve got to write about the stuff that’s happening. Always discouraging talking to my family about the subject. It’s not that people don’t believe, it’s that they don’t want to believe.

Sundays we go to my parents house where the two cousins get together. I was anti-social and rude. Stayed inside watching Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary. A relaxing Sunday. Right now our apartment looks like we just moved in. Crap and boxes everywhere. My wife is in the process of detoxing the apartment, fall cleaning. My life is basically uninteresting. Needs to change, and will. I live in a perpetual state of, Things will be different. Ala Fidel Castro, as I learned in a good “American Experience” documentary last night. I am my own dictator.

I am having reader’s block. Every book I pick up lasts around five pages. I can’t read fiction right now. The small, personal stories of fiction just seem self-obsessed, avoiding reality, wallowing in bad behavior, not hitting me where I need it. Actually, I shouldn’t say that entirely. I just finished Christopher Meeks’ Middle Aged Man and the Sea—my cohort in the recent Entertainment Weekly piece, we traded books. Enjoyed it. A lot of good lines: “I take the bouquet of flowers from behind my back and enter our condo. The air feels stale, stiff, like a forgotten closet.” (from “He’s Home”) Since then, fiction hasn’t been working. Non-fiction not doing much better, currently. I hate when I don’t have a book to read.

What else? Not much. Time to get back into the swing of writing here.