Chapter 4: Bell bottoms, muscle cars and rock n’ roll

To a child growing up in the ’70s, everything about the world seemed huge and grandiose. I’m sure that many kids feel like their surroundings are huge and grandiose, but the ’70s were even more huge and grandiose in a way that expressed a sense of excess and complete abandonment for all things not huge and grandiose. Bell bottom pants were all the rage, spanning monstrous proportions, flared out and seemingly capable of creating their own low pressure systems—especially to a kid hovering around that precipitous adult knee-level. Muscle cars were big, loud, colorful and ever-present, constantly speeding down our street, a risk to life and limb for anyone tooling around on a Big Wheel. Rock stars were the first of their breed—crying out for...

Posted by on Feb 2, 2008 in Family and Life | 2 comments

Chapter 3: Blame it on the food poisoning

I have a shocking revelation for you: I’m no perfect parent. And here is shocker number two: I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing. We’re all human and prone to mistakes, errors in judgment and the occasional indiscretion or two. As a parent, I’ve said and done many things that have me questioning my ability to be a good role model for my kids. Most of these things revolve around losing my temper, letting a few four-letter words slip out, or laughing at inappropriate moments. I mean, I never hit my kids or emotionally abuse them, let me make that clear. I’m talking about the mistakes all parents make from time to time. The ones that make us all question our parenting skills. There’s just something about these small human...

Posted by on Jan 20, 2008 in Family and Life | 2 comments

Chapter 2: My phantom self

I’m not sure when it happened first, but parts of me have started to disappear. These parts, well, they are not physical parts, but parts of who I am. My music. My writing. My free time. My will to imagine and play. Freedom. Sweet freedom. Imagine yourself beginning life as a large block of granite when you were born. As you got older, the granite started to take more shape and definition, because as people chipped away at it, it became you. A nose appeared. Eyes grew out of sockets which were once flat planes. Cheekbones slowly erupted from the surface. Hair formed and details emerged that became the story of who you are today. There’s a point at which the chipping away becomes more subtractive than additive, if that makes sense. It’s the...

Posted by on Jan 8, 2008 in Family and Life | 1 comment

Chapter 1: The Realization Sets In

“Princess Leia is dirty, mommy,” says the girl, holding her armless action figure up in the air. She repeats this phrase at least three times, because a two-year-old can never be heard enough. That girl is my daughter. For a brief moment, I close my eyes, inhale the smell of breakfast being cooked a hundred times over, and I wonder where I am and exactly how I got there. When I open my eyes, I see tables crammed with people in a small, dark, dingy coastal cafe. The kitchen is a half-walled-off section of the room and I watch floating torsos move about the grill, chewing gum and flipping omelets with little interest or passion for what they are doing. The decor is rustic, and it feels like I’m eating breakfast at Grandma’s cabin, only...

Posted by on Dec 8, 2007 in Family and Life | 2 comments