Tomorrow I’m flying to Atlanta to speak at AimingLow’s blogging conference aptly named NonConference.
This will be my first speaking event where I address bloggers. I’m grateful to have been asked and over the past few months have tried to create a worthwhile presentation/discussion for attendees. My topic is about taking risks with your writing and trusting in your abilities.
I have slowly turned into a guy who dumps water in garbage cans.
It started at work. I have an office with a little garbage can. Since I’m the only one that is ever in my office I have full control of what goes in the trash. I only toss paper in there. Even though I eat in my office my two turkey sandwiches for lunch are packaged in tupperware containers. I have a napkin that gets tossed each meal but most of the time it goes unused. I don’t even put any condiments on the sandwich. Just spinach, turkey, cheese and tomato. So, none of my foodstuffs end up on the napkin or in the garbage.
Nope. It doesn’t.
Freshman year of high school I was in speech class working on a monologue about pet peeves. We each had to pick one annoyance and present it to the class. I racked my brain trying to come up with something that bothered me but nothing surfaced. I finally found one almost twenty years later.
I don’t know about you, but I can go a whole week without ever checking in.
Just about every moment of the day is spent in stimulus/response. This is not a bad thing. At work it’s important to stay on task. When I’m home I need to feed myself and clean the catbox. Also, I write and talk to the girlfriend. Plus that paying the bills thing and laundry.
One of the posts I lost recently was the original Promote Your Blog On My Blog Right Now! Basically I gave the middle finger to my advertisers and said…
Hey, you know how you pay to be here each month? You’re a sucker because I’m going to let everyone do that shit for free!
My father has a strong will.
One time, back in college, we were shopping at a mall. At that point in my life I was terrified of talking to girls. He was completely strung out on caffeine. We saw some cute girl working at the Gap. He said, “I’ll make a deal with you. You go up and ask that girl out, and I’ll quit caffeine cold turkey.” Both of these goals seemed preposterous. You don’t just approach a woman after a lifetime of never doing so. Same with cutting out Diet Coke. Well, I couldn’t do it. He did. Fifteen years later and he hasn’t touched a drop of it since.
This is maybe the weirdest thing about me, physically.
I’ll try to explain it because there’s no way in hell I’m going to show it to you. Let’s start at the beginning. When I was nineteen I bought a Steven Halpern chakra balancing cd. Right away I could feel these seven centers of energy, and could adjust the intensity of the feelings by focusing on them. During the music my head would lightly sway side to side. It was not me moving my head, or at least I wasn’t consciously. It just moved on it’s own.
It’s 1am. Why am I awake?
About halfway through the day it occurred to me that I was sick. Which, for the past three years, has become a rare event. I was violently ill last Christmas Day and missed the holiday lying in bed puking. Don’t feel bad for me. I still received all the gifts. Wouldn’t that be awful if my parents had returned my presents because I wasn’t downstairs opening them with family? Even at thirty-six I would have been devastated. Do that to an eight-year old and you’ll create a future sociopath.
I have a friend who is in the middle of a divorce.
Her ex-husband is causing emotional distress. They have a child and she’s unable to completely break from him. He’s not a bad guy but has a number of issues that he hasn’t responsibly addressed.
I'll never give this child another cigarette, pinky swears!
