It’s been one of those times. You know them. Those times when the blank screen is so ominous, so frightening, so overwhelming that it cannot be contemplated. And yet, it cannot be ignored. It must be faced.

Wait. I think there’s avoidance behavior apple crisp in the fridge.

O.K. I’m not really writing anything. However, I was reading Dave Barry and found the best headline I’ve seen in a while!

Thanks Dave, and Russell Blair.

Folks who write for their livelihood have ways to get it done. They set goals.

Today I’ll type 5,000 words. 10,000 words. 1 chapter.

I wanted to do that tonight. Set a goal. I cracked open Newsgator, my online feed catcher, to see what was up.

Endearing posts. Touching words. Fun stuff. Stuff with cool pictures. Screamingly funny posts. Words of wisdom.

Today I’m exhausted. Not endearing, touching, funny, photogenic, or wise. Here, however, is a picture of me in my jammie-doodles squishing Son. He was pissed!

OK- he giggled too.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Suburban Turmoil and her entries on Toddler Beauty Pageants, you MUST! It’s getting heated up over there, and it’s fun to watch!

Her descriptions of the mothers berating their children, the makeup and false eyelashes, the fake tans. The discomfort you can’t help but feel as you hear of a frustrated mother taking the stage to remove a child who is not performing.

These types of pageants are horrible. We talk about women being objectified. This is where it starts. If we are worried about our children being kidnapped from the streets, we need to take a moment and consider how many times we as a people have gone out of our way to make them seem older than they are, and to foist adult secondary sexual characteristics upon them.

False eyelashes? Makeup? I’ve seen that makeup. That ain’t stage makeup! (30+ years of stage performing says I know!) That’s glamour makeup, and you folks are out of your mind! Keep an eye on this, and the marvelous blog. She makes me laugh whenever I read it!

At 2,996, you can read tributes written by 3,412 bloggers to those who fell on 9/11. I am not among the bloggers, but I am glad to see that local Stacey S. McGowan will be honored by Mandi at Holdin’ Down the Fort, and that Welles R. Crowther is being remembered by Smooth at Smooth Stone. If you knew someone who perished, the list of all the blogs and their subjects can be found here. If you didn’t, stop by and read a few anyway. To quote Abraham Lincoln:

[W]e can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men [and women], living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.- Lincoln’s Address at Gettysburg (November 19,1863)

Son and I lowered the flag outside the house today. He had not even remembered what the date was. I am torn between the idea that children should not have to grieve so young, and that we must never forget the potential darkness of the human heart. What I should have remembered is what keeps me going- the incredible light of the human spirit and the heroism we see each day from average folks.

We’ll have a talk tonight. There is so much to say.

God Bless you all on this difficult day.

Before you have a nutty, everyone is fine.

It’s been nearly a week since I’ve posted, and with good reason. Grossmutter (my mother-in-law) was hospitalized. She fell unconscious at the Rectory on Monday (Labor Day here in the US, a bank holiday). She goes each week to count the collection from Sunday. As a former banker, she’s pretty good at it, and has been doing it for probably 30+ years.

The folks at the Rectory helped her up from the floor (first aid training, ANYONE?) and helped her to a chair. They called Grossvater (you figure it out) but he was getting a haircut and didn’t answer the phone.

Whose phone rings next, do you suppose? Wife answered the phone upstairs, as I was sleeping on the couch downstairs (I completed 3 podcasts the previous overnight, and decided not to wake everyone). She shouted for me, told me the circumstances, and bolted, leaving me with Son, who had not awakened yet. Daughter was at a sleepover, to be followed by a birthday party.

Son woke shortly afterward, almost as Wife called to ask me to meet Grossvater, who had yet to respond to a call. I quickly filled in Son, called the house where Daughter was and begged for help, and took off. Grossvater was fixing something in the garage and was a little shaken when I picked him up to go to the E.R. We arrived to find Grossmutter with Wife waiting to be seen by a doc. A very strange but efficient man eventually came along for a history, which Grossmutter biffed.

Every professional who attended to this woman asked her medical history. When asked if she had any prior medical issues, she responded “not really” to each of them. This is fine, except it overlooks hypertension, high cholesterol, broken ribs last year in a CAR WRECK, surgery on her carotid artery to remove plaque… this women could populate her own textbook! But to her? “Not really.” As a result, she cannot be left unattended until she is settled into a room, because she clearly cannot advise in her own care.

This is not because she is addled. This is not because she can’t remember (although there is a little of this). It’s because she is a royal PITA! She is one of those women who will tell you that everything is fine, and then you find out 3 months later that there was an issue, but she chose to suffer rather than tell you. I would say it was brave, but you get to hear about it. A lot.

In any case, Grossmutter was eventually admitted, and a CAT scan showed what could have been a bleed on the brain. A two day hospital stay and repeat tests revealed it was simply calcification, and not too serious. In the meantime, everyone was worried, but she is home and recovering, although each episode like this makes her a little the worse for wear.

The incident caused Hippie-In-Law, her daughter (my sister-in-law), to come home a month early from Oregon. She’s staying in my family room. The timing is good, because it is Großmutter’s birthday, and we are having a party. At my house. With Psycho-In-Law, my other sister-in-law, and her 3 kids staying over tomorrow evening. I still haven’t gotten over the eight 9 year old girlsm and we are having 2 adults and 3 children added to our roster tomorrow.

This is o.k., because it will allow everyone to settle down a little after the week from hell. With school starting and visits to the hospital, it’s been a little crazy.

It’s not easy having family in their 80′s. These kinds of things are to be expected, but GrossŸmutter and GrossŸvater do not appear to be in their 80′s. Of course, I look at it as an inevitability, but Wife, Son, and Daughter look on this as a much more serious occurence. I have resolved myself, however reluctantly, to the fact that they will not be here for much longer. I don’t know if I will be able to do the same when it’s my blood.

I had a long discussion with Daughter about some of these issues. She was offended, because in the beginning we didn’t inform her, so as not to ruin her social events, and because we simply couldn’t be there to tell her personally. She was hurt, as any mature young person might be. A discussion of why we do what we do in emergencies came up. Daughter was curious about the need to go get Großvater before he got that frantic phone message. We eventually came around to roles in the family, and Daughter has come to understand that my role is to be the emergency guy. When someone is hurt, I give first aid. When there is a fire at school, I’m the guy who runs there, When the ambulance arrives, I am the one who meets the medics.

It’s funny how there can be great comfort in those roles, the traditional, “don’t you hate stereotypes” roles. Knowing that Mom will be there to support you, kiss the boo-boos, and feed you. To know that Dad will help with the homework, pick you up at that party in the middle of the night, and fight off threats great and small. Coming from a single-parent household, I never really reflected on that. Now that I am that guy, it’s kind of strange to have your children look at you like that.

I wonder if I have the strength and drive to be that guy when the chips are down. On the days when they DO look to me for that strength, I remember where it comes from. It’s right there, in the look. You can’t let them down, and you can’t disappoint them, because they look so helpless. You must be successful, for them.

How do they do that?

I have some female friends.

O.K. I have many female friends. As a matter of fact, if I were to enumerate my friends, they would be almost exclusively female. With the exception of one guy who was Wife’s friend first, one who I met at work, and another I’ve had forever, the rest are all women.

I don’t have a problem with it, but Wife is not too thrilled. She jokes about it, but I always wonder how she really feels. When she started reading my blog, one of the first questions she asked about the folks I ‘blog with’ was if any of them were cute women. She asked the same of the folks in my new office.

What’s interesting is the fact that I prefer to read blogs by women. My blogroll here is almost exclusively women. Championable, Quarter Life and Blogfathers are the only exceptions. Men seem to write about tech a lot (as I do on my other blog) but they don’t get into family, life, and themselves.

I enjoy that. I like to get inside of others, and I like to show what I have going on inside. That may be why I enjoy being with women. I like the deep conversations. I enjoy the emotional aspect. The candor with which they speak.

The women I am friendly with tend to have male friends themselves. Many of them. They don’t have many female friends. They seem to get along better with men. Is that a thing with women?

I sometimes wonder if it’s because of my background. I spent a lot of time in the arts when I was growing up. I was involved in theater, dance, and music. I’m not gay, but I suppose many of the things I did are the kinds of things that guys who ended up gay did as they were growing up. It sounds kind of weird. I’m not Frank from “Trading Spaces”, but I am kind of artsy.

I worry that Son goes through the same things. He has a group of female friends that he clicks with. They are not classmates, because he has yet to fall in with a group of girls at school, but he has plenty of male friends at school. I worry that he is sensitive, he is into the arts, and he will suffer as a result.

I spent a lot of time as I was growing up being called “gay” and “fag.” What was funny was that I was… active at the time. I knew I wasn’t. Guys will be guys, though, and I was gay in their eyes. We didn’t call them “beards” then, but I guess that was their thought. It wasn’t true.

I know Son gets a lot of crap about who he is. He’s not yet comfortable with the dating scene (he’s 13!) and he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Some of his friends do, but his best friend doesn’t yet. I worry that they will leave him behind, and he will begin to endure the stuff I had to endure.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if THAT is the reason I do not get along with a lot of men. I’m not into organized sports, I’m not competitive, and I don’t give a damn who you spend the night with. If you score, I’m happy for you. I don’t care which goal you’re shooting for.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I was in touch with 2 of my college friends, and both are female. I probably would not have spent the time if Wife were home. She’s working, and I didn’t have to feel guilty.

Maybe I do anyway.

…because my world appears to revolve around something other Sol.

I saw this first at crouching mommy… and couldn’t resist.

My weblog owns 37.5 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

Scary numbers. Are yours the same?