Blog

  • Confession: Reading Failure

    I have a confession to make. Awhile back, I said that I would read The Stories of John Cheever this fall. Well… as we are now clearly in the middle of winter, I have to admit that I did not read The Stories of John Cheever. In fact, I only read the first story in that book. I looked at that volume every evening on the nightstand as I got into bed, and I would say to myself, “Tomorrow, I’ll get back to it.”

    Yup, I failed at this personal goal. I mean, I didn’t even come close. I wish I could say that I got caught up reading another book, but that isn’t true either. Sadly, my fall and winter reading progress is pretty disappointing.

    And if I am to be fully honest with myself, I only finished three books in all of 2020.

    I’m not saying this to garner sympathy, or to make excuses. Its more that I want to identify what isn’t working. You can’t write if you don’t read.

    What had brought this about is that I am now teaching my daughter how to read, and I want to instill a love of reading. The best way I know to do this is by example, as that is what my parents did for me. It’s not that they told me to read, or made me; reading is what they did for enjoyment.

    Gotta get my shit together. For all of us.

  • SLEDDING!!!

    We went sledding yesterday. Me and the kid, that is. The wife and I bought a two-person sled on Sunday, when we saw that we were gun’na get a real heavy snow storm for the next 48 hours. Yesterday, Tuesday, the snow let up so we were able to make it to the local park which had a nice gentle hill kids could sled down.

    The kid was beside herself, bubbling over in excitement with the opportunity to experience sledding. She was full of courage marching up the hill, as I followed behind her with the sled. When she got to the top, her determination did not waver, but she wanted to make sure that I would go down with her. She rode in front as I pushed us off very slowly, and then used my feet as brakes to make sure we didn’t go too fast for her. Her response at the end of the ride was, “I want to do it again. This time by myself.”

    And she was off.

    Though she did grab me a few times to ride down with her, she pretty much was off on her own adventure of sledding the hill, trying to go faster and faster, and dodging people and trees. The squeals of joy, and that deep belly laugh of nervous energy of having survived the fastest sledding, only to see if she could go even faster, pretending that she was flying in her spaceship.

    It did feel like the world was “normal” for an hour. Just some kids having fun in the snow.

  • Creative Workout

    A long time ago, I read this profile on artist Chris Ofili in The New Yorker, way back in 2014. There is a lot of great stuff in it, but for some reason, I latched on to a paragraph where it describes how the artist does a sketch in 15 minutes every morning as a sort of warm up as he starts his day painting. That resonated with me, as I thought it showed an insight into how Ofili starts his process of being creative. It doesn’t just “happen” but has to be worked up to.

    I found it similar to a story I heard about John Steinbeck and his process. Somewhere between his second divorce and third marriage, when he was raising his two sons alone, he had a process of waking early, writing in his journal and composing letters, then getting his sons ready for school. Once the boys were off, he was ready to start working, until the boys came home.

    I have been thinking about these two artist lately, about their process, and how they “get started” each day. I have been trying to write a blog at the beginning of the day, or at least when the kid is in a remote class. I have even adopted doing a sketch, with the kid most days, to allow my head to think creatively, but in a different way. I sort of think of it as getting into shape; Training myself to think creatively. Since I cannot work on a project every day, I need to stretch creative muscles routinely.

  • It’s Another Snow Day!

    And it’s the fat fluffy flakes that are falling.

    The kid is beside herself, but we do have school today, and that has put a damper on her.

    But!

    We bought a sled yesterday in anticipation of the weather, and hopefully, we will get to use it tomorrow.

    Now, we did get to go out in the snow this morning. See, I learned the lesson from the last major snow storm that hit NYC; Buy a Snow Shovel! And we even got one of those snow brushes/scrapers for the car. So, as the snow was piling up, I knew that I needed to head over to the car, and start the process of cleaning it off, and getting the windshield wipers up, so they don’t freeze to the car. If I was going out into the snow, the kid had to go with me.

    And she was cute as could be. When we stepped out in to the storm, I would have to say that it was almost blizzard like, she giggled with excitement with being pelted in the face with snow. There was a stiff wind, and heavy snow, but we made it over to the car. The whole walk over there, the kid kept reaching down to make snowballs, or to walk in the drifts. Snow is just too tempting for the kid, and I don’t blame her, but she wanted to go sledding. The storm was just too bad., so I had to tell her not today. She wasn’t happy with that decision.

    We made it to the car, and I let her use the snow brush to knock the snow off. She had fun drawing pictures on the snow dusted windows, before she brushed them off. We made the best of the situation we had, before it got too cold for us and we headed back.

  • A Story of Living in New York

    In the spring of 2017, I don’t know exactly when, but I know it was warm out as you still needed a coat. I left work a little early and was walking down the west side of 6th Avenue, between 15th and 16th street. My intention was to get over to the 14th Street 1,2,3 station, as I needed to get uptown in a hurry, and trains on the Red line get rather stupidly packed at rush hour.

    I was lost in my own thoughts, as the company I worked for was nearing bankruptcy and I had the job to try and stop that from happening. (It didn’t end well, so you know.)  As I tried to puzzle out a solution, I looked down 6th Ave and walking up the street toward me was Fran Lebowitz. She was just walking, dressed how Fran always dresses, and passed me without a glance.

    That’s it, that’s my story.