All I want for Christmas is Taylor Swift and Lady GaGa to get in a catfight!

It's weird, I had someone ask me what I wanted for Christmas the other day and I couldn't think of one thing.  I furrowed my brow, I puzzled my puzzler until it was sore and nothing.  Not a day goes by that I'm not thinking of some little thing that I couldn't live without and then when someone asks me flat out:  "Hey buddy, what do you want?"  I have no reply.  Nothing, nada, zilch.  When I was a kid I took the JC Penney catalog and circled every NFL jersey and Bathrobe that I could find, I even got a Cincinnati Bengals robe one year, don't ask me why, maybe I had a thing for orange or the stripes or I thought Kenny Anderson was a great QB, I walked through countless stores with my mom throwing myself at every little cap gun, Lite-Brite, Clue, Operation, Uno and Tri-ominos, there wasn't a Lego set that got past me without a "PLEASE!, I'll be good!"  And Star Wars figures and ships and Incredible Hulk underoos, there was no end to the list of crap I would give my mom and dad to put on my list and then Atari came and the games would range from Kaboom! to Pitfall to even Video Olympics (Yeah, I was the kid that wanted that one)  Hot Wheels, train sets and the 12" GI Joes and even Kiss dolls.  I could give you an answer for the question what do you want for Christmas? all the time.  I could start giving you answers to that question on December 26th for next year.  But nowadays when someone asks me what it is that I want?  I hem, I haw, I think and nothing comes immediately to mind....  So here, in this year where I turn 40 I will give you my non-kid Christmas wish list....in no particular order

1.  A long date alone with my wife perhaps 3 days.
2.  For my muscles and joints to get on board with the "think younger" program.
3.  An uninterupted 8 hours of sleep.
4.  More time, just an extra 4 to 17 minutes in the day.
5.  To see friends more often.
6.  clear roads for safe travel.
7.  Health to my friends and family.
8.  The Tigers to go to and win the World Series.
9.  To see a "catfight" break out between Taylor Swift and Lady GaGa during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.
10.  A Cincinnati Bengals bathrobe.

That should about cover it.  I think the reason that it is harder to come up with things that you want now is that you are A) Either completely content in your life. (haha)  or B)  You realize that Christmas is, was and should always be a wonderful time for kids. 

It is a time to believe in magic, whimsy and and mysticism whether it's the bambino in the barn or the fat guy at the pole; these are stories that children identify with because they can feel and anticipate the magic of the season they know that it means gifts will appear and people will spend time with their loved ones.  Just because we understand that the magic isn't real anymore, the wonderment in their eyes still is.  We are able to live that magic through them and that is all I really need for Christmas, that and these ten things I mentioned above. 

As adults we are in touch with too many harsh realities of life to get lost in the malaise of what we "want for Christmas" some of us want jobs or better ones, others want their loved ones or for themselves to break an addiction, others want cancer to leave their family alone, or they just want the pain to end for someone they love.  But that is not something you can put on a list as an adult but what you can do is find that special moment whether it's Christmas morning when they run to the tree or on Christmas evening when Grandma brings out the pie or when they see Santa at the mall. Look at your child...  As an adult with all the bills, aches, pains and stress you need to get lost in that small pocket of hope and wonderment in your kid's eyes and escape for just a moment and remember what December was like when you were 7 and all that mattered was what you circled in a catolog or wrote on a piece of paper addressed to the fat man and that will be a gift to you!  The "Oh My goodness" moment. 

(Unless you didn't find that gift or they were out of them and all you have is a rain check and then you're screwed because no hope and wonderment ever resulted in the eyes oif a kid looking at a rain check, but you know what I mean.  Merry Christmas!)

Impatience

Impatience may be the worst emotion or idiosyncrancy a person can have.  It can cause you to behave in very adverse ways toward the people you love and cause a lot of harm to that realtionship.  I am very impatient with my children at times and say things that I would normally never say to them or any other person in my life but given the circumstances of my impatience I can't seem to find the self-control to hold back, I immediately open mouth and insert foot, which is a terrible idiom because if I did indeed insert my foot, the foot would have kept the shitty thing I just said to my kid inside my mouth.

 I had a bad parenting moment today with my 11 year old son Seth and to make matters worse, it was public.  I misunderstood where he was being picked up and what he had to where and how long he would be gone and... well let's just put it this way, i missed all the memos on his agenda for the day and now in the span of about seven minutes I had to make it all happen and when i received the phone call to tell me where he was to be dropped off, i was in my underwear prepared to take a quick shower; the shower never happened and by the time I picked him up I was down to having about two minutes left on the clock before I had to have him  to another locale and he informed me he wanted to change his clothes, so i took him back into the building I was picking up from (church) and threw his clean clothes on the bathroom floor and yelled:  "Get dressed!" this with a bunch of members of church walking by and witnessing my behavior.  First of all I don't care what any of them think, I care about what the kid in the bathroom thinks and I know that I have just scared him and embarrassed him severely.  he doesn't deserve that, he's a great kid, he does everything we ask of him, gets good grades, treats us with respect and is a great big brother to Sam and because I can't take a little curve ball in my schedule I took it out on him.  It wasn't fair and I told him immediately that it wasn't fair, it wasn't his fault and that I loved him.  He forgave me.  But when I picked him up many hours later at the same rendevous point: I apologized again and tried to make him realize that I understood what i did to him was wrong ands that I would try to nver do it again.  "I know, Dad, I know."  What he knows truly is that I will get impatient again, i will be a dick again and I will apologize again.  But I'm trying son, I'm trying and I love you so much.

My new "in-crowd"

"Everybody Loves Raymond" is a terrible show.  It shows all the things that are wrong with the perception of an American marriage.  It shows a bumbling idiot husband who is completely inept in everything except pissing off his wife.  It shows that the wife is most proficient in being a shrill, joyless bitch.  It is not just this show either- American television has a rich history of showing us this perception of marriage and unfortunately in this case life imitates art.  I find myself sometimes reaching for a laugh at the expense of my wife too many times.  I just did it the other day when I referred to my marriage as a "hostage situation" when talking about shopping with her on "Black friday" all for nothing more than to get a couple of hyucks and some people to click "like" but it is not fair.  My wife and I actually had a wonderful time this weekend; we spent a couple of hours on Thanksgiving night going to Meijer and Toys R' Us and there were some tepid moments between us but once we communicated to each other that we are here for the "Black Friday" experience and we could spend the time not only maybe finding a deal or two (which we did) but we could also poke some fun at the good folks who live for the "Black friday" experience.  We had a great time. 

We also "Had" to drive to Wisconsin to see her family and I spent most of the week leading up to it complaining about the drive.  Not seeing her family, because I love her family, but the drive seemed to be laborious to me and I really wanted to just hang out and watch Spartan football.  But once I got over my selfish BS, my wife, kids and myself had a pretty pleasant weekend, we found ourselves reminissing about when Seth was just little and Sam saying:  "Where was I?" and we didn't have anyway to answer that except "You weren't born yet?"  and he would say:  "But I wanted to be there." It is becoming abundantly clear to me that every time I slam my marriage or complain about time with my family that I am doing them a great disservice because I am telling the rest of the world that "I don't like being married or I wish I didn't have to spend so much time with my kids."  and that could not be further from the truth.  I truly love the close knit group of friends that I have accumulated over the years and I cherish my time with them dearly but I have reached the point in my life where my "in-crowd" is my wonderful, supportive wife Lori, my very talented, sweet 11 year old son Seth and my firecracker cutie 4 year old son Sam.  Call it bad-mouthing, venting or just joking but it is something that I need to stop doing so much.  Marriage and family is really great despite what you see on TV.

Social Networking mind blowers

I have no been a part of the facebook world for almost three years now and I have nearly run out of "mind-blowers" you know, the people from your past that you had no idea that you'd ever see again but then there they are asking to be accepted as "your friend" again.  These are people you never thought you'd see or hear from again, in fact you had gotten so used to the idea that you had no plan for when you would hear from them again.  I had one such person friend request me this past weekend and sure enough I was blown away and not prepared at all for what I had to say. It was one of those friendships that ended very badly; I just walked away from it without explaination, just avoiding any contact what so ever and this after having a really good friendship for a couple of years.  I had my reasons, but most of them revolved around being young and not having the cajones to say what was really on my mind at the time; as time moves forward you realize that leaving things unsaid not only robs you of great times that you might have spent with people; but might have also changed the course of your life somehow.  Now, I am happy with my life and how it had turned out but nothing in the world could have prepared us for this kooky social networking world, where now every time we log on to our computers we may have our past staring us in the face and asking us:  "You ready to deal with this NOW?"  I have had some memorable experiences with this little social networking thing, talked to people that I literally never thought I would think about again, let alone see again; elementary school friends long forgotten, High School friends who I thought were too distant in the rear view mirror and college friends who I thought had already made their curtain call in my life and now this person who was only there a short time but was much like family.  I am too much of a social person not to enjoy the intrigue of it all, even when one of these people from my past hooks up with a current friend of mine it still makes for a great story, though a crazy one.

I don't believe in things like fate and destiny and all of that, but let's just say for the sake of argument that all of us we're on a course of some kind and that course is effected by the people that we meet and interact with then how much has this technological ginat called "Facebook" completely changed our courses?  Certainly, all of us running into our first loves, former best friends and long lost siblings every day was not part of "the plan" or was it?

I'm not sure I have any mind blowers left, I know that people still talk about the occasional friend, family member or former love that they find and they are taken aback but I don't think that will happen to me anymore; there are a few former girlfriends I suppose that if they pop up, I'd be a little freaked out but probably just for a moment; I have already had ex girlfriends friend me, people I thought didn't like me, MY MOM! and I'm currently mulling over a friend request from my childhood bully so can there really be anything else out there that would shock me?  Probably, but you know what, I kind of like it, it's an easy way to get back to sqaure one with a lot of people, chances are if you were really close to them you probably never wanted to lose touch in the first place, anybody that has kids knows that 1 year turns into 10 really quickly; so why lose touch at all?  Now you got them all in one place, a really easy rolodex!  Facebook, "reach out and firend somebody.

Absorb and shut up, it's not about me!

You ever say something to someone and never even think about how it may effect them?  You say it with no more thought than cracking a joke, asking for a light or making small talk but it's bigger than that, you knew it when you said it.  You said it like you were cracking wise or making an inane comment but seriously you might have been "reaching out" or "acting out" or "Lashing out"

This happend to me this evening I got information from someone that was bad news; the bad news was masked by a bit of inane information fed to me up front.  You know the ol' "I'll bore them with a weather report and then hit them over the head with a hammer bit."  But not only was the news bad, it was delivered with a positive slant but during this positive slant one small comment amongst a series of smaller comments hit me harder than any hammer could.  I was floored, disgusted, worried, hurt and distressed.  But the demeanor of the person who shared this nugget with me... never changed.  I wonder if that person knows how they made me feel? But I wonder if the fact that I was there to say it to made that person cope a with the bad news a little bit better?  It was hard for me to hear this bad news but not nearly as hard for me as the person who delivered it to me; so maybe it was my job to absorb their pain. 

I should just shut up and realize that the person that I was talking to should not be held responsible for what they say in this deeply painful time in their life and I should just ABSORB the blow and say that I am right here for you!

High School Theater

The past two nights I had the pleasure of taking in two High School theater performances.  The first was my hometown Grayling High School's production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" and the next was my Nephew's St. Johns High School's production of "Damn Yankees".  I'm not going tom write a review of either performance, that's not what this is about, what this about is nostalgia, the nostalgia of what it was like to be a kid on the big stage, under the lights, wearing make up and a costume for the first time and feeling like you were a part of "show business" The pure joy that is on display in front of you when you see a High school show helps you forgive little technical snafus, character breaks and other blemishes.  It all washes away because you can see that everyone involved is having the greatest time in their life.

 I have been performing for audiences for most of my adult life and I don't think that anything can ever compare to that 'first time" the anticpation, the nerves and the feeling of pure joy that I felt when I stepped onstage, delivered my first line and got my very first laugh.  I know why I get nostalgic when I see a High School show because it's like running into your first love again, a little awkward, you roll your eyes at yourself and remember the good times and you feel for the kids onstage for they are going down a road that will provide them with a great memory--now every time they step into an auditorium for the rest of their lives, they will be jettisoned back.  They say smell is the most nostalgic of the senses, but I think hearing applause, laughter and the whooping of the crowd is enough to bring you right back to the begininng of your own staged journey.

My mid-life bucket list crisis

I don't know what is worse, having "dreams" or having dreams.  On one hand you nave the kind of dreams where you eat spicy foods before bed and while you are in a deep REM sleep you imagine walking curio cabinets with teeth throwing milkshakes at you and threatning your life and on the other hand you have dreams of things you want to accomplish before you die.  I keep hearing this term "Bucket List" thrown around and I know it was a movie with Morgan freeman and Jack Nicholson and I know that people are starting to throw this term around like it's confetti.  Maybe the reason i hear it more and more is that I'm looking down the barrel at 4-0!  A lot of my friends have turned this age, but they don't seem any different they haven't run out and bungee jumped off the Mackinac Bridge or bought a Ferrari or anything so why am I all of the sudden feeling this "Bucket List pressure?  i'm not dying, well I suppose we are all dying but I'm not actively dying, okay i'm not particpating in the advancement of my own death... what I am saying is that i don't know of any short term limitations that have put on my life but suddenly I want to do more, I have aspirations and goals and feats and curiousities that I want fulfilled. 

The biggest one is the idea of doing Stand up Comedy again.  in the early 90's I was doing quite a few open mic nights, writing material cponstantly and I even won a few contests; it was by far the biggest rush of my life.  No drug or drink matched what stand up gave me.  The feeling of thinking of something, writing it, performing and perfecting it was the most intoxicating thing I ever felt.  I just stopped doing it; life happened, I moved up north, I had kids and i took over a children's theater company.  The theater company gives me many opportunities to be creative, don't get me wrong, I have lived a charmed life for a guy who didn't even finish his Associate's at Lansing Community College; for 13 glorious years, I have written, developed and performed my company's plays and toured the entire state of Michigan.  I have enjoyed my time very much and hope to continue it.  Now as my children get older and my life gets longer in the tooth I feel myself yearning for that outlet, thirsting for the idea of getting onstage and sharing my big boy thoughts for a change.  I love dressing up like a dog and a crab and making children smile but I really do some material that makes people think, makes them laugh, hell it may even make them recoil but I truly want a shot at it again, who knows I may get up there and fall flat on my face but I know this it is something I need to do.  I don't know if there's money in it for me but if there is so be it, but I at least have to get up there and do another Open Mic, to feel that kind of pressure is like nothing else in the world.  So, call it a Bucket List move, call it a mid-life crisis but coming soon I will be doing a 3-5 minute set of material in a comedy club... more to come.