It's Been a While

After a long, emotional day of moving Tracy's folks, Tracy and I found ourselves prepping to go out for a friend's birthday party.  It was a pub crawl in downtown Oregon City.  We got dressed and made our way down to our friend's house.  There we were greeted by a room full of warm company and a couple of tequila shots. 

The first bar we went to was the Icehouse, a long bar with concrete floors and high echo-y ceilings.  It's full of games like pinball, pop-a-shot, video bowling, and video golf.  We settled in at a table with our beers and introduced ourselves to the people we didn't know in the party.  Across the room a pinball machine's blinking lights was seducing me like a woman's slow, lingering wink. 

Tracy and I dropped some quarters in and had some fun reliving our childhoods a bit.  It's been a while since I've played pinball.  I got my friend and I a shot of Jagermeister to go with our beers.

The next bar we went to was McAnulty's and Barry's.  This place was DEAD!  In fact, the bartender was hanging around outside with patrons and smoking a cigarette.  When we went inside, she followed Tracy and I in (we were the first of our party to arrive).  When she asked what we were up to, we told her about the birthday party.  She immediately unlocked a pool table for us and set us up with our first round of drinks.

The rest of the group arrived in a haze of song.  They stormed the pool table and the Keeley set to playing songs on the jukebox.  The music raised the ante on the volume level and pretty soon the empty bar felt full and fun.  Guys shot pool while pockets of people sprinkled around the high top tables circling them.

I bought my friend (and myself) a shot of Pendleton to go with the next round of beers.  I was starting to feel good.  It's been a while since I've taken this many shots in a night.

At this point, Tracy was done and she excused herself for the evening and made her way home.  The rest of us were ready for a change of scenery and made our way down main street to Pioneer Pub.  You could hear the hip hop music from down the street and our group made quick time to the dance floor.  Usher, Pitbull, and other hip hop artists soon had us bumping and grinding on the dance floor. 

I stood along the wall of the bar for a while until I just couldn't resist anymore.  Maybe it was the shots.   I set my beer down on a table and jumped out onto the floor.  It's been a while since I've been dancing at a bar.

When the birthday boy started showing signs of fatigue and intoxication, we made one last jump to the Happy Lounge down the street.  We must have walked in at about 2 am, but I couldn't tell you for sure as I was completely oblivious to time. 

We settled in for one last beer (and a round of Jagermeister shots supplied by Katie) and the girls ordered Chinese food to go.  Once the food arrived, it was time to get the hell out of there.  We walked our way up the hill to the house and someone started throwing burgers on the barbecue.  This was my cue to make my way home.  A sober friend offered to drive me and spare me the three mile uphill walk to the house, so I took it.  I rolled in at 3 am.  It's been a while since I've closed down the bars and gotten home at 3 am. 

I can't tell you how much fun it was.  The perfect, reckless diversion to finish out a couple of hard weeks.  I only wish Tracy would have been there to dance with me.  It's been a while, so maybe I should take her dancing.

Update

It has been seventeen days since "The Challenge", when I said I was going to write every day.  I'm proud to report that I've written thirteen of those seventeen days.  The wallpaper on all my computers remains.  The twice daily alarms via email and cell phone remain.  I'm making myself conscious of my own desires, my own wishes, and it is bringing results.

It makes me think of November.  For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month.  It is something I have always thought about participating in, but never seem to get around to.  Well, I'm thinking I might take the plunge this year.  In fact, I opened another browser window as I was working on this post and set up a new account with the organization.  I've signed up.  I have the novel in my head, so I simply need to execute.  Here goes nothing.  

And Away She Goes!

I found myself at Champoeg Park on Saturday.  It is a place I feel strongly connected to because of my family's tradition of camping there when I was younger.  My reason for being there this time wasn't much different.  My dad's extended family has begun hosting a family reunion each year and this year it was at Champoeg. 

After working at my in-laws' new house all day, Tracy and I cleaned up Shea and took off to have dinner with the extended Kriegshauser/Lang.  As a last minute addition, I threw Shea's tricycle and helmet into the back of the rig.  My memories of Champoeg pivot around my bike.

When we arrived, I was surprised to see that I remembered so many of the faces of the extended family.  It was easy to remember the ones I see/saw often like Jan, Sam, Mary, etc, but soon it didn't take long for names like Larry, Ann, and Charlie to come to the forefront. 

Thanks to my aunt Sharon, Shea was set up nicely at a picnic table where she was designing a new sun visor for herself.  There was pipe cleaner, cut out flower designs, and foam letters to keep her occupied.  The result was a visor with three flowers rising up off the brim with pipe cleaner and her name spelled out underneath.

I got the chance to catch up with my cousin Nicki and her husband Matt as well as my cousin Andy's wife LeAnn., but it was soon dinner time.  The call went out for mother's to fix plates for the six and unders.  The rest of us were simply going to have to wait patiently. 

You should have seen the spread.  Uncle Larry cooked up quarters of chickens until they were golden and perfect.  Under the covered pavilion was a line of tables loaded with all kinds of salads, veggies, beans and desserts.  There were all kinds of picnic favorites I could trace back to my own childhood, things I've eaten for decades.  I was excited.

Soon, the open call for the grown ups went out and we were able to dig in.  The conversation was relaxed, even in spite of the bees which began to swarm, and soon the aunties were slipping desserts to the kids.  Cookies, Rice Krispie treats, and assorted bars bursting with coconut or nuts were oozing their sticky sweetness on to young hands.  I knew I had to get the sugar out of Shea's system, so I offered to fetch her bike out of the back of Volvo.

She was excited.  I was too.  The ground here was flat for the most part and we were segmented away from the rest of the park, having reserved the group space just for family, and there were no cars passing through.  Shea strapped on her helmet, stepped up on to her tricycle and started peddling.  And peddling.  And peddling. 

I couldn't believe it.  Shea's normal routine was to ride the tricycle a couple of houses down the street and have me carry the damn thing back.  Not today.  No, today she peddled her little heart out.  I took her around the looped pull out of the private group space and around and around the parking area.  She never quit.  All of a sudden I have a little bike rider on my hands.

The littles amaze me.  You think you have their development pegged when all of a sudden they just take off and do something amazing you've never seen before.  Shea probably rode for an hour.  She fell off a couple times, but she got right back on.  She found a little girl, Ryan, who had a scooter and away they went. She's a little person now, more so every day. 

Between Shea's newfound ability and reconnecting with family, Saturday turned out to be pretty damn special.  Sometimes it's easy to feel blessed.

Laboring over Stuff

I've come to realize that Stuff is the bane of my existence.  I'm serious.  The BANE of my existence.  The problem is...I love stuff.  We all do.  We've been taught to love stuff.  Yet, I spend an inappropriate amount of time tending to my stuff.  Stuff needs maintenance, stuff needs sorting/organizing, etc.  The reason my stuff needs so much maintenance is because I have too much of it.

I shouldn't have to organize stuff into smaller physical spaces in order to fill the recently vacated space with new stuff.  It's absurd.  But I do it all the time.  I can feel myself getting ready to go on a rampage with my stuff.  I can feel myself preparing to "clear the decks" and really digging down deep to get rid of things I don't need.

Part of this comes from the confrontation I had this weekend with other people's stuff.  I try not to pass judgment on other people and their things.  After all, we all have our personal stuff fetishes.  I'm comic books and books.  Tracy is kitchen stuff.  I know people for whom it is sports memorabilia, beanie babies, swizzle sticks, etc.  We all have our little niche of things we like to surround ourselves with, but it is really easy to undermine/undervalue another's things.

So, I begin at home.  I begin with me.  Last night I went through my closet and packed away a garbage bag full of clothes I don't need.  There are other closets and dressers yet to go, but I want to simplify.  I don't want to feel tied down by my things and the only way to come out from underneath it all is to get rid of it a single item at a time.

Moving Day

The day began in a bluster of activity as Tracy and I got in our cars and headed over to her parents' house for moving day.  Tracy's parents have lived in the same house for 41 years.  It was going to be a big day.

I am so incredibly grateful for my friends.  They are life savers.  Three of our friends gave up an entire day, 9 am to 6 pm, to help us.  We had three trucks, a Tahoe, a minivan, a Volvo, and a thirty foot flatbed trailer.  We moved almost everything out of the 1700 square feet of their house in the space of two loads.  We disconnected gas ranges/ovens, took out dishwashers, moved a fridge and a freezer, patio furniture, porch swings, sofas, china hutches, buffets, rugs, end tables, bed, bed frames, etc.

This wouldn't have been possible without the strong backs of some close friends.  They "lifted" the burden off the shoulders of Tracy and I.  I will forever be grateful for that.  Thank you, friends.  You know who you are. 

Now, we dine.  Tracy and I are taking ourselves out to a really nice dinner.  We will have appetizers and martinis, extravagant entrees and wine.  We will relax and try to forget the stress of the day.  As my daughter would say, Bon Appetit!

Mail Time

It was 9 in the morning when I dropped my daughter off at my mother's house.  Shea was up and going, talking all the way to her "Noni's" house.  When we got there, mom was up and about and we chatted for a while before I left.  One of the last things my mother told me was to make sure and check the mail.

I forgot.

I forgot until midnight that night.  I went out to the mailbox in the middle of the night and fumbled around in the dark for the few scant pieces of paper I found there.  In the midst of the coupons, fliers, and junk mail, there was a red envelope addressed to "Daddy" with gold foil stickers.  In the bottom left corner of the envelope was a hand drawn picture of a girl with long hair.  It was obviously Shea as drawn by Shea.  On the back of the envelope there was "I (Heart) U" written in a shaky hand.

It took everything I had not to rip open the envelope right then and there, but I waited.  I wanted to open the envelope with Shea, who had obviously taken some time to put this together for me.  I set the envelope under my keys so I wouldn't forget to open it with her first thing in the morning.

I almost forgot this morning.  Good thing I set it under my keys.  As soon as I saw the envelope, I dashed upstairs to where Shea was watching a DVD.  I held up the envelope for her to see, but she was zoned out on the cartoons.  I paused the DVD while holding up the envelope.  The moment she saw it she smiled and said, "Open it!"

I lay back down on the bed next to Shea.  She reached up, grabbed my earlobe, looked at me, and smiled with her sippy cup still in her mouth.  I ripped open the envelope and looked inside.  The envelope was filled with different colored paper clips-pink, green, etc.  "They're for you."

"For me?  How come?" I asked.

"For your papers," she said.

"Thank you, Shea."

It was sweet.  I've never been so pleased to get paper clips in my life.  It wasn't the gift that was important.  It was that my mother and daughter took some time to send me a special surprise.  They thought of me.  And, after a rough day the day before, it made all the difference.

12 = 0?!

I've been holding myself to the challenge.  While I haven't worked much every day, I've worked every day so far.  In fact, today saw me take one of the freewrites I did with my summer fiction class, and transform it in a way that was really helpful to a chapter I'd been struggling with.  So, I saved my new writing under the "Novel in Progress" file. 

When I was looking at all the previous files that were in there, I became a bit disconcerted about my organization.  I had many files, many I knew to be duplicates, so I decided to reorganize my "Novel in Progress" file.  Guess what?

I have twelve sub-folders in my "Novel in Progress" file.  Do you know what that means?  It means I possibly have 12 chapters of my novel partially written.  Do you know what else that means?  It means that I have 12 fragments (or I should say "categories of fragments) of writing that I don't know what I'm doing with yet.  Does 12 = 0?

No, it doesn't.  It means that I've already begun to do some decent work on this thing.  Will I one day know how to put some of this shit together?  I hope so!  In the meantime, it isn't my job to worry about big picture.  My job right now is to listen to John.  And to Willy.  And to Katie.  And to Sarah.  And to Aunt Carol.  When they are whole enough, when they are realized enough, they'll tell me what they are trying to say.

In the meantime?  Holy shit, I've got twelve.