Done

There it was. On my credenza. Twenty three pages worth. I stared at it for a long time tonight.

Funny. The story came to me in a flash, laid out easy. I could see it clearly.

Writing it, however, not so easy. I have notes from as far back as November 2008.

No, it's not the Magna Carta, nor is it bound to make women weep and men change religions.
Yet, I treated it as such.

Nervously, I handed the thing to my wife tonight, making her put down the book she was already reading, actually enjoying.

Twenty three pages, almost a year in the making, pouring over each edit like my life depended on it, and I got a polite "Eeh, it was...OK." when she finished.

I know there's a reason I write. I just wish I knew what the heck it was.

That Bites

We're on hour twelve of "Tooth Watch" at our house.

A stubborn incisor refuses to give up the ghost, dangling precariously from the last remaining shard of a pediatric root. It came loose this morning and remains still.

The tooth is so loose that he can push it completely out of his mouth and close his lips around it. He looks like Aunt Mildred's snaggle toothed chihuahua. Poor kid.

The tooth fairy has been put on Defcon 1 alert.

Mixed bag. Every time he smiles I'm hit with two feelings: overwhelming joy from seeing him grow and dread from the certain bloodletting the orthodontists will demand from me someday.

Good times gentle readers. Good times.

Patches

Talking with an old friend at the reunion this weekend. We were joking about all the band and choir classes we took in high school, marveling at how we actually managed to accumulate enough quality credits to graduate.

A comment was made that my friend didn't put all of his choir patches on his letter jacket, not one to tempt fate among the more devout of the athletic lot in high school. We got a good chuckle out of that.

Got me thinking. My old jacket is gathering dust in the back of the closet. So, out it came.

Apparently back in high school I subscribed to theory that more is not enough when it comes to music patches. It would appear that worries about a linebacker blitz on my musical nerd-dom were a secondary concern to finding enough uncovered material on the jacket.

I can just see me now, back in the day...

"Oh no, you don't want none of this pal. See this? Yeah, that's right, All-State choir alternate.
Don't be eye-balling me man. Don't make me go a capella on you. See this one? All District band, little something I picked up in 'nam fella. So, step off. I will drop a b-flat shock and awe on you that will rock your world. Better recognize!"

There was actually a patch on a patch. Ridiculous.