Happy March!
It's been a couple of quiet weeks at Casa de Sawin. I've been reading a lot. In fact, I just finished a wonderful book called The Year Of Yes. It's about a young woman who makes a momentous decision: for one year, she will go out on a date with anyone who asks her. Instead of saying no to life, she decides to say yes.

It's not just about dating; the woman opens herself up to all kinds of new things on the journey. It's sweet sometimes, sad at others, and ultimately triumphant. I highly recommend this book!

This will probably be made into a movie. Maria Dahvana Headley (the author) and her husband are both playwrights and both write screenplays. But I would read it first.

I also read We Are Still Married by Garrison Keillor. I love listening to A Prairie Home Companion, and I've read all of his other books and found them all delightful. But this book (I think it was his first) wasn't very good. I didn't like it one bit.

I've been working my way through Ellen Hart's series of books featuring Jane Lawless, a restauranteur and amateur sleuth who lives in Minneapolis. I've liked all of the books in this series. I haven't read them in order, and the last one I finished was Hunting The Witch.

I liked The Iron Girl, the latest in the series a whole lot, too. I also recommend picking this up if you like cozies with fun characters. The mysteries are okay too, but for me the strength of these books lies in Lawless' ability to face the toughest situation and come through on the other side through fierce determination, intelligence -- and sometimes with a little help from her friends.

William Bernhardt's lawyer Ben Kincaid returns in a satisfying thriller in Capital Murder. Bernhardt writes a pretty good legal thriller, and the characters of the series are fun to read about. So Thumbs Up on the Kincaid series -- especially Capital Murder and Hate Crime.

Bernhardt's writing has really matured over his past few books, and if you're looking for a mystery/thriller/courtroom drama to read, he really delivers.

The book I'm struggling through right now is called Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes . It's about the trouble our society is in because have all bought into the popularized version of B.F. Skinner's philosophy of behaviorism.

Basically, we reward everyone in order to get them to do things but when we take away the reward the behavior we encourage ceases. Thus, we spend a lot of our lives coming up with different-flavored carrots to dangle in front of people to get them to do what we want. This means that we have a whole bunch of people who behave a certain way only because they anticipate reward or punishment and not because it's the "right" thing to do.

It's a very interesting subject, and I will finish the book someday. But Alfie Kohn is such a dry writer that I can't handle more than a page or two at a time. I would love to have been the editor on this book! In the right format, Kohn's ideas could influence a lot of people who work in human services. As it is, I like the book, but I find it unreadable! Maybe if it was a pop-up book with lots of pictures and smaller words, I would be able to read it faster.

I Know This Makes Me Sound Crabby, But ...


I'm just not a fan of the Olympics. In fact, I don't like them at all. Last night, Most Patient Wife and I were watching TV and the Olympics was on and I remembered that it was Thursday night.

I reminded her that Survivor was on. Most of the time, I don't care to watch Survivor. But compared to the Olympics, well...

See, I don't like the Olympics because it just looks to me like it's so fake. We kidnap children, press them into a sport or event from age four and make them perform. When they hit their twenties, it's all over.

Sure, they look nice doing it, butI don't see the fun of this stuff. Not in the least.

"I want to be the best" is the refrain that I hear most often when someone interviews the athletes. I understand that, but this just feels to me like we have artificial, engineered people out there performing for the masses.

I'm sorry, but it just feels yucky.

But I'll watch any of the three Law and Order shows 15 times a week, and I can't wait for Tuesday nights when I get to watch Vic Mackey smack around people who deserve it on The Shield.

So it's all subjective. But for some reason, I just can't bring myself to care about most of the the athletes who compete at the Olympic level. And if I don't care about the people, I don't care what they are doing...

I just won't enjoy watching it.

The Cheese Stands Alone
I got some news from my family last night: my uncle Dennis died a few days ago.

And with that, all my monsters are dead. I have outlived every member of my family that made my childhood a Dickensian nightmare. Truth to tell I thought they were going to be the death of me, literally. I never thought I would see my thirtieth birthday.

I'm 45 years old, and the best revenge I've enjoyed against those people is living and breathing and loving others and growing to an age I never thought I would see. But the sweetest part of it all is that I didn't become a monster like them.

And I came to terms with all of them. I faced those people, every one, and told them the truth: that I remembered what they did. And when they lied, or when they denied, I named it to their faces, and then I released them from any hold they had over me.

I'm not perfect -- far from it. But I'm not them, either.

I'd like to say I forgave them all, for all of it, but there are moments I know that isn't true. Maybe forgiveness, like a lot of things in life, is something you do in progressive cycles. You do your best and when you find that you have a ways to go you redouble your effort until you get it right. Eventually, as you grow stronger and more capable, you reach the goal.

I beat them all. I did it by living, I did it by being me and not turning into them. I did it by rejecting their view of me.

A friend of mine once accused me of thinking that I'm a tough guy. I told him that I didn't make it through everything because I am tough, but I am tough because I made it through.

Today, I feel like the toughest guy in the room.

Wanna arm wrestle?

Wise Words From Steve
Over at The Sneeze, Steve regales us all wth a nice -- and short -- tale of a tradition he and his wife share. The upshot of the story are these wise words:

"The world is full of douchebags, guys. Take 3 seconds out of your precious day to make a fuss over each other. Do it like you mean it. Do it as a goof. Just do it a lot."

Steve's Valentine's Day post is merely reason #137 that I like reading his blog. Check it out!

Recipe For Pain
Take: One 45 year-old guy who’s still got a few pounds to lose.

Add: 50 Hours of Trivia Marathon, less six hours for sleep.

Combine: Three or four meals of junk food, and a little too much soda.

Process: Three hours (or more) of vigorous dancing with people half your age.

Repeat annually for seventeen years.

And yes, I’m doing it again next year!

Should Be A Little Easier Than This
This isn't a whiney post, I promise. But I'm trying to get some work done, and I'm having a hard time.

I haven't written anything for about three weeks. That might not sound like a long time (unless you're an editor waiting for my copy), but it is unusual for me to go so long without writing something creatively.

What I'm working on right now is a piece for the newspaper, a profile of a local taxidermist. He was a nice guy, and I enjoyed the interview. But for some reason, taking that information and putting it into story form is proving to be ... difficult.

I've done a few things to avoid looking at the blank screen: a couple of loads of laundry, brushing Ginger AKA Action Kitty (to be fair, she really needed it), and gathered up some papers that need to be filed away.

I can't avoid it any longer. I have a rewrite due this morning. So, I've plugged an Indigo Girls CD into the player, turned off the phones, and placed an ice pack on that sore spot in my back. After I type these words, it's back to work.

One of the strange fears I have is that someday I'll no longer be able to express myself with the written word. Today, as I confronted the blank screen, I mentally reached for the part of my brain where I suppose my writing ability abides ... and for a second it wasn't there.

It's not the first time that I've felt this way. This sensation doesn't last long, and I know it's just a "thing" I have. But it's slightly terrifying nonetheless.

I did what I always do when I get that feeling: I give into it, but in a controlled way. I let myself feel it for a few minutes and busy myself doing something else. Today, I did a load of laundry, brushed the cat, and organized some papers.

And I cranked up Wilson Pickett's song "Your Lookin' Good" and danced around the house, scaring the cats a little.

So now I'm back at the keyboard, ice pack in place, Indigo Girls providing the background, phones unplugged, and I think I’m ready -- nearly seven hundred words later.

We’ll see.

So....without getting too personal....
Let's just say I'm really, finally back.

I've spent the past few weeks feeling like garbage. My post on January 31 was nice...I actually felt normal for a few hours that day. Then it was back in the dumper. My mood, my health, my energy level -- all were ebbing at a low point. Even though Most Patient Wife and AngryTeen* didn't complain much, I imagine that I was rather hard to live with for a while.

Well, this week, the specialist I've been seeing performed a minor surgical procedure that seems to have done the trick. If you want details, send me an email. Otherwise, just imagine for yourself what was wrong. I'll bet most of my readers have already figured it out.

So I'm better. All my tests have checked out, my energy level and general mood have been elevated to levels I haven't felt since before Christmas.

Of course, this is just in time for the most important weekend of the year: KVSC's Trivia Marathon. I have some preparations to make -- housecleaning, cooking and baking as well as just getting organized.

Add to this the fact that I'm actively looking for a new job -- or at least a new position in the group home company I work for, and you might guess that I have a lot on my plate at the moment. You would be right.

But that's the way -- uh huh, uh huh -- we like it -- uh huh, uh huh.





*AngryTeen has asked that I change her name in this blog. After careful consideration, I've decided that Mercurial Girl is apropos.

Grammy Whammy


So Most Patient Wife and I watched some of the Grammy Awards tonight. I don't like watching a lot of these shows, because I'm just not interested in about 90% of what goes on in the entertainment universe.

But when I heard the Sly Stone was going to make an appearance, I have to say that I took notice. After all, I'm a big fan of Motown and Funk, and Sly was the king of that stuff back in the day.

But seriously...what was the guy thinking? It looks like he took Bill and Ted's time machine back to the eighties, mugged Grace Slick and stole her clothes and hair!

The rest of the show was okay. Jay-Z had an interesting rap about ... I can't remember, even though we had the captions on. But it was a cool listen. U-2 won for an album they had already won a bunch of awards for on last year's show. That kind of stuff confuses me.

And I like Jamie Foxx a whole lot. His portrayal of Ray Charles was incredible. He's a fine actor and a dang funny comedian. But wowzers...this guy has no business in the music business. I suppose that I'm in the minority, but I don't care for his work in the field.

I guess I'm just a cranky old curmudgeon. Kids these days don't know nuthin about good music! Back in my day, we had Christopher Cross, Dan Fogelberg, and REO Speedwagon -- and we liked it that way.

I didn't see my current favorite group up there tonight. I like the Black Eyed Peas. I know that some of their songs are pretty trashy, but they are playing with music in unusual ways -- and having a lot of fun with it. I've never seen one of their videos -- frankly, I don't think I would want to -- but some of their songs are truly innovative. And no, I'm not talking about "My Hump".

Ask For the X-men, Get Micky Mouse
I don't remember much of last night after we had dinner. I fell asleep just before seven and slept all the way through to five in the morning. Sluggard that I am, I turned over and snoozed until 6:30.

And a funny thing happened. When I got up I felt like myself, more than I have for a couple of weeks.

I got a B12 shot yesterday, and when it was over the nurse said, "I have to cover that spot with a bandage, but all we have is little cartoon ones. Will Mickey Mouse be okay?"

Thinking of my macho image I said: "Do you have any X-men?" Cuz you know, cartoon X-men are ever so much more cool than Mickey Mouse.

The nurse laughed and said, "Sorry, but you're stuck with Mickey."

So, whether it was the shot or the sleep, I feel better today than I have for a long time. For the past few days, I've felt like I've been carrying a big water balloon of pain and liquid around on my hips.

Today, I have a little pain but my head is clear and I feel like I can do anything I want to. This is the person I like being -- capable, competent, and silly. My sense of humor must have been hiding under my pillow.

Ginger, Lovey and I pounced each other around the house as I gathered up the laundry. Today feels like a normal day.

Birthday Birthday
Yesterday, I turned 45 years old. Most Patient Wife took me out to dinner, and baked me a delicious cake. (It was lemon, which I asked for.) She also got me a nice carrying case for my iPod.

It was a quiet day, mostly.

Today is my son Chris' 23rd birthday. We are sending e-mail back and forth, but mostly are still trying to figure out where we fit with each other.

Chris, I hope you have a year full of promise and hope, and maybe a hint that one of your dreams will come true.