Your internal (sexual) dialog.

How much time do you spend thinking about things that you wind up not doing? This morning (it's been a busy day already!) I had a really interesting conversation about men's internal dialog... all the stuff they fantasize about, worry about, plan on...

...but never do.

For dudes, a lot of it is sexual. For women? I don't know.

Was I talking to a group of people with unusually active imaginations? Or do you do it too? How much time do YOU spend thinking about stuff you'll never act on. How much of it involves sex?

Love to all. But not, not that way.

Another form of Pride.

I'm sitting in a Starbucks in New York City. On 36th street and Madison Avenue. It's 6:39am.

Today I'm having my second meeting with the person who my old company wants me to replace. On Friday I'm having a conversation with my would-be boss to discuss what my bottom-line requirements are for being hired.

My self-esteem is being called into play. I feel like I have to take this job if they meet my requirements. I feel like I have to have requirements. That somehow, I must be hireable. That if I don't, I'm somehow missing out on the last good work opportunity of my life.

This is, of course, complete bullshit. My company is doing (knock on wood) fine, and it's growing. And there's a reason that, after a decade, I'm the person they are pursuing.

It's just amazing to me how little creedence I give my own success. I swear, I don't mean this is an arrogant way, but I'm starting to think that refusing to acknowledge my own success is pride in reverse. But it's still the sin of pride.

Does that sound arrogant? Am I using too many italics?

Love to all. Even you, the hesistant jaywalker in the track shorts.

Things not to say to your wife.

Maggie and I were discussing my oldest son. He's a cellist, a high-level skateboarder, and digs soccer. I mentioned that he's got both the artsy-thing and the athletic thing going and said "Man, this kid is going to get laid so much."

Note to self: don't say that again. Ever.

Love to all.

My first mutual interview.

So, my old job wants be back.

By "old," I mean a decade ago. I've been running my own companies since the mid-90's. But now, the last job I had where I worked for someone else wants me to take over their New York operations. In some ways, I'm totally honored. I mean, it's the second largest office of the single largest company of it's type. In other ways, I'm a little suspicious: I've left this company once before.

I met with the guy they want me to replace for one-and-a-half hours. At the end, I said to him: "We've been talking for an hour... tell me what makes me wrong for the job." He said: "I can't see a single thing." I said: "That's impossible." He said, "No, it's not. You're what we need here."

Happily, it's not a decision, yet. The next step will be to discuss the numbers, metrics, goals, etc. One thing at a time.

Love to all. Even you, the strange, throwback sales guy.

Insomnia Haiku

Up since 2:30
Nervous, mind races quickly
And now, I will crash.



Love to all. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Where the hell is my CAR?

This is my car. I think. It's a Mazda Miata, which means it weighs 8 pounds, has rear wheel drive, and is the exact opposite of a "Snow Car."

However, I have the most KICK ASS snow tires, and I was able to dig it out from two feet of snow, and go cruising up and down my street. Just me and the snow plows, baby.

Rock on.

Love to all. Even you, the fearless SUV driver who forgot that ice is totally resistant to 4-wheel drive.

Um... after?

Okay... maybe I didn't clean my desk... but I did make oatmeal!

There's two feet of snow outside... I've got to go take some pictures and dig out my car. I'll post those when I come back in.

Love to all. Even you, the unstable dude with the Thesaurus.

Prior to cleaning, a bit o' semi-politics.

There's this dude. James. His blog is Right Face. We do not see eye to eye on things. But the guy clearly thinks about what he's saying. This kind of disagreement, I can handle. If I was a drinking man, I could probably sit down with James and have a beer, and shoot the shit. He might wind up taking a swing at me, but I think we'd be friends the next day. I'm going to start reading it regularly, and if my opinion holds, I'm going to blogroll it. For me, blogrolls are the only way for me to remember which blogs I want to check in and read... to see either how those folks are personally, or what they saying politically... depending on the type of blog.

There's this other dude, Clay. His blog is In My Right Mind. While Clay left me a super-nice comment the other day, his blog writing typifies the whole problem with the whole Left vs. Right thing. By classifying those who disagree with him as un-American, by accusing United States Senators of being un-American... well, there's really nowhere to go with that.

The spectrum of Liberalism is as diverse as the spectrum of Conservatism. I think we'd all be better served if we went issue by issue, instead of resorting to the easier-yet-useless option of categorization.

NOW I'm going to clean my office.

Love to all. Even you, the quiet thinker with the grocery bags.

Before.

I have GOT to clean my desk. Like right now.

Love to all. Even you, dust bunnies.

NYC Marathon 2006, baby!

Congratulations Rich | Championable! You are eligible for guaranteed entry to the ING New York City Marathon 2006, which takes place on Sunday, November 5.

(Name edited for pseudoanonymity.)

Love to all.

It just keeps getting weirder, part I.

Okay.

13 years ago, I quit the family business (actually, I got fired, but only because I wouldn't promise to leave my hair up for religious services), and went to a company that would help me find a job. Instead of helping me find a job, they hired me. Three years later, I started my own company. Five years later, I sold it. Two and half years later, I started ANOTHER company.

Today, my boss from a decade ago just asked if I'd be interested in coming back. There are a LOT of pros and cons.

Cons

1. I wouldn't be my own boss.
2. I wouldn't make potentially huge amounts like I possibly might at my firm.
3. I wouldn't have nearly the flexibility for parenting time that I have here at my own place.
4. Jobs go away. If I lose this job, what happens?
   

Pros

1. I would get some nice (but not huge) $ up front for the company I currently have... college tuition, anyone?
2. I would learn a huge amount about mine and related industries, in a way that I absolutely would not be able to learn on my own.
3. This knowledge would make me much more marketable should, God forbid, the new gig didn't work out.
4. I would be surrounded by people who would provide all kinds of new input... currently, I'm pretty much the generator of 100% of the ideas, and have been for a decade. I'm enormously attracted to intellectual challenge.
5. It would be a decent salary, the base of which would not be subject to change: stability, stability, stability... and the ability to plan a bit.

This totally defines the idea of a luxury problem, and I know this. Still, my head is spinning with the possibility of change. Again.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who did coke in front of his employees.

Like wind.

My cousin is a photographer. Part of the way he makes money is by shooting stock photos. A couple of the stock photos he's sold are of my children. Today, I was asked to show those photos to a some folks from another stock photgraphy house that's on the same floor as my office.

So I did.

When the picture of my daughter came up, I swear to God, I could barely breathe. My love for this girl hit me so strong and was so overwhelming it was hard for me to think. It blew through me like a strong wind, and when it hit me like that there was pretty much nothing I could do but just live the moment. It was sharp and painful and exquisite and utterly unique to this one little girl.

All I want I really want in the world, when it all comes down to it, is her happiness. I want people to be nice to her. When she looks in the mirror, I want her to like the person she sees looking back at her.

And I'm going to do everything I can to make that happen.

Love to all. Even you, boys.

Sometimes I'm such an ass. :-)

"I want you both to know that you are very, very important to me...in a very, very limited way."

- Me, to two of my friends.

Love to all.

Am I a prick because I don't do memes?

Every now and then I get "tagged" with a meme... and I ignore it.

The thing is, I've been tagged by some nice people... and from folks whose blogs I like... but I'm just not into the whole Chain Content thing. I do like the concept of Memetic Drift, though. So if y'all ever want to get together and play Telephone in person, we'll set up a time where everyone can drive, fly, or take the subway to my office in NYC, and we'll sit in a big circle and play.

I'll even reserve a conference room.

Love to all. Even you, utility guy.

Ice cream headaches.

Has anybody out there ever purposefully eaten ice cream way too quickly… just to get one of those hyper-intense ice cream headaches… just so you can feel it melt away?

I used to do that all them time.

Love to all.

It’s good to be a bug.

Can you imagine yourself in a particular mood? Try it: imagine yourself pissed off, annoyed, happy, or scared. My guess is that you can do a pretty good approximation of your thought processes… how you think, what you’d say, do, etc.

Me too.

But when I get into moods like the one I was in from yesterday into this morning, I can’t even begin to replicate it once the mood has passed. It’s like I’m a different person.

This morning, I felt really low. I felt like people (myself included) were nothing more than advanced bugs, whose every action and mood were simply complex extrapolations of termite behavior… and that it was incredibly arrogant to pretend otherwise. But I also felt (and feel) that God, the Spirit, etc., was everywhere in equal measure… so being a bug isn’t all that bad, in the end.

It was a strange mood.

What did I do to change my mood? I hunkered down and got my shit done. I had a very difficult conversation with an employee. I did all of my direct marketing. I spent an hour on the phone with Dell getting an RMA number for a printer and getting another printer fixed. I scheduled employee interviews. I called a bunch of friends. I went to the tanning salon (for psoriasis, not for vanity). And I ran 5 miles at the gym.

Also, I got interviewed for a magazine article about branding in my industry. That was way cool.

So I feel better. But man, I’m glad those moods are few and far between. Yeesh.

And by the way, the comments you all left me absolutely rock.

Love to all. Even you, the ornery Akita on 5th and 13th.

Sludge.

I’m depressed today. I admit it. 99% of the time, I’m a happy dude. With apologies to all, I’m going to list the things that are depressing me today, in the hope that this will disperse said depression:

1. My employee quitting.
2. Not knowing the status of my other employee.
3. My daughter has strep, which means that
4. I might have strep, which means that
5. My fucking psoriasis will continue to go ballistic. Ouch.
6. Islamic extremists torching shit because of a cartoon which depicted Mohammed as someone who would torch shit.
7. The President of Iran planning to wipe Israel off the face of the planet.
8. Maggie and I not being home on the same night all this week.

That is all.

Love to all. Even you, shaky.

Why I love Maggie.

Maggie is the most certain person I've ever met.

I don't mean that in terms of self-confidence. Especially now: since she's just about to venture into the working world for the first time in over a decade, she is absolutely awash in fear and insecurity.

But. When it comes to who she is, what she loves, and most importantly, how to kick back and enjoy life, I've never met anyone like her. She has a perfect assuredness of character that allows her to navigate events with true joy. She radiates love, and brings warmth and a gentle happiness to every room she enters.

Last night we went to the opera. La Traviata. In spite of being a cultural gorilla, I enjoyed it. Maggie, looking so cute with her opera glasses, was moved to tears. Looking at her, I felt a little burst of deep emotion that, previously, had been reserved for my daughter alone.

Nice to know that after 12 years, love can grow.

Love to all. Even you, Blayne Edwards.

Fun with Islamic Exremists. (And American, too)

Let's see:

The President of Iran, who is one of the few leaders I think is worse than my country's, recalled it's ambassador to Denmark because of a drawing in a non-affiliated newspaper. Genius. The Pakistani goverment passed a resolution condeming the cartoons of the Islamic Prophet: I wonder if they've ever passed a unanimous resolution condemning suicide bombings? The Danish embassies were destroyed in Syria and Lebanon... because of something the Danish government didn't do and couldn't (shouldn't) control. Iran has declared an end to cooperation with the IAEA, and has promised full-scale uranium enrichment beginning.... now.

Raise your hand if you think a massive two-part process, Ethanol-for-Gas replacement concurrent with a Fuel-Cell Manhattan Project, is in order.

I'm in a bit of a personal quandary, here. On the one hand, I think President of Iran has said enough crazy shit that a preemptive strike is actually warranted. (And that's something you'll probably never hear from me again.) The problem is: so has the President of America.

In the face of catastrophic failure of Reasons for War, my President (although I never voted for him) now claims that he wants to spread democracy throughout the middle east. Since when has it become our fucking job to effect regime change in countries that have not, and likely will not, attack us?

By declaring his intentions, George Bush has opened the door for bad things to come, and reduced our national policy to Thugs of Ideology. Ugh.

Love to all.

This is a bad comedy.

For my 37th birthday, Maggie got me a 42-inch HD Plasma TV. I was totally blown away. I didn't mention it because, I think, I was mildly embarrassed at having such an awesome, huge-ass TV. We've had it for 2 days.

But now that my son's 5-year-old friend just knocked a strawberry shake directly onto the screen... with shake leaking into the fucking crack between the screen and the molding... I guess it's okay to mention.

That's it from me right now. Love to all. Even you, kid. Even you.

p.s. I forgot to mention: In the half-hour before the Shake Event, our washing machine burned out and our babysitter canceled for our big night at the opera. Oh, and Maggie is at the mall, and I have three kids over for play dates, in addition to my own.

Intercontinental Ballistic Crucifix

Offended by a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammed wearing a bomb on his head, radical Muslims are destroying things and threatening to blow shit up.

That makes sense.

I also like how these same extremists are demanding that the Danish government apologize for something printed by an independent newspaper.

Oh. My. God. This bothers me so much, I'm going to use color.

I think that if someone drew a cartoon of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross, where the vertical plank of the crucifix was an ICBM, I would take that as a commentary on how George Bush uses religion as a motivation for war... on how RADICALS ARE FUCKING UP THE MESSAGE.

That all I have to say. Love to all.

Your religion is wrong. (And a little right.)

Here's what I decided: our attempts at understanding God are inherently wrong. There's just no way, in a universe this big... or conversely, in a universe where we are so incredibly teeny-weeny, that we're gonna figure out God. Not happening.

Mild sidebar: Wired just had had an article about how all these monks were able to radically change their brains through meditation, to the point that they pumped out 3000% of the gamma waves of other people... and could put their brains into a unified state of radiation that is otherwise only seen (and very rarely) in people under anasthesia.

So: I believe that we're never going to understand the universe. There's probably stuff we're not even remotely capable thinking about, let alone understanding.

But: I do believe that there's a flow to things. An energy beyond anything we can ever comprehend, and that some people have been able to tap into that. In Christianity and Islam, they call it the Holy Spirit. And in the Koran, Jesus is referred to as someone who is "strengthened by the spirit." Makes sense to me.

My point is this: all these different religions have found unique but probably-equally-valid ways to effect spiritual change. None of them have got it completely right, because we don't have the capacity to get it.

Whatever "it" means.

I used to parrot the phrase "There are many paths to God." I believed it, kind of... but I didn't feel it. Now I do.

Love to all. Even you, the Art Director in black.

Happy birthday to me, and thanks for the facts!

So I'm 37 now. I've decided not to be 40 until I'm 40. Rock on. I'm completely exhausted from the Florida trip, so I'm taking a half-day off.

It was way cool to get home to such funky tidbits from the previous post.

Zube, ITS, Princess, Lisa, Nupy, debambam, CJ, 2Vamp, Terry and Gina: You guys ROCK. Now, I’m gonna go fact check all of your comments. You better be right, or there may be fines, imprisonment, or both.

More later.

Love to all.

Tell me something I don't know.

Yo.

Flying back to NYC today. When I get home late tonight, I'd like to learn some things. To that end: would you tell me something that I don't know? Some obscure fact that you know that most people don't?

That would be killer. Thanks in advance.

Love to all. Even you, the dumb guy with the connections.

Hee hee hee.

Is it referring to all my crazy-cool tech gear... or...

Small business challenge number 785.

It occurred to me today that I should just fire everyone.

Now, this isn't quite the Big Deal that it seems, because out of my two full-time employees, one has already quit (an amicable and entirely proper split). The other one is a nice person who does a subset of what I do. She’s pretty good at it, but I’m not sure how I need to reconfigure things if I want to keep the company lean, nimble, and efficient.

Don’t get me wrong: firing one person sucks. I just didn’t want to imply that I was running some sort of massive operation here.

I’ve gotten a lot of advice from folks… including the person who’s leaving. It’s been suggested that yes, I clear the decks and hire a super-capable office person/personal assistant, and go all crazy on my own. It’s been suggested that I stick with employee number 3, and hire a part-time billing and collections person.

I have no idea what to do… and this is the worst time for me to think about it, because I’m exhausted.

Anybody out there want to work for a pro-choice, pro-gray, hetero catholic father of three? With hypomania?

Heh.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. “Change that to red.”

I just want to report...

...that it appears my special reversible belt, the one that goes with everything, is about to snap in half. HOLD ON, BABY! JUST TWO MORE DAYS!!!

Love to all.

Did I go overboard on this one?

So, I have to review a lot of emails as part of my regular job. A lot. I was just doing that here in Orlando (yay, two jobs at once!). It's 9:38pm and I've been here since 7:15am, so I'm starting to get a little punchy.

Someone (who I don't know) wrote me an email, and they started with "Hi, Rich! How's life?"

So I wrote them back:

Dear [name withheld],

It’s been so long since you’ve written, I was beginning to think you returned to the Sorbonne.

Me, I’ve been okay. After a brief stint in the Oregon State Penitentiary, I was released, with ankle bracelet, and immediately embarked on a new career as a nautical engineer. Sadly, that venture failed spectacularly, and eventually came to rest at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Seven years later, I found myself hiding out in a single-room flat in Clackmannanshire.

Then, monkeys. So many monkeys.

Was that overboard? I don't know. It felt good, though.

Love to all. Even you, the chicken organizer.

Geek humor.

After 48 hours of trying to fix an access problem, we finally got it resolved. I was chatting with the network manager who actually fixed the problem, and tried to put my own spin on it.

I liked his response.

(I'm the icon on the right.)

Love to all. Even you, the lady who's a little too defensive about her masking tape.

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit.

So, I went back to the room after being onsite for 14 hours. While in the room, I missed two phone calls saying that the Senior VP (and master of the Main Client Account) couldn’t play a particular media file, and could I fix it right away?

Sadly, my personal cell phone had died, and nobody thought to try me on the show phone, via email, or by calling my room.

Fuck.

Love to all. Even you, alarm clock.

I am SO cool.

Why, because I chatted online with Zube Girl. (click to enlarge).

I've actually only IMed with two people from the blogworld. I'm always kind of terrified, because I don't want them to think I'm some kind of psycho. Or rather, a different kind of psycho than I actually am. So, to cover myself, I'm like:

"HI! DON'T THINK I'M WEIRD! HA HA! OKAY, BYE!"

Or some craziness like that... and I always make sure I sign off first, just in case they are thinking: "God, I hate this guy. Why is he talking to me? Is he a stalker?"

Ah, my brain. I'm so outgoing and NOT outgoing at the same time, it's just ludicrous.

Love to all.

Feel Free to say yo!

AIM: richchampionable
YAHOO: rich_championable

Feel free to IM me, until it freaks me out too much and I shut that shit down.

Love to all.

Calm before the storm and AAAAAAAAAH!

So here's one of the production rooms. It's empty, but that won't last long. My PowerBook looks a wee bit out of place amongst all the XP notebooks.

I've been sent back to the hotel for the evening, since I'm doing "staff support" and the "staff" isn't here yet... as you can plainly see.

What the hell....

...what the hell... WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO FOR 14 HOURS WITH NO KIDS, NO MAGGIE, NO DOGS, NO CATS, AND NO COMPANY!?!?!?!

Okay. I said it. I am NOT used to downtime... and I'm here in this hotel with no car, and nothing to do until 8am tomorrow. Holy CRAP.

Love to all.

Either this room is going to rock...

...or it's going to suck.

It'll totally rock if it's just me. It's a kickin' suite and it has two TVs and I can sleep in one of two beds, or both. Fun!

It'll totally suck if I wind up with a roommate. After twelve years with Maggie, I'm not too fond of sleeping near someone I don't know. Bleah. Thing is, I would be totally happy in a Japanese-style micro-room, too. I just can't handle roommates.

I'm pretty sure I'm solo, though.

Either way, I don't think I'm going to be here too much except to sleep, so there won't be much time to dance naked, anyway. Not, um, that I would do that.

Okay. Quick coffee, then off to the show.

Love to all. Even you, Cliff the Van Driver who not-so-subtly implied that I had stolen one of those kick-ass vibrating pager-thingies.

Well, *that* went well.

I'm writing this from Gate 1, Delta Terminal, Laguardia airport, New York City.

I woke up at 3:30am, half an hour before the alarm. I'm crazy like that.

My flight isn't until 10:45, but Maggie and the kids decided to go to visit her Dad in West Palm Beach... and their flight was at 8:00am. So off we went, super early.

While waiting in the van, my daughter slugged my youngest in the head. I sent her inside, checked on the boy, stormed inside, and yelled at my daughter "GET IN THE KITCHEN!" Apparently, this scared the crap out of Maggie, because she yelped. I angrily told my daughter that she could not hit, and that this was totally unacceptable. Maggie was really upset that I yelled at our daughter like that. On the way to the airport, she said that she wants me to talk to someone about my temper. Ugh.

She may be right, though. Although not in the way that she's saying.

I think it might be good for me to see a shrink. I think that as I turn... um... "40"... that it's wtime to come to terms with my beloved-but-fucking-insane father, and the long-term effects of my prior difficulties with with alcohol.

This bothers me, though. And I know why.

Being raised in a "black/white" environment, where I was either "God's gift to the planet," or someone who "didn't deserve to steal oxygen from others," I think the idea of going to therapy to try and improve on things that are relatively normal is an entirely fucked-up concept. Does this make sense?

In other words: in my brain, having any issue = complete mental ruin.

Love to all. Someone I know just arrived.

Prepare for weirdness!

Hello, gorgeous. How've you been?

Ka-yummy.

I'm flying tomorrow morning to work tech support at a huge-ass corporate conference in Orlando, Florida. My job is to help keep the on-the-fly design studios running, and to make sure all the conference workers can communicate with their home base: email, VPN, etc.

This is the only client I work for directly. The rest of the time, I'm at my little business in the East Village.

If this conference is anything like last year, I can expect 12 - 18 hour days that consist of:

1. 8 hours of intense bordedom, followed by
2. 0.5 hours of heartfelt panic, followed by
3. 10 minutes of rational solution, followed by
4. 5 more hours of intense boredom.

It's being there to provide the rational solution that matters.

So, I'm going to try and post lots of little things over the next five days. I'll be returning late 2/1... And on 2/2, I'm turning 37 years old.

WAIT. Make that 40. I'm turning 40.

Okay, I'm not. But what I decided is: I need to say that I'm 40 for the next four years, so that when I'm finally 41, I'll be cool with it.

Does that make sense to you?

Love to all. Even you, the tragic bastard with the frightened girlfriend.

Is my wife being sarcastic?

You tell me. This is her email to me about picking me up at the train station:

Be sure to let me know exactly, to the minute, when you will be arriving so that I will be THERE when you get there and you will not have to wait at all, because that would be totally humiliating, as if you were not loved by your wife or children.

God, she knows me so well.

Love to all. Even you, the AP person who has made the same promise of payment for three weeks.

Oh, poop.

So, here I am, struggling with how to have a conversation with Employee #3, when Employee #2 quits. Her last day is February 10. She was offered an opportunity to work as an assistant in this education program, where they'll pay 80% of her Master's tuition.

She was terrified to tell me. She was all shaky-nervous as she tried to. When I realized she was trying to tell me she was leaving, I said: "Okay, hold up. Permission to be candid? Okay. I love you. You're fantastic. You're leaving. It's cool. So now tell me what I need to know."

The rest of the conversation was much easier.

I meant it, too. I love this girl. Not that way (although she's smart and super-pretty), but because she's brought a ton of great personality to a personality-driven company. She's a dedicated, hard-working, can-do person with all kinds of a future. So it makes sense that she's moving on to do what she's always wanted to do.

In a way, it makes conversation with employee #3 much easier: since my next employee is going to have to be a sales person, making the big discussion about reorganizing her compensation package to be other-than-office-performance-based is an easier one to have.

I'm sad, though. Employee #2 is a great kid. She's been with me for a year and a half.

I'll miss her.

Update, oatmeal, being the boss.

Good morning! Want some oatmeal?

It turns out bringing Employee #2 to the doctor was a really good thing. She has an abnormal heartbeat, and while she's no immediate danger they're running her on all kinds of tests over the next week or two. Yeesh. The good thing is, she feels much better knowing that: 1) She's not about to die, 2) She's getting treated. This is a fit, 26-year-old woman... but who's family has a history of all kinds of stuff.

My family? We live forever. But we go insane early.

Employee #3 is coming back to work today. She's the one with a verifiable-semi-serious ilness that may have additional components. The thing here from an employee standpoint is that prior to all this going down, she was going to have an employee review where part of the review would be: We can't afford you the way we're paying you. So I'm feeling pretty stuck on this... legally, my motives were correct... from a business perspective, I think I'm pretty much spot on... but from a human perspective... bad, bad timing.

I know what'll fix everything: cocaine and hookers!

Kidding. Sorry. Anyway. I'm teaching my second class today, and I have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. Any ideas? Think stock PCs, kindergarteners. Actually, I have some ideas... but not concrete.

Love to all. Even you, fartypants.

The little, strange things.

One of my employees is out sick. Might be medium sick, might be very sick. Don't know. Can't ask. She's been out a bit, and she'll be out until at least tomorrow. Then, she's out again Friday... and I don't know for how long.

This morning, my other employee (I have two internally, and about 30 freelancers on the outside) came in and said that she'd been up all night... and had been sleeping poorly for the last few nights. She's had chest pain, tooth pain (in her front teeth), and numbness in her arm. Obviously, her friends said "GO TO THE DOCTOR NOW."

So she finally called the doctor, and he said "Come in immediately."

I brought her uptown, and am writing this from the waiting room. Someone in the building has an open wireless network.

Selfishly, I think: "Shit. I've got two sick employees. That leaves just me in the office. How the hell am I supposed to keep things moving?" I'm such a jackass.

But when it comes to action, at least I'm doing the right thing. I brought her up here, and I'm going to wait until she gets out... her husband is stuck at work, so he can't be here. Yay, small business ownership... I can close the office if I want, and damn it all.

Love to all. Even you, the 100-year-old doctor.

Dudes! I totally forgot!

So, I was walking down Warren Street in Hudson, NY, to pick up Maggie from her massage appointment. This blue car with a yellow bumper sticker goes by and beeps... and this girl leans out the back seat window and says "Hi!" The driver, a young lady in her early twenties, smiles at me.

I was like, WTF? Me? They drive past.

About ten minutes later, I'm chatting up this supernice hippie dude who was standing outside the entrance to the massage place. It turns out his girlfriend was the owner, and also the lady with whom Maggie had an appointment. All of a sudden I hear "Hi, you!" I look at the street and there's the same car full of young ladies, and they're waving right at me again. And they cruise by.

The hippie dude says "Hey man, they like you."

I realize they probably thought I was someone else... but it was WAY cool to get checked out by a carload of attractive young women. I admit it.

Love to all. Even you, real estate guy.

Famous people, lots o' love, and Maximum Art.

Okay. This was pretty great. We got home from our weekend away, and the kids had made us a cake. That completely rocks. I'm glad they didn't garnish it with legos. Clearly, that almost happened.

Maggie and I spent the weekend at a place called the Union Street Guest house. At first, we checked into the first-floor Library Suite, but we thought that it would be way noisy, so we asked if we could move upstairs to the Gallery Suite. The owner said, sure... the woman who was supposed to arrive in the Gallery Suite was cool with either room. Then he said "Uh, listen, if she knocks on your door because she doesn't know about the switch, be cool. It's Mary Stuart Masterson, the actress." So that was kind of fun. We heard her, but it turned out that we didn't meet her.

It turns out that when Maggie and I are alone, we laugh more, and we make love more. A lot more. Of both. It's always a good thing when the number of times you make love outnumbers the number of nights you stay in a place. Rock on.

Also: we laughed our asses off. And no, it's was not related the last paragraph. I can't remember when we had so many laughing fits... the kind where your stomach starts to really, really hurt... but you keep laughing because you can't stop.

We bought some nice things: a really beautiful and solid antique desk for my oldest son, and two large photographs by a up-and-coming photographer. Maggie also picked up a sweet little ring from Bali.

Hudson is fantastic. It's got amazing architecture, some great restaurants, a huge artists community, and relatively affordable housing. If I had extra cash, I'd buy some real estate up there.

I didn't look at a TV or computer for 60 hours, which is some kind of record for me.

It's nice to be home. There's a lot of things going on, and I have a minor crisis in my office that I have to figure out. But that's for another post.

The great thing from the weekend was the huge, fabulous reminder that Maggie and I still make a really good boyfriend/girlfriend pairing. After twelve years, I'm still thrilled to be around her. She's fun, adventurous, sexy, and smart. And I'm married to her.

Lucky, lucky me.

Love to all.

Three.... two... one...

I'm actually leaving my computer at home this weekend. Shock-a-ROO!

I'm a little bummed that I won't see my two older kids before I leave... the babysitter is picking them up at the bus stop... it's so weird how I'm totally psyched for some alone-time with Maggie... yet I already miss my kids, even though I haven't even LEFT yet.

Yeesh.

Oh! Oh! I almost forgot! I went a little crazy and got gifts for Maggie for our weekend getaway. I bought her two cute little bangles as "Yay! We're off!" presents... and I'm going to give her those in the car just after we leave. But at dinner tonight, I'm going to spring a little necklace I got her at the oh-so-badly-named but very cool store in NYC called "New York Look." She will completely not expect it.

Okay. Going to pack a little bag, then we're heading out. Leave me nice things to read for when I get back. See you Sunday.

Love to all. Even you, the salesdude in Saks who shadowed me for 10 minutes.

No way!

So: tomorrow evening, Maggie and I are headed up to Hudson, New York, to spend a weekend alone. Yeah, you heard that right: alone.

No kids, no cats, no dogs… Just the two of us, for two nights, chilling. Of course, you know precisely what we’re going to talk about: kids, cats, and dogs. But I hope to sleep until at least 7am… I hope to get in some serious smooching… and I hope that Maggie and I enjoy each other’s company.

Scratch that last one.

What I mean is: I hope that I’m patient, easygoing, and fun to be with. I know that I can be a really fun person to hang with. I also know that I can be crabby, irritable, and annoying. So I’m going to have to do a little praying, and my prayer will be, in part:

“God, please help me not be a dick.”

Love to all. Even you, the drama queen.

Dear Michael,

Hey, man.

I was just getting to know you a little bit... I dug the fact that you had little kids just like me... you were trying hard to be a good husband and father... but you were just as fucked up and interesting as the rest of us.

You had a great voice, man. And really expressive eyes.

I feel bad for your kids: their Dad is gone. And no matter what kind of gloriousness, progression, or nothingness that follows this life... for the kids, their Dad is just gone.

I won't be seeing you on 35th or 22nd anymore, amigo. It might have been occasional, but you were a good guy to know.

Rest in peace, brother. You fought the good fight.

Rich

"Terrible gift."

Alcoholism is the greatest thing in the world. The greatest. That is, of course, if the alcoholic recovers from the illness. Otherwise, it's just a wee bit problematic. That whole blackout / crime / sadness / devolution-of-the soul-thing can be a real downer.

But it seems that quitting drinking requires that the alcoholic address a whole range of things... spritiual, physical, and mental... and that by addressing these things, he finds that life can be way cool.

A lot of alcoholics think that they're special... That they are somehow better than normal people, who they call "civilians" or "normies." This is crap. However, alcoholics have been given a "terrible gift" that compels them to live a different life or probably die. It is choiceless, if the alcoholic is to survive. That doesn't make the alcoholic better. It makes him lucky.

It's a terrible gift because unwrapping it requires losing a battle... one that can be long, painful, destructive and seemingly hopeless. Opening it can take years... and sometimes it stays shut. But it's a gift nonetheless.

So, yay alcoholism! Sort of.

Share the pain, part II: the grossest thing ever to happen to me.

We had an Australian Shepherd growing up. She was a smart, funny dog, who was fierce as hell when she wanted to be... and she was fast: she would sprint into the woods after a squirrel, and come back with a giant-ass doggie grin on her face and blood on her jaws and she was clearly thinking: Holy shit, that was awesome!

On a Sunday morning in the mid-80's, I was asleep, teenage style. Meaning: I wasn't waking up for anything. Apparently I required between 23 and 24 hours of sleep per day. The dog, as always, was sleeping with me, on my bed.

The dog was sick. I don't know if it was too much squirrel, canine IBS, or what... but apparently she had some kind of terrible bowel upset. Now: with all my heart, I firmly believe that she did what she always did when she had to go out... came over to me and tried to wake me up. I'm not sure of this because I didn't wake up. I believe with all my heart that my dog tried to wake me up for as long as possible... until the very last second... and it was that honorable tenacity that caused her to lose it, in a flood of doggie diarrhea, right next to my head.

Directly onto my pillow.

She felt better.

I rolled over.

Face first, full on, into a puddle of dog shit. And still I didn't wake up. No. I started dreaming. And all I remember about the dream is that it smelled like dog shit. Smelled strongly. Smelled really strongly because had I inhaled through my nose.

The operative word here is "aspirate."

I finally woke up. With dog shit leaking down the back of my nasal passages, I flew out of bed, ran for the shower and screamed something like:

AAAAAEEEEUUUGGHGHGHGHGHGIIIAAAAHHHH!

End of story.

Now you know the grossest thing ever to happen to me. If you still love me, we're pretty much good to go from here on out. I feel so much better. It's like a 5th step of Ick.

Love to all. Even you, the folks who, after reading this, don't love me anymore.

I've got math issues.

That's all I've got to say.

Love to all. Even you, people who are good with Pivot Tables.

Share the pain.

Zube Girl’s… shall we say… forthrightness about her personal habits reminded me of something I’ve been trying not to think about. (Note: I'm not equating the two at all.) But now that it's in my mind, I figure that sharing it might get rid of it.

The scene: an employee review. I’m the employer. We’re going through the process… mostly positives, a few criticisms, a decent raise, etc. At the end I say: “By the way, I was surprised that you never gave me anything that you wanted to discuss in the review.” (I had asked my employees to submit topics for discussion to me in writing, so I could prepare.

She said: “Rich, you can’t help me with my problem here.”

I said: “What do you mean?”

She said: “Well, it’s [Colleague].”

Now, Colleague has some personal habits which can be a little frustrating. Colleague loudly blows her nose every time she comes into the little cubicle… even if everyone in the cubicle is on the phone. Colleague burps a lot. There are others. So I thought it was one of these things… but it wasn’t.

So she continues: “She’s always picking things out of her scalp. And smelling them.”

My reaction? Real professional. I was like, “Oh, GOD. Oh, man… um… is there something you want me to do about it?” She said “No.. no…” And that was it. But now… Oh my god. I’m so grossed out. It’s an image that has stuck with me ever since.

What’s a small-business owner supposed to DO? What’s the right thing, here?

Love to all. Even you, the folks who put up with my icky habits.

Cousin.

My cousin came to visit today. He's 30. He looks like a younger and better looking version of me. It was great to have him here... not only because I like him... but because my kids adore him. With Maggie gone at class, it made the day so much easier.

I didn't see him for something like 20 years. My father, who has serious psychological problems, went on a full-scale mental assault against my cousin's dad... which culminated in my father banning our family being banned from talking to my Uncle or his family. It was only when I got old enough to make my own choices that I decided that talking to my Uncle wouldn't be "disloyal" to my father.

I know I've mentioned my Dad's problems before, but I don't know if I ever mentioned the scope of time that it has affected my extended family.... My father didn't talk to his mother for 14 years. He didn't talk to his brother for 20 years. And now, he (and his other son), don't talk to me. It's been 2.5 years.

Borderline Personality Disorder, man. It's a sad, scary, and ultimately pathetic thing.

So, I've been back in touch with my cousin and uncle for a few years now, and they're sweet, smart, funny, normal people... although it's amazing how similar/twisted my cousin's sense of humor is. People who Skype with both of us have told me they get us confused. Cool.

Anyway. It was a fun day, and I'm feeling a bit blessed by having such cool family.

Love to all. Even you, Dad, you crazy fuck.

The ACLU member in me just says no.

Is comment editing a common practice out there? How many of you blog owners do it?

I don't. I've deleted comments on very rare occasion, but I don't edit. Editing changes tone and tenor, and I don't want to have anything on my blog to be different than what the author of a comment intended. I just had a situation where a blog owner allowed some disturbed (read: fucked up) person to accuse me of all kinds of truly nasty shit... entirely due to my post about lust... but when I responded that the commenter was "fucked up" for saying that "all men should be killed," (as well as all the personal attacks), the blog author wrote me a reprimand and edited the comment to her liking.

Yuck! Now it seems like I tacitly approved of the person who was being so icky.

The thing is, ALL of the comments should be on there, right? If you're gonna allow comments, either moderate them, post them, or delete them, but editing them for content just sucks. And I don't care what people say about me, if I have the opportunity to counter.

Anyway: enough about this.

I get so excited by finding interesting and/or opinionated people... but not everyone can be a Zube Girl, a Tiny Coconut, or even, God help us, a Digital Objective. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. Editing + email reprimands = not my cup o' tea.

Love to all. Even you, A C.

48 hours.

Maggie just left for her second weekend of classes at ICP. I'm in charge! I'm in charge!

Think the kids'll survive another 48 hours of Dad Takes Over?

Love to all. Even you, the crazy woman who said really nasty things about me on someone else's blog.

Hormonal overload.

Sometimes I’m a fucked-up, oversexed, women-obsessed freak who should be locked in a room until his hormones subside. I mean, it’s ridiculous. Ridiculous. I don’t know what it is that triggers these things, but when it gets switched on, it’s really hard to turn off. Ignoring it is like trying to ignore a tornado. It’s just too big, too fast, and kicks up too much dust.

For the last two or three days, I’ve been utterly overwhelmed by the chemical wash of desire.

I know what I’m supposed to do.

1. Hit on my wife, big time. (Not the best time for that, though.)
2. Pray to be less sexually obsessed.
3. Uh, you know. “Take care of things.”

What amazes me, though, is the ferocity of this thing. A friend of mine said to me yesterday: “Lust is a motherfucker.” And boy, is he right.

I suppose women might have the same problem, but I doubt it.

Love to all. Even you, the lady on the train with the lip gloss and high heels.

Sign, part II.

“Unattended children will be given a cup of espresso and a free puppy.”

This was posted in my Opthamologist's office, and needs no spin nor commentary from me. For the record: at the ripe old age of 36.95, I've got 20/20 vision.

Love to all. Even you, the Optometrist at the eyeglass store who told me that I needed glasses.

Opthamologist
Epidemiologist's
Epidemiologists
Edit...
Revert to "Opthamologist's"

Terrified. Manic. Glorious.

So I was asked to teach "after school enrichment" to 5- and 6-year-olds at our elementary school. I had to get fingerprinted and background checked. When I asked the fingerprinting lady if I should have accelerated my Great Bank Robbery plan, she said "Definitely. You're in the FBI database now, so forget it." Alas.

The first class was today. I'm teaching computers. I told the assistant principle that my first class was going to be "Breaching corporate firewalls step 1: port scanning with NMAP."

But I was joking.

Actually, they made colorful name tags with MaxWrite and used a paint program to make pictures of their houses. For the most part, they had a really good time. One kid absolutely lost it because he couldn't use the paint bucket tool to fill a square... to the point that he almost threw up. Ah, kids.

Before the class I was absolutely terrified and in freakout mode. I get terrible stage fright, even if I'm going "on stage" in front of kids. Unlike performing music, though, my worries fade the moment I'm actually talking to the kids. I get totally charged up by kid-energy. It makes me manic for days. They're just so cool.

One class down, seven more to go. What are we going to do next week? I better start planning.

Love to all. Even you, the hyperconcerned mommy.

"Okay, put your vagina away."

I can't believe those words came out of my mouth today. Even funnier, they made sense.

Love to all.

Sign.

The elevator to my office opened on a lower floor. A doctor's office. Directly in front of the elevator door was a lavatory with a sign that read: "Patient Toilet."

All I could think of was a porcelain bowl gazing up at someone and saying: "Don't worry...take your time... it's totally cool."

Love to all. Even you, the unrested.

The silliest criticism of Brokeback Mountain.

Here's what the dude said:

Hollywood's best and brightest have put together a high quality love story in an effort to push the gay agenda. I have nothing against gays. I believe their lifestyle should be respected. I draw the line when I'm asked to celebrate their lifestyle.

Yeah, it's a propaganda film. Because being gay is an "agenda" that you can "push" on people.

Oh. My. God.

That's almost as silly the dude referring to gay people having "a" lifestyle. One lifestyle for all the gay people? How boring. But seriously... I just love when people refer to the Unified Gay Lifestyle/Agenda. I hate to ruin this guy's theory, but gay people (at least the, um, hundreds that I've met) are just as diverse, disparate, excellent, fucked up, strange, normal, tall and short as straight people.

Shit.

But he's right about one thing: when I saw "Jaws," it was a clearly celebration of sharks eating people... definitely pushing the "shark agenda." And Reservoir Dogs pushed the, um, "black tie-wearing-gun-toting-dudes with guns" agenda. And PLEASE don't forget the Wookie agenda of Star Wars. Animal Supremacy Now!

Love to all. Even you, Conservative guy.

"You are alcoholism incarnate."

It’s interesting to have this said to you, especially when you don’t drink anymore, more so when it’s by someone you know and trust, and even more so when they are describing behavior that has nothing to do with drinking anyway.

I think she might have been right.

Love to all.

Why I believe "Pro-Life" is hypocritical.

After an amazing homily by my Priest, which will probably be the topic of a later post... a parishioner made an extended announcement about how my church will be sponsoring a trip to the pro-life march that's upcoming in Washington.

Now, I'm pro-choice. And I understand the pro-life side... however:

Until the day comes when pro-life people are vehemently pro birth-control, I view them as hypocritical, elitist, classist, and nearly murderous.

This is no small statement, I realize.

By "nearly murderous," I mean: they are trying to require the birth of millions of unwanted or accidental children, thereby enormously damaging the lives of a geometrically larger number of people in ways that will reverberate for many generations.

These "pro-life" people, by being against birth control, are acting in a way that destroys life... even if that life is still "lived."

Now, I'm sure I'm going to get a comment like "I was an unwanted child, an my life is beautiful!" Let me say that I'm really glad for you, but your case doesn't prove anything. In fact, one of my own children wasn't exactly planned, either. But my kid's case doesn't prove anything, either.

Pre-emptive dismissal isn't usually my style, but in this case... there you go.

Love to all. Even you, the pro-life folks with whom I absolutely disagree.

The kid gets deep. The kid gets bored.

"Dad, why can't we see forever?"
"Dad, what's at the edge of space?"
"Dad, what happened before God?"

- My 9 year old, in a 30-second span.

"Daddy, can we please get out of the car?"

- My 6 year old girl, as I tried to answer these questions.


Love to all. Even you, the guy who ordered "three egg whites" at the diner.

I am so fucking furious right now.

My daughter told my wife that going to the ballet was "the worse thing that ever happened to her." She came home crying and screaming. If I try to get involved Maggie tells me not to. My daughter has been driving Maggie into a state of depression over the last week, and I can't do anything about it. She's so *mean* to Maggie. I mean, she says things I can't even believe.

I took her upstairs and tried to talk to her. She wouldn't listen at all. It was fucking useless. So now, Maggie is mad at me for trying to talk sense into our daughter, my daughter is mad at me for the same, but frankly, my take is: if you're going to act like that, you should just be sent to bed. Period. I feel like we just let her get AWAY with things. I'm sure Maggie would disagree, and she may be right, but...

Shit.

Gonna be a weird bunch of weekends.

Right now, Maggie and my daughter are at the ballet at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. My oldest is playing bingo (yes, bingo) at the town center, and my youngest is in the bath. Normally, my family is pretty much all together from Friday (when I get home from work) until Monday (when I leave for work).

This unusual separation is going to continue all month.

This weekend, Maggie is taking a Photoshop course I got her for Christmas. It's at the International Center for Photography, and it's all day long... both Saturday and Sunday.

Next weekend, she has the same thing, part II.

Weekend after that, Maggie and I are going to Vermont, just the two of us... to look at possible little places to purchase with money that we absolutely do not have.

Weekend after that, I'm being sent to Orlando to support the design and video teams at a huge pharmaceutical conference. Pro: I can make $1000/day. Con: I'm away from the family for five days. Clearly (as a friend of mine said), I have a price.

Then, it's February. And that means birthday time! I'm going to be 37. I kind of can't believe it. But I'm spending that weekend home with my family, old tired fart that I will be.

Love to all. Even you, the blonde kid who glared at me.

Porn, perspective, and rock and roll.

I walked from Grand Central Station to Union Square with a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in around seven years. He's a tremendously interesting dude: current 2nd-echelon rock star, former porn star, and all around standup guy. We had a great conversation about life, love, and how to deal with women. Specifically, we talked about:

1. The pros and cons of having a fantasy life involving women you know.
2. Dogs: what makes the ultimate canine?
3. How to have a non-arrogant code of ethics.
   

It was a super-fun stroll. I love how things happen in New York City.

Love to all. Even you, the cabbie who nearly took my foot off.

Sleeplessness Haiku

Sudafed panic
Now I am swapping hard drives
What was I thinking

By Maggie: Winter break plus one snow day: a lament in free verse

I remain here
In the eleventh day of my confinement
With small creatures demanding ever more snacks
Or asking to do cooking projects
Arguing over the game cube
Cursed, cursed game cube
Who thought to bring this thing into my peaceful house?
Santa. It was Santa, a bearded goblin who laughs at my misery.
The endless hours
I hear recounted tales
of Super Mario Sunshine
and Donkey Kong.
I cannot find play dates for my children
There is no quiet hour of doing laundry
I cannot drive the slippery road in my aged minivan
There is no walking the dogs on snowy roads
And for tomorrow
More snow is forecast.

"All because you're hung like a horse..."

"...that doesn't mean you have to do porn."

- Kumar, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.

Truer words were never spoken. Apply this logic to your character defects, and you've got bona fide words for living.

Love to all.

Sex and the Married Couple.

Maggie and I were at a party yesterday, and Maggie was relaying a story to a friend (I was in another room) about how our older son once walked in on us "in the throes of passion." Her friend said "Well, at least you have throes of passion." The person standing next to her said "yeah, you shold be thankful." Mind you, these were fairly hot looking women. I mean, um, from a neighborhood-fantasy-perspective.

So what's up with that? What's normal for mid-late-thirty-something, together-for-over-a-decade couples?

Love to all. Even us, the dudes with near-nuclear levels of lust.

My other arm.

I didn't get any tattoos until I was over 30.

I got the Maggie one first. When I told her I was going to get it, she said "That's very sweet, but I hope you don't think I'm going to get a 'Rich' tattoo."

I didn't. Different styles, you know?

I also told her that I left room under the "Maggie" to write "left" if she ever took off.

Ha ha. Ha. Yikes!

The daisy, tulip and first four stars were next. The daisy is for my oldest boy (long story), the tulip for my daughter, and one star for each of us. When our youngest came along, I added the sunflower, and one more star.

I'm thinking about what to do next. I've got a six-month rule... I've got to want a tattoo for that long before I get it. That rule has saved me a bunch of times. After witnessing 9/11 first-hand in NYC, for example, I was going to get an enormous eagle across my back. Excellent thought, bad idea.

I realize that I have the least manly tattoos ever. A dove for the Holy Spirit on my right shoulder.... three flowers, a heart, and five stars...

...but that's what makes me so damn hot. It takes a real man to sport a daisy.

Love to all: even you, 2005.

World of Seethe

Something strange is happening to me.

It’s not the gray suddenly sprinkling through my beard.
It’s not the fact that my last few crushes have been on women 15-20 years older than me.
It’s not that I’m launching into yet another economically challenging adventure.

It’s that I no longer enjoy seething over perceived bad behavior of others.

I had a couple things happen this week: an employee was disrespectful and inappropriate, a client was/is seriously delinquent… a couple other things… all of which used to be the kind of thing that I would obsess over: Did I respond correctly? Did I get the last word? Did I WIN?

This isn’t to say that I don’t care about these things. I do. But I care less about the latter two then I ever have before. I even let the employee get the last word in, obnoxious as it was. And I didn’t pull out the Patent-Pending Rich@Championable Written and Verbal BeatDown Stick. I stated my point and that was it.

Bonus: None of these things kept me up at night, and none of ‘em are bugging me too much today.

This is kind of huge for me. My family LOVES to seethe. My father LIVES for it. He stays furious for days… even months at a time. And he can hold a grudge for decades. This is no exaggeration, and it’s sad. My father defines people in two categories: good and evil… and you can go from one to the other instantly and irrevocably.

The thing is: most people aren’t good or evil. It’s not that simple, and thank goodness for that. But what's more important: I seriously doubt anybody out there obsesses over their little contacts with me... so what the hell am I obsessing over, anyway? My energies are better spent on work, family, and annoying the crap of those I actually love.

Love to all. Even you, the guy on the 5:30am train with the super-loud headphones.

Putting it out there.

I hereby declare that I'm going to try and buy a small house in Vermont for my family. I figure it's going to get way too expensive soon, and now is the time.

I have to put my entrepreneurial brain to work on swinging this.

(Insert smoke effect and sizzling noise here.)

Love to all.

3:50am - smart Richie and an unexpected confession.

I put my head down at 7:30pm last night... I wanted to make sure that if I got up super-early to give my youngest his asthma medicine, I wouldn't be walking around looking like I just came off a 72-hour speed run. Smart Richie! Good boy!

Actually, I've never done speed of any kind. Back in my teens and twenties, I was about 379% more energetic than I am now... and I'm pretty damn peppy as it is. Also, I was radically unhealthy: my standing pulse rate at age 20 was 108. And my blood pressure was once measured at 170 over 120. You know the saying "speed kills?" Well, in my case, it would have... right away.

My friends used to give me bong hits for my birthday, just to calm me down.

Drugs I have tried: Mescaline, LSD, THC, Psylocibine (sp?) Mushrooms, Alcohol, Nicotine, Caffeine.

Drugs I have tried in the last 12 years: Alcohol, THC, Nicotine, Caffeine.

Drugs I have tried in the last few years: Caffeine.

Funny: I had no intention of spelling out my drug history in this post. But now you know. Hope we can still be friends.

Love to all. Even you, the folks who might need to give up some things they don't want to give up. Yet.

Politics: What people are forgetting about America.

The beautiful, glorious, and frustrating thing about America is this: you are absolutely required to be uncomfortable.

What I mean is: we are required, as Americans, to accept opinion, lifestyle, and activity that we personally find repugnant, as long as it exists within the bounds of the law.

That is not to say that we shouldn’t express opinions about things, but to be American is to revel in a country which is defined by diversity of opinion and culture.

I’ve got more to say about this, but I’m too tired right now.

Love to all. Even you, you neo-fascist scumbag.

4:10am: Asthma vs. Albuterol

Whenever my youngest has an upper respiratory problem it usually triggers his asthma. So last night, we had to use albuterol (via nebulizer) twice. He's such a trooper, lying there half-awake and keeping the mouthpiece just so, hugging his Teddy Bear.

Poor little guy.

Now that he's back to sleep, what to do? Play Madden 2006? Take the earlier train? Oh, the possibilities!

Love to all.

A real baldness breakthrough.

I used to have the greatest hair ever.

It was super-long, curly, thick, and nearly black. I kept it in lots of different ways: tied above my head in a sumo-knot, box braids, triple pigtails, the Jesus look, and a plain-old pony tail.

In my drumming days, I could do some wicked head-banging moves when I came down hard on the crash cymbals. WHAM! It was an explosion of curls.

Now, though, I'm receding. And thinning. The worst of it is right on top of the back of my head. Angled correctly, my webcam at work becomes a BaldingCam. I try not to do that anymore.

This used to depress me. I'm on Propecia, which has frozen the loss in it's current state, but Rogaine is insanely scary and intense, and I'm not having surgery until they perfect follicle cloning... so I'm stuck as is for the forseeable future.

Sometime over the last month, though I went from being in a weird state of denial and low-grade depression (maybe it I look in the mirror this way I won't be balding) to: hey! I'm a guy with thinning hair! It's just the way it is! I don't know what happened, but it's a mild self-acceptance for which I'm thankful.

It's a breakthrough for me of no small proportion.

So love me. Love my thinning hair. I do. Sort of.

Love to all. Even you, Goldilocks.

Merry Christmas, yo!

A little while ago, Maggie told me that I can't come upstairs until she tells me it's cool to do so... Something present-ish is going on. However, much time has passed, and I think she might have forgotten that I'm in the basement.

So this is a good opportunity for me to say "Merry Christmas" to my Christian pals, and "yo, yo, yo!" to everyone else. For me, this is a season of joyous capitalist splendor and some real thanks for the grace of my life.

Love to all.

I like Jesus AND Presents.

Everyone's freaking out over Christmas.

From Air America to Fox News, Randi Rhodes to Bill O'Reilly, everyone's upset over Christmas... and how the forces of, um, evil, are conspiring to destroy it.

Christmas may be in trouble, but it's not because a statue of the Ten Commandments isn't allowed in a courthouse, or a Christmas tree isn't allowed in a public square. I think it might be because when I go to Church on Christmas, it's absolutely packed. When I go in April, I can get a 2nd row seat, even if I arrive thirty seconds late.

It seems like the O'Reillys of the world are up in arms over symbols, not spirituality.

Me? I separate the two. I LOVE giving presents, and yes, I admit it, I REALLY love getting them. I think it's super, duper fun. That said, I hold Jesus as my spiritual guide. I think it's sweet that we celebrate his birthday. But then again, if Jesus is God... that celebration is misguided. Albeit with the best of intentions.

[Note: I vew the Trinity according to the Catholic catechism... a trio of related-but-distinct beings. Some friends of mine feel that they are *one.* Which would make the whole birthday thing a little silly.]

Love to all. Even you, you last minute shoppers.

Bye bye, Dreamhost.

I've had it.

DreamHost is made up of the nicest bunch of folks to ever run a fairly bad ISP. On the surface, their offerings are fabulous. Lots of disk space, unlimited domains, cheap pricing... but most importantly, they (for a little while) created a successful veneer of People Who Care.

Of course, if they were really that concerned with their users, they would have phone support. Or they would answer questions posted to their support site in a timely manner.

Or they would be able to keep email running for a whole month without major problems or outages.

Shit.

Here's an excerpt of their tech responses: "We understand your dissatisfaction with email recently, and we're really embarassed about it. We're trying so hard to get these machines to work properly, but it seems every time we nail down one problem, another crops up."

So I did some research, consulted some friends/experts, and HostGator came up.

As of today, all 20 of my domains are on HostGator. I'll let you know how it goes. I can say though, that their equipment speed, tech support, and management tools blow the doors off of DreamHost.

I'll keep you posted.

Love to all. Even you, Dreamhost.

Smart little sentence.

I overheard someone say: "It takes a tremendous amount of energy to isolate from the world."

Ain't that the truth.

Love to all. Even you, the ex-husband who thought it would be a good idea to attempt a reunion during the holidays.

My ex-Girlfriend.

So, I called my ex-girlfriend today.

Before anyone thinks "Rich, you fucker!" I think it's important to say: my wife knows. And approves.

You see, this spirtitual journey I'm on involves righting wrongs. Or, at the very least, making amends for harms I've done. There are other ex-girlfriends I'll never talk to again. In fact, I've been told that in most cases, the best way to make amends to an ex is to never, ever, speak to her again.

This case is different.

I dated her for three years. And I loved her tons.

She was a decade my senior, and she was damaged goods. Abused as a child, she had successfully recovered from a variety of addictive disorders. She had intense problems with certain personal and physical interactions. She was smart, beautiful, fierce, troubled, delicate, and pained.

As the child of a mentally ill parent, I was utterly boundaryless. I broke the walls of relationship confidence over and over and over again. When we fought, which was quite often, I would tell everyone. Everything. I would make sure my friends were on my side. I would make sure EVERYONE was on my side. I didn't have the self-confidence or self-understanding to exist inside this couplehood on my own, I had to have the perceived approval of everyone I knew. This was how I was raised: all or nothing. No in between. No gray areas.

She disliked my father. My father hated her. He wouldn't even say the name of a nearby city that had her name in it.

We broke up many, many times. Always, I would sleep with someone else almost immediately. Once it was within two hours.

It was only towards the end that I started to get a glimmer of what a real relationship should be like. It was way too late, and it probably would have never worked under any circumstances... our problems were much too negatively synergistic... but it was the three-year relationship with this woman that led me, eventually, to Maggie.

(And no, Maggie was not the woman I dated immediately after.)

So I want to tell my ex-girlfriend how much I understand the role I played in things. I want to tell her how I regret my behavior. I want to hear if I forgot anything else. If it's right to do so, I want to tell her how much she helped me for years and years af

I want to make amends for the harms I've done, if I can. Not only do I want to do it (although I'm very nervous), but it's required of me.

I left a message on her home machine. We'll see what happens.

Love to all. Even you, the woman who showed me what was wrong, and what was right.

A new kind of "watch your language."

So, I'm playing Halo with my older son. He beats me. I say "Wow. You whipped my tushie!"

Two days later, Maggie tells me that he was really upset by my saying this. He talked to Maggie about it, saying: "If he says that to me when I win, is he thinking that when he wins?" He was actually crying about it.

I feel both bad and flabbergasted: I knew he had been frustrated at losing (in both ping pong and Halo) so I've backed off in both and made sure he beats me at least half the time. This takes more work in ping pong than in Halo, where he's quickly catching up to my slowly-atrophying video game skills.

I had no intention of hurting his feelings. It just never, ever occurred to me that he would reverse and mirror my sentence into thoughts about his performance when I win. It's just way beyond my preprocessing scope. Also, I was kidding. It was supposed to be joking praise.

Anyway... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but it's just another reminder that kids are continuously affected by the words or their parents.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Sneezy.

A birthday haiku for my honey.

Maggie, my sunshine
You tough, gorgeous cutie-pie
Happy, happy day.



Love to all. Even you, the folks who haven't found their own Maggie yet.

What a weird day.

Time since last barf:

Daughter: 15 minutes.
Elder son: 1.5 hours
Wife: 12 hours
Youngest son: 20 hours.

I'm the last man standing... but I've been down for the last 48 with that crazy respiratory thing that makes it so I have to sleep sitting up, on pillows.

The cool thing is: I'm so tired I feel stoned, which is pretty much the only way I get to feel that way.

Love to all. Even you,the lady who tried to speed past the car accident this morning.

Sick math: updated.

50 guests + 1 daughter who threw up 6 times last night + 1 son with diarrhea + 1 wife who isn't feeling well = Rich making lots of phone calls to cancel tonight's holiday party.

Unless everyone makes a miraculous morning recovery, that is.

Love to all. Even you, the folks who didn't RSVP so we don't know who to call.

UPDATE: I've called everyone I know who was coming, or who was on the maybe list. I wonder who'll show up tonight? Yikes.

Massively in love.

There are these moments with my daughter when she becomes this amazing bright light, turns my heart to diamond, and shoots me full of this fantastic energy. It prisms, gloriously, over my entire spirit. It bathes me in rainbows. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before… and I’m a guy who loves Love.

My daughter had her first piano recital last night. She’s six.

She wore a dress that we bought at the American Girl store. Her doll has the same outfit. It’s a velvet, Princess Blue number, and it has two big white pom-poms and a fluffy white collar. At one point (while she waited on stage with the rest of the performers) she caught my eye, smiled, and winked at me.

Boom, boom, boom goes my heart.

When her time came, she sat at the piano, posture perfect and poised. She played in a measured, thoughtful way, and she held her final chord for a full four-count. This was a sublime moment. My six-year-old girl, holding down the last bit of her song for a 1…2…3…4. Rest.

Boom, boom, boom.

Found writing: 1992.

"With sunshine in his coffee and petals in his hair, Richie steps into the shower! His heart is racketing around his chest like an overdriven superball, and his toenails quiver like startled mice....

Oh, oh, the day. Look at the day."

- Me, 1992, scribbled into my college house's "bathroom book"
- Found today, 12/14/2005, during Winter Cleaning.
- Clearly, I was a goofball then, too.

Love to all.

Iran: "Peaceful" nuclear weapons.

So, the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has now reiterated (in public) that he believes the Holocaust was a myth.

The truth here is this: how could someone like this be trusted with nuclear technology? Clearly, he isn't rational. Clearly, if he believes the holocaust didn't happen, he could easily believe that developing nuclear weapons is a "peaceful" action, because, in destroying Israel, it would bring great peace to the region.

Does this sound any crazier than saying that the Holocaust never happened?

I am starting to believe that we should go from Iraq to Iran. I'm starting to believe we should have gone from Afghanistan to Iran, and skipped Iraq. But then again, what would that do, really? Ugh. I just don't know...

Love to all.

$1,000,4000.00

My little company just broke a million dollars in sales for the year. Mind you, that's not profit, not by a longshot. Still, it was my goal, and we hit it. It's amazing how my personality is such that, when things go well, I get kind of freaked out.

Still: Yay, us.

I fully realize that I didn't get sober... didn't accept the grace that turned my life in a new direction... to be a successful entrepreneur. But I do think that making an attempt to be a somewhat better dude has helped me work harder and, sometimes, be nicer. And I guess when you add a little luck, you sometimes get some results.

Whoa.

Love to all. Even you, the deadbeat who took 140 days to pay us.

Why parenting is the hardest job ever.

Two words: immediate effect. Two other words: immediate requirements.

Wait... that's actually three words, in two parts, and... and... oh fuck it.

The difference between parenting and everything else is this: every action you take has immediate and irrevocable impact, both great and small. Every thing you say to a child, and how you say it, redirects their life in development in tiny or huge ways, depending...

Combine this with the fact that you cannot delay children's requirements. They will not and cannot wait for a response (as they get older, sure... but my kids are teeny), and so you have to immediately mitigate irritability/tiredness/angry responses as best you can, without having any of the tactics/comforts of distance, delay, or delegation (hey, three Ds!) that are options in nearly all adult interaction.

So it's a tough fucking job. I'm glad I'm realizing this now, vs. later.

Love to all. Even you, whoever discovered the reason why asparagus make your pee smell.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

So, I'm at Whole Foods on Union Square. There are three lines for 20 registers. The lines are long. There's a "line director" who directs which person from which line goes where. They are supposed to go:

Line 1, then Line 2, Then Line 3.

They went:

Line 1, then 2, then 3, then 2, then 1, 2, 3, 2... etc.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Line Director (who clearly didn't want my math help).

Five things in the last 48 hours.

1) Sledding at the park with my in-laws. My four-year-old was the daredevil, awe-inspiring marvel of the hill.

2) Cleaning up dog poop.

3) Playing the djimbe in church, although the song got cut short because choir went all batshit on the melody, causing the director to shut it down.

4) Cleaning up a huge amount of broken glass from a sink full of dirty dishes.

5) Blogging while in the bathroom, on the potty.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. I'm-being-polite-not-surly Train Rider.

The Holy Spirit vs. Stage Fright.

So, I was about to play drums in Church, and my old-time rock-and-roll panic started to set in. It didn't matter where I was playing, previously: Biker Bar, Pizza Hut, Dive Bar, CBGBs, whatever, I would get totally stiff and panicky... and often couldn't play loosely until the last song, if ever.

This time, though, I took a few minutes and prayed. And I thought to myself, "Dude, how lucky are you to have gotten through what you've gotten through and made to the point where you're being asked to play drums in Church?"

The answer, of course, is very.

Love to all: even you, the wacky kid with the bells.

Reader Question: Am I pro-Palestine?

Hey, someone posted a question to me. How cool is that?

The question was: Am I pro-Palestine?

The answer is: absolutely. I think the Palestinians need and deserve a stable, independent country.

I find it interesting that people focus on Palestine as being "areas of Israel that Israel needs to give up." What about the rest of (and the majority of) Palestine? Palestine was WAY bigger than current-day Israel. Why does everyone demand Israel give up land, but nobody asks Jordan to give up land? How about both?

I think the answer is obvious. Being pro-Palestine and Anti-Israel have become confused. They are not supposed to be paired items, yet for many, they are. Considering that the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians has been largely inflicted by Arabs... the worst by Jordanians... Perhaps Jordan's best method of atonement would be to give up a small amount of land for Palestine.

At this point, it's become clear that Israel is trying to effect serious and peaceful change. Hell, when Ariel Sharon creates a centrist party to facilitate peace... well, that's just amazing.

But is it possible? Has Anti-Israeli sentiment become SO entrenched in the Pro-Palestinian cause that they are now inseperable

If so, all is lost.

Love to all.

Iran's President is evil, but not insane.

Oh my god.

Fresh from the mouth of the evil-ass guy who wants to wipe Israel off the planet, comes the idea that:

1) the Holocaust never happened, and that
2) Israel should be moved to Europe.

The answers of course are:

1) Only the uneducated believe this, and the anti-semitic (too weak of a word, here) espouse this.

2) Yeah, pal: like you lobbied Jordan to give up land for Palestine.

Can you imagine... can you even imagine... what will happen if this country gets nukes? Makes one shudder to think.

Love to all. Even you, the hugely hateful.

The arts are killing me.

Saw the nutcracker at Lincoln Center tonight. It was totally sweet. We didn't take my youngest because we thought it might be too long for him. Apparently, before Maggie left (I was already at work in Manhattan), he said "You're going somewhere without me?"

Heartbreak, heartbreak.

I've got to slow down. I stared getting sick monday night, took Tuesday off from work... but went to Carnegie Hall to hear my unbelievably talented sister-in-law perform... felt a bit better this morning, so like an idiot I went to the gym, did the cardio thing as well some weights... and now, getting back from the city, I'm all sick again.

I've got to let myself operate at 75%... it doesn't have to be 0% or 104% ALL of the time.

Does it?

Love to all. Especially you, the puppy in the doggie hospital.

p.s. I promise to be more coherent after this post.

Morning in paradise. (aimless rambling)

So I'm home sick today. I'm trying to make sure I don't have a repeat of last year, where I got pneumonia once and asthmatic bronchitis three times. No more of that shit for me, please.

Mornings here are utter chaos. It takes forever to get everyone ready for school. My daughter usually becomes upset about something, starts crying, and then will refuse to talk about anything other than how mean I (or whichever adult is in the room) am. My oldest thought it would be a good idea to dump a shovelfull of snow on my youngest... getting him totally soaked just before they left for school... on the day he has an outdoor class trip.

Whee!

Normally, of course, I miss all this: I'm on the 6am train to NYC.

Oh, Did I mention that the Corgi was up all night with, uh, stomach problems?

So now everyone's left, except me and Mimi, the Flat-Coat puppy. I'm sitting in front of our newly decorated Christmas tree, listening to Jina La Bwana, which I'm supposed to play in Church but probably won't due to stage fright. I feel terribly guilty about that, because I said I'd do it... but just the thought of getting up in front of people makes me my chest hammer like crazy.

So, with all this, I feel kind of peaceful and happy. I've got a nice life here, and it's good to take a moment to remember that.

Love to all. Even you, the puppy who *just* passed gas. Ew.

Zube Girl kicks it freestyle.

Zube Girl just wrote an amazing post on what it really means to be pro-choice. I could barely even comment on it. There was no reason to. It was that good.

Love to all.

Four things God made for my daughter.

Written by her.

1. Herself.
2. The sun.
3. Food.
4. Fire alarms.

Love to all.

Do NOT read this post.

Q: What's the only thing more icky than your dog eating her own poop?

A: When she throws it up onto the carpet.



L2A

I am a collections machine.

I run a small company, with 2005 billings of approximately 1 million a year. In fact, this year, that's going to be almost an EXACT figure. Last year, we billed about 600k, so we've grown. And that totally rocks.

The fun thing about owning a small business is the same as the least fun thing about owning a small business: you get to do everything.

Big client decisions? Me.
Shopping for paper clips? Me.
Writing the direct marketing materials? Me.
Checking the phone bill? Me

Hardcore collections? You guessed it. Me.

So I went to a client today, and basically said: "I have to sit here until you give me a check." While I had called and emailed them that I was coming, they never responded. Nonetheless, I managed to walk out of there with a check for $12,000... which is a half of what they owe us, and the full amount that was overdue.

Sheesh.

The client loves our work... they say we do a fabulous job. So why do they make me act like a freakin' thug? Maybe it's because they know I'll keep coming back for more, capitalist dog that I am.

Years ago, when I had really long hair, I could do collections under the guise of being a completely different person. THAT was kind of fun. Alas, I'm a moderately close-cropped papa, now.

Love to all. Even you, the confused office person with the copper hair.