Clangin' and Bangin'

Well, that whole '15 minutes every day' thing was short lived.

I'm busy.  Sue me.

I'm now in my second full week of being a gym goer, and I'm crushing 90 minute workouts 5 days a week.  I'm down almost 7 lbs, I'm feeling a lot better, tracking every morsel of food that goes into my mouth, and sleeping like the dead most nights.  

The worst part is that I have to get up at 6 every morning. 

What am I trying to accomplish?  I want to feel better, I want to look better, and I don't want to have to avoid mirrors when I see them. I've never had a positive body image, or a lot of positive self-image in general. As a dude a couple months before his 50th birthday, all I can do is try to get better, right?

Well, that's my emotional dump for today.  

See ya later!

Disposable

 I'm starting to wonder if the world is all wrong or if it's me.

People are a fickle lot.  One day they can be your partner, your friend, your family member and they're a big part of your world.  The next day, seemingly without rhyme or reason, they can just walk out without a care in the world and never speak to you again.

Whether it's 2 years or 25, they can just shut you out without a second thought to be given.

Are they wrong for doing that, or am I wrong because I simply can't?

Life's easier to get through when you have the help of others to carry the load. I don't know why so many people choose to ignore that fact.

Waiting for my Golden Buzzer

I’m not sure what’s happening with me. I must be getting soft in my old age, because I’ve been finding myself spending an inordinate amount of time watching videos from shows like ‘The Voice’ and (Insert country here)‘s Got Talent… and getting emotional over the acts.

You’re a janitor with 3 teeth in his head that can sing a Journey song? Tears.

You're some country bumpkin whose Nana died and you’re singing her favorite song for the judges? Tears.

You idolize Michael Buble and get a chance to sing with him, even though he didn’t think you were quite good enough to be on his team? Tears.

I used to laugh until my sides hurt at that movie ‘Junior’ with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was pregnant (yes - it’s the whole plot of the movie) and was crying while watching commercials on TV.

“She was Daddy’s little girl… NOW SHE’S MOVING AWAY!”, he cried while laying on the couch, inhaling a pint of ice cream.

That’s me - cheering for strangers and living vicariously through them on pretty terrible reality television; without the ice cream, though, because I’m watching my girlish figure.

Some men buy a Corvette when they turn 50. My mid-life crisis consists of getting misty over some accordion playing guy halfway across the world that has an entire crowd enraptured with his performance of a disco song I’ve never heard of.

Is MANopause a thing?

 

I'm Steve.

I'm a husband and Dad of two teenage boys, a couple of months removed from my 50th birthday.  Starting way back in the late 90's, I started this blogging thing and I did it off and on for the better part of 15 years.  I had amassed a huge audience and faithful daily readership, and then I decided I didn't feel like sharing every personal detail of my life anymore - so I just stopped.

I did some freelance writing for 10 years or so for the local newspaper - twice weekly movie reviews and op/ed columns  - but I got tired of the complete lack of freedom that working for a newspaper owned by a corporate giant that you weren't allowed to criticize comes with - so I just stopped.

My goal was to finish a book I have been working on - both in theory and in practice - for the last couple of years before my 50th birthday.  The issue was that when I sat down to write one of the 50 essays that will eventually come together for this volume of middle aged Dad wisdom, it didn't feel right. Like a muscle, any skill that isn't regularly exercised atrophies. It didn't take me long before I realized that I needed to knock off the writer's rust before I even attempted to really put something together that people wanted to read (and perhaps even spend their hard-earned money on). I could force some stuff out of me to put on a page, but it wouldn't feel good and it would result in a whole lot of frustration and wasted time so I'd prefer to avoid that.

So here I am, trying to start over in many ways. Some of you that will read this may be old readers of my blog, some may have stumbled across me via a search engine, and some may be newcomers who may have known me for a while but never realized that I like to do this writing thing every now and then. Regardless of who you are, welcome!

My goal here is to try and write for 15 minutes every day to get those creative juices flowing. Some days will be formal essays, some days will be experimental pieces, some will just be nonsense, but it's all part of my creative process that I feel like I need to go through.  If you like what I write, great. If you don't - at the risk of sounding rude - I really don't care. This is for me, by me, and for the benefit of me. If it happens to bring any modicum of joy to anyone else, well I suppose that's pretty cool too. 

On the right, you will see some archives of stuff I wrote while working for the paper, and other assorted bits that had been attached to my old Blogger profile. Feel free to peruse through them, because I honestly don't know how long they will stick around. I also want to change this pretty drab page theme, but that will come in due time.

Anyway, this is it. 15.7.365. Let's see how it goes!