Random Thoughts For a Tuesday Evening

I don't find Kathy Griffin or Tim Meadows to be funny, but that is ok they don't find me funny either.

The Tiananmen Square video just hits me. The courage of the guy that blocked the tank. Can you imagine. Do you have it in you. Are you willing to die for your beliefs. Are you willing to be the voice that cries out in the night. Will you fight for what you believe.

A day or two after 911 a couple of guys at the office and I were talking about what had happened, or should I say just processing it all. One of them looked at me and said, "Jack, I know that you would have fought back." My ego was pleased. If I go off of my gut I tend to agree with that. I don't usually sit idly by. But who knows. Better to never find out.

My son and I are having a field day watching superhero cartoons together. He loves to ask me about their powers and wants to know how to get some of his own. Tonight he watched a bit of Superman with me and then wanted to know which superhero was real.

He told me that he knows that most of them are fake, but he thinks that at least one or two are real. So I asked him who he thought might be real and he said Batman. I asked him why and he said because he knew that he was just a man in a costume.

I told him that Batman wasn't real and explained why. I was pleased. He knew enough to understand that people don't have all of the superpowers that they show on the cartoon.

My daughter sometimes cries when I leave the room. During the past few nights she has had nightmares and called out for me. I picked her up and held her. Her little body pressed against mine and her head on my shoulder. Together we patrolled the house. In the quiet of the evening I listened to her gently snore in my ear and I promised to be there forever.

I am working on a post called My Uncle, My Teacher- I Still Miss you. I am having trouble with it. The flow is not there, the cadence is a bit clipped and I haven't found the right words. I have written about him before. I blogged about telling my father that his brother had died and the pain I felt telling my grandfather that his son was gone.

The memory of the look on my grandfather's face haunts me still. I made him cry. I know that I didn't make him cry. I understand why he cried. For that matter as a parent I understand it better than I did then and in some ways it makes it worse. It is worse because a parent has no greater fear than losing a child and I understand how I helped bring that nightmare home for him.

At the same time in some ways I think that there was no better person to break the news.

It wasn't the first time that I had to pass along the news of someone's death and it wasn't the last. The day that my friend died I made the calls to the rest of the members of our gang. And I remember the screams and the shouts. I was a pallbearer at the funeral and I made sure that we, his friends buried him.

It was the middle of summer and it was hot. In a black suit it got to be much hotter and even in the midst of my grief I made a point to look around me. Why? That is a story for a different time. What I will say is that as hard as it was to bury him engaging in the act was cathartic.

Enough of the morbid stuff and on to other issues. I need to return to a more disciplined state of mind. I need to bear down and focus on a number of things, not the least of which is getting myself into better shape.

While I may still be young I am noticing little aches and pains. They make themselves known with increasing frequency and they stay longer than they used to. Uninvited guests that exhibit horrible manners with nary a care.

I have slowly begun to lift weights again. It is something that I enjoy doing and was quite involved in. I first started lifting at 15 and was devoted and disciplined through the majority of my 20s. During the past seven years I have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the dumb bells, but it is time for me to get serious again. Or maybe I'll take up yoga and swimming.

Dreams are important, a critical component of life. At least I think so. In my world the moment you stop dreaming you die. I can't conceive of life without dreams to follow. Even in my happiest moments I have always had my dreams. That doesn't mean that I wasn't present, that I didn't live in the moment, you can do both.

Checked my stats and found that a bunch of people had spent time checking out these three posts:

The Talking Penis- A New Bathroom Adventure
Excuse me, There is Toilet Paper Stuck To Your Tuchus
I Don't Let Go & I Don't Give Up

The second post is an audioblog. The sound quality isn't good, but the story just makes me laugh hysterically. I have to share it, oh what the heck I'll make it a separate post.