The Man with the Dishpan Hands

In the last few months I have been forced out of the cave and into the technological age. Before all of this the most "tech" things got for me was using the DVR to record a Tiger's game. Now I can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Email. It was a necessary evil as I try to get the word out on my latest writing available on Amazon.com. See, I've even figured out permalinks, if you can believe that. All this has flung me into a craze of "catching up" with those I hadn't seen in quite some time, and for that i am grateful, but it has also made me realize that I exist as a screen name or .jpg file to those outside my family.

I see three people on a daily basis. My wife Jerusha, and my two daughters Vivian and Reagan. It doesn't help that I now live in the middle of a forest, where I have a better chance of meeting an Elk than I do another human to strike up a friendship with. But two young growing girls can keep you company so long as you can keep your cool.

Recent Flagstaff, Az import, exported from the suburbs of San Diego, life, in a nutshell is slower. I used to think to be an author meant I would have to hide away in some cabin somewhere and sit with an old typewriter to get whatever new prolific thoughts or plots I had out there to the eyes of readers living as a complete hermit. In a sense I have done just that. But in reality, I live a very different life.

Rather than give you the notion that being an author is some romantic comparison to Hemingway, I'd like to offer the comparison of Tobias Funke's character "Mrs. Featherbottom" from the T.V. show Arrested Development. Although I do not have to disguise myself to my children, I might as well put on my bloomers and grab the old feather duster as I carry on day to day. Writing may be a full time occupation, but it is second to that of catering to children. My hands run a dish rag and a vacuum more than they do a keyboard. And I wrote the last book at the kitchen table with Barney and Yo Gabba Gabba as the soundtrack, not in some glorious office with extensive library as I thought I would as a kid. 

My wife works, hard as a matter of fact, and is very good at what she does, giving me the opportunity to follow my dream of getting published words to the masses. I spent the last eight or so years operating heavy equipment until my heart and mind gave into the fact that my creativity was near empty. Soon I found myself operating a 27" foot U-Haul truck through the desert of Arizona into the pine forests of Flagstaff. So in essence I uprooted my family to become Mr. Mom, er... I mean Mr. Mom "Best Selling Author."

I do most of anything in a literary sense when those girls are fast asleep, as a two and four year old cannot comprehend the magic of a silent moment. It's true I am proud of what I have accomplished thus far, but in reality I'm probably better at doing a load of laundry than anything I do literarily, and I make one hell of a dinner plate these days...

The point I'm trying to make is that this world will not slow down unless you either have no family, or have the means to provide for your family through a large bank account, both of which do not apply to me. I suppose you get what you put in, which may be late nights, as it is 11:16 PM on a Saturday night as I type my first entry into this blah... blah... blog. Or the simple reality that you may be checking the email to network marketing for your latest publication while simultaneously making a fresh batch of Mac n' Cheese for that kid pulling at your pant leg.

There are days where I think how easy it was to walk out that door before the sun awoke and sit behind the controls of a tractor for a ten hour day, bullshitting with the boys on topics of absolute absurdity. While I am glad to have experienced these things, in the end, I never contributed to this world the way I wanted to. And as you lay the kids to sleep and look at their innocence you realize burning the midnight oil under the illuminance of an LED screen, is worth the badge of honor that might as well read Molly Maid...