This just in, from the No News is Good News department . . .
It has been 60 days, six hours, 53 minutes and 24 seconds since my last cigarette.
I have posts afloat in the syrup of my mind about books I haven’t finished but want to, things I am doing (and not doing) with regards to my schooling, and an open letter to a national chain restaurant. Once they gel, I shall expel them in this space. For now, this is what you get.
A relevant aside:
My friend tells me I am now officially “over the hump.” Despite my often vociferous protests to the contrary, I am, somewhere deep inside, beginning to agree.
A question:
Besides that unsettling euphoric feeling you experience when you crest a hill and begin the descent down the other side, how else can you tell when you’ve officially cleared whatever hurdle lies upon your path? Your experience might echo and validate my own, so share away . . .
The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing!
~ Coach Tony D’Amato, “Any Given Sunday”, 1999
“I don’t know what to say . . .”
So begins one of the best motivational speeches ever recorded. Sure, it’s fiction. Sure, it’s an overpaid actor, preaching to a choir of overpaid actors. But look past all that – close your eyes if it helps – and let the words sink in. The struggle to succeed is universal, and the path to success is paved one inch at a time.
The first day of school is upon us.
We have had a crazy summer, packed with ice cream and camping and enough swimming to wrinkle our skin and turn our lips blue. We rode roller coasters at Great America and sat peacefully in lawn chairs as stars danced above our heads. We rode bikes to the park, walked around town with the dogs, and took long drives in the van, just for the fun of it. And we logged more hours in front of the widescreen TV, watching movies or playing Little Big Planet, than most experts would consider healthy.
Screw the experts. We had fun.
And now, this. The backpacks are in the closet, stuffed to the gills with multicolored note cards, TI-30s, glue sticks, filler paper, three-ring binders and the kitchen sink, just for giggles. Schedules are highlighted, locker combinations are memorized (remember not to turn past the last number!) and lunch accounts have been padded, for those days when Nestlé Strawberry Cheesecake bars or chocolate chip cookies are available, and necessary.
We are poised at the starting line. We are prepared. At this point, as my Pentecostal brethren would say, it’s all over but the shoutin’.
Bring it on, I say! This year, there are new teachers, new schools, new subjects, and new challenges. And new ways to succeed. Not just by getting good grades. Not just by earning an award or some other sort of recognition. Those things are good, and we’ll display your achievements proudly, I assure you. But more important is you, recognizing your own accomplishments, no matter how small, and celebrating each and every one. Like when you make the effort to study extra hard for a test. Or if you’ve put all the sweat and tears you can muster into a piece of art. Or a research paper.
Or recess!
If you’ve done the work, and not cheated yourself out of an opportunity to excel, then grades be damned. Grades will come. For now, just practice. Take the steps. One inch at a time. Do the work, and counting the ways you will feel great about yourself will become impossible.
And if you find yourself needing a shove in the right direction, we are here. Mom and I have done this before, but not quite the way you are doing it. So much is expected of each of you, and there are pressures that, at times, may seem unbearable. You might even want to cry. That’s cool. We are here for you. We also have a box of Kleenex. And I promise we won’t throw it at you, call you a Jackwagon, or send you to Mamby Pamby Land.
Seriously.
If you need anything at all that would help you succeed, we will do our best to help you find it. We’ll help you dig deep in that imagination box called your brain and figure out a way around, over, under or through whatever obstacle stands in your way.
This will be a hard year for each of you. So many changes. But, as a family, as a team, we’ve always met change with a grin. Sometimes a sheepish, tentative grin, but it’s been there, underneath all the confusion and panic.
In more ways than I care to admit, I can relate to Coach D’Amato. I have made my share of mistakes, burned too many bridges, and hated with a passion the man in the mirror. But that is changing as well. I am succeeding in my own, unique ways, fighting my battles and winning, staring down, with a shaky yet determined gaze, the oft-frightening six inches in front of my face. I am learning to do this . . .
And together, we will march through this school year. We will achieve things we never dreamed were possible. We will fight for every victory. We will learn from every mistake. And we will do it one bloody inch at a time . . .
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
~ James Thurber (1894 – 1961)
Because sometimes, one must pause and smile.
Fret not, ye seekers of weighty erudition! By all means, go and read the post before this one, for therein lies the meat.
This? As fluffy and empty as cotton candy. And just as sweet. So, without further ado, and for your lighthearted reading pleasure, an example of why I love Twitter, where I can be humorous without even realizing it . . .
Still, I’m staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis . . .
~ U2, “New York”, 2000
BlogHer. Sooo last weekend, right?
Indeed. Such is my life as-of-late, always running late. I make it to work on time, however, so there’s that. But publishing posts about quitting and U2 and those sorts of things? I’m as timely as a leisure suit during Eighties Week.
But let it never be said that I am one to let my lack of punctuality – or, rather, my knack for not being Johnny-on-the-hip-spot – hold me back. I’ll say what I want, when I want to say it, and not one single, solitary minute sooner.
Some things need to percolate . . .
So, BlogHer. I didn’t go, for two reasons:
1) They didn’t invite me to speak.
2) . . .
Number Two. All the real reasons I didn’t go. Too numerous to enumerate.
(???!???)
I would have arrived feeling a bit giddy. My head would have been all spinny and weightless. After checking into my room and donning an appropriately casual yet I’ve Got My Shit Together ensemble, I would have headed out. Only I wouldn’t have had a posse. An entourage. Peeps I know and hang with on a regular basis. Like Pee Wee Herman (and yet so NOT like Pee Wee Herman) I am a loner.
A rebel.
Yet I would have decided to not let this part of me keep me from connecting. Through the match-making wonder that is Twitter, I might have learned of a get-together at this or that bar, or in this or that corner of the lobby, and moseyed that direction. I would probably have recognized a person or two and chatted them up, but eventually I would have made my way to the wall and adorned it with my wallflower self. Ever the observer, I would have relished the opportunity to just sit and watch. And yet at some point, I would have realized that one doesn’t go to New York to be an observer.
One must jump in.
So I would have jumped. I would have attended this or that session and listened to this or that Blogging Superperson and taken some notes. I would have smiled if they glanced my way, and I would have picked their ear if the opportunity had arisen. And at some point over the course of the weekend, I would have surely thought:
I can do this! I can be a maddeningly successful blogger! I can hone my content and gain readers and create a clearinghouse of cheekiness that people will give their right arm to partake in.
I would have gotten all dizzy with this realization and finally have forced myself to leave all my heroes in the lobby and go to bed. They would have begged me to stay, but I would have waved them off and retired. To my room. Where I would spent hours considering these two opposing parts of my personality . . .
One side that wants to be a part of the crowd, and the other part that abhors the possibility. The me in the lobby vs. the me in my room. When I am either, I want to be the other. And the challenge lies in figuring out how to reconcile the two . . .
*****
46:13:33:28
*****
All this – my ruminations and fumbling keystrokes – come to you courtesy of my contemplation of various U2 songs. They are my spiritual companions during this effort to quit smoking. And “New York” is one of those songs that sneaks into your psyche and says everything you have been thinking about. Dwelling on.
So, I offer this one to Amanda, who went to BlogHer. In New York. I hope she had a better time than I might have. And to @Kat1124. She begins her smoke-free journey today. Here’s to success, my friend . . .
In New York, freedom looks like too many choices
In New York, I found a friend to drown out the other voices
Voices on a cell phone
Voices from home
Voices of the hard sell
Voices down a stairwell
In New York
Just got a place in New York
In New York, summers get hot, well into the hundreds
You can’t walk around the block without a change of clothing
Hot as a hair dryer in your face
Hot as handbag and a can of mace
New York
I just got a place in New York
In New York, you can forget, forget how to sit still
Tell yourself you will stay in, but it’s down to Alphaville
New York
The Irish been coming here for years
Feel like they own the place
They got the airport, city hall
Dance hall, dance floor, they even got the police
Irish, Italians, Jews and Hispanics
Religious nuts, political fanatics in the stew
Happily, not like me and you
That’s where I lost you
New York
In New York, I lost it all to you and your vices
Still I’m staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis
I hit an iceberg in my life
You know I’m still afloat
You lose your balance, lose your wife
In the queue for the lifeboat
You better put the women and children first
But you’ve got an unquenchable thirst for New York
New York
In the stillness of the evening
When the sun has had its day
I heard your voice whispering
Come away now . . .
This just in, from the No News is Good News department . . .
The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing!
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
Still, I’m staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis . . .
