“But I’m a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall him – If he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell – or if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning, them I’m going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we’ve made here today.” ~ Vito Corleone
My apologies to anyone who has ever tagged me for a meme and then went lonely for a reply. Random morsels of me hardly seem worth the time it takes to articulate, but my sister tagged me and this is a lot more legal than the last thing she asked me to do.
Six things that matter to few:
1) I keep my old pens; all those that will never glide across a page again, leaving my quick drying thoughts in their wake. Yes I know this makes me a big giant loser face. Since I started writing late last year, I’ve written with the same style of see through gel pens – the Staples house brand. I like to use them until the ink’s depleted and I’m staring through a clear plastic tube. Instead of tossing them in the garbage like any other sane person, I slip them in a box for some sort of pointless rollerball reunion. This behavior makes no practical sense, but I suppose I see the empty pens as a manifestation of thought bled dry. It’s a compact symbol and I have plenty of space.
2) I totally heart Marshall Mathers (subscriber count does a sommersault from a high dive). It’s true. The dude is a wordsmith, one of the best I’ve ever heard. Just because he spits words like fluffy trucker (except without the luffy tru) doesn’t mean he’s not articulate. He’s a sniper with a shotgun, and vents more in a few hundred words than many say in a dissertation. There is no pending album I anticipate more. I’m hoping he’s grown a bit. His last LP was a total disappointment; anger and vitriol are fine when you’re in your twenties and gaining grandeur from the gutter. It’s not cool when you’re in your thirties and spitting from the top of the world. I hope life has given him new things to say, and I hope he says them well.
3) In three decades, I’ve never had a vacation that lasted longer than four days. Even my honeymoon was a four day weekend. I live in California and – please don’t laugh – I’ve never seen snow. Though I have some things to tidy, by the third week of December, I’ll be easing into the first two week vacation I’ve ever had. YAY!
4) I started my first business at nine. Of course I’d dabbled before, but I was a full tank a year before ten, with my sister as official conspirator. We sold Garbage Pail Kids, baseball cards – gum sold separately, comic books, repurposed action figures; you name it. She and I would go to the dumpster behind our parent’s flower shop and gather the bookstore’s discarded comic books. Missing covers didn’t stop us from shilling them for ten cents a piece. Business was thriving until Big Brother shut us down.
5) I semi-regularly layer my inner mouth with small wads of toilet paper, slick my hair, jut my jaw, and exit the bathroom as Vito Corleone. I stroll the house telling Daisy that I’m a suspicious man, and that if some tragedy should befall my son, I’m going to blame some of the men in this room. Back when we first met, I’d wander the rooms in a wife beater and suspenders, my skinny arms raking fingers beneath my chin. I do this a lot less now that I actually am a father, but I think she likes it more. It has definitely grown on her more than the incessant music I make while playing the Godfather of annoying, blaring Super Mario Brothers with a trumpet that is missing everything except my lips. She tolerates it, but I’m certain she does not enjoy it.
6)I’ve talked about this before, maybe a couple of times. I have movies… a lot. Really, it’s embarrassing. Long before I had children, I imagined them thumbing my library, each case a moment in time. Movies to me aren’t just players on the screen; it’s the when and the where which lend me the why. I’m the first to bow to new technology that would allow me to shove all those gigabytes worth of joy and recall into a box the size of my DVD player, and I’ll probably never buy a DVD again, but I don’t regret a single one.
Writer Dad
Sean Platt is also a ghostwriter for hire.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
