Thursday, October 22, 2009

You asked...I tried to answer. Writer's Block at least temporarily averted....

So I stole this idea from one of my twitter/blogger friends because I have hated every writing idea that's come into my blogging head for the last week. I even had someone suggest expanding on a Twitter Story I told a few days ago...and oh boy was my inner critic running overtime.

Thus I begged my TwitterFollowers to help me out, ask me questions so I could blog the answers, so that I am doing SOMEthing.

Thank you all. I tried to Favorite every question so I had them handy, but the function seems to have not worked well. So I'm doing my best to get them all. I won't be as funny as "Daddy" but here goes....

@WhyIsDaddyCryin if given the opportunity how would you choose to publicly humiliate balloon boy's dad for being such a fucking douche?

My first question and oddly parallel to the TwitStory expansion that I abandoned, although that involved Rush Limbaugh as the balloon and Glenn Becky as the boy who crawled up his ass only to float around the United States. Anyway.....

This question leads to my question, How do you shame the unshameable? This guy got vomited on twice on national television, completely exposed by a 6 year old and had his awful reality TV show proposal aired to everyone. None of it seems to phase this guy. He just wants the recognition.

He is in fact, Rush Limbaugh. He will say and do anything to get noticed. If he's a Democrat, I guess I'd just call him Rush Jr. every time I referred to him, while he was in the room. If he's a Republican I guess I'd call him Chairman Mao since that's their latest fetish.

@lesleehorner asked this of both “DaddyCryin” and me” What's 1 thing you are passionate about, and lose all track of time while doing? And the answer can't be sex.

Killjoy.

Well, I mentioned recently that I enjoy doing character roleplay on certain venues. A way of getting my creative writing juices going. I very easily lose track of time doing that, the way other friends of mine do it playing World of Warcraft (which I refuse to play, A-because there's a monthly fee and B-because I KNOW no one will ever see me again if I do).

When an idea hits me, or the hint of one, I get really excited and I've made myself almost late for work on more than one occasion.

But in the end, its when I'm acting or directing. I could do it forever...never take a break except to eat and even then I just want to keep going. Never tired of it, always want more. There really isn't anything that makes me more happy.

Except perhaps for sex with someone awesome. (heh heh, got it in there anyway)

@GratefulKim What cereal could you eat everyday?

I'm honored that you took time away from your devoted stalking of @WhyIsDaddyCryin' to ask me that.

It's a two parter.

Non Sugar Cereal. Cheerios. I fucking love Cheerios. Especially with a banana sliced on top. That rocks. Even better when eaten outdoors

Sugar: Lucky Charms, because they're magically delicious, of course. Interestingly, Lucky Charms is essentially Cheerios, covered in sugar and with marshmallows. MMMMMMMMMMMMM. I'm all in touch with my inner Homer Simpson now.

@kitterztoo asked me what color I would be if I were a color...something like that. I can't find it because Twitter's Favorites function doesn't function. Fortunately my memory is a bit better.

Unfortunately I have no fucking clue. When my daughter was born, in the first couple of minutes, she was this amazing deep shade of purple. I mean like, dipped in grape juice for days purple. It was stunning. STUNNING. Not blotchy, not ugly. Breathtakingly beautiful. I wished it would stay that way because it really was that awesome. Shortly after that she got all splotchy like newborns do, then settled in. Ah well.

I guess I'd like to be that color. I think it would be cool, also....mad sexy.

Now if you're asking about my personality? I really don't know. I probably would go between red and blue..which might explain the purple thing.

@MajorBedHead wants to know one place I would go to for a month, as in a vacation. Once again Twitter lost this post entirely even though I added it to favorites. Twitter is really starting to piss me the fuck off, though my memory is pleasing me.

There are a few places I want to spend a month in. For the last few years though, the number one place is Scotland.
I lurve single malt whiskey. Lurve isn't even right because it's inadequate. But drinking it makes me all kinds of happy. A really good single malt has complexity and smoothness that makes life worth living even in the worst moments.

The plan is I start either at the southern most tip or the northern most tip and work my way up or down, back and forth, visiting every.single.distillery there is in that country. I would buy 2 bottles from each, whether I liked it or not, and send them home, in addition to whatever I sampled on the spot. I would journal the entire trip as a separate blog from this and then turn it into a book.

Eventually someone would fall in love with the whole story and make a movie out of it. They'd call it John and something really catch that would be a pun on my name and whiskey....or something.

@LiberalViewer1 What do you do for a living, my friend?

To pay the bills I do document work for a bank. Most of these are done in Power Point as pitches to invest in certain areas. But it often involves charts and tables in Excel and Word too. I'm actually not allowed to talk a whole lot about it. A Co-worker got fired for mentioning where he worked when he called a local newspaper to report a major event he'd just witnessed outside an office window. Seriously, it's that crazy.

I have on occasion, tweeted the view from said windows. Very stunning.

I'd rather be acting (see above).

@wil_m alright, when was the first moment you actually felt like a father?

This is a really good one and I had to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Oddly enough, the answer is the moment I first held my daughter.

So there she was, already fading into blotchy from being that purple grape juice purple. My (ex)wife had been in labor for close to 36 hours so when my daughter was born, her body went into a kind of shock. Shaking uncontrollably. So once they were finished doing all those awful things they do to babies when they first pop out, the couldn't hand her to her mother, so they put me on a stool and gave the screaming baby to me.

I was grinning as I felt this little life in my arms...crying and crying from the harsh bright light, the poking and the prodding. I gently shushed her and then said “It's okay Sarah. Daddy's here. It's me, daddy...everything is ok”.

Immediately her tears stopped and she scrunched her face and seemed to look in my direction...she was quiet and I could feel her relax. This of of course was when I started crying. It had been a very very long labor (a story I will tell some other time). I had nearly fainted from lack of food because I was too worried about my then wife and also was certain that the moment I went anywhere to eat, that would be when my daughter would finally decide to come out. So the emotions were deep and palpable.

But the response to my voice ...that made me feel very dad like.

The second time was not for awhile after that. To explain would mean going into one of the major things that was wrong with my marriage. That's a whole nother blog story. Just that for a long time my ex got proprietary about our daughter and essentially shut me out. Something that years later she finally copped to and apologized for. I didn't exactly handle all of that like an adult myself.

It was while visiting my mother and stepfather at their then house in Long Island. A nice long weekend of just my daughter and me and she got to really learn to come to me with things. I think she was 4 or so at the time. She came to me in the kitchen to help her with something. And while I was helping she asked a bunch of questions, which I answered. There was a lot of humorous back and forth. After she ran back to do whatever it was she was doing on her own I felt my back straighten up and I was suddenly breathing really clearly, like after a good yoga class. I wish I could remember what we were saying. But I do remember the feeling.

If I missed anyone, its Twitter's fault. Hope you all enjoyed it. If so, I might do it again. Thanks again to @WhyIsDaddyCryin.

Peace.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What good questions and I didn't get to read through all the answers. I've got one foot out the door right now but I'll be back later. I loved the answer to my question. You definitely feel something when you get people talking about their passions.

Lisa said...

This was just as enjoyable as @WhyIsDaddyCryin 's Q&A... thank you for sharing! :)

Anonymous said...

I love the story about your daughter. There is something profoundly endearing to hear men speak about their daughters in any positive kind of way. Keep at it my friend. I have very strong feelings about the growth and self-esteem of women being tightly linked to how their daddies treated them and loved them and adored them and are manly enough to SPEAK their feelings.

I LOVE Lucky Charms and Cheerios too...and I'm not just saying that becuz I have an online reputation for stalking. yumm yumm...Captain Crunch with crunchberries was on my mind when I originally asked you that question.

I hope your writer's block has been slightly cured. This was fun....let us know when you need more questions. As you know, I'm full of them. ;)

Sam said...

Cereal answer was definitely my fave - followed by color.

Major Bedhead said...

Scotland is lovely. You should definitely go sometime.

Opinionated Gifts said...

Thank you all for the encouragement. All this smexy support. How can I stand it?
:-)

WhyIsDaddyCrying said...

kick-ass my man! Loved it and thanks for the credit. As for balloon-boy's dad...damn, that was very well put. That's a shit-ton of shame being thrown at someone in just a couple of days and it didn't phase him in the least. Sad....just plain sad... Love the blog!!