Good morning. It’s bright, sunny—another day ripe with possibility and opportunity—as long as we embrace what we have and are willing to push on into the unknown. There’s a lot of good to be put into the world and I can do it, but today, all I really want to do is hole up in my writing room with a heater, some booze, and ideas. That’s where the real work will get done. That’s where I’ll feel the most success. That’s the place I’ll emerge from feeling weightless and happy. There’s nothing like being alone with everything that’s been piling up in your head and picking through it. Saving the good. Pitching the bad.

Actually, that’s what I probably should do—pitch the bad. If I worked harder on creating awful stuff and plastering it all over the world, I’d probably more successful as a writer. But, like some dope, I am hanging on to that personal code bullshit I picked up in college. Trying to create words that have weight, so that they stick and remain not for a day, a week, a year, but for at least a few decades. My goal is to write enough good stuff so that one day my kids are left with it and they can sit alone in some old big attic of a big house and read pages and pages of what I’ve done so they can fall in love with life again.

I know, I know…sounds weird. How do I know that my kids won’t love life? What’s with the attic and the window? We don’t have that now. And what makes me think my kids would get more out of my writing than reading Hemingway, hooks, or Atwood? And what about biographies or history books, or TV?  I’m not sure, I guess. But I’ve always had this image of my kids all grown up going through boxes of writing. Pages of it. But that would mean I’d have to print it out and I don’t do that. Maybe that’s something I ought to start doing. And I should also start writing in a more disciplined manner. This half-assing it “when I have time” is bullshit. If I really wanted it and if I truly thought it was something I could do well enough to pay the bills, I’d do it. Instead, I spend my days making ends meet by helping a team of people sell conveyors. This is not a bad thing. Everyone needs to do the work necessary to support their family, and I do like my job. The only thing is, I see the end coming. And it’s coming quicker than I had ever imagined it would and I just want to be happy. Deep, at the core, happy.

So, it’s a bright, beautiful day. I’m trying to write, clear my head, strike a bit of balance before I turn into WE and we start this day. My daughter is right next to me playing Pictionary by herself and is perfectly happy drawing and guessing all on her own. One of our cats, Chedder, is helping her. My wife is filling the house with the wonderful smell of bacon. And I can hear my son—just a week into being 11—groaning and talking to himself as he stretches in bed. He’s probably not happy that we are all up and noisy at 9:21 am on Sunday.  And with all of this life so alive and brewing, I’ll step aside to do some silent writing in my head. The type I’ve trained myself to do over the past few years. Observe, listen, record. Observe and listen and record.

~ K.J.