My name is Michael

For now, I've got a day job.  And at that day job, I'm required to have an ID badge.  Multiple ID badges, actually (efficiency at it's finest!).  Today I looked down at my badge to notice that my name is listed as "Mike".  Never has the person who gave me this badge heard me (or likely anyone else) refer to me as "Mike".  I've signed my emails "Michael", I've left phone messages as "Michael", but there are people that still insist my name is "Mike". 

There's a guy named "Gerry" at my office.  Now, at first read, it might be unclear how to pronouce that, but since he refers to himself as 'gary' not 'jerry', most people have picked up on the proper pronounciation.  Notice I said 'most'.  There's still this one guy that insists Gerry should be referred to as 'jerry'.  Guess he didn't get the memo.  People have even corrected him.  It's actually a bit like a Seinfeld episode and George (or is that 'jerge'?) is about to go off.

I wrote my "Michael" memo in my second year of college after having gone through my life as "Mike" or "Mikey" (ok, my mom still calls me that; don't be a hater.), but I though "Michael" fit me better and having seen another student at my college correct some people that called him "Mike", I though I'd give it a go.  It worked.  Now, some people from my previous life still call me "Mike", and that's ok; I still call Charles 'Kip' and Peter 'Spam' and Jason 'Horse'.  It's just how you know someone, and you haven't been around them in their new life enough to be reconditioned.  But there's still those pesky people who just decide what your name is for you, even when presented with contrary evidence. 

So, I try to pay special attention to how people sign emails and letters, at least informal ones, because I assume that's what they want to be called.  And, please, for the love of mike, call me Michael.

P.S. My wife (since I seem to have to mention her in every post ;) ) and I have a running joke (that probably isn't actually funny) about compressing 'mike' into a single phenome somewhere between 'mike' and clearing your throat that sounds something like 'mak' and is usually in the phrase "Heeeyy, mak".  Ok, not funny.  Got it.

I'm just not an afternoon person

Missy (that's my wife) is out seeing a local theatrical presentation with friends tonight.  I got kids duty.  It's actually been a really good night, all things considered.  My going on three year-old little princess fought sleep for a while, but didn't get too far, especially since we got home late.  My six year-old son (who is so much like me) has fallen asleep on the couch; rousing him would approach a herculean effort and so I let him lay.  Me, I have passed the point in the night where things are just tired and have come out the other side in my heavy-lidded late-night lucidity, my more weightless than usual time.  This is usually when I write my music, or at least it was when I was a bit younger - I tend to be a little too tired recently to connect as much as I'd like.  The words just don't come as easily.  I've written most of my more recent stuff in the afternoon.  

The thing is, I'm really not an afternoon person.  I like getting up early and I like staying up late, though I wish I could do both without becoming a lot less of a likable person.  It's the solitude that feeds me, I think.  The quiet of knowing most of the world around you is at peace, and you are free to wander through it, grazing fingers over the watery surface and watching the ripples chase each other into the distance.  Both the morning and the night feel that way to me.  The afternoon is filled with do's and should's, not the stuff of music and poetry.  So I sit, with guitar at my side, son asleep in the next room (his peaceful presence somehow more calming than his absence would be), with the feeling that life is somehow right again.  Even though it wasn't wrong before.

I didn't get too many words out today - some days that happens, but I did pen these as a bridge to a song that may only be meaningful to me and those who know me well, but I write it anyway:

Are you ready to come down and make it happen?/

Are you here on the earth?/

I'm not trying to say that we give up heaven,/

but to see what life's worth.

Good night, cool and quiet nighttime world.  May we meet again soon.

Guest posted about my AT hike.

So, I went on a 3 day hike on the Appalachian Trail with my 6 year old son.  Pretty awesome times.  Read about it on one of my wife's wonderful blogs here:  Adventure Mobile