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

Balance & Perfectionism

When I was younger, if something needed to be done, I sat down and got it done; I simply took the fully-focused time I needed and accomplished the task, often without ceasing.  When I was able to sit back and call things complete I could move on to other things (like eating).  Life doesn't really move that way for me anymore. Kids, a job, and other responsibilities now tend to break up my time.  There's a part of me that misses that put the 5 disc changer on shuffle and go until well after midnight mentality, but there's another part that smiles slightly when I realize that I probably just took three times as long as I needed simply because I could.  In the corporate world that might be called gold-plating; the question is whether it's worth it to you to have half as many gold plated things as you might have in pewter.  I'm not wise enough to know, but I'd guess that ideally you'd have a little of both.

You may have figured out that I'm a perfectionist.  It's true; I have spent over two hours writing a single email and three days on something my wife would have finished in an hour or two.  The issue with perfectionism is that you're never really satisfied.  So, I ask again, where is the line after which you should call it good enough?  I see so many people drawing that line in so many places; I look at some and cringe at the mediocrity while I look at my son and find myself having to help him through many areas where he has developed a paralyzing fear of imperfection.

So, in the spirit of things (and I'm told it's time to go to bed), I will call this blog complete.  Well, at least finished.  :)