thank you, guys, for the support. (photo by Anna Malle via Flickr)

I wrote a post yesterday I felt compelled to write. And I confess that I was nervous about the reception.

But, once again, y’all overwhelmed me.

Thank y’all for the affection and support. Not only was it revitalizing, but the suggestsions really caused me to pause and think.

I don’t dabble in much social commentary. At least not as much as I used to.

If I come across the stories again, I’ll do my best to pass them along.

And, to be honest, that’s the spirit that’s in the Book of Blues. And, “no,” I’m ain’t whistlin’ Dixie.

At this point in time, my thoughts are with several of my friends. If I were more a betting man, I’d fear their days are gonna get worse before they get better.

If y’all get a chance, please drop a prayer off for them.

Prayers on High for The Region

And thank y’all once again,

– Finn

Today was a bittersweet day for me.

When I started playing around with Social Media tools, I used Picasso’s Old Guitarist as my gravatar – a filler till I decided whether or not I liked these tools.

But as with many things in my life, I got attached to the picture.

Then again, I’ve almost always been attached to the painting.

Growing up, my mama’s mama played the maternal role in me and my sister’s life. My mama played the paternal role as she worked and went to school, and my father “joined the merchant marines.”

Fought a lot with my mama’s mama. She wanted to make sure I never took my dad’s path. I wanted to make sure I never made my dad’s choices. We often disagreed on what that meant. Within our lack of understanding, our disagreements fostered a similar environment to what my father grew up in. And from that, I became just like my father in regards to our fear of domestication-related responsibilities:  he ran because domestication overwhelmed him when he hit a rough patch. I run from domestication out of fear of it overwhelming me – at least til I’m more secure in my career. Sad state of the economy at this time played is a mitigating factor.

One way or another, we become like our parents.

My mama’s mama was a painter, writer, sculptor. Even dabbled in stained glass. Ogden Gardens Community Church is still grateful. Whereas my Mecca sits on Clark and Addison, my mama’s mama’s mecca sits along Michigan avenue, guarded buy a couple lions.

It was 8:21 am, 4 minutes before I was about to brave the 6 inches of plains-blown snow which brightened the dulled facades of Denom U campus and head to the first class of my second semester. Weighed down my anxiety and Pleasant Valley misery, I was sliding on sandals when my mother called.

“Hi. I need to tell you something, but it’s alright.”

I felt it before I heard the news.

My sister came home the night before to find my mama’s mama suffering from a heart attack and stroke. Before I could adjust to the shock, my mom said to finish the school week out and then come home. Then whisked off the phone so I could class.

There are days when I wake up and still think I’m stuck in that 60-hour period between the time I got the call and the time I finally got to the hospital and at least see her presence.

Poetically, a month later my Fine Arts class, the class I was stumbling to when my mother called with the news, was taking a field trip to my mama’s mama’s Mecca.

The teachers gave us this sheet of things we had to find in the 3 hours we were there. So, me being me, I took the sheet to the information desk and had the lady there tell me where they all were at. Then me and a couple others had the next 2 hours and 50 minutes to do whatever. For book of blues references – this day marked the first of many adventures with one of the friends who inspired the character “Xavier.”

But in the short time we actually stayed in the Art Museum before sneaking out to gonzo along Michigan Ave, I had to go find Picasso’s Old Guitarist. I just learned about it a week or so before, and like so many before, I identified with it instantly. Since that day I used it for screen savers, pictures, logos. It was my endpoint. It reminds of that day on the phone. And it reminds me of what my mama’s mama tried to do with her life, of what she wanted both me and my sister to do: make everything beautiful.

In my room there hangs 5 of my mama’s mama’s paintings.

They’re my security blanket.

Like Picasso’s Old Guitarist.

The time was coming when my own social media presence was going to have to be used. So like with so many things in my life, I combined them. Sorta like when Picasso started over on the old guitarist and it looks like there’s a person hidden in the background…

Below is a sketch of my Twitter background. It is where my new gravatar derives. It is also the baseline for the site which is in redesign. Note the heavy amounts of blue.

I’m taking Picasso’s Old Guitarist wherever I go.

The theme, designed by Ryan Wake, is derived of 3 inspirations

1. Picasso’s “Old Guitarist” – “El Guitarrista Viejo”
2. Ft. Myers, Magaritaville

And as for the third inspiration, well that’s for tomorrow.

Here’s a hint:  the site is a great place to be “sittin’ here, restin’ my bones,”

(Image of Picasso’s Old Guitarist is copyright of the Picasso estate. The Twitter is Copywright Nat Finn)

I”m not gifted. I’m not talented. Not today. Probably not tomorrow.

Then again, I could be wrong.

The family’s been around due to the MLK holiday. The normal peace and quiet didn’t enter into my day until late.

I feel a little less in control on those days.

But as I bantered back in forth between the running book of blues dialogues in my head while my sister and I watched Book of Eli, I started to wonder if I was simply overwhelmed by all the projects I’ve bombarded my plate with.

And I realized that I stopped feeling lethargic when I got in the car and got on the highway.

So I came to this conclusion:  I’m one of those people that doesn’t get moving til I feel the day moving forward.

And once I get perspective on my day, I get a proper view of my projects and what I’m able to do on them that day.

And the day gets a little better.

Now if I can only get them going sooner…

Anybody else have little tricks that help them start their day?

(photo credit:  Jammy via Flickr)

It’s Sunday night in Ft. Myers, Margaritaville. The heater is on and I’ve closed the doors to the porches. I can’t complain because it’s still 45 degrees warmer than The Region.

Stay warm, y’all! I’ll be back in the mess soon enough.

Today is an anniversary of sorts, and for it, I going to work on the dream instead of the dream job. But I shouldn’t even be making excuses for it.

I go for the dream job so I can work on the dream.

And that dream – finishing the book of blues.

Max Power tells me that chapter 2 is bad. I warned him it was horrible and the worst thing ever. A chapter so bad it has had more rewrites than many other chapters combined. So, tonight I fix chapter 2. After 3 years of dealing with the worst chapter ever, I spent the last 4 days figuring out how I want to do it. And I think I finally have a plan for it that I like.

We’ll see what Max says.

Fingers crossed.

(photo credit: sean_hickin via Flickr)

I’ve still got three things to do before I can actually write a chapter in Book of Blues Prequel. But once those things are done, then its just me and those Book of Blues.

A watching the final season of Royal Pains should do the trick.

For me, writer’s block seems to be a forced condition. My subconscious seems to keep me a safe distance from my fears. Overbearing really.

Luckily there’s only a half-hour of it to go.

Now, will my writer’s block let me get to working out?

(“Never Been to Spain” by Three Dog Night. Video by?????)

Talk of Aaron’s Sorkin’s SportsNight at work lead to a talk to about how Season 1, Episode 19, Eli’s Coming, featured not one but two Three Dog Night songs. Yes, very good. The other being Never Been to Spain.

Never have quited figured out the point of Never Been to Spain, but I think that’s the point. So the song blues’, “What Does it Matter?”

This is the lesson I’m learning this week.

When I was 19 I knew where life was going. When I was 22, life was gone. Now that I’m a few (hundred) days older, I’m starting to put it back together. This time, I’m going through life without preconceptions. This way, I experience the adventures and quit comparing to the life I thought I was going to lead.

“What does it matter?”

Case in point:  I’ve got an ungodly amount of buddies who are college professors. Most of them figured I”d be the professor, but sadly the time in the denominational fishbowl made me claustrophobic. Still, Life found a chorus to repeat.

One of those buddies just approached me with the idea of doing a college textbook that incorporates both my bachelor degrees as well as all of my field experience.

At first I felt the fishbowl closing around me. I was a little apprehensive, but it passed. The fact the buddy already has the U’s support helped. I suppose we can all be Corporate Whores, even when faced with old war wounds. But can I face the Denominational University demons and embrace such a challenge?

We’ll, I’m already running the sketch through my head to the tune of Never Been to Spain, reminding myself…

What does it Matter?

a bird's footprints in the snow - image by Lize Rixt

Much like New Yorkers, Those from The Region flock as fast as they can down to the shady palm trees of Florida. Especially the Gulf side. We in The Region call them snow birds.

At the time of this posting, there will be five days til I get on a plane that is, hopefully, headed for a sweet, soft landing on a smooth runway at Southwest Florida International Airport. And once that plane touches down, my sister, mother, grandfather and I will be doing the sprint to The Mucky Ducky on Captiva Island in hopes of getting to the Gulf shores in time to watch the Green Flash wink off the horizon at sundown.

This gulf shore sprint is among my family’s more recent holiday traditions:  trimming palm trees, dressing up golf carts for parades and swimming and sunning after Christmas breakfast.

The simple, sad truth is that I didn’t always partake in these family holiday traditions. My family didn’t start to all meet in Ft. Myers for the holidays til around the time I was attending Denominational University. They didn’t do this simply because I was at Denom U. I certainly didn’t take it personally, but I first avoided the family holiday trips to Ft. Myers, Margaritaville. The reasons for my absence were not because I was holy-rolling and they were hip-deep in vices or anything. I come from a dry family – aside from an infrequent Holiday toast. I even had a father whose life we learned from in spite of his actions. His life reaffirmed our family’s sobriety.

The reason wasn’t them. If anything, the reason for my absences came from a deeper place. At the time I couldn’t quite put my finger on the sensation aside from a feeling of separation.

A few years after those fishbowl days and I still can’t explain it. Denominational University wasn’t filled with crackpot cultist kool-aid drinking messianic maniacs or anything. OK, sure, there were a few, but those nutjobs are everywhere. At Denom U, they were simply embraced as “emphatic”. Most of them truly were the salt of the earth – “Good People.” There is still a broadly shared belief in the destination between me and Denom U; there just isn’t any agreement between us in regards to the journey. The fishbowl was too small and I couldn’t swim with that  school anymore. “I was goin’ down the road feelin’ bad in a Pleasant Valley Sunday filled with Shiny, Happy People. I begrudge a couple sheltered fishbowl admins at Denom U who were spawned and never left the mating grounds of Denominational University, but not for whom the are supposed to administer.

It was a feeling of alienation between me and my family. That was probably it. Feeling alienated from your family and feeling that the reasons were senseless is grounds for anxiety. And I couldn’t do it anymore. In the end, everyone at Denom U, including myself, were searching for their Father. I just spent more of my time searching for the one with a lower case “f.”

After my emotional crash second semester Senior year, Jimmy Buffet classics dominated the sounds in my claustrophobic dorm room those last few weeks at Denominational University. It made me feel more at peace, like I was actually spending time with my family. I’ll never regret choosing to go to New Mexico instead of Ft. Myers / Sanibel Island that Spring Break. New Mexico saved my life, again. But as I packed my books, slept 13 hours a day and listened to Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads again and again and again, I started to feel more at peace, more like a member of my family.

As I spent those first couple years after Denominational University walking off the fishbowl experience while valet parking at a riverboat casino, Ft. Myers, Margaritaville and the family started to come back even stronger. The revival started that first winter when I became consumed by both Marley and Buffet. Especially Bob Marley, with a religious soul in his sound that is rarely found in music – secular or religious. There’s probably a rare few of use who don’t smoke yet proudly own 25 Marley albums.

The many walks, the talks, the sounds and, time, sweet precious time, allowed me to freely go back to Ft. Myers, Margaritaville. Ft. Myers, as well as the accompanying islands Sanibel and Captiva, have become a point of reference for me. Every holiday season, now, I go. I think about the year gone by and the year ahead. This year, I’m staying 16 days, through New Years.

With glee, I am able to be a snow bird, again. I’d invite y’all along but it’s getting too crowded down there. Find your own island.

“No. You’re a writer,” she supported.

It only took those 4 simple words said in a back alley Broad Ripple bar around 2:15 AM by a supportive lady with designer blue eyes to Brian Wilson me into an emotional cocoon for the following ten days. Barenaked Ladies summed up the agonizing experience in the song, “Brian Wilson,” from around 1992. Take a listen / view:

I’m strong and secure with myself until I remember that Book of Blues is still not published. I mean, how does she know I’m a writer? She hasn’t read a word I’ve thrown down. She’s just had a couple conversations with me. She knows I won’t drink too much. That in itself should give her an indication that I might not be any good.

The cocoon became accelerated even faster when I talked to my cousin a couple days later and, though he likes the book, he’s only on to chapter 2. Not his fault. He knows I’m getting impatient, but I didn’t get the instant gratification I needed.

The cocoon starts off simple, small – almost unnoticed: waking up in time to do the necessary things – work or school, writing / blogging, the other whatnots – and starting the day still feeling stuck in the tail end of REM sleep. Then finish the day’s activities before someone notices you exist, skip social activities or the auxiliary events such as going to the gym or watching prime time TV – because all the worthwhile shows can be seen online. Go to bed early, again, get the extra sleep to shake the sleepiness, and the circle continues.

It took me a year and a half after my time at Denominational University to diagnose this first sympton. This time, it took 4 days. I’m getting better. Once the symptom is diagnosed, the hard stuff begins.

For some, it’s fighting the drinking and smoking and carnal vices and the other La-la-LA-LA, Hey Judes, but for me, it’s comfort food and video games. Actually, it’s not even video games any more. Just overeating. Without thinking, I’m grabbing the extra donut at work and downing it before I’ve realized there was a donut. I’ll get more than enough food because I’m afraid of going through the day with less then a full stomach or with something in the bladder, afraid of the Sci-Fi channel B-movie worst case scenario happening to me in my high-risk environment of a table seat in a corporate office and not being fully prepared to handle it. Overeating forces hibernation, and the circle reforms.

Little stresses become big stresses, big meals look like little meals, hours turn into minutes and the world flies by at a bully pace. And I run and hide till I’m ready to draw a line in the sand, relearn my relationship to the world around me and live again. The days become struggles, but eventually the routine is back. It’s the haunting, mutated variation of being conscious of your own breathing and trying to breathe without thinking about it.

The good news was, while in a cocoon, ideas swirled around for the Book of Blues sequel. The title is solidified (a first), rhythms and story lines are forming. I don’t have a middle yet, but I didn’t last time either.

I’ve got a month before I go into exhile at Ft. Myers for the duration of the holidays. I dunno if the book of blues sequel will be diagramed by then – wouldn’t put it past me if it was- but I have a feeling quite a good chunk of the sequel will be written. In the mean time, I have to grind out days as a SEO Specialist / Copywriter in Chicago. I grind them with joy because living plan B (career) while I’m working on plan A (published) is still a great place. I just have to relearn it once in awhile.