Tuesday
Live, Love, Laugh & Thick Skinned
So today was a good day. First off, I was off from work for Lincoln's Birthday. (Does anyone celebrate that anymore?) I mostly ran errands...doing stuff I don't have time to do on the weekends anymore, now that fatherhood has gone from fresh to all encompassing (if not consuming). After dropping the kids to their respective destinations --- middle school and the baby sitter --- I went shopping for them, after which I was able to sit down for lunch for about 30 minutes before having to go back out to pick everyone back up and run more errands along the way.
I bought a sign today. A long piece of black metal that was covered with white crackle to give it the appearance of age. It says, "Live, Love, Laugh" in script going down the length of the sign. It looks good on the front door and I made sure my family (except for baby girl) read it as they came through the door. This is what I want for us: To Live, To Love & To Laugh. Amazingly while checking a string of emails from work (even though I was off I couldn't help myself) I couldn't help but laugh. My boss, a nice enough person who deserves a boss category unto herself corrected/reprimanded me as usual via email with no prior instruction or direction. Reading a work email from home can be a hilarious exercise and I suggest everyone try it at least once in a comfortable setting, whether that's loud music, the TV on in the other room (my scenario) or drunk --- you'll see at least once that work emails are absolutely absurd outside of work. So I was reprimanded about a nearly-million dollar fundraiser I'm managing and a red, yellow and blue plastic dump truck filled with oversized Legos was no more than three feet away from me, meanwhile everyone on As The World Turns tried to remember if the oven was on before the commercial.
'Nuff said about that. A short-short story of mine entitled, "The Gentleman", was published on Spindle Magazine today. I'm very, very happy about this. It's been a while since I was published, even longer since anyone in a publisher capacity told me they liked my work. Thick-skin earned from many years of rejection will definitely keep you humble. I'm thankful to God that a little bit of age and a whole lot of wisdom has sharpened my voice and given me the ability to tell a story that a few people can relate to.
I aspire to be able to continue to do so. Click below for the story.
