This week I personally learned a lesson I thought I already knew. Multitasking is cool (but not exactly natural for humans), but getting things done, one job at a time, is better.

My morning duties include getting the kids' food ready for the day, breakfast and lunch and somehow in the midst of that making my own breakfast and lunch and brewing coffee for my wife and myself. I always take care of the kids, and I'm pretty on point when it comes to the coffee for the wife. But it's been hit or miss whether or not I take care of myself. I often leave the house feeling disorganized and the rest of the time I'm leaving stuff at home, such as my phone, and at my worst, my work laptop.

What is it about the superhero that so many of us find so fascinating? Everyone isn't a comic book reader and everyone doesn't have a wild imagination, but with the technology of visual effects having caught up with the minds of the artists and writers who put ink to page and brought the characters of our modern day mythology to life, superhero flicks being runaway blockbusters is irrefutable proof that they mean something to most of us. (Side note, that was an incredibly long sentence).



People who know me well know how far and wild my imagination soars. They've seen me pour through the pages of the superhero comics. They've commented that my drive is inexhaustible. But life dictates that you take care of your responsibilities, FIRST. And so I do. And find myself at times terribly confined and unbearably normal.



The superhero complex is an easy one. It isn't about the iron suit, the invulnerability, the ability to fly, the dark rage,  the awesome gadgets, the healing factor or the ability to sense danger. These are the mere tools that distinguish one from the other. What marries them all together is their decision, or in some instances, compulsion, to become more than what they previously were or what they thought they were even capable of. When push came to shove these men and women tapped into their essence and used their powers, whether they were derived from birthright, through tragedy or by way of some freak accident, to rise above and make lives or life itself, a little better and a little safer.



And aren't we all capable of the same? But how many of us opt to be terribly ordinary for fear of rocking the boat or having to contend with what others think. How ironic is it that we go out in droves to watch movies about people with extraordinary abilities, when every single one of these characters were created as metaphors that exist in everyday life.

And not to leave the fairer sex out...



We make actors and singers into millionaires --- people who dared to be different and some who probably spent some part of their lives judged and misunderstood. Why can't you be super? Why can't I? What's so complex about being a superhero, other than the fear of embracing your true nature and making life better because of it?

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This pic sums it up. But, to learn more about Number 42, click here.

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Thoughts? Please, let me know in the Facebook or Disqus comment sections below.

Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel lobby just outside the French Quarter siphoning off some free Wi-Fi like everyone around me who is sitting on these oversized, overused, butt-dimpled couches. The warmth of the sun bathes me and partially blinds me as I type these words. It is a motley crew that darts back and forth past my square of comfortable, but posture-damaging furniture. It is a hustle and bustle of the business people heading out or heading home, mixed with the people who are obviously here to have fun.

I'm wrapping up a 3-day hop here to the Big Easy where my son may or may not attend college. He was accepted to the school we attended and what's more, he fell in love with the town. But not the smut or the promise of rivers of alcohol, but rather, the food and the music --- the kids playing big band jazz in the streets, the art, and the food (that's right I wrote it twice). And he seems to be fully aware that college and all that is the French Quarter are two separate things. He's smiling from ear to ear. Constantly. The last time he smiled like this was the year before he became a teen. And he hasn't smiled much at all since we moved to Atlanta. The experience has left me looking at him a little differently and wondering if maybe he's found his space for the next four years.

Time will tell.

I haven't had much time to blog, or Facebook or do anything. This Year of Restoration has been filled with rewards but I have been burdened like never before. Heading up the social media for an entire company has left me scatterbrained by the end of most of my days. Able to retain little, interested in doing less. Bills are piling up around me at every turn although I'm spending nothing and paying them off at a furious pace. Ignorance is bliss I suppose because I didn't have these concerns when I was unemployed and unable to pay my bills.

I've also been repairing my relationship with my wife. Not having money, not having mutual understanding, not having peace, not being able to work together through the tough times did a real number on us. There are days when I've been tempted to ask myself why keep trying, why carry this mantle and then I just keep on carrying. Here in New Orleans I've been able to take my wife out on a couple of dates and we strolled the streets of the French Quarter together as we did many years ago in Brooklyn and Central Park.

To make a long story short I have been way too busy to blog. Instead I've been growing, changing, fighting and reflecting and my life is changing around me.

Please, bear with me.

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Thoughts? Please, let me know in the Facebook or Disqus comment sections below.

Yeah, that's me full tilt on the Disney sauce. It's been almost two weeks since I posed for my wife here (she rolled her eyes as soon as I posed). Although it's only been a short time I feel like I've been gone for centuries. Each day the "magic" fades just a bit more than it did the day before. Of course I am thankful I have the gift of life and I'm gainfully employed but I'm no longer waking up to the sound of the ferry that shipped patrons to Epcot. There are no more smiles that greet me in a ginormous lobby. The traffic I'm in now isn't headed to happy-land. No one is asking me if I'm enjoying myself or if I need anything. I'm not powering up at 9 pm in anticipation of a fireworks show that is better than the one that happened the night before. I'm back to my usual station --- the wonderfully exhilarating but thankless job of being Dad. Dad who isn't buying everything he's being asked for. Dad who is saying, "no" and "go to bed" and "throw out the trash."

By my pic you might think it was my first time there and not my daughter's. She went full tilt on the Princess sauce and didn't have a care in the world. Neither did I and that's a good thing at a place like Disney World where you can wind up spending the equivalent of half a year's worth of mortgage payments or more once the smoke clears. In the eyes of a storyteller (myself) Disney is a monster storytelling machine, selling narratives at every turn from the time you wake up until you return back to your hotel or resort wishing you could do more before morning and excited to get going the next day.  Stories, whether written or visual, create the canvas for the mind to imagine and dream. I wasn't about to let something like money get in the way of my daughter's, and to some extent my own, desire to plunge as far down the rabbit hole as possible.

So how did I and how can you experience the Disney Vacation YOU want to have without being left in the poorhouse upon your return to reality?

Sometimes a bad or off-kilter attitude from a loved one or a spouse deserves a moment or two of understanding and/or compassion rather than a dismissal because you can't be bothered. Didn't you sign up to be bothered? But in order to effectively do this you have to be strong enough in heart to soothe rather than react in kind to their dilemma. You also have to be selfless enough to recognize it's not about you --- not always. Next time it happens, because there will always be a next time, don't be so quick to dismiss. Sometimes loving a person means doing so when they aren't being very loving themselves.

Use your power to heal.

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