Dear Friends,
As I type this, my head is telling me that I am not done, but it is just my brain playing tricks on me. You do things for three years and they become a habit. This writing ‘thing’ is a habit. For the time being, though, I will be doing it with different intentions.
A thousand, give or take, words a day for a little more than 1000 days. Three years is 1096 days when you have a leap year in there. It is enough. It feels ‘accomplishmental.’ Maybe I have coined a new word.
Accomplishmental: adjective/noun – When you do something that is crazy, but you feel fulfilled, too.
Now, I know I am not the only person who has published an online diary of sorts. There are blogs out there doing similar things, I’m sure. I haven’t looked because I didn’t want to get discouraged. I don’t like comparing myself to other writers. When I do that, all I can typically think of is that their stuff is so much better than mine and I am a hack and should just quit.
I already know this, too, because I have read a ton of books by great writers and their stuff is definitely better than mine, so again, my hack-ness is now multiplied by the math brain. It sucks and that is why I don’t seek out things like, “are there other people out there posting every day and posting something around 1000 words a day?”
Now, though, I can do a little research as I decide what to do with all this data I’ve compiled. I can look at other things. I can compare. I can edit. I can rip my thoughts about life apart and put them back together. I can see how many stories I missed and how many parts of stories I missed and how many typos I didn’t see.
Or I may just let it all go and start over.
*****
This feels so weird.
*****
Part of the reason I have decided to end it this year, I think, is because of the record thing. It was a lot to take on and I resented it quite a bit. Not enough to just quit. This part doesn’t feel “accomplishmental.” This part does feel like some sort of actual accomplishment.
Even though I stopped making individual pages for the records back in July, I think, it still feels darn good to have made it for the whole year and even though I’m not happy with every one of them, I can always edit it and do something with it. For example, I spilled water on my keyboard the other day when I was writing about Dayglo Abortions and cut that one totally short since I finished writing it on my cell phone.
The laptop survived, thankfully, but I had to let it dry out. There was a lot more I wish I would have added to that particular post. There were several others that I thought about after the fact and would have changed significantly. I forget about records that I really love, too. I don’t know if I could have gotten all the way to 500, but probably close.
*****
Stupid numbers… that’s all they are.
If I have learned anything over the last three years it is that the ‘numbers’ I often think are important are definitely not important. They are just mileposts and I’ve driven across the country enough in this time period to realize that those numbers are only important when you need them to be.
*****
I hope I have shared enough over the last three years to let anyone who is reading this know what is really important to me. Someday someone might read this after I am gone, and I hope they get to know me a lot better because of it. If that is the case, then I have been successful.
Writing everyday has helped me know me a lot better. It has also taken me away from my family, too, and I’ve missed out on laughs and knowing them better because I was in the bedroom writing away. It has taken a lot of time to create Ergonomic Mischief, and I won’t get that back.
I missed out on some things that I will regret. Liam and Teresa’s last few years of high school, for example, have taken place during these three years. Time I could have spent being with and talking to Rhondi, Doug, my own parents…time with Granny.
This will be the 1,108th post on Ergonomic Mischief. Each one of those has taken time. Some were just, “oh shit, I hit the wrong button” and one or two times when I forgot to post in the morning and posted later. A couple were ‘updates’ when something happened during the day.
Sure, these posts will ‘give back’ in other ways if I (or anyone else) choose to look at them. They are the stories of my last three years and, especially during the first year, they are the bones of many of the stories of my early life. I don’t feel like I have wasted this time, at all, but I know I have made decisions that have cost me knowing more about the people I love.
Here’s to finding a better balance for the stories to come.
*****
The next project is going to be a labor of curiosity and hope. I am starting a new site called soberbeersnob.com and I’m going to write about the world of non-alcoholic beers. I’m going to add some other stuff, too, but the main focus will be on why I think this is a good choice for people out there like me.
I love beer, but alcohol doesn’t love me. It fucks with me. Finding some good NA beers has been a really healthy thing for me. I know it might not be a healthy thing for others and that is okay. I’ll address that, too, I’m sure. There is a lot to figure out, but it is coming.
******
I’m also going to focus on finishing The Bet and then The Trees. I have several other ideas I am very excited about, as well. Too many ideas, in some ways, but I’ve come around to the idea of working on some short stories, kind of like I did with Mary. Only time will tell, of course, but I have no plans to stop working on writing.
*****
Here is the last musing on a record I love….
*****
My favorite record is The Point! by Harry Nilsson. It has been this way my whole life. For as long as I can remember, there was The Point!. It has comforted me on many sad days and been a joy for me on happy ones. It reminds me that my life is a long journey.
It also reminds me that a father can give an incredible gift to a son by giving him the gift of music.
The Point! is an interesting work by a supremely talented guy. Harry Nilsson wrote a great many songs that I admire and his work on this record has a sweetness and charm that reminds me of the time that I came from. Like today, the world in 1970 seemed like a crazy place to the people who inhabited it. Nilsson was just trying to make sense of a few things, I think, and The Point! was a way to do that.
When I think about what Nilsson was trying to say, beyond the obvious things like we are quick to castigate and reject those who are different, but we are all just looking to be loved and accepted, I think about the world as Nilsson must have seen it. By all accounts, he was a tremendously gifted songwriter. He was also something of an enigma and I’m guessing he identified strongly with the main character, Oblio, as someone who was told that he didn’t belong.
Growing up, I identified with Oblio, too. I often felt like I didn’t really belong. Many times, I was told as such, too. While I’ve been blessed with the ability to make good, close friends, I grew up something of an acquired taste for most of the kids I was surrounded by. They didn’t seem to get me even though I often felt like I understood them.
When I listened to Nilsson’s beautiful songs about not fitting in, being cast aside, but also finding that you had worth and value and really, weren’t that different than everyone else, I found a place of acceptance. I can’t even count the number of times this record has made me cry and often in a good way.
The Point! is very much a product of its time and like much of Nilsson’s work, it didn’t lend itself to the live performance or fill in all the neat little boxes that a typical pop record is supposed to fill in. There are only a handful of songs that are stitched together with some narration telling the story of Oblio and Arrow.
The songs that are there, though, feel like they are part of me. Much like the other records I have written about this last week and throughout 2024, they are part of my quilt, if you will. They make the most comfortable parts of the quilt, too.
“This is the town, and these are the people” is a line from that first song, “Everything’s Got ‘Em.” The people who make up my life are my town. Even those who have left us, and that thought has been heavy on my mind this year, are still part of my town. They are part of my town. Everyone I love is part of my town.
“Me and My Arrow” is a top three song for me. It is really hard to pick between it and the other truly amazing song from this record, “Think About Your Troubles.” It’s probably more like these two are 1 and 1a for me. I would choose them over any other songs.
Both songs have something that I have been searching for in other songs my whole life. They have incredible words and melodies and countermelodies that just fill the ol’ heart, if that makes sense. Words just aren’t adequate for me here and I struggle to even fully understand, for myself, why these are so important to me.
Maybe it is because listening to The Point! makes me feel like a child again. They take me back to a time when no matter what, I knew that I was loved. I knew that my dad was there for me and that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen. That’s a powerful feeling.
“Sit beside the breakfast table, think about your troubles/pour yourself a cup of tea and think about the bubbles…”
Those words have been and will always be comforting to me. “Think About Your Troubles” is less than three minutes long, but it can change the course of an entire day for me. It really is a time travel machine. I can go to many times in my life just by putting the song on.
That’s another powerful feeling.
“Think about your troubles.”
For me, the rest of the record is really just a culmination of a lovely story. I love it, but those two songs, “Me and My Arrow” and “Think About Your Troubles” are the truly amazing things. I mean, I love “Life Line” and “P.O.V. Waltz” a lot, too. I feel bad almost dismissing them. “Are You Sleeping” is beautiful, too. It’s super Beatles-y, but Nilsson and the Beatles were having a little love affair in those days. The mutual admiration was palpable.
But that’s a different story.
There was never any question to me that The Point! was going to be the last record I would write about this year. For 366 days, I have thought, here and there, about what to say about it. What makes it my favorite record. Comfort? Joy? The massive talent of the songwriter?
It’s all of those things and it’s none of them. This record was given to me as a kid and my dad probably didn’t realize that it would be the thing that would make me want to tell stories and make music.
It did, though. It was, and is, inspiring. All these records are, in their own way, inspiring. This was the first one that really inspired me.
I guess that is the point.
*****
I will not see you tomorrow, so thank you for reading. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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