Criminy. I didn't get to bed until almost midnight last night, and I don't even have a few beers left over in my system to show for it. If you look under my FAQ, you'll see this statement:
With my seventh child on the way, I decided that serious prolonged efforts at writing would be nearly futile, so I opted for blogging. I still have books and lengthy essays in the works, but this blog is my primary focus.
I'm beginning to conclude that I can't even blog anymore. Yesterday is a great illustration.
My wife left for a couple of days, taking five of the seven. She went to see her family in Detroit. The two left-behinds (Jack (10) and Alex (13)) were disappointed, but they have band and football obligations. I've tried to make the days nice for them, too: Thursday night, we rented a movie and I told them they could have whatever they wanted for dinner and snacks. Friday morning, I took Jack to court with me, introduced him to judges, showed him around, then stopped at McDonald's and got him a life-shortener. Friday, I took the boys to a bar restaurant for dinner and pumped $5 into a fancy video machine. Last night, I went to the high school football game to watch Alex perform in the band. Instead of leaving after half-time and asking someone else to bring him home, I stuck around so we could eat popcorn and walk home together.
That's when it came apart.
It was the last football game of the season, so the marching band had pictures after the show (each kid individually), then they had some sort of "flower ceremony." I think it's a sentimental thing to make the high school seniors' last night special. I don't know. I just know I was exhausted: it was after 10:00, and I typically go to bed at 9:30. I finally laid down in the high school hallway, put my jacket under my head, and slept for about thirty minutes, until they finally came out . . . at 11:00. By the time we got home, it was about 11:10. I got to bed after 11:30, read a bit, cursed the late hour a few times, then went to sleep.
And now I have to get Jack ready for his football game.
So what's this prolonged whine leading to? Nothing, really. I'm going to keep blogging, but as my days get increasingly sandwiched, I simply don't know where I'll find time. To be honest, it really distresses me: not the blogging, so much, but the nearly wholesale abandonment of anything mentally worthwhile: serious reading, serious writing, serious thought, serious attention to literary detail.
Oh well. I always tell my children, "A man deals with whatever he's dealt without grumbling." I've been dealt seven incredible children, a highly attractive and caring wife, a good job, and more blessings than a sinner like me deserves. To grumble would merit Job-like suffering.
So I'll never finish the collected works of Aristotle and Augustine, much less the collected works of Evelyn Waugh and Joseph Conrad. So what if I now realize that Santayana was right:
I cannot part from what I prize
For all I prize is in my head;
My fancies are the fields and skies
I will not change till I am dead,
Unless indeed I lose my wits
Or (what is much the same thing) wed.
What does all this mean for readers of this blog? Nothing that will be immediately apparent. I'll keep posting. But I fear the quality might slide downhill. At age 40, my mental faculties are supposed to be hitting their peak. Mine seem to be atrophying under a press of time commitments that I scarcely thought possible 15 years ago. Your continuing loyalty to this blog is appreciated, especially when the effects of my mind-softening become apparent. For those who continue to read me even after I can only clomp my electronic foot to articulate a few incoherent ideas, I'm greatly appreciative.
And who knows. Maybe a miracle will hit, and I'll have time to read, write, think, and be a good father and husband. A guy can hope. In fact, a guy must hope. To live otherwise would be a sin.
