Ska Face

You haven't lived until you've had your four-year-old daughter singing along to Ska favorite "On My Radio" by The Selecter as you drive through the suburbs in the sunshine, in a minivan, with the windows down.

Solar-powered

The sun makes everything better. Right now, I'm exhausted after my fourth or fifth night of restless sleep (and the kids aren't doing any better than I which might be part of the reason I'm doing as badly as I am.) I have about $3 and a pocket full of change to my name. I have no school or dance class or playdate to dump the kids off at today. While I spent yesterday prepping a piece to write, I have yet to start it (and had to use a stand-by piece to make my self-imposed deadline). I haven't heard a whisper from any of the interested TWIMCT parties in weeks, and the newspaper I depend on for pocket money hasn't come up with anything for me in days.

But, the sun is out, so I'm smiling like an Andorran goalkeeper.

Nostalgia... now that takes me back

It's funny - not living in the country I grew up in, I find very little in my daily routine that reminds me of when I was a kid. No kids in school uniform, no chip shops, and none of the TV shows I grew up on (except, of course, the ones that were made here like the A-Team which I remember as a prime time Friday night show, not a 3pm semi-comedy.)

At times, it's like my memory has been erased. I have lived in the US for nearly 10 years and never been back to England. Not so long ago, my parents sent a photo of the family home - a place I lived in for 23 years or so. It looked different, of course. The trees around it were bigger - stuff like that. 10 years of nature will do that.

Then, every so often whether I'm looking for it or not, I find something that takes me back. A name or a song or a feeling. In the 1980s, Johnny Hates Jazz sang a song called "Turn Back The Clock" where they sang about being an adult and reflecting on being a kid. Clark Datchler sang about being: "The boy he still resembled, but could no longer understand." But the most poignant line was where he said: "If I could have it over, live my life again, I wouldn't change a single thing." My childhood was happy enough, but there were some pretty sad and monumental events that shaped me. That's true of everyone I suppose.

I wonder if my kids will feel the same way as Clark, because I wonder if I would change anything myself for better or worse if I were given the chance.

More news is no news

I have another agent who is interested in me, but it's hard to get more than just a little excited. I'm meeting him at a literary festival in Queens next month, which means three more weeks of not knowing if I should be excited or not.

Most of the foul, lethargic mood I'm in is down to the weather. The snow is all gone and yesterday, for whatever reason it was 70 degrees and sunny enough for no coats (and having seen An Inconvenient Truth last week, it was slightly petrifying, especially with the huge thunderstorm that followed overnight.) This morning it's a day that reminds me of growing up in North London - wet, but not raining. The roller coaster of weather-based emotion, along with "I might be interested in representing you - let's talk about it in a month" and so many toys all over the floor due to hours stuck inside... well, that will do it.

Sick again (and more)

Unbelievably, we had the rearranged birthday party for my daughter on Saturday - the first one being cancelled because she was sick.

So of course, she got sick again.

With two hours to go until the party, she was lethargic on the couch, hot to the touch, and miserable as sin despite the upcoming gift/cake fest. The party went well, thanks to modern medicine at its maximum recommended dose for 4-year-olds, but by the end she was crying and that kind of took the edge off the fun that had gone beforehand.

One of the things not talked about in the whole life-changing that comes with parenthood is that you get sick more. One of the others is, unlike when you were a kid, as a parent you are now expected to make it all better for someone else. Since December we as a family have been sick once a month with some kind of bug. My daughter's class hasn't had a full attendance since the start of 2007, and a class of 13 has been reduced to less than half at times because of coughs and colds or worse.

In other news, I repeated my life-list achievement of five goals last Sunday morning. Still no news from Big Agent man, and because of my condition of late (assisted by spending the last two nights next to a four-year-old coughing and/or whining that she wants water and/or mommy) I haven't written enough to cover the back of a postage stamp in the last few days. I even ditched my writer's group meeting last night because I felt so unpredictable.

But come on March! Help me out here! The sun is out, which is a start, but I need something you stupid month!

Boy Of Summer

Last summer I took a much-needed vacation alone. I drove from New Jersey to Philly, booked into a hotel, and saw the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves (baseball for you English types) that night. I then slept alone in a king-sized bed. That was almost as good as the game.

Next morning, I woke up and got back in the car to drive the few hours to Washington D.C. where I saw the Washington Nationals play the Chicago Cubs before getting back on the NJ Turnpike and heading home, arriving back on Saturday night.

The relevence? I just booked this year's baseball double-header. I leave for Pittsburgh on a June Saturday morning to see the Pirates play the Los Angeles Dodgers before staying the night, then moving on to Cleveland to see the Indians play the Detroit Tigers.

Booking this trip became a necessity after the last couple of days. The kids have been anxious and stir-crazy. The only outings we get are still in-nings in that we are indoors. Couple that with the wife getting home late from work, and the destruction of a batch of highly-sugared peanut butter cookies, and it doesn't bode well for yours truly. And it didn't bode well at all.

Then this morning, the straw that broke my back and that of my metaphorical camel? Snow. Not a lot, but it's been coming down constantly since 5am and it's gathering. The two minute drive to school this morning took 20 minutes because other people can't drive.

So I had to get myself thinking about something fun that I would do alone. And after I did that, I booked the trip *.

*(c) Les Dawson, 1977

February By The Numbers - and more

First, a numerical recap of Feb:

1 - the number of goals I scored during my Sunday morning soccer games.

1 - the number of games I played in because of the bastard snow and ice.

4 - the number of days my daughter attending pre-school during February due to above-mentioned snow and ice, winter break week, and illness. In other words, about she went to school about half of the time she could have done.

20 - the number of pages written for my newest project

1 - the number of famous people targetted to write the forward for aforementioned new project. If I can't get him to do it, I have no plan B as yet.

Having written off my digital camera as a bust, I discovered that some batteries are not strong enough to power a digital camera, even for one second. I put in some premium batteries, and the darn thing came back to life, with all the pics still intact. So, what are these low-power batteries good for? My camera is tiny, and low maintenance - like a shy, skinny college girl. And yet these name-brand batteries couldn't provide enough juice for it to even open its shutter. Next time I find myself in possession of an appliance that I want to work, but not for long and not to its maximum capacity, I will happily invest in the low-power battery again. Until then, it's the copper-colored top thankyewverymuch.

March is a tough month. Now I am on the board for two volunteer organisations I have two meetings a month. Then there's the rearranged party for my daughter, my writing group meeting, my wife's birthday - all needing significant work before the event. Then there's the usual host of doctor's appointments, birthday parties, and the start of the Easter carnival that lasts about two weeks. If I can manage to get any writing done inbetween, it will be a feat indeed. That said, today should be a good opportunity. I dreamed long and deep last night, thus getting my first R.E.M sleep in more than a month.

One more thing - watching the highlights of the weekend's English Premiership soccer games in England, the reaction of Charlton manager Alan Pardew to his team's equalizer at Watford was very funny if you speak London:

"You beauty!" he yelled, jumping off the bench. "****ing hell - 'ave that!"

My wife suggested the following alternative if you speak New York:

"Yeahhhhhhhhhh! Holy ****! You succccckkkkk!"

Oh, and here's that photo I talked about with the candle about to go out:

"Digital cameras are so great, I... oh shat!"

Yes, it was inevitable.

I've heard all the horror stories about entire weddings/births/parties wiped from a digital camera at the simple accidental press of the 'format' button, but that would never happen to me.

So I'm snapping pics at a surprise re-arranged birthday party for my youngest and it looks like the batteries are about the fail, so I snap one last pic and put the camera away. And now, it's dead. New batteries don't make a difference, the card is reading as 'invalid.' It could have been much, much worse, but lost forever is this one spectacular picture a split-second before my son blew out his birthday candle with the flame bent 90 degrees about to disappear.

Sigh! Bastards!

Return of the Snow

Driving home from our Oscar party last night up in the highlands of Tuxedo, NY, the snow was coming down at a lick. We had planned ahead, cramming the family into the all-wheel drive Subaru as opposed to the zero-traction minivan, but it still was a hairy ride down and across the NJ border.

This morning, we woke to find four inches had fallen. This time yesterday I was playing soccer - in shorts - and glorious near-spring sunshine. The snow from the storm a couple of weeks ago had pretty much all gone.

Today school is cancelled (on the first day after the winter break week) and it's effing freezing outside, meaning once again the majority of the day will be spent indoors, bouncing off the walls and wishing I lived in Arizona.

Now, I'm no snow expert, but this seems at least to be more like "good snow" - that is, big puffy flakes that stick together allowing us to bombard neighbors houses with snowballs. But regardless of the quality of the stuff, I have little choice if I want to leave the house and go anywhere and do anything but to get out the shovel and clear the drive, dig out the car, and clear a path for the mailman. And that bites the big one.

Sigh!

Never has so much been going on, but so little happening.

Oh, and I scored a belter this morning. 25 yards out, curling, dipping under the crossbar. Made up for the pansy shot straight at the keeper, sidefooted from about six feet.

Tonight's Oscar party will hopefully provide a distraction and cure my melancholy. I have seen just one of the best picture nominations (Little Miss Sunshine - despite having The Departed sitting in my DVD player unplayed for a week), a staggering NONE of the best actor performances, and just one of the best actress performances (Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada - which I actually only enjoyed because him out of Entourage was in it and it was funny seeing an actor who I know for playing a different actor in a T.V. show acting in something else.)

My only shoo-in pick is Marie Antoinette for Best Costume Design. Although that movie was spoiled by Alan Partridge being in it.

Confession

What is the worse sin to confess?

1) Walking around the house singing "Stars Are Blind" by Paris Hilton?

2) Admitting the song has been stuck in my head since hearing it on an episode of "Pants Off, Dance Off"?

You decide, but only after listening to the song and watching PODO at least twice each.

Some Velvet Morning

My best friend throughout my teenage years, Desmond Lambert, has just seen his band's first single released. And it's awesome. Go to http://www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk/ to hear "Losing My Mind."

Year of the Keeble?

I have had more success in the last two weeks than in the entire second half of 2006.

Currently I have an agent and a publisher looking over my manuscript, and I'm progressing with my new project at a lick not seen since the early inspired days of TWIMCT almost a year ago (and pretty soon I'll have enough done that I will be less scared to talk about it - right now I'm very excited, but it's all about getting something actually written for me to build on.) I've already had a publisher very interested in picking up TWIMCT this year. It's reassuring that perhaps I wasn't wasting my time this last year as some form letters had led me to believe.

Then today I get an e-mail confirming an article I had submitted and forgotten all about will run in the Parent Paper in an upcoming issue. I am particularly pleased at this news because it was a funny article, very much in the style of TWIMCT, and therefore something useful I can point to. I will put it here in all its glory once it's published for real.

New Year, Pneu-monia

So for the third time in three months, I find myself ill.

This one was probably the sickest I've ever been with a diagnosis of full-on pneumonia. It came at the worst possible time, as the entire family (including my parents visiting from England) all came down with bronchitis and a fever at the least. The highlight was some pretty spectacular hallucinations before my own fever broke.

Needless to say this took the edge off the good news that I had a publisher and an agent show some interest in TWIMCT within 24 hours of each other. The agent now has the first 50-odd pages to look at; the publisher should be top of the 'nicest people in the business' list. That said, no concrete publishing or representing so far.

My recovery will be complete in a day or two, but I am in no mood to leave the house. Yesterday I stupidly ventured out to the store and ended up wasting $40 worth of gas as I skidded up and down the drive in the minivan for 20 minutes.

Shhh...

Did someone whisper the word "progress?" I'm far too scared to talk about the recent developments (of which there are two, both arriving within 24 hours of each other) out loud, but if you want to know, you know how to get hold of me...

January in a nutshell

The first month of the year is done (clearly I don't have a lot of faith in tomorrow), so I present my summary of January in the form of a list of numbers.

1 - the number of rejections received from agents this month.

6 - the number of goals I scored during my Sunday morning soccer games.

4 - the number of stories I wrote that were published in the Town Journal newspaper.

60 - the number of party invitations sent out to our kids birthday parties to be held next month.

1 - the number of feature-length movies I watched this month (King Kong)

7 - the number of days it took me to watch it in its entirety.

6.45 - the time in the evening I took the kids and myself to bed lst night due to the revenge of the stomach bug that's 'doing the rounds.'

0 - the number of pages I have written in the new book I'm working on.

6 - the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit outside my back door last Friday.

Handy Manny

To the makers of Handy Manny:

Why?

Love Adam

Seriously, was it meant to be an affectionate rip-off of Bob The Builder? Or a Dora for boys? Because it fails miserably. My boy didn't need another Bob, and watches Dora regardless of his gender (which would bring me on to the lack of any need for Diego, but that's another complaint for another day.)

But my biggest problem with Handy Manny? His phone. When it rings on the show, and I'm in another room, I instantly scramble for my cell. And after the third time it happened, I got really pretty pissed off. So Manny, if you are going to hang around - and please, don't feel you have to on my family's account - download a new ringtone amigo.

Things That Make Me Feel Bad

* Rejection letters. I got another one today (bringing the total to four). This agent didn't read a word of my manuscript, which isn't such a bad thing - it would be far worse if she read it before rejecting it, but it filled me with self-doubt.

* Playing soccer badly. This Sunday the field was slick and wet, which meant I had the close control of a 16-wheeler. I scored a goal (kind of - a shot took a deflection off my knee and went in) but that was the only thing that went right for me in the whole game. Plus my knee injury is, according to one respected source I know, the start of a chronic problem. That's not good.

* People taking the fun out of things. I was playing this on-line game thing and found I was 9th out of 80 something people competing. I thought my total of 6000 points was pretty good considering I had played about 10 times, so I took a look at the leader board. The leader and the other seven people above me had 3,000,000 points and had been playing every waking minute. They haven't been having fun so much as devoting hours and exploiting every chink in the beta version game just to win it. What jerks. I don't bother playing anymore - what's the effing point?

* Cold. All those complaints about it not being cold over Christmas? Screw that. It's 20 degrees outside and I'm not going out there again without my big coat.

* February 3 - March 15. Every year I get the shaft in this time frame. I have to deal with three big birthdays, Valentine's Day and my wedding anniversary. Why can't they be a little more spread out? It's not that I don't want my immediate family (wife, both kids) to have the lavish birthdays they deserve, but when do I get time to plan for them? Well, I guess I could be doing that now...

A Rose By Any Other Name

Book news!

Easy, tiger. Not my book.

Back when I was a clueless teenager, wanting to be a journalist but scrambling to get an 'E' grade in Media Studies, my friend Paul Rose gave me my first foot in the door.

Paul's talent with graphics and art earned him a job with the company that hired me in 1994 on his recommendation. That company would eventually pay to send me to The Editorial Centre in Hastings, one of the most respected schools of journalism in the business, where I earned my diploma. But it was those first heady days where we were both being paid to play and review computer games that I will always be most grateful for. After all, I was just another teenage scrote waiting for a break. Paul provided it, and it changed everything.

There were other mentors between then and now, but without Paul's influence and belief in me, none of them would have mattered as they would have been mentoring someone else.

In the last decade, Paul has earned a cult following for that early writing work, but has flourished as a T.V. writer, working on many kids shows airing in the U.K. He even wrote an episode of soap opera EastEnders and is now waiting to hear if not one, but two, sitcom pilots he has worked on and going to be made into series.

And now, he's having a book published in May. You can go here to read about it. I'll be buying it, and you should too.

Funny Old Games

I'm not sure the USA has a real equivalent of the wholly British expression: "It's a funny old game" but it really needs one.

Coined by one-time sensational footballer (soccer player if you insist) and alcoholic from back in the days when the two went hand-in-hand, Jimmy Greaves, he was referring to the twists and turns that often occur in a football match. But being English, he said it almost stoically, downplaying the emotion sporting events can create. In the USA I noticed after a recent crop of very exciting College Bowl Football (American Football if you insist) games, polls were everywhere crowing: "Were these the best games ever?" (considering the first recognized game was in 1869.) In England, the likes of Jimmy would have commented: "What a fine advertisement for the game" and left it at that.

This last weekend saw crashing defeat everywhere in my sporting life. My one-time obsession, Aston Villa, lost to Manchester United at the first hurdle of the F.A. Cup. The New York Giants lost to a last gasp Philadelphia Eagles field goal, thus eliminating them from the playoffs leading to the Superbowl. The New York Knicks, who are having yet another fast-becoming-customary dreadful season, at least spared me from another defeat - they didn't play.

Amid all that horror, I actually played in my first soccer game of 2007 on Sunday morning and scored three goals in a 8-4 victory.

So while I will be spending time in the coming days saying how "we" were robbed by United, or the referees robbed "us" by favoring the Eagles, I will also be saying how I scored the decisive goals in a deserved win in the one sport I actually participated in.

As Jimmy would no doubt say, it was a funny old weekend.