January 22-28, 2012: Shop Talk

It occurs to me that I’ve devoted a lot of space on this blog lately to talk of Fluffy and cigarettes and the holidays and dirty dishes and the electric guitar and Twilight and iPads—you name it. Looking back, I’ve covered an impressive amount of ground.

But there’s an elephant in the ether, and it’s not the morbidly obese Fluffy. I’m referring to—grimace, grimace—my employment situation, which seems to be the one topic that isn’t broached on Unemployment Lines. By now, you might find this omission to be disconcerting. Maybe you think I’ve given up. Or worse, gone mad.

And while those are both plausible theories, they’re wrong. I’m not writing this entry from the loony bin—I’m at my usual spot at the end of the dining room table—and giving up is never an option. On the contrary, I’m on the rebound. At least I think I am. Maybe.

It’s merely been a matter of adjusting my definition of the word career. Some background: In the aftermath of my unceremonious exit from Crushed Soul, my spirits were understandably low. What I really wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sulk for the next 16 to 20 months, but my family needed me—you know the drill: mouths to feed, bills to pay—so I lurched forth.

The first painful steps involved reaching out to people I’d met through the course of my career who I thought could help me. Those interactions went something like this:

ME: (small talk)

PERSON I’D MET: (small talk)

ME: (heart of the matter)

PERSON I’D MET: (heart of the matter)

ME: “Well, let me know if you think of something.”

PERSON I’D MET: “I will.”

I’m no dummy. Times are tough all around, and I was pretty sure nothing would come of these conversations. Still, I had no choice but to keep lurching forth. At one point, I reached out to a former colleague whom we’ll call Andy.

ME: (small talk)

ANDY: (small talk)

ME: (heart of the matter)

ANDY: (heart of the matter)

ME: “Well, let me know if you think of something.”

ANDY: “I will.”

Now, the weird thing about this particular conversation is that Andy actually thought of something. He called me back a few days later and said, “Yeah, I have some work for you.” As fate would have it, he was part of a new venture, and he wanted me to do some writing for it.

At first, it didn’t amount to much—certainly not anything that would even begin to cover my mortgage. Slowly but surely, however, this little venture has been growing, and now I’m building and managing and editorial group for him. Though it still hasn’t taken me where I need to be financially, I’m starting to see that it has real potential. At least I think it does. Maybe.

Along the way, I’ve garnered other freelance gigs (while continuing to scour the landscape for a suitable full-time job, of course). Sometimes this piecemeal approach seems pretty tenuous; other times it feels like the safest route. I mean, when I worked at Crushed Soul, I had zero control over my destiny—it was in the hands of people I barely knew over in the corner offices. Now I’m the guy in the corner office—or at least at the corner of the dining room table—and I’m not flying blind.

So maybe this is my new career. Who knows? Either way, I’m on the rebound. At least I think I am. Maybe.

January 14-21, 2012: Smoked Out

An hour or so after I was laid off from Crushed Soul Publishing, the conditions were perfect for me to crack.

I exited Crushed Soul HQ for the final time and trudged across the blacktop to my car, which was parked next to the smoking area. Fate, it seemed, was about to play another cruel trick on me: A good friend of mine was standing right there with a cigarette in his hand. As I explained to him what had happened, smoke billowed through the air and into my welcoming nostrils. It was the first pleasing sensation I had experienced since being delivered the gut-slamming news that I no longer had a job.

Maybe just one cigarette, I thought. Lord knows, I deserve one right now.

I had been down this road many times in the past. One cigarette would lead to two cigarettes, whether it was the next day, the next week or the next month. And two cigarettes would lead to three cigarettes, and so on. Ultimately, I would be a “smoker” again—the guy huddled somewhere with a butt as the “non-smokers” eyed me contemptuously while walking past.

On the other hand, this was an extenuating circumstance. I had just been laid off, for crying out loud. “It's okay to have just one,” whispered the little red man on my shoulder. “You won't go back to smoking again.”

This time, however, I didn’t crack. Instead, I shook hands with my friend, got into my car, fired up the engine and drove off to an uncertain future.

Not that the little red man hasn’t reared his little red head since then. There have been plenty of moments during these past several months when a smoke would have calmed my frayed nerves, such as:

• The time I needed a root canal. Doctors, big needles and pain in general tend to bring out the worst in me.

• The time Fluffy was prone on the bathmat, his fate hanging in the balance. A world without Fluffy is just too grim to fathom.

• The times I’ve popped out of a deep sleep at 3 a.m.—for some blasted reason, it’s always 3 a.m.—and wondered, What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life?

Or there have been plenty of moments these past several months when a smoke would have given me a much-needed boost of energy, such as:

• Right now. Nicotine is like a steroid for the brain—a shot of it makes me more lucid. For years, I relied on cigarettes to help me get my creative juices flowing when I wrote, but that era has passed. I was once Sammy Sosa hitting tape-measure blasts—now I’m Craig Counsell just trying to dribble a grounder or two up the middle.

Or there have been plenty of moments these past several months when a smoke would have made a happy occasion that much happier. Such as:

• The time our friends the Plelis gave me a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label as a “present” for being laid off. What better way to complement a glass of this wondrous spirit than with a smoke?

• After every workout. Sick and counterproductive as it may seem, this was always my favorite cigarette—it enhanced my high after an endorphin-releasing round of exercise.

I’m pissed off that I can’t smoke anymore. It means I’m getting old and wise, and I don’t want to be old and wise. I enjoyed being young and reckless. Back then, I was indestructible, and nothing bad was ever going to happen to me.

As the years have passed, however, I’ve learned the inevitable lesson: Bad stuff can happen to anyone, even me. For starters, I’m old enough and wise enough to realize that being laid off is a walk in the park compared to lung cancer, emphysema or a good old-fashioned heart attack.

January 9-13, 2012: Home Cooking

Cassie and I aren’t extravagant people. We don’t drive fancy cars, we don’t fill our house with designer furniture, we don’t take trips to Paris (okay, we did once, but it was for our 15^th wedding anniversary), we don’t buy clothes at stores that have a lot of accent marks in their names, and we don’t send our kids to private schools. (Okay, we sent them to a Catholic school, but that doesn’t really count. There’s nothing extravagant about those places. Ours would still be using computers from the punch-card era if not for the generous donations by parents.)

Our one indulgence is dining out, and I make no apologies for it. Neither Cassie nor I is a domestic sort, so it’s only logical that we’d rely on other, more skilled people to prepare most of our meals. But that’s only part of it, at least in our rationalizations. Through the years, we’ve viewed it as our civic duty to support as many of the local restaurants as our waistlines would allow. (Now you know why I became so obsessive about excercising.) And if one of these establishments went out of business, we’d mourn it like the passing of a friend.

Of course, things have changed—the belt-tightening of the past several months has been a real kick in the gut, quite literally. (The local restaurateurs can’t be happy about it either.) Gone are the days of eating out on a whim. Most of our meals are now cooked at home, and it’s been nothing short of a disaster.

There haven’t been any fires, but there has been a fair amount of indigestion. And you should see the unseemly spectacle that is our kitchen sink. (Who knew that eating at home produces so many dirty pots, pans and dishes?) On any given night, the sink looks like something that might be featured on a TLC special. 

No, this lifestyle change hasn’t been pretty. Here’s a peek into the horror of it all:

Monday, January 9, 2012

In the glory days, we might have opted for a spaghetti dinner from one of the many Italian joints in our rotation, but instead we fend for ourselves. We turn to a gift from the gods: frozen food.

Cassie pops something into the oven, which is more of a challenge than you might think. The knob that controls the oven’s temperature broke off several years ago, forcing us to use pliers to turn it. We never bothered to fix the knob because we used the oven so infrequently, but now the situation is kind of a bummer.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

In the glory days, we might have taken a smorgasbord approach to dinner—say, Jimmy John’s for Cole, Culver’s for Liv, and Thai food for Cassie and me—but not tonight.

Cassie has decided to cook—and I run for cover.

Actually, Cassie has come a long way as a cook. When we were first married, her repertoire consisted of one dish: chili mac. Though this chili mac tasted like something from a Soviet gulag, I dutifully ate it whenever she fired it up. After about five years, however, I felt comfortable enough in our marriage to say as gently as possible that I simply couldn’t eat the chili mac anymore.

Tonight Cassie prepares sloppy Joes from a Weight Watchers recipe, and I have no complaints. Besides, if anyone should be doing the cooking, it’s me since Cassie is the main breadwinner in the family these days. But I’m ashamed to report that my attempts to improve my culinary skills have been half-hearted at best.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

In the glory days, perhaps we would have gone the Italian route again for dinner, but instead it’s all about leftover sloppy Joes. The dishes in the sink mount.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

In the glory days, some tasty Mexican fare from a nearby hole-in-the-wall would have hit the spot, but instead we turn to our freezer again. The meal is so nondescript that I can’t even remember what the hell it is as I write this. The dishes, meanwhile, continue to confound us: Though we cleaned them all this morning, a new batch is starting to mount.

Friday, January 13, 2012

The glory days have been reduced to a glory day. Typically, our one family meal out each week is on Friday, and we play it up for all its worth. Tonight is no exception. We go to a restaurant-bar in our downtown and order ribs and barbecue chicken and chicken tenders and chili and tomato Florentine soup—all the stuff that tastes so much better when someone else cooks it.

Since I’m out of practice, I’ve clearly forgotten the finer points of portion control. Afterward I stagger into the house, glance at the sinister assortment of dishes in the sink, stagger onward to the bedroom and lapse into a food-induced coma. And it’s only 7:30.

January 1-7, 2012: The Prince of Tides

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Pat Conroy’s novel The Prince of Tides contains a wonderfully poignant passage about whales that have washed onto a beach:

For hours we walked from back to back of the dying mammals, speaking out to them in the cries of children, urging them to try to return to the sea. We were so small, and they were so beautiful. From far off, they looked like the black shoes of giants. We whispered to them, cleared sand from their blowholes, splashed them with seawater, and exhorted them to survive for our sake. They had come from the sea mysteriously, gloriously, and we three children spoke to them, mammals to mammals, in the stunned, grieving canticles of children unfamiliar with willful death. We stayed with them all that day, tried to move them back to the water by pulling at their great fins, until exhaustion and silence crept in with the dark. We stayed with them as they began to die one by one. We stroked their great heads and prayed as the souls of whales lifted out of the great black bodies and moved like frigates through the night and out to sea where they dove toward the light of the world.

And so it is with Fluffy. Mysteriously, tragically, he has washed onto the bathmat in our main bathroom.

By 9 a.m., he has been on the bathmat for an hour—motionless, save for the heaving of his great black-and-white chest.

It’s now 10 a.m.: still no movement.

By 11 a.m., Cassie and I are worried. Fluffy is obviously ill, and we don’t know why.

“Should we call the vet?” Cassie asks.

“Not yet,” I answer. “He’ll snap out of it—this is Fluffy after all.” I exhort Fluffy to stand up for our sake, and for the sake of my wallet: “C’mon, Fluff. Fight it off. There’s no need to go to the vet.”

Sometime around noon, Fluffy rises. At first I’m encouraged, and then I’m not. Like an apparition—like a frigate moving through the night toward the light of the world—Fluffy waddles onward. He enters Cole’s bedroom. He stops at Cole’s desk. He throws up on it. He waddles back to the bathmat.

The mystery begins to reveal itself. Must be something he ate, I think. He’ll be fine.

By 3 p.m., I’m starting to have my doubts. Fluffy is still inert on the bathmat, his eyes expressionless. “If he’s not better by tomorrow, we’ll call the vet,” I say to Cassie.

Fluffy beached on the bathmat.

We have four other cats (yes, we’re batshit crazy), and they are all subservient to the mighty Fluff. His most ardent admirer is Charlie. She follows Fluffy wherever his travels take him, be it a windowsill, the corner of a bed or the top of my basement bar. Surely she has never seen her beloved Fluffy in a position of such weakness. Her face fraught with worry, she periodically checks on him in the bathroom.

At 4:30 p.m., Cassie and I place a paper plate of Fancy Feast and a bowl of water next to the bathmat. Normally the Fancy Feast—and perhaps the plate, too—would be gone within 20 seconds; today everything goes untouched.

At around 4:45 p.m., another of our cats, Penny, enters the bathroom. Penny is our wimpiest feline. If Fluffy so much as looks at her, she’ll spin around and run away. On this day, however, the world order has unexpectedly changed. Sensing that Fluffy the Tyrant is powerless, she saunters right up to the bathmat and eats his Fancy Feast.

At 5:30 p.m., Liv is back from her after-school activities, and she goes into the bathroom to make sure the Fluffster is still breathing. He is, but the situation seems dire nonetheless. Liv speaks to him, mammal to mammal, in the stunned, grieving canticles of a child unfamiliar with such unspeakable horror: “You poor thing, Fluffy.” After a remarkably long sigh, Liv pauses. A giggle then escapes—she just can’t help it. “He’s so fat, he looks kind of funny,” she says.

At 9 p.m., Cole works around the beached Fluffy while drying himself following his shower.

At 9:15 p.m., Liv is careful not to jostle him as she brushes her teeth at the sink.

At 9:30 p.m., I step over him en route to the toilet, as I’ve done throughout the day.

At 10:15 p.m., I’m lying in my bed, looking at a picture of Cole’s swim team on our new iPad. Suddenly, I feel something akin to a potato sack land on my stomach.

“Ouch,” I yelp.

I gaze up from the iPad and see Fluffy. For dramatic effect, he has jumped on me with all the force he can muster. After a few unsteady moments, Fluffy gets his footing on my stomach. His pupils dilated, almost psychotically so, he looks at me as if to say, “I’m back.” I reach over to pet him, and he bites my hand—though, as is his custom, not hard enough to break the skin. Indeed, Fluffy is back.

Somewhere in this tale is a lesson for the new year. I’m just not sure what it is yet.

December 23-30, 2011: Happy New Year!

I can’t say that 2011 treated me particularly well, so what better way to flip it the bird than with a New Year’s Eve bash?

The party was actually Cassie’s idea. She conjured it a couple months ago with these words: “It will give us motivation to clean the house.”

Her logic escaped me. Consider:

1) Won’t the house be even more trashed after the party?

2) Won’t everyone be too loaded to differentiate between a dirty and clean house?

3) Our friends already know we’re slobs. Who are we fooling with this before-bash cleaning?

Of course, after nearly 20 years of marriage, you learn not to ask questions. Cassie’s idea seemed good—the party, not the cleaning—so I simply nodded my head in agreement.

December 23-27, 2011

Now it’s late December. New Year’s Eve is fast approaching, but we still have miles to travel before we get there.

Figuratively, I’m referring to the hustle and bustle of the holidays; literally, it’s the 736-mile drive to and from Cassie’s hometown of Cleveland. I’ve had a Cleveland Christmas each year of my married life, and the pattern has remained remarkably unchanged: We’re fed unfathomably large amounts of food at every turn, though never anything resembling a green vegetable. On Christmas Eve, we gather in Cassie’s parents’ living room to open presents.

Cassie’s dad has gotten himself into something of a pickle with the present-opening part. One year he bought Cassie’s mom expensive jewelry, another year he gave her a trip to a destination of her choice, and so on. Last year, however, he pulled out all the stops. We whisked Cassie’s mom off to Aunt Joyce’s under some bogus pretense, and when she returned, a Toyota Camry with a giant red bow on top was waiting for her in the garage.

So how can he possibly top the car-in-the-garage bit? He can’t. And wisely, he doesn’t even try. He takes a different route in 2011, spreading the holiday cheer around in equal measure by giving everyone an iPad (everyone being the Family Wagner, Cassie’s sister, her brother and her mom). This is Cassie’s mom’s introduction to the computer age, and she approaches it with a combination of fear and fascination. The rest of us jump right in. As I look around the living room at the whirl of iPad activity, a Christmas poem pops into my head:

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Everyone got an iPad, including my spouse.

These iPads are spread by the chimney with care.

It’s as if St. Steve Jobs is standing right there.

Tuesday, December 27

We’re back from Cleveland, but we still have miles to travel. A messy house awaits us. The dining room table alone—Will Wagner HQ for the past few months—resembles Oscar Madison’s office. The house, however, is the least of our worries. Everyone in Cleveland was sick, and now Cassie and I are sick, too. How very fitting in what has become the Year of the Malady. (The good news is, my groin is holding up remarkably well, though my calf remains touch and go.)

There will be no cleaning this evening. Wheezing and coughing and sniffling, Cassie and I retire to bed.

Wednesday, December 28

I backburner the idea of cleaning today. Believe it or not, there’s more to my life than iPads and New Year’s Eve bashes—I actually have work to do. I soldier through editing a 3,600-word treatise on the Bomb (nothing like some light holiday fare to lift your spirits) before retreating to my bed to rest.

Cleaning just isn’t going to happen tonight either. I’m supposed to meet up with my Party Line friends, and there’s no way to gracefully bow out. (The Party Line, you might remember, is an email group composed of my cynical and perverse sportswriting cronies.) Wheezing and coughing and sniffling, I set out for the Edison Park Inn. These stooges are always good for some laughs, and for a few hours, I forget that I’m not well.

Thursday, December 29

I edit and rest, clean and rest, edit and rest, and then clean and rest. In between, an image of Cassie’s mom unexpectedly appears on our iPad. “What just happened?” she asks. “Did I just call you? Why did I call you?” Oh well. She’ll get the hang of the computer age soon enough.

My beloved basement bar.

Evening arrives, and it’s time for the most blessed of quests: I go to Binny’s Beverage Depot to stock up for our New Year’s Eve party. Pushing a cart up and down the aisles, I stop to admire the exotic bottles of liquor that are locked behind glass cases. I imagine choirs of angels singing as these bottles are cracked open.

Once home, I carefully place my provisions behind my basement bar. The bar is finally repaired following the flood that wiped it out over the summer—in fact, it has come back bigger and better than ever. I can’t wait to give it a test spin.

Friday, December 30

More editing, more cleaning. In between, Cole and I go over to my friend Bennett’s to pick up his foosball table. This turns out to be less of a fiasco than usual. Several years ago, for example, Bennett and I tried to move a 55-inch TV into his house; amid the grunting and the wobbling, we wedged it in the doorway and broke the screen.

At any rate, New Year’s Eve is almost upon us. We’re just about ready to launch 2011 into history with a big FU before chasing the glory that is sure to be 2012.

December 10-18, 2011: Happy Holidays!

Normally I’m too wrapped up in my daily life to do anything more than go through the motions during the holidays. And while some might claim I’m doing the same thing this year—especially Cassie, who, as usual, has handled most of the preparations—that’s really not the case. I’m all about the holidays in 2011. There’s nothing like a little adversity to help one strip away the bullshit and see everything for what it is.

I’m thankful for much this year—and in true holiday spirit, sentimentally so—including:

Christmas Music

Most years I cringe when Cassie breaks out her wholly uncool Christmas playlist, but not in 2011. In fact, I add to it. The emotions of the season overcome me, and I download some music by Canadian singer/songwriter Justin Hines, including “Say What You Will,” whose opening verse goes like this:

If I were to die today

My life would be more than okay

For the time I’ve spent you

Is like a dream come true

Nauseatingly schmaltzy? You bet…until you learn Hines’ backstory. His body bent up and broken by a genetic joint condition called Larsen’s syndrome, Hines has spent his life confined to a wheelchair. But he never let his disability destroy his spirit. He just kept moving forward—propelled, in part, by his passion for music—and in 2009, “Say What You Will” went to No. 1 in Canada and South Africa. In this context, not even the Grinch could hate Hines' music.

Friday, December 16, 2011

The Men and Women Serving Our Country

It might seem like a cliché, but let’s raise a glass to the troops. Lord knows, they deserve it. While the rest of us are at home debating whether we should max out our credit cards on Xboxes or PlayStation 3s, many of them are just trying to get by in some off-the-map hellhole.

I have a friend—we’ll call him the Colonel—who spent most of 2011 stationed in Iraq. When he was home on leave for a couple weeks over the summer, we met up for a beer. The Colonel didn’t look so good, and who could blame him? He told me about rockets flying into his camp and desert heat so intense that he could literally feel his eyeballs burning whenever he stepped outside. With the thought of having to return to Iraq bouncing around inside his head, the Colonel didn’t smile much that night.

Now, though, he’s home permanently, and when we meet up for a beer on this December evening, the Colonel is all smiles. Why wouldn’t he be? He made it back in one piece. As he and his wife are getting ready to leave at the end of the night, I give him a hug. I’m just so proud of the guy. And I’m grateful for the holiday reminder that there’s more to the word “sacrifice” than canceling HBO because you were recently been laid off from your job.

Saturday, December 17, 2011:

The Youth of America

These are troubled times, and a lot of people fear for the future of our country. Me? I’m not worried. I look around at Cole, Liv and their friends, and I see a nation that will be in capable hands. The fact is, these kids are much brighter and more accomplished than we ever were at their ages.

Take one of Cole’s classmates from grade school. We’ll call her Jane. During a local 5K race about five years ago, when Jane was all of nine, her dad tried his best to keep pace with her. Eventually, she moved so far ahead of him that he could no longer see her, and he wound up neck and neck with me. Suffice it to say, Jane crushed us by about five minutes. As her dad and I neared the finish line—sweating and panting and battling every step of the way—she was waiting there looking fresh as a daisy, like she had done nothing more strenuous that morning than brush her teeth. I vowed I’d outrun Jane the next year, but it didn’t happen. After that, I quit entering the race.

On this December evening, Jane is over at our house watching Will Ferrell movies with Cole and a bunch of his other friends. I remember Jane’s dad telling me that she had been taking guitar lessons, so when he picks her up at the end of the night, I offer to let her take my sacred Gibson SG for a test spin. I figure I’ll give her a few pointers once she’s done trying to play it.

 “It can be a tough guitar to play,” I tell her dad as we look on. “Pretty rugged.”

Moments after those words come out of my mouth, Jane whales out Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” My SG rings as it has never rung—perhaps I should be asking her for the pointers.

I clear my throat and say as nonchalantly as possible, “That was…um…good.”

Yep, don’t count out America just yet. We still have plenty of fight left in us.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

And the Fam, of Course

Fluffy overseeing Christmas/Chanukah.

There’s nothing traditional about the Wagner Christmas. First, it doesn’t take place on Christmas. (Since we spend Christmas proper with Cassie’s family, we always carve out a day at our house beforehand with my parents and my sister.) Second, it’s not really even a celebration of Christmas. (My mom is Jewish, but Christmas was the holiday we marked growing up. Lately, however, she’s become wistful about her Jewish roots.) Our annual get-together is a Christmas/Chanukah hodgepodge—a lighted tree here, a lighted menorah there. (Strange, yes, but it works for us.)

We open presents. (Not as many this year due to economic circumstances, but the kids don’t seem to mind.) I complement the gift opening by playing “Greensleeves” on my acoustic guitar. (Everyone tries hard to ignore it.) We recite Jewish prayers before eating a feast. (My mom becomes wistful.) We all cram onto a couch in the basement and watch Love Actually. (It’s a touching movie about the many manifestations of love.)

By the end of Christmas/Chanukah 2011, I feel pretty damn lucky. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s a wonderful life—sometimes it kind of sucks—but it’s a life nonetheless. I’m still here, and where there’s life, there’s hope.

December 5-December 9, 2011: More of the Same

Monday December 5, 2011

When I started this blog, I was fully aware that I’d have to be sincere and candid for it to ring true. How was I to know, however, that my subject matter would get so weird? If I had thought things through, I might have foreseen this outcome, but I didn’t think—I just wrote—and it’s too late to turn back now.

So here I am, shivering at my dining room table because the window behind me is cracked open. And exactly why is the window cracked open? To accommodate the social needs of a feral cat named Snowball.

Snowball chilling on the windowsill.

See, our cat issues go way beyond the inside of our house. As Fluffy admires himself while luxuriating on a feather blanket, and the rest of our cats do what they must to stay in his good graces, a parallel feline universe is flickering outside. At some point after I was laid off from Crushed Soul, Snowball (named such because she’s a white ball of fur) started hanging out on the windowsill outside the dining room. She drops by to chatter at me and perhaps procure just a smidgen of Meow Mix and Fancy Feast.

But it doesn’t end there. God no. When I walk to the other side of the house and gaze out at the patio through a set of sliding doors in the breezeway, sometimes l see a strikingly regal cat (Magnificent Cat), a rough-and-tumble gray cat (Grey) or a tiny black cat (Blackie). They drop by to chatter at me and perhaps procure just a smidgen of Meow Mix and Fancy Feast.

Back at the dining room table, I’m getting colder by the minute. Cracking the window open wasn’t a big deal in September, but now that winter is upon us, it’s a frosty proposition. What better way to warm up than to go for a lunchtime run around the perimeter of the golf course? I haven’t jogged since I tore up my groin playing racquetball a few weeks ago with my friend Bennett, but the injury seems to have healed. I’m ready to let loose.

As I gallop down some side streets along the golf course and turn onto a busy stretch of road, my groin feels great. In fact, I don’t give it a second thought—especially after I feel a painful pull in my right calf that causes me to pull up lame. “I can’t believe it,” I mutter to myself. “Yet another injury.” Unshowered and unshaven, clad in a particularly tattered set of sweats and cursing under my breath, I hobble onward with all the dignity of a homeless person. I figure it’s only a matter of time before a squad car pulls up and takes me away, but I make it back to my blustery dining room table without incident.

“This is starting to get ridiculous,” I say to Cassie of my mounting injuries.

She rolls her eyes and says, “What do you expect? You’re 50.”

“Forty-seven,” I remind her.

“Same thing,” she says.

Either way, I’m not ready to concede anything to aging. I attribute the sudden and systematic breakdown of my body to a run of bad luck that started when I was laid off from Crushed Soul. It’ll pass—and I’ll be able work out as vigorously as ever.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Why wait for this storm cloud to pass? I decide to take the initiative and push the damn thing out of the way.

My lower body might be shot, but I’m good to go from the waist up, so I head to the Y to lift weights. Included in my regimen is an endorphin-releasing bench-press exercise I’ve performed for over a decade without as much as a twinge: two sets of 10 reps at 225 pounds, one set of five to seven reps at 275 pounds, one set of three to four reps at 295 pounds and one set of two to three reps at 315 pounds. As I pump through my first set at 225 pounds, I’m feeling fit and virile, until there’s a pull in my right triceps that’s identical to what I experienced in my right calf a couple days earlier.

Now my upper body is shot, too. Fifty, I hear Cassie say in my head as I go home in defeat yet again.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Whenever Cassie reads these entries, she reminds me that this is supposed to be a career-oriented blog—hence, the title—and that it might be nice if I wrote about my work situation every once in a while. Problem is, blogging about job stuff can become tiresome, especially after three-plus months. If I had thought things through, I might have foreseen this dilemma, but I didn’t think—I just wrote—and it’s too late to turn back now.

Suffice it to say, I’m in career purgatory right now—I’m neither unemployed nor employed. I’m just trying to stay afloat doing freelance projects until (1) a suitable full-time job materializes or (2) I grow my freelance business to the point where that is my full-time job. Fortunately, I have some promising irons in the fire, though I don’t want to get into specifics for fear of jinxing them. (Being sincere and candid can only go so far.)

Friday, December 9, 2011

So here I am, shivering at my dining room table because I have the window cracked open for Snowball, who has stopped by for some conversation and perhaps just a smidgen of Meow Mix and Fancy Feast. For the sake of art, or whatever this is, I’ve written another brutally honest (and mostly embarrassing) blog entry—especially where Snowball, Magnificent Cat and the rest of the feral gang are concerned. I just hope our neighbors don’t read this one.

November 27-December 3: The Twilight Phenomenon

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Cassie and I have left Captiva Island for the cold and gloom of Chicago, and there’s only one thing to do to lift our spirits: see the new Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn, Part I. For those who aren’t in the know, the Twilight movies are based on four bestselling books by Stephenie Meyer that focus on the goings-on of vampires, werwolves and the like in remote Forks, Wash. At the center of this saga is the forbidden romance between Edward (the vampire with a non-beating heart of gold) and Bella (the awkward human teenager who doesn’t feel as if she fits in among her own species).

The cardboard cutouts of Edward
in Cassie's basement office.

Twilight’s target audience is adolescent girls, but it turns out that a surprisingly large number of middle-aged women have also jumped on the vampire train, including my wife. She’s read all four books multiple times and has seen the movies more times than anyone cant count. Her basement office is decorated with all manner of Twilight memorabilia, highlighted by two life-sized cardboard cutouts of Edward. Like so many other teenyboppers and whacked-out moms around the world, Cassie has a massive crush on Edward. Sometimes I’m asked if it bugs me that my wife is in love with a vampire. No, I say. I’m delighted.

Why wouldn’t I be? In July 2008, Cassie’s little brother was killed in a motorcycle accident. Cassie spent the ensuing months in a fog. In fact, she became a little like a vampire herself: not dead, but not really alive either. Merely going through the day-to-day motions, she was a shadow of herself. In May 2009, Cassie and her mom took a trip to Paris for Mother’s Day. They had a blast—who wouldn’t have a blast in Gay Paree?—but Cassie still had that faraway countenance when she came home.

Enter Edward and company. One night while Cassie and her mom were in Paris, Liv wanted to watch a movie I had never heard of, something called Twilight. Though I fully expected this Twilight flick to suck, I agreed—anything to entertain the kiddies. To my surprise, I was engaged all the way through, so much so that when Cassie returned Stateside, I suggested we watch it.

The transformation was nothing short of miraculous. As the movie played on, it was as if I could see the color returning to Cassie’s face. The next day, she began reading the first book in the Twilight series, and within a week, she had finished all four installments. In between her reading, she watched the movie several more times and purchased the soundtrack, which she listened to incessantly.

Crazy? Of course—Cassie herself laughingly admits as much. The point, however, is this: I was just glad to see something—anything—capture her imagination. Ironically, it was a tale of the undead that provided a spark and helped to bring my wife back to the land of the living. Yes, Cassie was still grieving the loss of her brother, but before long, she was her old self again: feisty, energetic and ready to plow through life’s obstacles without thinking too much about them.

So when we return from Captiva and Cassie wants to cap off the vacation by screening Breaking Dawn, I happily oblige. I, too, like this Edward character. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a savior. (Incidentally, this is the second time Cassie has seen Breaking Dawn. Before we left for Captiva, she, some other whacked-out moms and Liv went to a 10-hour Twilight marathon that culminated with the premiere of Breaking Dawn at midnight.)

Monday, November 28-Saturday, December 3

Our vacation quickly recedes into history. For one, the weather in Chicago is a far cry from those bright and sunny days on Captiva Island. I return to my routine of resurrecting my career, and Cassie works away amid the Twilight knickknacks in her basement office.

Come Saturday, we’re in need of some quality relaxation time together. What do we do? You guessed it: We go see Breaking Dawn again.

November 11-16, 2011: The Dissection of a Routine

If you want a real eye opener, start a blog that chronicles your day-to-day existence. Chances are, you’ll discover that your routine is stupefying.

How’s this for mundane?

Friday, November 11

• I spend the morning at the dining room table, swilling instant coffee (since my exit from Crushed Soul, I’ve gone through a canister that makes, like, 287 cups), grinding through freelance projects and dabbling at networking.

• At lunchtime, I go to the Y and exercise with extreme caution so that I don’t inflame my gimpy groin.

• I return to my dining room table, where I swill instant coffee, grind through freelance projects and dabble at networking.

• I pick up Cole at school. On the way home, he calls my parenting into question because I won’t let him download rap songs from a suspect website.

• My friend Steve Pleli’s wife, Jane, is hosting a candle party or some such thing, and I go to their house to help Steve tend bar. This is a high point: I consume Steve’s provisions and chat with the delightful assortment of candle buyers.

• After getting home, I fall asleep while watching the world implode on CNN.

Saturday, November 12

• I spend the morning at the dining room table, swilling instant coffee, grinding through freelance projects and writing a song on my acoustic guitar that’s tentatively titled “Take Me Back.”

• At lunchtime, I go to the Y and exercise with extreme caution.

• I return to my dining room table, where I swill instant coffee, grind through freelance projects and record “Take Me Back” using my trusty TASCAM.

• As is our bimonthly tradition, Cassie and I go to a local tavern to meet up with some friends from our old neighborhood. This is another high point: We laugh all night, especially when we swap stories about the challenges of raising adolescent children.

• After getting home, I fall asleep while watching the world implode on CNN.

Sunday, November 13

• I spend the morning at the dining room table, swilling instant coffee, grinding through freelance projects and working on my novel, tentatively titled Harmony and Havoc: The Untold Journey of Pete Townshend’s Woodstock Guitar.

• Liv and I venture to the Y for an Indian Princess activity: kickboxing and yoga. This is not a high point, though only because gimpy groins and kickboxing/yoga aren’t a stellar combination.

• That night, I fall asleep while watching the world implode on CNN.

Monday, November 14

• Coffee swilling. Freelance grinding. Network dabbling.

• Cautious exercise.

• Cart kids to and fro. Parenting called into question due to restrictions I've imposed for this and for that.

• World implodes on CNN.

Tuesday, November 15

• Swilling. Grinding. Dabbling.

• We meet with Cole’s high school guidance counselor. This is a high point: She tells us Cole is terrific.

• Gimpy groin.

• Cart kids. Lousy parent.

• World implodes.

Wednesday, November 16

• Amid the swilling, grinding and dabbling, there’s some excitement: Our friend DC has a dog-walking business, and she stops by with a Husky in tow to pick something up from Cassie. Since Fluffy is a world-renowned tough guy, I figure he might want to gaze outside at this canine visitor, and I carry him to the door. Much to my surprise, he doesn’t try to burst through the storm window and go after this pantywaist Husky. Instead, he runs the other way—retreats, for crying out loud—as fast as he can. A few minutes later, his street cred is further diminished when he has an anxiety-induced asthma attack, which only a heaping plate of Fancy Feast can cure.

• My groin seems to be on the mend, and I exercise a little less cautiously at the Y. I’ll be back on the racquetball court with Bennett before I know it.

• Cart the kids. My parenting sucks.

• World implodes.

Pathetic as it may seem, that’s pretty much a week in my life circa fall 2011. But before you think, Wow, this guy’s a real tool, I dare you to chart your own routine for a typical week. You might be shocked by your findings. Whether we commute downtown or to our dining room table, whether we spend our days at an office or at home, we’re all creatures of habit.

November 4-7, 2011: Racquetball, Anyone?

November 4-5, 2011

I feel great, fantastic, wonderful, and any other adjective that can be used to describe the splendor of the human condition. My toothache has receded into history, and my bad back has turned good again. No more tedious talk of aches and pains on this blog—no, sir. From here on, it’s all about ass-kicking.

And maybe a little racquetball.

November 6, 2011

My friend Bennett and I have been playing racquetball semi-regularly for about the past 15 years. I approach each of our matches with a combination of glee and dread—glee because racquetball is a blast, dread because the matches always seem to become harrowing tests of will. Consider: We’re both at roughly the same skill level; we’re both relatively quick and, thus, can get to most balls; and we’re both highly competitive. The result is that our points are painfully long and intense. By the end of our racquetball outings, I’m often so soaked with sweat that I can’t get my shirt off.

We’re not as spry as we used to be, but we’re actually in better shape. The passing of time has taught us that we’re not invincible, so we’ve both shed some pounds and some bad habits. We’ve also become wiser. Rather than dive for shots we have little chance of returning, we sometimes just let them go. This sort of mature restraint, we've noted, prevents us from winding up with floor burns on our faces.

Given my laundry list of infirmities the past couple months, Bennett and I haven’t been playing racquetball. But like I said, I’m better now. I’m feeling so robust, in fact, that it’s time to reignite our rivalry. I drive to Bennett’s house, say hi to his trusty dog Bruno, and roust him from his near-slumber on the couch.

“Ready?” I ask, eyeing him intensely.

“Yes,” he answers, eyeing me equally intensely, or maybe just sleepily.

First, though, Bennett must find his racket. He scours his garage—no luck. He scours his family room—no luck. He scours his bedroom—no luck. After several more minutes of scouring, he finds it in the food pantry. Of course—who wouldn’t store a racket in the food pantry?

It’s off to the Y, and I’m jacked. As we wage an epic battle in the first game, I’m in top form. I’m getting to nearly everything, and I’m confounding Bennett with craftily placed balls in the corners of the court. Even though I choke in the end—I blow an 11-6 lead and lose 15-12—I’m not mad.

“That was the best racquetball we’ve played in a long time,” I say between games. “I’ll put us up against anyone our age.”

Indeed, I’m raring to go, so much so that I jump out to a 3-0 lead in the second game. I’m moving my feet like a man half my age, I’m hitting the ball with power and precision, and I’m anticipating Bennett’s shots.

It’s glorious.

As I stretch for a backhand on yet another hard-fought point, I’m taking no prisoners. I’m the very definition of determination…right up until I feel a pop in my groin and fall to the floor in agony.

“You all right, Wags?” I hear Bennett say.

Facedown on the hardwood, I yelp, “No…my groin…fuck.”

“What happened?” he asks.

“Groin…fuck,” I respond with clenched teeth.

“You want some help getting up?” Bennett inquires.

“Fuck…groin.”

After a few minutes, the pain subsides slightly. Bennett helps me to my feet, and I say, “Let’s try to keep playing.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I was having too much fun to quit.”

Plus, I’m winning.

I stand there waiting for Bennett to serve. I can move neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward—I’m a statue.

“On second thought, maybe I’m done,” I finally concede.

November 7, 2011

I’m trying to get dressed so that I can make my morning commute to the dining room table, but this proves difficult due to my gimpy groin. Luckily, Cassie is kind enough to put my socks on for me. (My kids, ingrates that they are, refused.)

“I just had a scary premonition,” she says. “Is this what old age will be like?”

Wow, that is a scary thought. I wanted this blog entry to be about redemption and pride and ass-kicking and the like—but no. Instead, it ends with my wife putting my socks on because I can’t bend over. If real life doesn’t deliver me some better blog material in a hurry, I’m going to have to start making stuff up.

November 3, 2011: The Moment of Truth

I wake with a start, and my eyes snap open. The clock reads 4:11. For the next hour or so, I toss and turn and toss some more. In my mind, music from The Doors’ “The End” is playing and scenes of the jungle being blown up in Apocalypse Now are flickering.

“This is the end [Boom!], beautiful friend. This is the end [Boom! Boom! Boom!], my only friend, the end.”

Ostensibly, I’m worried about my future. I rise from my bed, go to the dining room table, and compose a letter to a headhunter, which I send into the ether at 5:57 a.m. But really, who am I fooling? Here’s the primary source of my anxiety attack: My root canal is scheduled for this morning.

Truth be told, I’m not even sure what a root canal is, though I’m positive that any medical procedure involving the word “canal” can’t be good. I take to the Party Line. (For those who don’t remember or just don’t care, the Party Line is an email group consisting of me and several of my former sportswriting colleagues.) I don’t know why I find comfort in emailing these boobs during times like this, but I do.

• 6:40 a.m.: “The bell is about to toll for Wild Bill Wagner. In less than two hours, I shall be in a dentist’s chair.”

A little later, a Party Liner responds: “Godspeed, Bilgronymous. Holy shit, this one’s touch and go.”

Indeed.

I noodle around on some freelance work, then return to the Party Line:

• 7:27 a.m.: “He’s a dentist I’ve never used, some sort of root-canal specialist. I’m sure he’s a butcher.”

• 7:29 a.m.: “I suspect this will be like the medical procedures on Civil War battlefields, where doctors gave the wounded only a belt of whiskey before cutting into them.”

The pre-procedure Party Line theatrics both amuse me and calm my nerves, as I knew they would. Speaking of nerves, the dentist tells me about the ins and outs of a root canal after I slide into his chair: Essentially, he’ll be “plumbing” (his word) inside little canals within my tooth in order to remove infected nerves. It sounds gross, which is why I didn’t want to learn the particulars in the first place.

Before the plumbing can commence, the dentist numbs my mouth with a seemingly never-ending series of shots. This is where things take a turn for the worse. Some people are terrified of flying; others are terrified of snakes. My phobia is needles, especially the massive ones used by dentists.

While waiting for the novocaine to take full effect, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. “Too much coffee,” I mutter to no one in particular as I stagger down the hallway.

I begin to feel lightheaded as I stand in the john, though I am able to punch out a couple text messages to the Party Line:

• “Gave me five shots. I honestly am about to faint. Crap.”

• “Beads of sweat on my forehead.”

A Party Line comrade responds to my SOS thusly: “Buck up, you flaming Mary.”

I make it back to the dentist’s chair, where I feel compelled to explain myself via another text message: “I have a needle phobia. My Achilles’ heel.”

To which he responds: “Just close your eyes and picture swimming nude with Erin Burnett.”

Somehow that works. The lightheadedness subsides, and I get through the 90-minute procedure with relative ease.

As I drive home, I think about my blog. Now that the big root canal is done, what’s left to write about going forward? There’s always Fluffy, I suppose, but what if nothing interesting happens in his life? I might be forced to write about—dare I even suggest it?—my job search. Nah. What fun would that be?

October 29-November 1, 2011: Working Hard, Hardly Working

Working from home has its challenges, sometimes more so than others. I’m in a “more so” period.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Sunday is no day of rest for me, even though I could use some after attending a rollicking Halloween bash at our friends the Grays last night. I’m trying to catch up on a freelance project, and I make good progress until several of Liv’s classmates show up to finish producing a movie for school. They’re shooting their version of The Hunger Games, a book series that is apparently all the rage.

Though they rambunctiously turn the rooms surrounding my dining room table into a movie set, I soldier on valiantly. I weather the thumping and the running; I withstand the yelling and the cries of “Action!” Ultimately, however, my stabs at productivity prove to be fruitless. The girls need my computer to edit their masterpiece, so I barricade myself in my bedroom and watch The Rite, in which Anthony Hopkins plays a possessed priest. The movie is nothing special, but at least Hopkins is quietly possessed.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Today is Halloween, and I’m scared. My deadline for this freelance project is looming, but my work isn’t exactly going smoothly because of all the excitement whirling around me at the dining room table. Liv has invited a dozen or so friends over for trick-or-treating and some arrive early to have an audience with Fluffy. Since Fluffy happens to be seated next to my computer, the girls form an impromptu line there and wait excitedly to pet His Magnificence and perhaps receive a ceremonial bite on the hand. All the while, I ponder the whereabouts of the first-aid kit.

My worries are unfounded: Fluffy doesn’t hurt anyone. Liv and her friends leave to go trick-or-treating, and I race to finish my freelance project before they return.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

A new freelance deadline looms, and a new distraction vexes me. This one dates back to a Friday night in July, when a biblical rainstorm caused my basement to flood. I should have taken it as a sign—stormy times are ahead—but I didn’t. I simply tore up the waterlogged flooring and headed back to work the following Monday.

By September, I had no job to go to on Mondays and still no flooring in my basement. Luckily, our insurance company paid for the basement damage, but since so many people were hit by the storm, the earliest our waterproofer and contractor could get here is now. Not that I’m complaining. If I’ve learned anything the past two months, it’s that fixing stuff can take time, be it a basement or a career.

Over the ear-shattering din of the power tools and hammering below, I quietly type away at the dining room table. Yes, the repairs are underway.