2. The idea, by the way, that your (or anyone else's) list was random is, quite frankly, bullshit. You and I both know that you spent a lot of time putting your list together. God knows I've been editing this and tweaking it for several days now.
3. Coming up with the 25 items is going to made a little more difficult by virtue of the fact that this blog already contains a list of six random items about myself, for which I only had to tag six other friends. I'm not tagging anyone this time. That's probably very antisocial-media of me, to not be more inclusive. I just can't bring myself to do it.
4. The thing is, I felt really guilty about tagging those six friends. I mean, everyone's really busy these days, you know? While it's a huge conceit to believe that people want to read six (much less 25) things about you in the first place, to ask them to take the time to come up with their own list is really pushing it.
5. So I felt better when only one of my six friends actually followed through with his list. I actually felt less guilty about tagging Jason than others, because a) I know that he kind of likes these things, and b) even though he's one of the busiest people I know on this planet, he somehow finds the time to do fun things like blogging and cool online April Fools pranks.
6. I envy Jason's organization. My organization is for crap. I'm trying all the time to get better at it, but so often in my life, I am simply overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff I have to do that I'm never sure where to start. And then when I add in the stuff I actually want to do ... fuggedahboutit.
7. Right now, at least 3.4 of you read #6 and thought: "I need to introduce him to David Allen's Getting Things Done program!" First of all: you're geeks, quit it. Second of all, I've tried GTD. I'm still trying GTD. Somedays it's great. Somedays I can't find my ass from the runway, much less 50,000 feet. Like with so many self-help programs/diets/regimes, when you're motivated to make them work they're da bomb. But they have to become a habit, and to get to that point you have to rely on shear gut motivation and faith for longer than I can usually handle.
8. But I digress. What I want to say is that no one is tagged for this list. (Well, that's not technically true: I tagged a couple of people mentioned in this over on Facebook; this is in now way meant to encourage those people to even look at this note.) No one reading this should make their own list. And if you do, don't blame me. No "Marck tagged me, so now I have to do this." Okay? You are off the hook. You can just read this, and forget it, and move on.
9. Or you can just not read it. How would I know? I don't pore over my Google Analytics and meta-stalk my readers. Hell, at this point, I assume I'm down to about three readers, since this blog is so "feast or famine." 15 straight posts, followed by months of inactivity. I'm as streaky as an overpaid baseball pro.
10. I had to look up "pore" just now to make sure that I was spelling it the right way.
11. I fear that memes like this 25-random-things is a heavy contributor to the trend away from thoughtful writing/reading. It's an easy way to say short, pithy things about oneself without doing any constructive thinking. I can't decide, though, if this has happened because we don't have the time to read longer pieces anymore, or if we don't read longer pieces because nothing we read (especially on the Internet) has much depth/substance anymore. Chicken-egg.
12. Like, take Newser, for instance. Great idea, in theory: as a battle against the information overload we face every day, the major stories of the day/hour/minute are whittled down to a two-paragraph, People magazine-worthy summary. Newser's motto is: "Read less, know more." They got half of it right, that's for sure. My fear is that people think they are informed after reading a couple of paragraphs to have an opinion on ... oh, say, a certain national stimulus package. This would explain why 58% of people polled for one poll believe that the Republicans are at fault for the package not passing faster, and in another poll 59% feel that it's Obama's fault. That 8-9% who (theoretically, I realize) voted both ways? They're the epitome of this "I don't know much but I'll have an opinion anyway" culture we live in.
13. Which is not to say I haven't read every 25-random-things list I've been tagged for. Some of them are fascinating.
14. Take John Scholvin, for instance. I know John through a softball team we were on several years ago, where I regularly watched him misplay fly balls. I got to know him a bit from post-game bar chats, but I got more information about his life and the kind of guy he is from his stupid list. And it made me wish I had the chance to know him better.
15. John gave me that chance, by the way: I have a Facebook email from him in which he invited me to lunch sometime. While I was certainly more inclined to do it after reading his 25 things list, it's still really hard for me to motivate myself to pull the trigger and reply "Okay! When?" This has nothing at all to do with John -- or the dozens of other people whose emails I haven't responded to. It has everything to do with #6 above.
16. By the way, I can make fun of John's bad defense because he has watched ground balls eat me for dinner on the crappy, stone-filled infield of the Chicago Park District softball fields more times than he ever bricked his cans of corn. Also, I feel safer doing it now because he no longer works in Evanston—he sold his company and works downtown somewhere now. This also means that I snoozed too long on the lunch invite, so I lose.
17. Right about now, I bet many of you are wishing I'd just gone with one of those "one-word-answer" memes. I considered this very seriously, but I thought it would be a lot more fun to have my 4-year-old daughter supply the answers. That meme would go something like this: "1. How would you describe yourself? POOP! 2. Where is your cell phone? POOP! 3. How do you feel today? "POOPY!"
18. In fact, both girls have been going through a major "poop/underpants" ... uh, meme these days. Bathtime has particularly horrendous: the word "poopy" and "butt" are worked into every conceivable part of speech (yes, "peepee" works beautifully if you're looking to split an infinitive or two). I do my best to not react and thus feed the fire, but at some point I have to crack down because I just need them to stop cackling maniacally so I can freakin' wash them already because I'm not down here on my knees for my health, you little twerps.
19. The "butt/underpants" bath routine also contributed greatly to my decision to transition Piper to taking showers. For some reason this feels like a watershed coming-of-age moment. "Watershed" being a strange word to use, since she takes such ridiculously long showers that the theoretical "shed" is pretty much devoid of water by the time Zuzu begins her bath. I mean, I'm seriously reconsidering this decision on environmental grounds: I would be embarrassed if it turned out that my daughter's showers were responsible for the acceleration of the drop in Lake Michigan's water level. So for the time being, during Peach's showers, I'm stationed in the bathroom with a book, dutifully reminding her every few minutes that we need to keep a move on.
20. I can't decide how to pronounce "meme." I hear a lot of techno-pundits say meem, but I had too many years of junior-high and high-school French that I can't look at the word without thinking of même (pronounced mehm), the word for "same." Maybe the word is so trendy I should just go with the pronunciation "... Meh ...."
21. I was reading a Magic Treehouse book to Zuzu a few nights ago -- an exciting story where our protagonists, Jack and Annie, travel back to the Ireland in the Dark Ages and land on a rocky island with a monastery that has taken on the task of preserving literature. (It's called Maniacal Monks at Midday or something like that.) I'm getting into the "Irishness" of it ... I mean, how can I help it? Look at my last name ... and I've given the lead character, Father Michael, this brogue that—in my head, at least—is based on what I can recall from Glen Hansard's voice in the movie Once. And I'm grooving on it ... I mean, I think I'm really channeling this Irish dude! And just as I'm getting to the climactic moment when the bad-guy vikings are spotted approaching the island on their serpent ships and Father Michael is fretting about what will happen to their austere structures, Zuzu stops me dead with: "Daddy, why are you talking weird like that?" Which is all to explain to you that I always have, and always will, totally suck at accents and impressions.
22. It's not really called Maniacal Monks at Midday. I just threw that in there as an inside joke to all you parents who read Magic Treehouse books 'cause I knew you'd really app-- OH GOD. Has it really come to THIS? *sigh* I mean, I wanted to be a rock star, fer chrissakes!
23. In fact, I sometimes think that the only way I'll "capture" that whole musician vibe again is through the Internet. I have a number of tapes off the board of my gigs from the 90s, and bits and pieces of them are pretty decent. I'm thinking of digitizing them and putting them up for all three of my former fans to hear. Who knows? Maybe it'll set off a burgeoning Marck Bailey mash-up counterculture.
24. And along those same lines: I recently discovered the first diary I ever kept. It has an entry on every day of the year of 1978. It was the year I was 12, turning 13. I am sorely tempted to post this diary on this blog, starting January 1, 2010. I can't decide if this is a great idea because it would be this document of a 12-year-old boy's life and all his awkwardness and emotion and banal daily goings-on ... or if it's the whole idea is the height of narcissism. Those of you who have actually read this far are encouraged to give me your thoughts (publicly or privately) on what I should do.
25. Well, you've reached 25. When I was a teenager, I had specific goals that I was to reach by the age of 25. They got tweaked once in awhile, but they always aimed at one thing: fame and fortune in the arts. I know, I know: laugh all you want. It's what scares me the most when I hear Piper worshiping at the Altar of Fame, wishing-hoping-praying that she can become famous. And that, combined with her perfectionism, smells like danger to me. I can stay awake at nights trying to figure out how to explain to her that her daddy had the same hopes and faults, and over here on this side of it, he knows now—and he wants her to know so that she can save herself the frustration and dejection, that the greatest things he has been involved in creating—will ever be a part of—are her and her sister. But there really is no way to tell her that; she's on her own on this one. All I can do is stand on the side and cheer her on like the insane fan she needs.
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