Monday, November 29, 2010

Seriously

I can't seem to write my blog at the moment.  I write, but I drift into seriousness every time.  When I complete a post, I find I have something unpublishable under the banner 'Damp Shorts'.  

Last week I wrote about feeling invisible.  I'd meant to write about I was now making a transition from trying to stay invisible during my childhood to keep out of trouble, through using invisibility to sneak through my earlier career.... only to be annoyed at becoming seemingly invisible in my Mr Mom role and now wanting to shake off all invisibleness and become a successful part of the American workforce.  However, it read more like the ramblings of a downtrodden victim.  And victim I am not.

Today, I found myself writing about privacy, secrecy and Wikileaks.  I was called for the end of needless secrecy and questioned Wikileaks' singular focus on America.  I want to see all the world's nations' cables. I tried to lighten it by shoehorning in a joke, but ultimately it was unusable here.  I think I just need to focus on why Damp Shorts was started in the first place. 

Perhaps all this seriousness is because I might get a work permit soon and I feel I need to use this part of my brain.  Though I wonder if it could be that Thanksgiving affected me.  The concept of the Thanksgiving seems wonderful to us.  You get the all the feast and goodwill, but without the pressure of presents.  For us this year, Thanksgiving was quite tough though.  Don't get me wrong we've plenty to be thankful for.  In fact, in some ways that's the issue.  

Lynn had time off from writing jokes for CBS, but also got a horrific deadline for a script polish she's been given.  So Lynn was squirrelled away in our guest room tweaking this movie script, whilst I tried to keep both boys amused.  We are thankful for the work, confident we made the right decision, but we all somehow feel like we missed out on the joy.  I think we need to be together to feel fully thankful and strong.

I built cushion forts, taught my eldest to make pancakes and crispy treats, watched lots of TV, played basketball and took my boys to the park.  

My highlights were when my youngest referred to me as "that man" and when he saw the new billboards for the movie 'Burlesque' and said, "Ew look, yukkie ladies!"  

Meanwhile my eldest wrote his first book report and we discovered that he can actually write quite neatly.  He's been hiding his neatest work from us, so that we don't expect too much from him. Now that's sneaky! 

Yet again I've really struggled to keep this post from straying into the overly serious.  Maybe I need another blog for the serious stuff.  But what would I call it?  Damp Logic? Stodgy Shorts? 

Suggestions please...

2 comments:

  1. "Serious Shorts"? "Seriously Damp"? "That Man's Blog"? "Ex-pat's Thoughts"? Umm.. Yeah that's all I got. I do love that your son called you "That man", seriously cracks me up. Oo! How about "Serious Crack-up"?

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  2. I'd vote for keeping it all on one blog. We read so much stuff about how to present ourselves in various social media, it feels like being on an endless job interview. Even personal accounts become "brands," and the pressure to never be "a downer" can lead to posts so consistently and artificially upbeat, you'd think they were sponsored by Prozac. But Damp Shorts is already a mix of serious and funny, like life. As I recall, the name Damp Shorts referred to the somewhat comical result of comforting a crying child at a swim lesson. So it seems to perfectly depict the juxtaposition.

    But maybe the seriousness you mean is more a matter of gravitas. You want to discuss world affairs vs. "domestic" ones... public ideas vs. private thoughts. It's tricky, but I'd still vote for keeping it on one blog. I've got two Twitter accounts that evolved into something like that, but I don't really like it, and I've been considering "reunifying" them. I either wind up posting the same thing on both, or I post different things which makes me feel like Jekyll & Hyde. On Facebook, e.g., I just mix it all up and let people deal with me as the mixed up human unit I am. A blog is different than either Twitter or FB of course, but.. since it's a personal blog, I still vote for keeping the whole person together.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go tweet about my plans for world domination...

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