Through those times, I had a deaf ear for business news. It was incomprehensible, to say nothing of stiff and boring. I still joke about how we journalism majors can’t even figure out a tip at lunch, let alone figure out business policy. That was, until I began working at a publicly traded corporation. Even then, it too me years to build an interest, mainly in digital tech.

When I finally took the plunge to get my MBA, it was inevitable. Accounting classes loomed, for crying out loud. If there was a polar opposite to the coursework I took in college, accounting was it. Not far behind was macroeconomics then finance.

I’ll be damned if I didn’t learn a thing or two, and it kindled my interest, especially in figuring out what the hell all this business news was really about. Until then, I pretty much understood bonds as those pesky certificates grandparents sometimes snuck in my birthday cards.

Looks like those grandparents knew what they were doing. Mom showed me a hand-written ledger the other day. It was all of Grandpa Riggen’s bond investments, split between his two surviving daughters. For a coal-miner-turned-farmer who weathered the Great Depression and fixed things more often than buying them, it’s pretty understandable why he put that kind of money in federal bonds rather than, say, stock in IBM. Even so, it’s an impressive ledger of investments. Hell, I think Mom even showed me because she was a little tickled by it.

So, now, when I hear about China worrying about the U.S. defaulting on its bonds, I actually have some sense what that means, and how it might affect the economy, at least in layman’s terms.

Maybe it’s one of those ignorance is bliss deals. There was a specific moment about three years ago. I was standing in line for lunch, carelessly staring at the news headlines on TV when I realized that no longer was my job a certainty, that money might not always be there. That things had shifted into a new era. It wasn’t the stuff in the news, not some abstraction about mortgages. It was a thing close to home, an aftershock of losing work colleagues to lean times, knowing my long tenure (if I can call it that) is no guarantee. This week that hint of worry came back as I gobbled up more bleak economy news about job reports and debt limits.

Before that moment, I was driven by the “inevitable” boons of getting an advanced degree and a promotion. After that moment — and ever since — I’m driven by a harder ethic. Call it perseverance over prosperity. There’s no sign it’ll pay off soon, and still I’m working harder than ever. The payoff may not be on my paycheck. But, it sure is nice to have Mom confide in me like a grown up.

Then, off on a pleasant post-rain ride to Barrata’s for lunch, where we each had a stiff drink (my usual — Southern Comfort), which made us both a bit bleary eyed and ready for a nap. Which we did!

We both needed the rest. She didn’t get much sleep in between marathon sessions of grading 700 test essays. For me, work has been unusually intense these past couple weeks.

When I finally managed to find my phone late in the afternoon, I glanced at work email out of sheer habit. There was big news from management, and I wanted to read the memo. The trick with those pep rallies in email form is reading between the lines. Then it occurred to me. I had managed to enjoy the afternoon without thinking about work at all. Without realizing, my brain unwound. It was that moment of release, as though life had unclenched its white-knuckle grip on my spinal column, that I realized I need to walk away and breathe much more often. It’s easy to miss that slowly tightening grip.

And, Canada had her own realization, ironically while working in Kentucky. She just said to me “I take myself way to seriously!” We both do that, love. We work hard, and then wonder why we’re worn out on weekends spent mostly at home. Hell, I’m not even sure what I want to do with most of my free time. Work’s constantly on my brain, even more so than last years.

Work to live, not live to work.

It’s the heroic WWII moment for us Americans, and with good reason. It was a big gamble that changed the war, and lots of Allied soldiers paid the hard way for the action and ensuing campaigns. But, it also tends to shift our attention from other events of the war. We talk a lot about the casualties on Normandy or the Battle of the Bulge, but the numbers of dead on the Eastern Front are staggering by comparison.

The Allies involved around 175,000 men in the invasion, a campaign that lasted from June 6 to June 30. Somewhere around 5,558 Allies died during that time. German casualties were somewhere between 4,000 and 9,000. Neither figures include wounded casualties.

By comparison, the Battle of Stalingrad — which went on over a longer period from August 1942 to early February 1943 — was also a major turning point in the war. There, the Soviets fielded well over a million soliders. 478,741 were killed or missing. About 40,000 civilians — that’s about 9 of my home towns — died. The Germans had killed or wounded numbers around 750,000. Which means well over a million people died at Stalingrad, and easily more than another million were sick or wounded.

As hard a time as I have watching those jarring opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, and as much as my insides bust up for those poor guys when I imagine what it must have been like — for all that, I can’t even wrap my head around a million people killing each other or shitting or starving themselves to death, literally. For us Americans, it just doesn’t have that heroic message, that bravery overcomes. But, without Stalingrad, there is no Normandy. It’s an easy thing for us to ignore, but it’s there. Spielberg put his camera in another direction, and that’s how we tend to think of it. (Who blames him? I don’t — the guy’s a genius.)

Real life heroism is never so simple, is it? We want stories, we don’t want muck and shit and dying.

So, I’m off to watch the movie that I find a little hard to watch. When I saw it in the theater — I’ll never forget this — I saw it at the theater in Indianola. I had a box of Runts candy in my hand. Next me me was some loud mouth asshole who was talking all kind of macho bullshit as the film started. I tried to ignore him.

So, the landing craft door opens up, and for about 20 minutes I was paralyzed. When I was over, I realized two things. First, that had that box of candy gripped tight as hell in my hand. I hadn’t touched a one, and I was motionless. Awestruck. The other thing I noticed was that asshole next to me finally shut the hell up. It took him about 30 seconds of watching to knock him down a peg.

The kids soccer season is also finally here, which is cause for celebration all around. The kids now have a free and clear summer vacation on their hands. That’s nothing compared to Canada’s and my relief from soccer shuttle duties. With four dollar gas, we’d have to tap into college funds to keep this going much longer!

I don’t know what it is about the kids’ on-field performances when their mother’s out of town, but they were tearing up the pitch today. Riggen scored two goals, which lead to a couple cute comments, grins and a thumbs up at dad. Before that, Kate was up to her usual self as defender. Her ball handling skills really have improved, and she’s much more into the games.

Did I mention it was hot as hell out there? I mowed the lawn this morning in record time, trying to beat the heat. But still managed to sweat profusely. Canada says she loves this weather. I think she needs to be checked into a facility for psychiatric evaluation. Give me late fall any day.

Canada says it’s hot and humid in Kentucky, where she’s managed to run every day when not grading those essays. Apparently, the food’s also terrible, so she’s excited about losing a couple pounds. Women.

With Kate at an overnighter, that leaves me and Riggen for a rare guys’ night. Riggen’s all excited to play video games, maybe tinker with some Lego, and watch a movie. He asked me earlier, “Dad, does this mean we get our own man cave?” Yes, son. Yes it does.

Counldn’t come at a better time. I’m about shot from single parenthood after only a couple days. Worse, I have another longer stint as Mr. Mom in late June, when I’ll be starting up the new MBA class to boot. All I have to do is make it to August 1, right? Then some real R&R.

It makes me ashamed, honestly. I don’t talk about it. I try my best to prevent stress. I talk through things with my wife that I used to just swallow. It’s there, and never leaves me. But, it doesn’t have to ruin me. It won’t.

I can’t say I’m happy I went through such angry periods in my life. My life is damn good. But, there were times where, despite how good I had it, Mr. Hyde took over. I wanted to break things and scream, and I did. I scared my family. Hell, I scared myself. If anything good comes of out that, it’s understanding.

I understand how badly stress affects my life, and how frustrated anyone can become with the right pressures. I understand that real cowardice is denial, not being a tough guy. I know literally what it feels like in my muscles and bones when I’m tense, and what kinds of things start the blood a boiling. And, I understand — as much as one can — how to control it.

I had to chuckle a couple years ago when someone at work said they admired how much of a cool customer I was when it came to conflict at work. At the time, I was as starved for a compliment about my composure as I could be — it had been only a few months since working things out with my wife. The idea that someone looked to me with admiration of any kind for dealing with stress just left me speechless. I had to shrug, not knowing what else to say. Maybe a little afraid of what else to say.

The terrible thing is that from time to time, I see that anger in other people. It’s usually men. And, you know, I pity them because I know what that tiny, white-hot part of their mind feels like. But, while I sometimes see this, they usually don’t. I see it exactly because I see it repeated, and I know they barely realize they’re stuck. My pity doesn’t linger. They’re responsible for what they do, just like I am. Man up. Get help, I think. All that thrashing about doesn’t scare me, and it sure as hell doesn’t get them anywhere they think it does. People are worth more to us than we think.

The sad truth is they’re powerless. Helpless. Utter helplessness is the cause of all that fury. What worked for me is another person, which turned out to be a counselor and my wife, hearing me out, and then showing they actually understood what I was thinking. That got me off the edge of that angry routine, and I walked down bit by bit from there.

A couple days ago I wrote that not a lot of people really know me — that fewer people really know me than I have fingers. Not even all of them know all this about me. I guess I just got weary of feeling ashamed about it. Maybe some poor bastard out there can get off that edge, too.

“People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed”

- Bob Dylan, Things Have Changed

I spent a good part of the afternoon meeting with my old boss, John. We still work together after I transferred to another department about 5 years ago. We still manage to have a rap session now and then, too. He and I share a lot of the same taste in music, which usually comes up as we connive to conquer the online media world in between lunches at the local Vietnamese restaurant. Unpack that irony, if you can.

John’s an old hippie. My favorite story, among many, from him is the time he was working in Colorado in his younger days. He heard some music from his outdoor job site, so he wandered over to a concert. They had to break through a fence to get in. On stage was Jimi Hendrix. Now that is far out, and I’ve got nothing that cool in my repertoire to impress young co-workers someday.

But, truth is, I’m not so young anymore, and John and I don’t often have time to chat on all things digital and aural. He’s well read — I don’t have anywhere near the patience he does — and he explained an article from the New York Magazine about how Internet services are packing us in a bubble by making choices for us. Pandora spits out variations streams of music to people as they tweak their stations. Google delivers search results based on our history or our Gmail contacts. Amazon recommends products. And on and on.

The machines are making choices for us, and it’s supposed to make things easier and more relevant. The trade-off is a shrinking, not expanding, avenue of information. It may make things easier, but is it more interesting? I think that’s a fair summation of John’s point.

It reminded me of something I’d been chewing on for a while. We don’t share music like we used to. It’s another of those trade-offs. My best pal and music comrade Hastie and I used to hang out just listening to albums and music. It wasn’t as deliberate as the vinyl days, which John waxed nostalgic about today. Now, people shuffle around, in more ways than one, with white cords growing out of their ears. Digital music shattered the experience of albums, which I’ve always lamented (but not enough to avoid an iPod and those white ear buds). Music is often a solitary experience, or background noise. It’s become more passive.

And, hey, it’s not all bad. Trade-offs, like I said. But, I’m with the old hippie in thinking it’s kind of a shame. Worse, I think it’s also true of other art we enjoy. A fragmented, uprooted modern life means a lot of solitary consumption and interpretation of things we enjoy.

So, isn’t crazy that when we actually get to know someone in our life well enough to find out they enjoy art we enjoy, that it’s a thrill? How bizarre that people would have to get excited that someone out in the wide universe actually knows and enjoys a musician or a show or a book? I mean, of course there are people out there doing that. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise, especially when it’s good stuff — great albums or books or films. Whatever.

The other day, I found out that Heather, the woman who sits across from my cube at work, loves Scrivener, which is some pretty specialized software for writers. Which means she does writing at home. I also later found out that her husband writes a beer blog and wants to taste every IPA in the world. It only took us, oh, eight or nine months to realize this wonderful stuff.

I don’t blame her one bit, to be clear. She and I have a lot of work to do, not enough resources to get it done, and families to love and enjoy after the bell rings. Ok, there’s not actually a bell. We mostly sit at our desks through lunch, eating alone, and still reeling every so slightly from the last round of “be happy we still have jobs.”

I wonder what books she reads at night? Does she ever wonder what other people read, too?

What a world.

Today’s June 1st. It’s a Wednesday, and my wife just left town for nine days to grade 1.2 million essays with about 1,200 other teachers. How nuts is that, anyway? Teacher let the monkeys out, and now she’s grading strangers’ standardized tests in some kind of sweatshop in Louisville. It gives me still more time to process thoughts. We’ve been so busy lately I can hardly keep up.

So, June 1, a fine time to start a little personal challenge for myself. This post is round one. More to come. While I was dripping sweat into my eyeballs doing leg squats, I realized a few things about this little challenge I had cooked up for myself.

First thing is this: The hardest part about setting a big goal for myself isn’t setting the goal. It’s putting aside all the other things I have cooked up inside my carousel of a brain. I’ve been reading a couple things recently about how to go about accomplishing a big goal or accomplish something significant and difficult. The advice is grand. Set a goal, see? Then, just break things down into the steps I need to achieve that goal. I’m over simplifying, but it truly is sound advice. The problem is that I can’t settle on one goal.

Second thing is: I beat myself up about this kind of stuff, especially when I don’t get anywhere. The reason is pretty damn good, though. I’m already past half way in a big goal, and keep forgetting it. I’m in getting my MBA, while working and having a family. Day by day, it’s hard to remember that I’ve learned a lot, sharpened my critical thinking, and really transformed my role at work over four years. Here’s to hoping there’s a big payoff down the road for all this effort. But, it comes at a cost, which leads me to …

The third thing: Creativity atrophies. I can’t figure out if it’s actually the case that all my focus on job and graduate school actually deadens creative thought, but I’m beginning to wonder. Maybe it’s just that I have less time overall. I sure as hell hope that’s it. The idea that I’ve driven off my creative energy and skills terrifies me, to be honest.

And, all of that is why I’m still sitting up with about 70 minutes to spare on day one of my challenge. It’s why I’m sitting in the dark typing before I go to bed, and why I’m not already asleep, having rationalized away why this challenge was a silly whim.

So, this is for me. This is a reminder that I don’t give half a damn about being able to run a marathon some day, but I’m scared to death I won’t have the chops to create, to write something worth reading some day.

I think I decided somewhere in these last few days that I’ve stopped worrying about what people might think of a guy who has opinions and ideas like mine. What I write here and anywhere else is who I am. The number of people who really have any real sense of that are fewer than I have fingers. But, what’s the use of all that? It mostly just makes life a little more lonely. It sure as shit isn’t going to make my creative life any better.

For the first time in my adult life I stick with it. There wasn’t anything special about it. Oh, going with my wife to the gym helps, sure. She does look great in workout gear! But, it wasn’t anything different this year.

I still hate doing it. I have sore knees. When I lift a lot, I get stiff and sore. I dread the exertion, but finally did reach a point I feel good after workouts. I haven’t quite hit running 2 miles without resting, but I’m close. And, I’m already lifting more than when I started. It’s progress, as long as I can keep that damn knee of mine in line.

Last week, I sat down on my couch with my laptop and actually wrote more than 500 words of fiction. I did it again last night, though it was fewer than 500 words. It was something. The writing’s not terrible, and I may actually get a short story out of my efforts for once. But it won’t just happen effortlessly. And, as my graduate classes ramp up again, the routine will be tough to keep.

I’ve been at this point before. Over a year ago I wrote a couple thousand words, but never finished. For years, I’ve had starts and stops, but never have much to show for it.

Writing is a lot like working out for me. No amount of reading inspiring books on writing, no amount of knowing all the tricks of the trade changes the fundamental thing. Just like braving cold January days when I don’t have to work out, I also have to set aside time and write. I’ll have sore knees, and I’ll have frustrating sessions of only a couple hundred words.

I accept that it’s exercise. It’s a routine. And, it doesn’t come easy. I know this isn’t news to anyone. It’s not news to me, either. Exercise  is good for me, but I still didn’t always do it. Writing’s the same way. I know what I need to do. Doing it’s another thing.

I take heart in two things. First, that I can actually change my routines in life, whether working out or writing. Second, that those things shows real progress, bit by bit. The trick will be keeping that up.

The exhibit featured artifacts from the Whydah, a slave galley turned pirate ship by “Black Sam” Bellamy in the golden age of piracy. The ship wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod in 1717 during a storm. Barry Clifford located the wreck in the 80s, and it’s now touring the nation in various museums. The exhibit displays the usual stuff — cannonballs, parts of muskets, various tools and utensils, and an impressive display of real pirate treasure in the form of hundreds (thousands?) of silver coins. It also had many interesting insights into the make-up of pirate crews (including many black and Native American sailors, their mentality about going “on the account” (a.k.a. signing on to be a pirate), their almost dandy style, and the cultural mess of the triangular slave trade.

I tried to sketch down some notes about it all, but managed to lose the notes on my smart phone. Still, it was inspiring stuff, and I managed to write down much in my journal later on.

Canada and I decided to cut our trip a bit short and drive back home late Thursday night. She asked about my note taking and what I was up to with this writing thing. I explained it all to her, my idea for a fantastical novel of sky pirates. She knew I had been up to something, and I think is more than a little pleased I’m finally getting around to that writing thing she’s always wanted me to do. She has no idea how I needed to get all that out from the echoes of my head.

I spent a lot of time this weekend doing more research and sketching out more ideas, names, second-world geography. Oh, true, it’s not the first time I’ve dived into a creative project like this, and often those ideas sit idle, or used in ways other than fiction writing. But, I have an inkling — only that so far — that I’m finally getting myself into a strange routine to see this through.

When I was 15, my dream was to be one of two things – bass player in rock band or a novelist. I’m was always a pretty mediocre musician at best, but I could write. Or so I thought, anyway. I chose my beloved University of Iowa based solely on its world renown graduate fiction writing program, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. My mother made me reply to at least one other school just to be safe. I barely bothered. I was a Hawkeye.

I actually made it into a select portion of the university’s undergraduate creative writing program (taught by some talented Writers’ Workshop graduate students), but the truth was I wasn’t ready to become a world renown fiction writer. I got the journalism bug not long after I decided I needed to have some kind of job. I needed that job because I wanted to marry my girlfriend – now wife – and have a home and family. That desire outweighed my novelist dream.

I got a great education along the way, and a degree in English and journalism both. The journalism degree turned out well. I’ve been working at a media company for 13 years, and have a respectable income sufficient to buy this wonderful house I’m sitting in now.

No regrets. I knew all along I was making choices that would prevent me from being the writer I dreamed of being some day. Pay the bills first. Feed the kids. Get a nice home for us to have a decent life in. Then, writing.

Ok, not even then. I’m currently a graduate student . . . in a Masters of Business Administration program. Not exactly a beatnik existence, huh? At least it’s also at Iowa! Life-long Hawkeye, here. Classes chew up a lot of my time, and will continue for a couple more years. But, it helps my career considerably. It ensures my kids have great coverage and a college education some day.

Still, I didn’t lose that creative urge entirely. For much of my leisure time over the last 10 years, I created indie role-playing games. I had some decent success, too, and wrote and published three unique games – a Western game called Dust Devils, a horror game called 44: A Game of Automatic Fear, and a Greek myth inspired modern fantasy called Nine Worlds. The latter two are available for free at StoriesYouPlay.com.

But all of that added up to much less time reading, and almost zero time writing fiction.

About two months ago, something changed – the kind of change I think people require before they can will themselves into doing something hard. After all this time, I wanted to read fiction again. I’ve read more books in the last two months than I have in the last two years. It’s refreshing, and it’s not going away any time soon. Something in me clicked.

Something else clicked, too. I got that desire to write again, that dream revived. And, I confess, it remains just a desire. Writers write, of course. So, all I can say so far is that aspiring writers research. I’ve spent my last few days writing some imaginative notes about the age of sail, the moons of Jupiter, Archimedes, and Pascal. Oh, and pirates.

There’s a wonderful idea there, begging to get out as a work of long fiction. It’ll take hard work, patience and willpower, all amid an already very busy life of work and school and family and friends. Given 20 years of distant dreams, I have no illusions how challenging it will be.

I’m going to give it a shot.