I've got so many tasks before me. Oy. At least I got the 'puter up and running again. All the fonts are in order and I don't have to skip every other email and web page because it's in Portuguese. In the end it was probably a good thing it went down and had to be blown out and lubed. There is noticeable improvement in the machine's speed and efficiency. Now, if I could only say the same for myself.

Called the credit card company today and demanded a lower rate. They gave it to me! One phone call. Took all of 2 minutes. I'm a dope for not doing it months ago. Every dollar saved is a beer later.

Had a nice quiet birthday for Mrs. Ditchman at home. I could tell by the look on her face that she wished I had not got her any gifts, given our current financial circumstances, but I assured her that these were things I was going to purchase sooner or later anyway -I just wrapped them! (Not counting the Air Supply Greatest Hits album.)

And if I hadn't got anything for her? Well, I'd never hear the end of it. I quote Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap!

My wife's birthday marks the end of PHASE 1 of this grand year. No more rapid succession of events firing off at will. The first few months of the year are always spent running and ducking, but come mid-April, it's a more manageable front. I'll now fall in forthwith and tackle the old projects, start some new ones, fulfill ancient obligations, and maintain the current mayhem. This is when the resolutions of the new year really stand up to be heard, and it's worth having a listen. The calendar has stretched out a bit, and we can finally look to the future. Analysis: the future looks pretty full. That's a good thing. Wallowing in inactivity makes us old without having anything to show for it.

The Little Ditchman woke up singing this morning. Just laid in bed singing Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Would that we were all so content. We might be, if we just woke up and started singing.


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Still in something of a funk, but I got a run in this morning and am sweating it out. Need to! Today's Mrs. Ditchman's birthday! Not sure how old she is -ask her yourself in an embarrassing email or comment on her blog.

Still cleaning up the mess I made of my computer. Even the best computers can't do everything. Metaphor of the day: sports cars are nice and fast, but you can't drive them at 250 mph down city streets. You'll crash. So I've learned my lesson. At least, that's what I've been telling myself as I back up my apps and reformat my system drive. (Dammit.)

Be back later. Or tomorrow. Or something.


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Man, the merry-go-round really broke down today. After a night of uneasy dreams, the wheels fell off the computer and despair set in, finally. I'd been keeping it at bay for days but you can only hold out for so long. Even ran a 5K yesterday. Finished in 22:14, which isn't bad (considering I haven't run much since the Katrina Marathon in Huntington Beach) but wasn't good enough to finish in the top 250 for the cheap medal (only 30 some-odd heads away!) The Little Ditchman got in her first race. She got a medal, and it was much-deserved.

More on it all tomorrow. Perhaps it was eating the artichokes in the yard that set my mind awhirl. I refuse to be Gregor Samsa. I will eat right. Sleep well, friends.


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I actually went for a run this morning. 3 miles. I didn't have to walk. This is significant because after that last race in the driving wind and rain I got sick and busy. I ran a few more times after that and then just... stopped.

That was two months ago. Usually when I quit for a time, it takes a few runs for my lungs and heart to get back in the swing of things, but today I was fine. I didn't go fast or anything fancy, just my regular around the neighborhood jaunt up and down the hills for about 3.1 miles. It felt fantastic. Of course, there was that one part about a mile and half into it where I started to cry and had a lump in my throat and felt like falling off the sidewalk, but otherwise I was okay.

In my whole life, I don't think I have ever hurt this much for a friend. I know why. It's because I have a daughter now, and I know how much I love her. I was discussing this with another friend of mine once. This friend has a daughter, too, and is not known for his sensitive, emotional side. He said -and I remember it clearly- "You'd take a bullet for her" and I replied, "In an instant." And I would, too. There wouldn't even be any mulling over the concept. It would be an impulse, my love for my daughter is so great. I would take a bullet for her. I don't even have to consider it.

One of the ways men love is through acts of self-sacrifice -as opposed to affection and attention, for example. I think this is what makes men kinda go all flippy when their wives are pregnant. You just feel so helpless. And if there's anything men hate, it's not having the solution to the problem. They would rather be wrong than helpless, and given the choice they'd take neither. Deny the one and fake the other! But, hell, I'd take "wrong" any day of the week. (And Mrs. Ditchman doesn't hesitate to remind me when I'm wrong. Then the only real solution is to get back to work.)

So I think about Matt and Holly and Annabelle and I think about my own daughter and my heart deflates. You just want to do something and I don't know what. Pray again? Be grateful? Love my own family more? Work harder? How can we go on? The confusion of it all clouds the intellect, so you go for a run. Your breathing finds that rhythm, the pavement slides by beneath your feet. You feel healthy and you feel the breeze in your hair and the natural tap of gravity reverberating up your spine. You lift your head to see where you are, and you find yourself just crying about it all again.


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The light rain never came, as much as I was looking forward to it. That's usually the way these things pan out, weather-wise. I seem to remember a month ago the rains what came that no one expected. Hold on whichever way the wind blows, should be the going advice of local weathermen. That's good advice all around.

Annabelle and her family seem to be putting up the good fight. "If you find yourself going through hell, keep going!" is a fine Churchillian mantra, if only for the comic relief. I have been praying for them. I'm someone who regularly prays for "God's will to be done," figuring He knows best, has a profound plan, and I should get out of the way and not muck it up. Praying this way has changed my perspective on life over the years, and it has given me peace and patience amidst these earthly confines. But lately I've found myself praying for a miracle. I'm not someone who needs miracles to have faith, mind you, actually I feel quite the opposite -it's the faith that brings the miracles about. But anyway, if the Lindens are looking for a miracle, however it may manifest itself, I believe they have surrounded themselves with the right people. All the comments and web links are impressive with their love, support, charity, affection, faith and confidence. Let it be a lesson to all of us, that we are careful with whom we surround ourselves in this short life, as some day we may need them beyond our imagining.

A diversion. No doubt having a child with a disability would be a challenge for the parents. This, too, would be a challenge. Yes, my child has a real problem: he's a know-it-all! I thought this was hilarious, especially the last line. It also cracks me up that the paleobiology staff at the Smithsonian has been "long rankled" -because there's nothing more unnerving than a long-rankled paleobiology department! I mean, it's amazing that they've been able to accomplish anything over there, being so rankled all this time! Hopefully the country will survive, having been miseducated for 27 years about the proper use of the word "Precambrian".

I needed a real diversion last night, so I watched a few more episodes of John Adams. IT'S AWESOME! No, really. HBO was having a special on their service, something like ten bucks a month for three months, so Mrs. Ditchman choked up the cash to make her husband happy. It worked! I must be a huge nerd. When George Washington took the oath of office at the end of Episode 4, I actually got misty-eyed. I have never considered myself much of a history buff, until recently, but I have been a film buff. This one is good. SEE IT. Every American should.

We have made it over the hump day, and this year is more than 25 percent over, can you believe it? I gotta go. The car is on the lawn again.



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They say a light rain is coming tonight, with no danger of flash flooding or mudslides in the county. Fine by me, I say. Seems to me every man, woman, weed, and waterbug appreciates a nice light rain in Southern California. Or should.

I banged myself up pretty good yesterday. Banged up the current job, too. I assured the customer I would fix it. "Yes. You will," they said. I'm always tempted to say things like, "Oh, it comes like that! Happens in shipping sometimes!" But no. That's not the kind of business I was put on this planet to run. The customer didn't notice the blood dripping off my hand. When they left, I went out to the truck to get a bandage. I'll go back today and give it my best shot. Such is life.

The Little Ditchman awoke screaming in the middle of the night. Again. She settles down fairly quick when you go in to console her. I went in some time later, it was the middle of the night, and found her just laying there half awake. The two-year-old couldn't get back to sleep. Happens to me sometimes, and I'm all of thirty-eight. Made me sad to see a kid with insomnia, for who knows what horrors keep her up. No doubt the Little Einsteins had crashed Rocket in Egypt and were unable to escape Nile Crocodile. Or picture Elmo with teeth, laughing maniacally in that high-pitched voice of his, mercilessly flushing Dorothy down the maw of a gargantuan toilet.

I looked down at her in the dark to see how open her eyes were and she saw that it was me and just stared back. I whispered, "Sweet dreams" and she whispered it back, "sweet dreams" and rolled over and laid there, staring sideways. It's the kind of thing that would otherwise make you worry, but it's two AM and you're tired and sore.

Today there is more screaming. It's not about anything in particular, I-don't-want-to-eat-this or I-don't-want-to-wear-that. She has been prone to outbursts lately, so I guess the terrible twos are really here. It was like watching a storm coming. It rains down and you think, "Is that it?" and then it rains harder and the winds come and you go, "Oh. That's it." And then the lightning and thunder hit and branches crack and fall out of trees. In the suburbs, water rises over the curb and takes down empty trash cans. Now, there's no mistaking it. Stay inside.

I suppose there's a certain amount of self-realization that comes at two that makes everything so unbearable. The kid thinks, The Big Folks are in charge but I have some influence over the situation. I'm going to scream until I get my way! But a good parent doesn't give in to the screaming. The lesson taught is that screaming to get what you want is a futile tactic.

Mommy had her head in her hands at the top of the stairs last night and I had to find it in me to take over, which was the hardest part of yesterday, in light of everything. God gets His way and you know that no amount of screaming will get you yours. But sometimes you just want to cry all the same.

A nice light cry.



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I had been planning the greatest April Fool's joke of all blogdom for today, but now I'm just not feeling it. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" you know, which is a terrific quote. It's terrific in that we can all immediately identify with it. It's terrific in that man's pride is suddenly diminished to that of mice. And it's terrific in that it executes perfectly the word "awry" which goes so unused nowadays. The word was used perfectly once, finally, by Steinbeck, and then the English language retired it. Hung the jersey up in the library rafters and there it's draped: AWRY, for all of us to stand beneath, mouths agape. Also, it seems to happen "often", doesn't it?

Things have gone awry for some of the Ditchman's best friends, which is why I'm in no mood for April Fool's jokes. I'm not really in the mood for anything, actually. I don't have it in me to go to work. I don't have it in me to write this. I just feel heartsick, with a pronounced sapping of essence. But I did want to mention my friends here, who are like family, and ask you to pray for them -who must feel a thousand times more than what I do right now.

God has chosen to breathe life into another creature, which is hardly insignificant. He does it in ways we can only barely understand, and he does this on purpose. Then, in His vast and infinite wisdom, chooses who to trust with the care of His child. I know that there are a very few people in the world I would trust with my own daughter. The Lindens come to mind. I don't say that lightly. No one is responsible enough, especially when my child is suffering.

God is confident in his creation, confident in us, that we will take good care to lead his children back to Him. Somehow the least of these end up leading us, which is all part of God's wisdom, I guess. Or, I imagine. I mean, I hope.

May the joy and love of God be evident and abundant, in every circumstance and in every moment, during our own short lives. May it replace our wondering of His intent, and may we be filled with faith in it all the same.

Link is here.



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