The Art of Unproductivity

I'm an on-the-go kinda guy, a day isn't complete unless a thousand things have been accomplished and I've arrived in bed late more because of the time rather than me actually wanting to stop. Thursdays are not quite that kind of day. This is the day I look after my now 2 1/4 year old daughter. Getting a handful of things done, outside of looking after the young one, becomes a major feat. Forget hundreds or thousands. From the outside, having the day off work to look after a kid seems bliss, and sometimes it quite frankly is, but it is also a challenge in the mastery of multitasking. I met a friend for lunch at a cafe with my daughter this Thursday. She had woken (and hence so had I) early and was a little more tired than planned by lunch time. ie Slightly grumpy & not so sociable. Not the best start. Tiredness brings on a little bit of food aversion, or at least a bigger tendency to play with it, and make noises when things aren't going precisely her way. Conversation was a little stuttered with my very forgiving friend. Through my mind is going a constant checklist - is she eating enough, am I going to need to use the bathroom, is there a change table there, are we disturbing the other cafe patrons, what did my friend just say, do I need to get toys out or will she cope without, is letting her watch Dora the Explorer on the iPad a bad parenting decision. Oh and there's more but after we get home, having sun all the way there in the car to keep her awake, and she decides she isn't going to sleep her usually early afternoon nap, I go into a meltdown. It's the time I was counting on to get stuff done.

One has to cut ones expectations and learn to enjoy being just a dad, playing silly games, drawing and building with blocks, running around in circles, dancing and singing like you've never done before. And it is a lot of fun.

When you let go of everything else.

Pitbull / Marc Anthony - So Eurovision, So Gay?

I heard this track on the radio a week or so ago and felt like I'd heard it before. It sounded like a Eurovision song but I couldn't quite pick which one it was. I Shazamed it to find out and "Pitbull featuring Marc Anthony" was the answer. Now I've just looked at the video, and the the chorus is just so camp and so Eurovision, I'm wondering what it all means. Of course I'm not spending any real time thinking about it, but it's funny, it's not the image these guys usually project as far as I am aware.

August: The End is Near

August is the month that defines my year. It's not that anything special happens in August, it's just that when it comes around it's the sign that the year really is closer to the end than the beginning. People start talking about Christmas even Christmas parties. August is the last month of our winter and the time we start to look forward to a nearing spring and the summer it in turn heralds. And before you know it by the time you've thought about August it feels like the end of the year is here. But wait, there's so much to be done before summer comes along. And I still have that 6 pack to procure before it's warm enough to be meandering shirtless. Maybe it will happen this year. But it's August, have I left my run too late? I'm telling myself it's just another day in another year, which only has boundaries because we have constructed them. But it doesn't work, it's the end, the year is officially not new, not young, and there's so much to be done.