Did My Taxes AND Wrote a Song

Taxes and the American Idol song were due today. I neglected my children and nearly killed myself trying to complete both of them, but I did, neither particularly well. I just hope I sent the right stuff to the right people. I don't think the IRS would be particularly pleased if I sent them a song instead of cold, hard cash.



Abbott & Costello - The Tax Return

Shoulda Done My Taxes, But I Wrote a Song Instead

One of the reasons I started blogging was to give myself a regular outlet for writing. For several years now, I've had a monstrous pile of mental crapola that has been blocking my ability to write music. As a musician, that really sucks. The pressure has been mounting as the dry spell extended over three years, my notebooks filled with broken appendages of lyrics and chord progressions that I just couldn't bring myself to finish. I needed to break that spell, and blogging is one exercise I've been using to "write" myself out of my songwriting funk. Truth is, I really haven't worked that hard to break through; I haven't "made" myself finish a song, allowing it to be what it is. If I get to a point where I'm stuck or don't like where the song is heading, or if the song doesn't seem like it's bound to be a Top 40 hit, I abandon it and move on. I've revisited my creations on and off over the years, made some revisions, but no completions. Until this morning.

I should have worked on my taxes. Kailey was at school and Diane and Kyra left early to go to the zoo for Kyra's kindergarten field trip, so I had the house to myself. I had several hours to get a great start on our taxes, but seeing as how I have the gift of procrastination, I decided to pull out my guitar and diddle around instead. I played for a few minutes, messing around in E minor. It's always E minor these days. If I ever actually get around to recording a CD, I'm going to title it "Songs in Em". Suddenly and unexpectedly, my muse began to speak. I don't have a problem getting my muse to speak, it's just getting a complete thought out of her that sucks. I grabbed my notebook and began to write, the first verse seeming to flow from my pen.

"That's pretty good," commented my muse as she began to float away.

"Get back here and help me finish this thing!" I growled as I grabbed her by the throat.

"Hey, take it easy, Bub!" She likes to call me Bub. "You're strangling your muse!" I apologized for being so rough and explained to her my need to finish the song. She agreed, so we worked on it for a couple of hours until I was satisfied that it was a good stopping point. Like me, my muse is global and easily distracted, and she tried to flit away a couple of times, but I stuck to my guns and kept corraling her and urging her to keep working with me.

The song isn't truly finished. It still needs some tweaks here and there, but it's the most complete song I've written in a long time and I'm relieved. I put a lot of work into it and forced myself to keep at it, which I haven't been able (or willing) to do in quite a while. It's not going to be a Top 40 hit, and I'm OK with that. But I will finish it and I will record a demo of it. And hopefully this will open the door to more songs.

Now I've got to finish my frickin' taxes.

The Impotant Thing...

Kailey recently became a published author with her contribution to the critically (or parentally) acclaimed book, The Important Thing About 2nd Grade. Don't look for it at Amazon.com; it's a limited edition with probably fewer than thirty copies in "circulation". Her class had the opportunity to witness the publishing process first hand as they embarked on this book-writing project. As you can see, each student contributed two pages, an illustration and corresponding description, of what they felt was the most important thing about 2nd grade. Topics ranged from P.E. to Math to recess and even lunch. Kailey decided to digress from the norm, to think outside the box. Her subject? Popcorn. Atta girl!! It's a great comfort to know that our investment in hours of tutoring is not going to waste.

I was seriously considering enrolling her in private school until I actually read her entry along with the rest of the book. Spelling issues aside (impotant pepol), her popcorn essay is very well written for an eight year-old, and, as one who enjoys writing, I was quite impressed. She chose a theme quite different than any used by her classmates, but then did a great job explaining why popcorn was impotant: "It is buttery and salty." Mmmmm...sounds good! Then she tells you how to make this very impotant snack so you can enjoy it too! And the taste? Oh, it's good. Even some of her classmates think so.

Kailey enjoys school, but it doesn't come easily for her. She has had to work really hard this year to keep up with many of her classmates. So when I see her produce work like this when I know how hard she has been working, it makes me beam with pride. For me, the most impotant part of 2nd grade is that Kailey continue to learn and grow at her own pace, and I'm confident that she's doing just that. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some popcorn to pop.

The Vanity of Man

The Good Book tells us that a woman's hair is her glory (whatever that means), and I can't help but think that it's a good thing the Good Lord didn't waste that glory on men because most of it would end up in the bathroom sink or down the shower drain. Like the 80's hair band, Cinderella, prophesied: "You don't know whatcha got 'til it's gone!" Amen.

My hairline has slowly been receding over the past several years, and truth be known, it really hasn't bothered me all that much, which is surprising. My dad is bald, his dad was bald, and his dad's dad was bald. Hell, even my younger brother is bald. Compared to them, I have a beautiful, lush, full head of hair. Over the past year, though, it seems that the desert has been sprinting into the grasslands. It sucks, but I've always resolved that when my hair became too thin, I'd shave it all down. I'm not there yet, but the day may come in the not-too-distant future if the thinning continues at its current rate.

I mentioned this to my sister-in-law who was in town this past weekend. She's a color technician for a hoity-toity salon in the Seattle area, and she immediately replied, "I need to hook you up with some Nioxin! We've had several customers tell us that it works to stop the hair from falling out. Rogaine didn't work for people because it was too high-maintenance, having to use it two to three times a day. Nioxin is a once a day application." She was really excited about it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I had nothing to lose except more hair, right?

Two days ago she walked in the door after visiting the local beauty supply store with a large smirky-smile on her face. "I got you a present!" she sang as she handed me my Nioxin starter kit ("For Fine Hair"). In it were three bottles: a shampoo, a conditioner, and a small "Scalp Treatment" bottle with an ominous applicator. I flipped the box over to read the back as Debbie gave me instructions on how to apply the Scalp Treatment. I nearly choked on my own spit as I read the following glowing endorsement on the back of the box: "Consumers told us...9 out of 10 people perceive a THICKENING EFFECT." Perceive? Thickening EFFECT? What the hell is that?!! And just how desperate are these people who are using this product. I can see them now, nose to the mirror, staring at their hair follicles and looking for the slightest signs of movement. Hey everyone, I think this stuff is really working!! I'm suddenly aware of a thicker head of hair!

I decided to set my cynicism aside and give the Nioxin a try; it was a gift after all. Besides, I also decided that I could fit in nicely with that random sampling of desperate, follically-challenged Americans willing to shred every ounce of dignity to "perceive" a thickening "effect" within their head of hair. I guess if you want something bad enough, and if the fix makes you feel good enough about yourself, the mind can trick you into thinking anything is OK. I mean, look at all the guys wandering around wearing horrendous toupees. Everyone in the world knows how ridiculous they look, but they still wear their rugs with pride because they (were tricked by their minds) feel better about themselves sporting a full head of Chia-pet hair than they would going bald. I figure if these guys can exist in the world, it's not going to kill me to spend a few weeks boosting my self-esteem with Nioxin. That'll at least give my brain some lead time to do whatever it needs to do in order to give me the perception that this stuff works and to further instill in me the need to fork over serious loads of cash for the rest of my life in a vain attempt to preserve my luxurious locks.

Yesterday morning, I set out on the maiden voyage of Nioxin. I applied the shampoo and conditioner, which cleared my sinuses with their minty-menthol-mediciny aroma. I could just see my co-workers walking by me with their noses wrinkled upward and asking, "What is that smell?" Just another deposit on your way to glorious hair, mediciny though it may smell. The directions on the conditioner said to leave it on for one to three minutes. I lasted a minute because I couldn't help but think that the tingling, slightly burning sensation was the result of mind-altering chemicals seeping into my brain. I counted to sixty and rinsed for my life.

After my shower, it was on to the Scalp Treatment, which needed to be applied to my wet head. I turned the bottle over and read the directions for the thousandth time: "Use daily. Apply directly onto ENTIRE scalp. Gently and evenly distribute. Comb through. Do not rinse. May cause temporary redness after application." I combined this information with Debbie's instructions, took a deep breath and like a psycho playing Russian Roulette, I pressed the applicator to my hairline and pulled the trigger. Now I was expecting a kind of a foam to emerge from the applicator. Don't ask me why. Nobody told me it was a foam. The bottle didn't even say it was a foam. I suppose I just assumed that that fancy looking applicator was a foam dispenser. So you can imagine my surprise when I pushed down on the applicator to discover it was nothing more than a spray pump and that the Scalp Treatment was a liquid and not a foam. And since gravity still works, the liquid that I sprayed at my hairline cascaded down my forehead toward my eyes. "HOLY CRAP!!" I think I screamed as I stemmed the flow then furiously rubbed (rather than "Gently and evenly distribute") the remainder into my scalp.

I repeated this process at least three more times and no matter what I did to try to avoid it, the result was still the same: a steady stream of Nioxin flowing down my vast expanse of forehead. I finally gave up (or wised up) and squirted the crap into my hand. That was when the "temporary redness" showed up. It wouldn't have been bad if my whole forehead was red. Instead I had a network of thin and widening red streaks from my hairline to my eyebrows, and I looked like an idiot with a really bad sunburn. "I can't go out like this!" I told myself. I was planning on running errands while the girls were in school, but those were put on hold while I waited for the temporary redness to subside. After a half-hour of temporary redness, I decided I couldn't wait any longer and threw on a hat, with little fingers of redness still poking out from under it, and headed out the door.

A traumatic experience? Enough to scare me off of Nioxin for eternity? No way, Jose. Because this morning after I woke up and stumbled into the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Shocked, I peered at my hairline, and, crazy as it sounds, I swear by all that is holy and good that I perceived a thickening effect in my hair. And that's all I need.

A Parent's Nightmare

Diane and I took Kyra to a pediatric cardiologist this morning because she's been complaining on and off for the past few months of how her "heart hurts". We've come to understand this as anything from her heart racing and pounding in her chest to physical pain. At first, the "heart burn" was random and sporadic. Kyra, being the sensitive soul that she is, would experience it at school when one of her classmates got in trouble or if she got scared. But recently it's become much more common. She would complain that her "heart hurt" before going to bed or during/after physical activity. Diane finally took her to see her pediatrician hoping to get some answers to what we also hoped was nothing. She instead referred us to the cardiologist.

Last Friday, while Kyra and I were playing a rousing game of Roll Ball (because throwing a ball is not allowed in the house), she announced that her heart was burning. I crawled up to her from my Roll Ball position at the end of the hall and placed my ear to her chest. I could feel her heart pounding against the side of my head. I called a Roll Ball timeout, got up, and picked up the phone where I made an appointment with the cardiologist. The earliest they could see her was this morning.

I hate situations like this because at this point, everything's an unknown. And the mind doesn't like the unknown. The mind hates the unknown and can't leave it alone. Like a kid with a crusty scab, the mind picks, and picks, and picks at the unknown, filling in the gaps, usually with the worst scenario possible. In his book, Cell, which I recently finished (HA!), Steven King calls it a "panic rat". The panic rat likes to escape its cage and run rampant, knawing on the nerves of the unknown. The trick is to keep the panic rat caged, which I had been doing a pretty good job of. I kept telling myself not to worry until there was something definite to worry about, until this morning, that is, because last night, I had a dream.

I rarely remember my dreams anymore, so I consider it significant if I'm able to recall a dream when I'm awake. In my dream I was at a performance, a musical or a concert, and Kyra was playing a significant role. The performance wasn't taking place in a theater or a music hall, though. It was being held in what looked like a wide hotel hallway. The carpeting had a rose-colored floral design and I could see several doorways on the opposite side of the hall. I was aware of only one other person in the "audience" besides myself, and that person remained faceless to my left. On "stage" were two people I didn't recognize, a man and a woman, and Kyra. Another person, I can't remember if they were male or female, was just off stage in the shadows.

The man and woman were singing a song downstage (which was actually in the middle of the hallway) while Kyra stood upstage next to the wall. At regular intervals during the song, Kyra would walk downstage and sing a couple of lines to the song, then return to her position next to the wall. It was obvious, to me at least, that it became increasingly difficult for her to keep doing this, that something was bothering her, making it too emotional for her to go on. After about the third time she contributed to the song, she returned to her upstage position where the person in the shadows, whom I decided was the director, emerged to talk to her. The director whispered into Kyra's ear while rubbing her back or giving her a small hug. Kyra would then continue to walk downstage to sing her part, then return to the director. I don't remember what music she was singing, but it clearly was affecting her. Huge wet tears began rolling down her face as she sang, and I soon realized that I was crying too because I didn't know what was wrong with her and I couldn't go to her to comfort her in the same way as the director.

That's all I remember of my dream. What's weird is that I didn't remember it immediately upon waking. I was getting ready for the appointment, shaving actually, when the memory of my dream hit me like a ton of bricks. That's when the panic rat escaped for a little while and I struggled to maintain my composure. I just kept telling myself that we didn't know anything and that it was useless to worry and panic. Thank goodness it was only an hour before the appointment.

We arrived at the doctor's office and filled out the eight million forms and questionaires. Kyra was scared, because to her, doctor's office = SHOT. Diane held her and assured her that there would be no shots; that the doctor would just listen to her heart. At one point during the visit, Kyra, being a very sharp six year-old, asked Diane a question. "Mommy?" she asked. "Did you ever have heart problems when you were a kid?"

"No, Sweetie. I didn't."

"Then how do you know I won't get a shot?"

Diane shot me a look, and I shot her a grin that said, "You're screwed! Have fun answering that one!"

The nurse came in and took Kyra's blood pressure at both her arm and leg, and also conducted an EKG. Kyra was incredibly brave during the EKG, and actually enjoyed having the stickers deposited all over her chest and stomach. "This is just like Grammy," she told the nurse, who completed her duties and then exited the exam room. The cardiologist arrived about twenty minutes later (why do they always take so frickin' long?) and began his examination.

The good news is that the EKG was normal and that Kyra's heart sounds great. The bad news, if it can be classified as such, is that he's not sure of what's causing her heart pain. His gut feeling is that it's acid reflux; that her "heart burn" is heartburn. And he suggested that some kids are just a little more nervous than others, which would explain the racing heart. Still, he suggested that we keep a log of Kyra's "heart burn" that includes time of day, what she was doing, and whether pain preceded or followed the racing heart. If it gets worse, we head back to see him with log in hand.

So on the one hand we're relieved: initial tests proved to be normal. But there's still the question of what's happening inside her little heart. There are still not enough definitives and too many unknowns. I hope that it's just heartburn, that she's just a nervous kid (which raises other issues), but we don't know for sure. There's still the possibility that there's something else going on in there, and the panic rat is always poised and ready to run amuck in the back of my mind.