Weekend Reads I: Travel, Nostalgia, Love

photo credit: Chris Blakeley “I’ve got a bad feeling…” via photopin (license)

Who skips over a weekend, honestly?

I did. Not intentionally. There’s sometimes just not even cable cars to carry everything. I’ve tried to recognize just how many cable cars I have a day (or to-go boxes, whatever), and not overfill. Last weekend, that meant leaving Sunday reads behind.

I’ll share seven this week, spanning last week and the week before.

I’m doing this Friday afternoon, so those of you so inclined can check things out Saturday morning. I’ll be back at the soccer fields with Hayden’s team camp, grateful for a random stray Wi-Fi signal that allows me to turn the picnic area into an outdoor office.

What Will You Do With the Treasure You Have Found?

photo credit: DocChewbacca Scouting Ishigaki Beach via photopin (license)

Madison pounced like the keeper of old recently on a balmy night on the soccer field.

She’s not playing on a team anymore. Her injured hip couldn’t completely heal. The life of a goalkeeper takes and unforgiving toll sometimes. Trainers worked their magic, but ultimately the pain outweighed her ability to carry on full time.

A limp and grimace were all that remained.

This day, though, she dove, sprung and stopped shots in a workout with my high school team. She’s a legend to those girls, object of fables told to girls who came after her by girls who played with her.

Reports of yellow cards, 36-save matches (a school record), and college life.

Our Greatest Adventures, in 6 Words

Who doesn’t love a great adventure?

Sometimes, they’re set in the wilderness, or the big city, or even in a galaxy far, far away. Other times, they happen in the tortilla aisle at the local Aldi. No matter. Adventure can find us anywhere, and they leave behind a great story, at least.

I compile a monthly post called 6 Words. Ernest Hemingway inspired it by his assertion that any story can be told in six words.

I ask bloggers, friends, strangers, and a few strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt. Here’s the prompt for July:

Go Ask Daddy About Football Laundry, Wacky Words, and Our Next Outdoors Adventure

Referees and me. Hmm.

You know me. I’m mostly the agreeable type. Sure, I mutter insults to people who tailgate me and blow past me on the highway – all while snapping chats on their mobiles. But for the most part? Live and let live.

Except for, maybe, refs.

Not all refs, mind you. I’ve had enough run-ins with our striped adversaries to write a post on it. I’d be itchy afterward, though. I don’t really want to get into it. How bad does it get?

I wouldn’t go to Sports Clips for awhile because the stylists wore referee shirts.

Go Ask Daddy About Scholastic Schedules, Commemorative Symbols, and Picking Nits in Our Language

This week, it’s all academic.

Meaning, there’s some deep philosophical questions here. Well, one at least. And one about cheese, which to me is a sign of higher intelligence. Although, when I was in college, it didn’t really feel like a haven of higher learning.

Was it just me?

I once got an 8 – yes, e-i-g-h-t – on a science test. I stayed after to ask, “is there any mathematical reason I shouldn’t hit drop-add after this?” My prof, he of feathered hair and a beard before beards were cool, simply shook his head.

Guest Post: Joey of Big Teeth & Clouds, on Quitting (and Un-quitting)

The blog world is cyclical.

Unless you count those blogs that drop off sharply. Not because of quality, but from lack of posts. Sometimes, it’s not sustainable. Or we forget the password. Either way, the blog floats along in the ether, like a dead satellite.

Most often, we cycle toward and then away from blogs and blog friends, and when the cycle brings us back close, it’s as if no time had elapsed at all.

Joey writes the blog Big Teeth & Clouds, and she’s here today talking about quitters.

#AtoZChallenge: X is for Xenogenous

I love women.

Let me rephrase that. I love the female spirit. I mean, yeah, I love Elizabeth Banks and Kesha and also that woman who plays Jack’s wife in the Jack in the Box commercials, but I am also an appreciator of the work and substance of woman.

X is for xenogenous, which means, of an outside cause.

Writing on courage – that’s what I’d like to do now, and I’ve considered spelling courage X-C-O-U-R-A-G-E so I can get down to it. Instead, I’ve chosen an X word – xenogenous – which I bet no one else has, and I’ll use it like a rebound romance to get to where I want.

My status as a man means that I must appreciate the courage of a woman from a xenogenous perspective. (see what I did there?)

#AtoZChallenge: V is for Vague Differences Between Protecting and Sheltering

I might be prone to excessive examination at times.

Especially when it comes to the philosophical, or soccer, or cheese. So many moments as a dad, acting in the moment and considering the impact later, at night, when I should be writing or sleeping or at least eating graham crackers.

Who am I kidding? I’m eating graham crackers anyway.

As I vacillate between the college kid soccer girl and the high school soccer girl and the budding musician/soccer girl, happy to have spots in their worlds, I think about how I parent, vague (or subtle?) differences in what we do.

#AtoZChallenge: L is for the Last 3 Blogs I Read (and Why You Should, Too)

Most of blogging ought to be reading.

I know this. In the middle of the night, I must choose: Start on my post I wish I’d written earlier, or get to my reading routine? I have a reading routine. It’s complex and it’s regimented, and tonight, I’m actually choosing the more selfish path – I will write this, rather than read more blogs.

However, I hope that by sharing some recent blogs I’ve read, I’m bending the karma.

I’m in a vortex of incredible work. It comes from the A to Z Challenge, but also the top six commenters on my blog. I find great reads in the WordPress bloggers I follow. And I’ve just joined a Facebook group, small in number and perfect in tone, to associate with.

How to Recognize Your Past to Appreciate Where You Are

A little more than a year ago, I stood outside with my 11-year-old as she took pictures of a rare winter landscape here.

“I am where I am,” I said, of course, in 27-degree weather wearing shark pajama bottoms with a curious child who goes out of her way to spend time with me. It’s also where I am, at the bottom of stairs looking up at where I hope to be or at least feel like I am someday.

Yes, you’re way down here, I told myself, but you’re looking the right direction.

Who knows what path I’ll take. But parenting, the divergent routes and surprises and development and growth and discovery of ourselves on the journey will power me upward. Meredith, who writes the blog The Mom of the Year, inspired this post.