Fits and Starts

Hello.

My name is Paul.

I started this blog 10 years ago, months before moving to Richmond. It was a pursuit in keeping myself writing through dark times and happy days, delving into my passions in parenting, design, food and drink, music, and more miscellany. It was also a form of therapy after I was shot and as I dealt with life as a full-time single dad. I've put it down a couple of times and returned a couple of times. I went from posting a few times a day to posting a few times a year.

Well, life has again taken some pretty big zig zags, and I am finding that this may be the place I need to return. I have found — the hard way — that keeping things inside is very bad for me. I become someone I don't like, and I run away from the world. I lose track of who I want to be and how I want to see myself.

I've lately thought a lot about Langston Hughes "A Dream Deferred." After all, you can only shut yourself down for so long before you wither, fester, sag, or explode... And none of these are good for the world, or yourself.

Without getting into the details, suffice it to say that my life exploded a couple months ago and turned inside out. I might as well have stuck a stick of dynamite in a house of cards. Anyway, the other day, I was telling a friend the stories, and she stopped me and asked what I was doing to get some relief and release for it all. I shrugged. See, the truth is I haven't been doing anything to get any relief or release for it all. I haven't been writing. I haven't been reading. I haven't been designing. I haven't been cooking much. I haven't been taking the pup for the kinds of walks that would provide either of us as much exercise as we need. I haven't been swimming. I haven't even really been enjoying life all that much.

And this needs to change. I guess part of writing this and nudging/coaxing/encouraging myself to get back on the blog is a way of opening the channels — and developing some accountability to myself. After all, how can I be accountable to other people if I can't even be honest and accountable with myself. It's also a way of stepping back into something I really enjoy doing. The initial decision to step away from the blog was because it bothered someone who was in my life. The second decision to step away from it was driven by someone who profoundly affected my life in negative ways, someone whose response to a simple post shut me down.

Well, you know what? This thing is and always has been about me and how I see and want to see the world. It has been about providing a channel of words about food, music, parenting, life, travel, politics, and whatever the hell else caught my attention. And I loved doing it — no matter how many people read it.

So, yeah... I might be back for a while this time.

P

What a ride...

The kid turned 11 today. She is psyched, as am I. That said, I'm also terrified. She is brilliant and wonderful and all I could have imagined her to be after the ups and downs of the past years. But the dark years of middle school approach.

I will do all I can to be the best dad and friend I can, even as I work to get a business off the ground. And that's the best I can really do, even after all these years.

Mr. Ritter, I presume...

Tonight, we saw Josh Ritter for the fourth time. It was every bit the show we'd hoped for — though the kid was disappointed that he didn't play "Time, Love." Small omissions aside, what always amazes me about Ritter's shows are the energy he displays. The moment he isn't smiling on stage is rare, and his band's vibe is just as infectious. More than that, I've never seen someone bound — yes, he bounded — out for an encore as quickly as he did. Hell, the roadie hadn't even finished prepping the guitars when he was back on stage.

Thank you, Josh Ritter, for another memorable evening with my daughter, sweetheart, and friends.

A very brief post...

Cheryl Wheeler just popped on my iTunes. Mind you, she is a wonderful songwriter; still, hearing a track from 1993 reminds me how old I am. More than that, I have reached an age where I can identify the quirks of performers from that age without even knowing the song... Good lord... I'm that ADULT.

Customer Service at its best...

Competitors rescued each other this weekend. I bought a pair of Katahdin Engineer Boots from L. L. Bean over the winter, and they quickly became a prized part of my wardrobe. The fit was excellent, and the look was more of what I wanted.

Then the dog got hold of them.

And destroyed the insoles.

This weekend, on the advice of Bean's customer service, I took the boots to our local REI to find a new insole. Not only did we work through multiple insoles and sizes, the salesman took the time to really focus on what would feel best for me in the long run — for a product they hadn't even sold me — while several other people waited not-so-patiently.

For the same reason that Bean has made me a customer for life, REI now has my allegiance. When someone takes the time to make sure you get the best product you can, I appreciate it. He might have lost a $300 one-time sale for his attention to us, but  the company gained brand loyalty for life from a family who appreciates it.

Every day comes with wins and losses, right?

Today's loss was aioli. I'm not sure what is escaping me, because I am following Alice Waters to the letter. Still, the damn stuff isn't gelling. I ended up taking TJ's mayo and doctoring it up to go with the crab cakes. Somehow, my aioli never happened.

That said, we had the pleasure of pairing Barboursville's recently released Vermentino with the crab cakes. The minerality of the wine was perfect with the crab and light binding mixture. Since we did them on the grill, there was even a little bit of fire to add to the flavor. Could you ask for more on a last-minute dinner party?

Cicadapocalypse — The Reboot.

I'm back.

This isn't to say how long I'm back or what direction the blog will take, but I'm back. I have left the miasma of corporate life for a fluid juggling of entrepreneurial life, parenting and partnership, and occasional freelance work. It's fair to say that I am facing down a lot of demons and the deeper effects of PTSD. I am also working to reopen parts of myself that were shut down over the past few years.

For a while, I thought I'd start a new blog, one focused specifically on food and drink or one that delved back into parenting. Then, I realized I am at my best when I poke at all the things I love. And all the things that distract me. That's where this blog started in the first place in the spring/summer of 2004.

At the time, I was stopping off in Dayton, OH, after the melt-down of my marriage to The Kid's mom. The blog was a chance for me to keep writing and process life. At the same time, the Brood X 17-year cicadas were blanketing Ohio, Indiana, and beyond. 

Nine years later, Richmond is about to experience the same blanketing. At the same time, I am seeing constant reminders of and bookends to pieces of my life. Moreover, my business and personal lives have taken me back to connections from when I first landed in RVA that summer. There is my life with business partners and a wonderful-but-complicated relationship at home. Add to that the building of a business that is a long-time dream I remember discussing as far back as college, and it's a pretty profound time.

So, yeah. I'm back. I started this blog as a way to process what was going on in life and to keep my hand in writing. There's no reason not to sit down at the table again with this old friend and have a really good conversation.

PPS

I couldn't close without hitting post 900. Let's just let the world speak for itself...

Say good night, Gracie.

I started this blogging experiment in the spring of 2004 as an outlet for political writing urges. Over the years, it grew to encompass parenting, music, beer, food, graphic design and myriad other things. In recent months, I've neglected the blog sadly. It has come to be a nagging burden, something I want to get back to and can't find the time for, something that helped define a period of my life.

The thing is I am beginning to say good bye to that period of my life. As I look around me now, I see a whole new set of challenges — a child who is growing up, a business in the advanced planning stages, new relationships and efforts to rebuild burned bridges, a whole new set of life and financial goals, and a growing puppy.

Each one of these demands my feet being on the real ground more than the virtual ground. And truth be told, this blog slipped off track a couple years ago and never really found a new direction. Recognizing that and recognizing the new realities of my life going forward, it is time to say good bye.

I've had fun, and maybe I'll come back in a new form. You can still find me on Twitter and maybe elsewhere. In the meantime, so long and thanks for putting up with me for a few thousand words here and there.

Paul



P.S. — I've been thinking about this for weeks, but my friend Jason deserves a hat tip for taking a similar step first.

A year comes, a year goes.

Put simply, 2011 was a strange year. It was full of endings and beginnings, full of lessons, full of pain, full of happy memories. Of course, every year could fall under that description, but 2011 seemed full of much larger and more intense events.

Beginning the year, I was engaged. At the end of the year, I was in a new relationship and figuring out what to do with the house I had bought with my ex-fiancée. I spent the second half of the year dealing with PTSD and learning remarkable lessons about relationships and partnerships. My daughter turned into a tween, and I learned how to reconnect with her. Echoes of 20 years ago filled the year. I began the year employed at one company and ended it as a contractor at another. The year began with changes in brewing and business planning and ended with plenty of lessons learned and plenty more to learn.

On New Years Eve, a fellow single dad answered one of my comments about 2011 by saying "Instead of resolutions, I think I'm going to make a list of lessons learned in 2011." At risk of leaving some out, here is a short list of the lessons taken in this year:

• Budget time and money. You will have more time and more money for what you want.
• Don't try to cram extra things in to small amounts of time. You will accomplish more and feel less stressed out by what needs to be done.
• Finish tasks. Finish it before you pick up anything else. You will save time and stress.
• Be where you say you're going to be when you say you're going to be there. Friends, partners and lovers will trust you more.
• Don't promise things you can't deliver. Again: trust.
• Use the right tool for the task and pay attention to process — whether you're cooking, building, brewing or whatever. You will save time and effort and have a better product.
• Cutting corners isn't worth it. Nothing finishes as well as it would if you did it the right way.
• Bourbon barrels and imperial stout were made for each other.
• Silicon cooking tools are worth having. As is the perfect cast iron pan. Take care of what you have, and it will always treat you well.
• Beverages really do taste better out of the right glassware.
• Think about where each dollar you spend is going. Who is it helping and what will you get in return for it?
• Spend the extra few minutes with the people who are important to you. A little goes a long way.
• If you get another chance, do it right. This rule applies to everything.

I'll add a piece or two to this as it seems appropriate. For the moment, though, it makes a pretty good foundation for 2012. Life really is simple if you let it be.

Cheers.

Blur: the lost year.

How it got to be December and how I managed to go two months without a single good blog post is a little baffling to me. Time flies, but this year seems to have vanished. The changes that have happened amidst that woosh are just as baffling. The kid has begun growing up in ways that have brought their own surprises. We lost a cat and gained a puppy. I lost a fiancée and gained back some parts of myself that had been submerged. I discovered the hell of PTSD and the beginning of healing. I remembered lessons I'd forgotten. We revisited places I haven't seen in 20 years and saw friends I haven't seen in longer than that. I learned important lessons about partnership, friendship, and being good to the world in general. And I continue to tackle lessons and changes that have been years in the making.

At the risk of hyperbole, I can fairly say that the past year has been a period of more growth and lessons than any other period of change in my 41 years.

I had originally planned to write this post about the lessons and mistakes, but it seems redundant to cover what has already been covered in therapy and to a lesser extent on here. Some day, I may fill in the blanks, but I need a little more perspective on all that has happened before I can truly understand all that has been taken away and handed to me.

For now, what I am doing is working harder — working harder at business and work, at being a patient parent, at being a partner, at being a friend, at finishing the things I start and keeping the promises I make, at being stronger and more disciplined, and at asking for help when I need it.

As we kick into the holidays, I will likely be saying a lot of thank-yous to friends who stuck by us through everything, to partners who called me on my failings, to people I hurt because I had lost my way in one fashion or another. Mostly, I am grateful that life sometimes has room for second chances.

What's wrong with this world #2 (WWWTW2)

Cheerleader Frog and Football Player Frog. Er... froggles. Need I say more?

What's wrong with this world #1

We are now so lazy that we can't even be bothered to cut up the Slim Jims to go with our processed cracker/cheese product.

Bookends

This was a summer of crazy weather and personal journeys through hell and back. It was also a summer of lessons and growth, and it began and ended with concerts at the Charlottesville Pavilion.

The first show was The Arcade Fire in early June. The night was hot as hell at show time  — well past 90 degrees still. The band turned it on, though. The energy was great. I got texts from friends close to the stage and decided to hang back after aborted attempts to wade into the roiling, steamy crowd. it was a good show, though, and somewhere on my phone is a happy picture that belies the tensions that were already in the final stages of destroying our relationship.

The counterpoint to this show was seeing The Avett Brothers with the kid a couple weeks ago. Where the Arcade Fire show was tightly choreographed with a defined setlist. The Avetts show was the opposite. It felt loose from the moment they hit they stage, down to forgotten lyrics and missed cues. Still, it was a brilliant show. They were obviously happy to be on stage and engaged with the audience. And it felt more honest than the tighter, cleaner show at the beginning of the summer.

In the end, the bookends seem more stark than sandwiching a concert in on an "off" night in early June and taking the kid for a show I knew she'd enjoy in early September. (I wasn't the only dad who thought that, either, given the number of dads with daughters on the lawn that night.) The real kicker, though, is that I remember the tension at the first concert, and soon after, all hell broke loose. It wouldn't really calm down for another two months or so. In that time, life took some drastic turns; I discovered how powerful and insidious PTSD could be; and I spent a great deal of time gaining perspective, healing myself, and working on my relationship with the kid.

And that's where The Avett Brothers show really stands out in stark contrast. We barely made it to dinner at Mas Tapas and barely made it to the show, but I felt more relaxed than I'd felt in ages. Chalk the easing up to some positive turns in life in general and feeling like I'd finally been released from a strange, bad dream. Chalk it up to that, in part. But chalk it up also to watching the kid play with her glow sticks and smile as she curled up on the blanket next to me as the concert was winding down. And chalk it up to realizing — finally — that I was back in ways I hadn't been for years.

Mas and more Mas

My previous visits to Mas in Charlottesville have all been exercises in controlled gluttony. You finish your meal realizing you have eaten perhaps double what you should have, but the food has been so good that the satiation feels grand.

 Tonight, it was just the kid and me.

 We scraped into the parking lot behind Mas with barely an hour to spare before The Avett Brothers concert. The wait was far too long, but the hostess had a bench with a not-really-table table that she could spare. Next thing you know, she is asking the kid which kind of juice soda she wants and what beer I want, and we're settling in at the nook in the corner. Not exactly perfect planning, but things were working out.

The kid was tired and distracted, but we covered the menu and put orders in. Anchovies, spinach and manchego salad, hummus, lamb sausage, and empanada with Caremont chevre. The dishes came out with remarkable speed, particularly considering how busy the restaurant was.

 The kid tried the anchovies; she wasn't sure about them, but it was a start. She liked the hummus though it was a tad spicy. The spinach salad? She hated the dressing. Hated it. One of the servers stopped by, and I took a step I rarely take which was to say that the salad wasn't to her liking. Next thing we know a comped spinach salad with oil and vinegar arrives. She wolfed it down, and minutes later we were paying the tab to get to the show.

How were my dishes? Terrific. The empanada with Caremont chevre, jalapenos and applewood smoked ham chunks was delicious. The merguez with a habanero-cider chutney was delicious. The anchovies were as delicate as they could be. And I could only finish the empanada.  As I told the excellent hostess, one of these days I will remember to order half of what I want to order.

The real win there wasn't the food, however, it was the service. They took care of us in ways that will be sure to bring me back. Kudos.

Culinary Catch-up...

Between the Maine trip, the puppy, general growth and healing, and management of a pithy nine-year old, I've written a half dozen blog posts — in my head. Ah well... Friday is as good a time as any to do a little catching up.

• The lobster in Maine was good as always, but I have to admit that I'm more a fan of crab these days. Lobster is rich and delicious, but I like the softer flavor of the peaky-toe crabs we have up there. The crab cakes are delicate, and adding crab to a lobster risotto made for a delicious rethinking of a classic.


• The other night, I had to scrape together a quick entree for a dinner party. There would be kids involved, as well as an adult who has cut meat out of her diet. Without time to go to the store, I pulled a bag of mixed seafood — scallops, shrimp, and calimari — from Trader Joe's out of the freezer. I sauteed up a couple cloves of garlic and a small, chopped onion in olive oil, added a bit of crushed chili and paprika. I sauteed the seafood quickly and added a half cup (or so) of red wine added. That was followed by a can of diced tomatoes and a cup (or so) of vegetable stock. Simmer for 20 minutes and serve with cous cous. Call it a poor man's bouillabaisse or perhaps a scrappy Portugese seafood stew. Whatever you call it, it was great. Thank god for a well-stocked larder.


• The kid has begun to take her own stock in cooking now. I made Penne al Tonno last night for a quick tasty dinner, and she asked to make her own pot of pasta. Why? So she could make her own pasta for the next day's lunch. On vacation, she made two excellent grilled cheese sandwiches for me. What's next? Risotto?


• Recent beer stand-outs have included a very nice seasonal bitter at Gritty McDuff's, an excellent Scotch ale from Atlantic Brewing, the BFM merlot cask-aged Grand Cru, and enough Life and Limb to satisfy me until they release it again.

Friday Fun — Old Favorites

I'm trying to lighten things up a bit here at Impolitic Eye, so this week I've decided to dig up a few old favorites. Cheers.

I first came across this Morcheeba track a few years ago, and it pops up from time to time when I need a reminder that the darker parts of me are worth letting go.


Wilco at its poppy best. And as always, Tweedy's lyrics are filled with truth.


I had the chance to see these guys on a last-minute whim in June. The night was hotter than hell, but they put on a great performance regardless.

Restoration and Maine

I'm sitting in our house listening to the after-effects of Hurricane Irene. She turned inland earlier, and we are now getting the windy side. The house sounds like a subway as the train is coming into the station. Earlier, we had an old maple come down next to the house, and when I say next to the house, I mean that it is touching the house. And it's a big tree. The kid woke up and wouldn't go back to bed for a while.

After a summer of relationship and PTSD hell, tons of transitions and personal learning, and a week of earthquakes and a hurricane that almost scuttled our trip up here, I am about ready for some respite. Some sense of moving forward. Cooking again. Talking about beer, literature, and whatever else seems cool again. New music. Time with the kid. New horizons, and maybe a trip or two this fall. Certainly, there is a puppy on the horizon, and that's as much of a new start as anyone could ask for.

In any case, Maine. I have a love-hate relationship with our history up here. As the youngest of eight grandchildren in an old New England family, warmth isn't exactly the first word I'd use when describing my memories of summers up here. Nonetheless, it's one of the places I know best and one of the places that has been most restorative at times in my life. Driving up from Boston yesterday after we had flown out just ahead of the hurricane, I spent a great deal of time remembering my visits here over the years — the food, the music, the beer, the company, the quiet moments, the joyful moments introducing the place to people. I remembered it in part because I had only ever been up here this late in the season once, 20 years ago, when I last experienced a hurricane.

More than that, the memories came at me because so much has happened this year, and because I am doing so much rebuilding. And this is a place that has allowed me those moments in the past. When we got here, I opened a Geary's Ale and watched my mother and the kid make crab cakes with the local peeky-toe crab meat. It's a delicate meat that has a softer, less buttery flavor than the backfin crab meat we get in Virginia. But in the past, taking over the preparation of the crab cakes and corn would have been my purview. This time, however, I was happy to sit back and watch grandmother and grand-daughter work as a team. Not only did it mean I got to relax after a long day, but it was a reminder that sometimes we can let other people do what they do well.

Even if I had an opinion about a touch of this or a touch of that in the crab cakes, the moment wasn't about control. It was perfect as is. And the food was perfect when we ate the corn, crab cakes, and local leaf lettuce (something we miss in VA right now) and tomato salad. Letting life be perfect and happy as-is (but with potential for greatness) is something I'm trying to remember as part of this rebuilding.

Friday Fun — A day late — Hurricane Edition

In honor of today and everyone in RVA (and beyond), I'll offer these few selections...

nostalgia in the present

It's like my youth and my present are colliding in one divine bit of hilarity...