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Hey! Hi! How are you? Awesome!

So glad we've got the chance to catch up! And yes! My birthday is this weekend! I'm really excited because it's fun getting old! Can I tell you how I've spent this week celebrating? I can? Can we dance? Awesome!!!

(this is the part where you say: uh oh. this is one of those posts with a lot of exclamation points…)

This was a super-exciting week at work! Because I'm all anonymous and mysterious and whatnot, I won't tell you exactly what I was doing or who I was doing it for, but let's just say… I'm working in a place where we do stuff for a client! Who's super-nice! Also, she tends to disappear for weeks at a time! Which kind of makes it impossible for us to get stuff done! And then, when she gets back? She likes to act like she's forgotten every conversation we've had, conclusion we've reached and decision we've used as our rationale for the work we execute! It's like she has the memory of a goldfish! Know what I mean? When a goldfish sees its reflection in the glass and goes, "Hey, look! A goldfish!" Then it turns away, and three seconds later it looks back and says, "Hey, look! A goldfish!" "Hey, look! A goldfish!" "Hey, look! A goldfish!" and so on, ad infinitum.

All of which means it's kind of difficult to get things done, because not only do we have a moving business target, but a vanishing one! And one with the memory of a goldfish! Look! A goldfish! Which is awesome, because the leadership model I'm working with is predicated on the ability to read the client's mind! When she's vanishing for weeks at a time! And has the memory of… Look! A goldfish! Which means that when we fail to anticipate that the client will do a complete 180 from one day to the next – and then vanish for two weeks, and then come back and be another 90 degrees different from the previous 180 in terms of what she wants – we've failed! Which means that someone needs to get blamed! It's a culture of blame and panic! Fucking awesome!

So this time, a woman I work with became the designated scapegoat! Which was completely unfair, because she was absolutely not to blame! But who cares! Because our valiant leader – a woman who is basically the Kool-Aid Man with a perm – thrives on panic and blame! And that's how she leads! Awesome strategy! And my colleague! Decided to leverage her absolutely awesome habit of passing that stress and panic along to the rest of us via aggressive passive-aggression! And since I was the on-deck scapegoat, she focused on me! And kept demanding something, despite the fact that I sent her a detailed explanation for why what she was demanding was not, in fact, what our client had demanded on her most recent call with us and… look! A goldfish! Hey, when did you… Look, a goldfish!

And then she hassled me again! And I group-replied with my rationale! And a third time! And I replied a third time! And when she demanded it the fourth time – without any indication that she'd read my previous three, detailed emails – I group-replied: OKAY. One last time: (and then I re-detailed everything. For! The! Fourth! TIme!)…

And then about twenty minutes later… I got an email from the Kool-Aid perm woman! Which included a forward of my email to the scapegoat, minus the THREE! PREVIOUS! TIMES! I'd sent her the rationale! And the Kool-Aid perm woman suddenly turned all the blame for everything on me! Voila!

And as I read the email and realized what'd happened, I said: Oh my god. She totally threw me under the bus. In the most blatant, unadulterated way possible. And as I was sitting there, in my gray little cube, with my jaw hanging down, one of my other colleagues walked over, saw me sitting there with my jaw hanging down, asked what was going on, so I showed her the email… and she said: "Oh my god. She totally threw you under the bus." And then her jaw started hanging down in disbelief.

Awesome!!!

The bestest part was that all of this was happening mid-afternoon on Thursday! After a looooooong week of stress and panic and blame! And with me already planning to take Friday off, because of a Doctor's appointment I'd scheduled six weeks previously! But fuck me — this was PANIC! BLAME! And so I went into insane overdrive! And stayed late enough that I was late to pick up my kids! And then I brought them home and fed them and did dishes and changed them into PJs and put them to bed! And then I went back to work! And then I was up until 11 on Thursday night doing work! For a contract gig I hate! And am trying to leave! On a Thursday night when I was taking the next day off! And knowing full well that everything I was working on was just going to get torn to shreds by the forces of Kool Aid the next morning! Very gratifying!

And then it was Friday! And despite it being a day off, I spent most of the morning online following up on everything I'd done the previous day! Watching angry emails getting shot back and forth! Enjoying not hearing a SINGLE! SOLITARY! WORD! From the woman who'd thrown me under the bus! (SOOOOO very looking forward to seeing her again on Monday!)

And then it was time to go to my appointment! With a plastic surgeon! For a consult, to dig out a chunk of my foot for vaguely (but not in any serious, sinister way) oncological reasons! Which I'd scheduled in December! So I drove to the hospital, and showed up at the office 20 minutes early, because that's the considerate thing to do! So I could have all the paperwork filled out before my appointment! And I did! And then I sat! And sat! And sat! And somehow, the doctor showed up 90 MINUTES LATE FOR AN 11:45AM APPOINTMENT!

How, dear friends, how THE FUCK do you fall 90 minutes behind by 11:45 in the morning?

So I complained on Twitter, and people very kindly offered to show up and join me in trashing the hell out of the doctor's office. And then the doctor finally called me in… and the consult took all of five minutes. And then I got to schedule my actual surgical procedure at the first available time. AT THE END OF APRIL.

To review: It took me six weeks to get in. And he made me wait an hour and a half. For a five minute consult. So he could schedule another appointment almost THREE MONTHS AWAY.

And then my head exploded!

Hooray!

Then I paid for TWO HOURS OF FUCKING HOSPITAL PARKING FOR A FIVE-MINUTE CONSULT, and then I went and fought insane crowds of bitter, uncoordinated elderly suburbanites at the supermarket who were all freaked right the fuck out by the impending #snowpocalypse (check a Twitter near you for details) despite the fact that… uh… it wasn't going to hit Boston. And then I finally got home, unpacked, and looked at the clock. I had about two hours left on my glorious day off, this kickoff to my birthday weekend, before I needed to go pick up my kids.

So I decided to be decadent… and take advantage of my whirlpool tub. That's right: I'm a dude, and I decided to spend an hour reading in my whirlpool tub on a Friday afternoon in February. Because that's the way I roll.

So I filled the tub with 8000 degree water, started up the jets, and got in. I quickly discovered, however, that the water level was too high, so I turned the knob to open up the drain plug… and heard something strange click. And then the plug didn't move. Uh oh. So I began shifting the knob back and forth… and nothing happened. And then nothing more happened. And nothing more happened after that. So I started trying to pry the smooth, metal plug up with my fingertips, but couldn't get it to move, and suddenly I started having visions of my family being unable to use the tub or shower all weekend… so I ran downstairs – dripping wet, from both water and the sweat induced by the 8000 degree bath water, a towel wrapped loosely around me – and grabbed a few implements, and then ran back upstairs, and…

And that's how I found myself spending 45 minutes this afternoon, carving away at the drain plug in my bathtub, naked and dripping sweat, on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. Finally, after a hundred failed attempts, I was able to use the back end of a screwdriver to hammer a steak knife juuuuust far enough into one tiny slender sliver of an edge to gain purchase and FINALLY SWEET FUCKING MERCY FINALLY pull the plug open. And as the water began to drain, I looked up at the clock and saw: I had 15 minutes to wipe off the sweat, get dressed, and get to my son's school to pick him up.

Say it with me now: AWESOME!!!11!!!!

I don't even know what to say about all of this, beyond the fact that there are forces at work here that are clearly conspiring to kill the fuck out of me before I reach the next year of my life. So if I'm not around to join you in celebrating my birthday and/or the Super Bowl on Sunday… well, thanks for reading this far.

(wiggling fingers at fate)

Bring it on, bitch.

With a flourish of trumpets
a choir cry: the sound is exultation, a scale
more grand than human.
No peal of little bells, here;
it feels a slow build of tympani as
fields once mighty with purple and gold
lie dormant
or drained of life, and lifeless.
A beauty refused.
And beneath the glitter of falling stars, and fallen snow
away from the roads arthritic with frost
heaves of another year
from low stone walls and wire, barbed and sharpened
there are crow songs, words lost between the trees
a murder growing quieter with time.
And there are footprints, tender impressions left
without referent
a maze of subtle meaning and abandoned quests
overgrown with brittle thorns and left to rot
or melt away—
paths we once knew by heart.
And aloft there are not turtledoves or dark swans
but something soars
a quiet shadow against the moon
a yearning hunger so deep it bleeds
no cry for help nor plea for love can turn away.

Leafless branches weaved like capillaries.
The soft halo of the moon.
Whatever brilliant star once guided men to salvation
long since collapsed and cold.

The temptation of bright knives and sharp words
is strong.
The anger is experience: the last startled breaths of a
gentle and innocent life.
The taste is wet and bitter: a prayer to scar and survive.
This moment is sealed in amber, hard and beautiful
and forever
a memory that will not soften with time.

It is a classroom, one of many on the hall. As is true of each classroom, there is a sign next to the door. But where most of these signs offer a number and a letter – indicating the grade and the first letter of a teacher's name - this sign offers only a 3-letter acroynm.

Three letters. What they stand for is not relevant, because it is a bureaucratic acronym built around a bureaucratic name. But we know what they mean. This is the special education room. One of two in this school, dedicated primarily to serving children on the autism spectrum. This room is for kids in the K-2 range.

This is our son's room.

Like the majority of the kids who come here, he is only in this room for part of the day. Roughly half of his school day is spent in a regular first grade classroom, where he follows the curriculum and participates in circle time and art and music. Where he goes to recess. Where he goes to lunch. He is supported by an aide – one he shares with another little girl – who only steps in to lend him a little help or offer redirection when he needs it. He still struggles greatly with peer-to-peer relationships (as is common for children on the autism spectrum), but he is – by and large – a part of the class. The applicable term is "mainstreaming."

The rest of the day, he is in the other classroom. The room with three letters. Getting specialized instruction on parts of the curriculum that he might have trouble following, as a result of his difficulties following verbal directions and filtering out multiple stimuli (the sights, the sounds, the movement of a normal first grade classroom) to focus on the teacher and his task. To accommodate his nature as a visual learner.

It is a good program. We are aware that that this is a tragically rare thing, and we are far beyond grateful that he is a part of it.

Most of the other boys and girls in his classroom are similarly mainstreamed. But not all. There are a couple of children who spend all day, every day, in the three-letter room. They are beautiful children, with significant challenges, who are doing their best. Every day, when I drop my son off at school and watch the other schoolkids playing together with such effortless ease, something inside me splinters a bit. (It aches every time.) Every day, when I see these other children from the three letter room come in, clinging to their parents or drifting on their own around the periphery, I'm grateful for what I have.

Last week, my wife took the day off and went in to the three-letter classroom. They have a program where once a month, a parent comes in to the class to read a few stories, walk the kids through some kind of craft-making exercise, and add a little excitement to the routine. Last week was our turn.

My wife took this task quite seriously. She is an outlandishly talented and brilliant woman, but one who has never had an artsy-craftsy thought in her life. Subsequently, she spent nearly a full week doing research — trying to find some kid-friendly craft that she could not only master herself, but replicate successfully in a classroom and teach to a handful of 6, 7 and 8yo special ed students. She combed the dusty corners of the interweb. She carefully weighed the pros and cons of the suggestions of dozens of FB friends. She begged me to help; I failed her completely.

In the end, she settled on marshmallow snowmen. Fragile, seasonally-correct totems held together by thin and brittle toothpick chains, brightened by color-heavy buttons of gumdrops and faces rendered in slender lines of frosting. The morning of her presentation, she successfully created a prototype: a happy little figure, sitting on our kitchen counter. He lasted all of five minutes before my children fell on him and, in a moment out of Tennessee Williams, consumed him.

That afternoon, while I was at work, she called me. Told me that it went wonderfully: the kids loved putting together the snowmen, and listening to the stories she read, and just having her there. My son, for his part, kept walking over and laying his hand gently on her arm, as if unable to believe that she was actually there.

The next morning, she emailed the photos she'd taken of her visit out to the other parents. The photos show these beautiful children in their element: laughing, talking, concentrating carefully on constructing their project. A few parents emailed back to thank her; a few remained resolutely silent.

And then, she got an email from one of the other mothers. Her son is one of the children who spends all day, every day in the three-letter classroom. He is unusually tall for his age, and handsome in the way that you know will carry through to adulthood. A perfect visual blend of his parents, who moved from the far side of the country not long ago to be here, to have their son in this program. His father is tall, handsome and athletic. A physician, working in a pressurized, high-acuity field. A man who would inspire jealousy, if he were not also absolutely friendly and down to earth. His mother, little over five feet tall, beautiful and kind and infinitely gentle with their son, their only child. A few times, we have tried to schedule playdates with them. Each time, their son's behavioral issues have gotten in the way and cut the event short, or ended it before it even began. 

They know so few people here.

Her email:

"Thank you so much for the pictures. He came out of school so HAPPY. He said, "Look Mama, a Frosty the Snow Man!" He was so proud of it.

I just love it. Thank you."

My wife said to me, "I read that, and I melted."

As snowmen are wont to do.

It is a few short days after Thanksgiving, and the steady strong rumble of rainfall on tin roof has created a soothing backdrop of white noise to the day, lulling me into a sense of complacency and helping the hours to flee until, at last, I glance at the clock at the corner of the screen and think, "It's late enough." My fingers dance and images flicker until the screen is clean and blue and then black, and my jacket is in my hand and I am gone, the grey walls aching for my absence.

I step into night, and as is so often the case find myself surprised in the temerity of the day to flee without me, to leave me without notice or illumination or a glimpse of the world as others may live it. The rain is heavy and cold. "Wonderful," I think, and with nothing like feline grace I traverse the lot, find my vehicle, and slide inside. The windows fog instantaneously when I close the door, but the engine fires hot and instant, and I blow the vents on high until they clear and I can see through to the infinite droplets of night as they collide with the glass, shattering on impact. The gentle LED glow tells me I have just over an hour to make my way to three children at two schools, in another town far but not too far away. I punch the stereo alive, slip the car into D and let the engine do its work.

My left hand rests at the top of the wheel, fingers drumming in time with the frenzied beat of the music and the crash of water against metal and glass, guiding the car through the twisting neighborhood road that leads from the business park to the highway. Headlights of oncoming cars flash past me with alarming speed and certainty of purpose, mirroring my own as we slip past the open mouths of driveways and the soft blinking pulse of homes embroidered with Christmas lights, refracted through rainfall and half-hidden behind trees and thin condensation. This is a time of transition, a segue from one part of life to another. This is what we pass through in order to reach what matters.

And then, the road splits and breaks and at once I spill onto the highway, my engine revving high and strong as the roar from my speakers, pulling me seamlessly into the flow of traffic and then one lane left and then one lane left, and then I am in my habitat: moving past those who never heard Tom Waits' admonition that a little rain never hurt no one, watching the minutes drop away and vanish behind me as I flow from one point on the map to another, toward the waiting arms of my children. I will hear my daughters cry my name with joy and hurtle across the room to meet me, and it will be the best part of my day.

It is easy to lose yourself in these permutations and subtle shadings of amber, in this slow-drawing tide of time and shifting light as the black road slips beneath you and the exits tumble by like drifting clouds, to draw deep breath and close your eyes and wait to awaken: arrived and whole and ready to embrace your destination. The motion feels automatic; a function of nervous system and sense memory and infallible internal guide, bringing you home.

Someplace high in the darkness, a new shade of red appears, distant and distinct and visible even through this thick wet ink of night sky, and without effort I shift into a different gear — recognizing that as I approach the towers I approach my own exit, and so I slide right, and then right again, and ready myself for the slow crush of moving bodies as lanes collapse upon each other and lives merge and divide. I slip out of reverie and am fully conscious and in control as I guide the car through the shifting traffic and shimmering walls of rain. I see the sign, green and familiar. My route, 1 mile. The road slows before me, and I wait to make my move.

And then, it arrives. First, an offramp pulls a stream of lives from my path, and I ready for the moment: for that brief, frenzied stretch of three hundred yards where onramp bleeds traffic onto the highway and where offramp pulls others – including me – off and away. This is the road I travel every day, and as I look ahead I see cars beginning to peel off and to the right as they make their move, opening the road for the wagon directly in front of me and I glance right, and see the road clear with only a small white car coming up the onramp and I begin my swift slide over and glance right again one last time only to find that the white car is accelerating I can't believe how fast it's moving and realize it's trying to cut me off and so I surge forward to take my place and keep this exchange of platelets from artery to capillary running clean and clear and at that moment my eyes shift forward and the wagon in front of me is hitting the brakes – there is no one in front of him, but he is hitting his brakes – and I have no place to go and there is that half-second of instinct pure and unconscious as my fingers shift the wheel to the right and I sliiiiiiide past the wagon's rear bumper by less than a foot and in front of the speeding white car and before I can even think to speak I am on the offramp and pressing down on the brake and slowing my descent and realizing just how close

how close I just came to a high-speed collision

and my heart is a jackhammer and I don't even know what I'm saying but I'm screaming spitting damning the road and the drivers and I can't believe, it's been forever since I've come anywhere even close to that, I can't believe how close I just came. The blood is roaring in my ears, and I'm still screaming with rage and relief as I segue onto the new road – another, smaller highway – and merge without hesitation into this new flow and continue on my way. To my children. To my home.

I will my heart slower. I feel my throat going raw, and will it smooth. I will the moment past, make it something that happened and is gone, and push forward. There is still road ahead. There are still destinations to be reached.

The miles flow without incident, and then I reach my next exit. A quick right, and then a left turn, and I slide under the highway and over the train tracks and pull to a full stop at a red light. My daughters' school is only a minute away. I cannot wait to be done with this day.

The light goes green, and I turn right. My turn – my final turn, before I arrive at the school – is only a hundred yards up the road, to the left. The road is busy, overflowing with commuters, the rain pouring hard and fast, and I sit on the road for more than a full minute, blinker blinking, waiting to make my left turn, watching one set of bright white lights after another flash fast then faster as they surge forward and make sure they get by before allowing me to make my turn. And then, finally, there is a brief break in the flow of cars – my window of opportunity – and so I make my turn and accelerate forward to move onto the road where my daughters' school awaits but instantly there is a flash of brown in front of me and in a half-second of instinct pure and unconscious my fingers shift the wheel to the right and I sliiiiiiide past and slam on the brakes and before I can even think I know - there was somebody in the fucking crosswalk on the road I was turning onto and I never even saw them – and there is a pounding on my window and he is standing there, a kid, a fucking kid only 16 or 17 years old, and he's yelling at me "What the fuck, you almost hit me," and I'm yelling back, "I swear, I never even saw you until you were right there, are you okay, are you okay, I swear, I never saw you, are you okay, jesus christ, I'm so sorry, I swear, I never saw you" and I know

how close I just came to

(can't. even. think. it.)

and he is standing there and the rain is pouring down on top of him and his eyes are huge and my eyes are huge and we are looking at one another and gasping for air and both realizing that there was no fault no intent no mistake just a complete accident of happenstance and timing and night and rain and how close we both just came to

(no.)

and I can't stop asking him if he's okay and telling him I'm sorry and not understanding how he could be there and remembering that flash of brown so close to my window as I slid past

and for a minute we are there together, absorbing all that happened and almost happened, both horrified and angry and overflowing with something like sorrow and relief, and then he leaves and

my heart is a jackhammer, and I gently pull the car forward and in a minute I pull into the school lot. Then I shift it into park, and turn off the engine. I feel sick. I feel like weeping. Inside my daughters are waiting for me.

So. As I was saying…

1. WORK
Here's the thing: I just finished 4 months of being pretty miserable in a contract-type scenario. One rife with behind-closed-doors machinations, and backstabbing and unnecessary drama and people being thrown under buses (repeatedly) (including me).  And then, as it was starting to draw to a close, they fired my boss. It abruptly evolved into a whole new flavor of clusterfuck, and then – the same day that they fired my boss – the EVP called me in to see if I wanted to join them full-time.

While I'll admit it was flattering to be seen as a candidate for full-time employment, I had a couple of reservations — including the fact that they wanted to hire me at a title/salary level well below what I've achieved in the past/am trying to achieve going forward, and the fact that I had some concerns about work/life balance issues, and the fact that OH RIGHT THE ENTIRE PLACE IS COMPLETELY BUGFUCK INSANE AND MADE ME WANT TO DIE.

So… I told them I'd think about it.

Long story short: I came back a week later, fully prepared to tell them "No, thanks" and walk away with a smile on my face – ready to take on whatever new challenge life might bring – when they threw me a curveball by saying (in essence) "You can stay on as a contractor for another 6 months… and you'll be working with a whole new group of people… and you'll basically be doing work at the title level you want."

So… (long sigh) I said, "Okay."

Look: the economy still sucks. Much as I'd love to throw caution to the wind and go for broke, the fact is that a (relatively) steady paycheck until April is kind of an appealing thing right now. And yes, while I realize I may be a complete sucker to believe for even an instant that there's a chance my life may become even moderately less sucktastic in the months to come… beggars can't be chosers.

(Subsequently, please forgive me in advance for another 6 months of sporadic – at best – posting. This stuff takes a lot out of me, and I really don't have a lot left afterwards.)

2. TRAVEL
On the plus side, the famdamily and I took our first-ever flight together the other week, as we decamped to the wilds of the greater DC area. And while there were those in the interweb community who (rightfully) cried foul at the fact that I basically blew them off, the fact remains that this particular trip was mostly an attempt to pay back those manymanymany friends of ours in DC – including the Demoncrat and Angus families – who've entertained me in years past when I've fled my family escaped to warmer climes dropped some science on our nation's capital. Anyhow: the good news is that our demonic offspring survived the plane ride intact (they were overjoyed by the experience, in fact). The bad news: we went to the national zoo and pretty well fucked up some pandas. Sorry, America, for the fucked up national pandas.

3. ELSEWHERE
I won't even attempt to set up all the links, but – on the off-chance that you actually care – while I've been neglecting this site with serious gusto I've actually been quite actively involved on Wednesdays at MamaPop, on Thursdays at DadCentric, and on random occasions (and frequently behind the scenes) at Polite Fictions. They are all wildly entertaining sites, frequently occasioned by writers far more gifted, fun and prolific than I, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you check 'em all out. 

4. APOLOGIES
Here's the part where I apologize for… well, for lots of things.First off, I apologize for having so terribly neglected this site. If you actually read this, you're a far better person than I am, and a far better friend than I deserve. I'm going to try to be better about typing here, and I'm sorry for having sucked so much over the past few months.

Secondly, I want to apologize to those of you who have your own online blog-type spaces, because since I started my craptastic job that I just signed up for another six months of fun with… I just haven't had the time, energy or freedom to drop by and drop comment love nearly as much as I should. Please don't take it as an indication that you are no longer beautiful and fascinating to me, because you are. You are all made of awesome. The fact is: I'm exhausted, and I suck. But again: I will try to be better.

5. THANKSGIVING
Not to get maudlin, but as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday (and to my Canadian friends: I think we all know which one is the real Thanksgiving) I wanted to express my thanks for something I've never publicly expressed thanks for before: my interweb friends. Imaginary though you may be, I'm honestly so grateful for the presence of you in my life that it's just pathetic. Seriously. I'm such a wuss about it that I should kick myself in the balls.

But what can I say? I've met so many cool imaginary people online that it's just an embarrassment of riches — people whose kindness, snark, writing skillz and plain, ol'-fashioned coolness add more to my life than is probably healthy to admit.

So… to any and all of you who read this – and for what little it's worth – thanks. You deserve a better friend than me, but I'm grateful to you for letting me hang around the periphery.

*raising glass in a toast*

Wrapped in these tender forms of
darkness, blanketed by the reassuring weight
of expectation and routine, the hours slip loose and easy
in the soft exultations of
your breath and your breath.
These are rhythms born of comfort and hidden wonder,
quickened by laughter that never knows
voice but ripples through you with a freedom
deeper than sky, flickering like forgotten stars,
a heartbeat wonder of air twinkling like sudden jewels and then
hushed
subsumed and
absorbed into that next moment, flickering liquid
quick and vivid and real and
once and forever and
gone
as the new hour chimes with steam stretching
wrought iron and a flood of warmth
that reaches out and across this gulf, this
chasm, this measureless space of time and distance
that separates you and with the relentless slow
twist and crawl of new earth rising from the
mantle
and pressing up and out, stretching into
jagged and heroic new ranges that may lie
in darkness, unseen and unexplored, but no less
real
I listen to you turn and you turn and
shift effortlessly into
this newer rhythm of continents drifting toward some
distant horizon these eyes may
never see.

I hear my own breath, frightened and grateful,
to have been delivered here, now, to this

somewhere in the night we pass.

Strength was the word she used
but not the right word
(funny,
the things you notice when
the sky is falling.)

Then suddenly, I felt it build
behind my face, under my
skin
a pressure like blood and air ready to burst
or explode into fine mist
— some
impossible measure of violent force straining to
break free, restrained only
by a thin film of flesh, or the
inability to let
go

11 songs to celebrate a month of spirits and memories.

1. Ghost – Midsummer
Midsummer have been one of my favorite obscure treasures for years, and Ghost gives you an idea why: shimmering guitars, intricate rhythms that grow increasingly complex with the flow of the song, Dale Bryson's plaintive vocals and thoughtful lyrics… it's just a whole lotta lovely. If this tickles your fancy as much as I think it should – and we both know how much I love tickling your fancy – check out some of their other songs on their Facebook page. The fact that it hasn't been updated in… uh… forever gives me the uneasy feeling that they're no longer a going concern, but if that's the case it's a legacy still well worth exploring.

2. Weighty Ghost – Wintersleep
For those of you who may only remember Halifax, NS band Wintersleep from the brilliant and sublimely disturbing video for Insomnia that I posted last November, here's a much different take from the same band: a charming, shuffling ode to the loss of self that takes pleasure in reminding you that – in the end – a ghost just needs a home.

3. Blessed By Your Own Ghost – Elliott
You probably don't own False Cathedrals. You almost certainly should. It's the undisputed high point of Elliott's catalogue, an album completely saturated with a sweeping sense of drama and nigh-overwhelming emotion, where the near-indecipherability of the lyrics does little to diminish the cumulative impact of the music. Whatever: the point is that I want you to love it. I also want you to love me, but for now let's concentrate on Elliott. Baby steps.

4. Midnight Ghost – The Gathering Field
It's a song about a train. As is the case with many songs about trains, it's kind of melancholy and kind of lovely. As is the case with most songs about trains, the train is a metaphor for something more than railed travel. "From this mountain I make my way along the railroad earth…" Bill Deasy sings, as the drums rumble along like wheels moving over railroad ties and the story builds and the guitar begins to reach and strain and gently weep, and in the midst of it all you find yourself transported to someplace both familiar and new. Which is pretty much what you want a song about trains to do.

5. Killing The Ghost – Matthew Ryan
Okay, I'm just about done trying to convince you about Matthew Ryan. This is another great song off his tremendous Matthew Ryan vs. The Silver State, and if you can't find a way to make his broken voice and impeccable sense of melody and remarkable ear for lyrics – "I will carve you from my life/I couldn't care less: it feels all right" – then I'm just going to give up on you altogether. And yes, I know I was just asking you to love me two songs ago. Mercurial is the way I roll.

6. Ghosts Of The Garden City – Caspian
I've been remiss in not singing the praises of the new Caspian album Tertia, and for that I apologize — because it's a towering piece of work. Their previous full-length The Four Trees was one of the best albums of 2007, an epic slab of post-rock that belongs right alongside the best efforts of Explosions in the Sky. Tertia, to my immense relief, is an entirely worthy follow-up. It's… well, this is where words fail me, because it's really difficult to describe how and why the music of lyrics-free post-rock bands like Caspian and EitS and Pelican and Russian Circles (or Mono, for that matter) can be so powerful and moving. So I'll let the song speak for itself. Turn it up to 11 and see where it takes you.

7. Ghosts Of American Astronauts – Trash Can Sinatras
There's nothing about the Trash Can Sinatras that isn't entirely charming, and while this cut from their On A B Road compilation of rarities & live cuts is far from the best thing they ever recorded, it offers a glimpse of the shimmering, harmony-rich musical sunshine that have made them such a beloved part of many people's lives since the late 80s.

8. Except For The Ghosts – Lisa Germano
Last week, I was Twittering Tweeting talking online to Sweetney about sadcore — the morose alt-rock subgenre that's spawned many of my favorite musicians. Afterwards, I realized I'd forgotten to bring up one of my favorite proponents of the style: Lisa Germano, an Indiana native and onetime fiddler for John Mellancamp responsible for crafting an extraordinary array of deeply troubling and often very beautiful music since the release of her debut in 1991. This song, taken from her gorgeous 2006 album In The Maybe World, gives you some idea of what she brings to the table. I recognize that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I can't imagine there'll ever be a time in my life where something like this won't move me.

Alone in the sea
The deeper you go
The letting it be
Except for the ghosts
Except for the memories
Accepting the waves
And waving goodbye

9. Ghosts – Springhouse
Springhouse was an American shoegaze band of the early 90s who produced some very good music – Ghosts comes from their strong Postcards from the Arctic album – but their real legacy lies in the achievements of drummer Jack Rabid. Who is Jack Rabid, you ask? Jack Rabid is the guy behind The Big Takeover, the best damned music magazine in the world. I discovered it about 4 years ago, and it's been a life-changer for me: a music addict's wet dream, with 200+ pages of passionately written articles, interviews and album reviews (hell, that's half the magazine right there) delivered to your home twice a year. Rabid himself writes about half of every issue, too… it's an absolute labor of love. If your musical tastes overlap with mine in any significant way, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you make a place for it in your life.

10. Ghost Key – Isis
Isis is one of the leading lights of the post-Tool/Deftones movement of heavy music for thinking people. If you can get past the cookie monster vocals of the first two minutes, what you'll discover is a truly intricate and complex composition that develops over the course of 8:29 into something really fascinating and worthwhile: music that rattles your windows without sacrificing a single iota of emotional intensity and atmospheric weight. In all honesty, neither Ghost Key nor the album it comes from, Wavering Radiant, is probably the most user-friendly intro to the world of Isis (Holy Tears from In The Absence of Truth probably serves that purpose better)… but give it a listen, and you'll see why the Tool/Deftones comparisons make sense.

11. Ghost Ship Waiting – Mojave 3
The title of the album from which this song comes – Puzzles Like You – is entirely appropriate, as the evolution of Mojave 3 is one of the most fascinating and unexpected that I know. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, Slowdive was (alongside My Bloody Valentine and Ride) part of the holy trinity of shoegaze — a band that generated great washes of sadness and cathedrals of sound on songs like Catch the Breeze and Allison, captured the imagination of the British music press and European audiences, and ultimately petered out after a few years. Not long thereafter, two of Slowdive's key members (singer/songwriter Neil Halstead and vocalist Rachel Goswell) reunited to form a new band called Mojave 3, which – after its a-little-too-Mazzy-Star-sounding debut Ask Me Tomorrow – evolved into some kind of dream pop/country rock/folk music hybrid that produced some of the most consistently excellent albums of the past decade. Goswell split after releasing a fantastic solo album in 2004, but Halstead soldiered on, and in '06 released Puzzles Like You. Which includes Ghost Ship Waiting, a song that recalls nothing so much as the best of the Pernice Brothers: literate, bittersweet lyrics couched in hummable, radio-friendly music that has you tapping your toes (if you're of the toe-tapping persuasion) even as the darker lyrics embed themselves deep in your cerebrum. In just about every way except for Halstead's vocals, it's about a million miles away from Slowdive — but it's no less fascinating for that evolution.

Kevin of Always Home and Uncool asked me to post this as part of his effort to raise awareness in the blogosphere of juvenile myositis, a rare autoimmune disease his daughter was diagnosed with on this day seven years ago. The day also happens to be his wife's birthday. Please join me in wishing her a happy happy one… and in doing the right thing. Read to the end; you'll know what I mean.

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Our pediatrician admitted it early on.

The rash on our 2-year-old daughter's cheeks, joints and legs was something he'd never seen before.

The next doctor wouldn't admit to not knowing.

He rattled off the names of several skins conditions — none of them seemingly worth his time or bedside manner — then quickly prescribed antibiotics and showed us the door.

The third doctor admitted she didn't know much.

The biopsy of the chunk of skin she had removed from our daughter's knee showed signs of an "allergic reaction" even though we had ruled out every allergy source — obvious and otherwise — that we could.

The fourth doctor had barely closed the door behind her when, looking at the limp blonde cherub in my lap, she admitted she had seen this before. At least one too many times before.

She brought in a gaggle of med students. She pointed out each of the physical symptomsin our daughter:

The rash across her face and temples resembling the silhouette of a butterfly.

The purple-brown spots and smears, called heliotrope, on her eyelids.

The reddish alligator-like skin, known as Gottron papules, covering the knuckles of her hands.

The onset of crippling muscle weakness in her legs and upper body.

She then had an assistant bring in a handful of pages photocopied from an old medical textbook. She handed them to my wife, whose birthday it happened to be that day.

This was her gift — a diagnosis for her little girl.

That was seven years ago — Oct. 2, 2002 — the day our daughter was found to have juvenile dermatomyositis, one of a family of rare autoimmune diseases that can have debilitating and even fatal consequences when not treated quickly and effectively.

Our daughter's first year with the disease consisted of surgical procedures, intravenous infusions, staph infections, pulmonary treatments and worry. Her muscles were too weak for her to walk or swallow solid food for several months. When not in the hospital, she sat on our living room couch, propped up by pillows so she wouldn't tip over, as medicine or nourishment dripped from a bag into her body.

Our daughter, Thing 1, Megan, now age 9, remembers little of that today when she dances or sings or plays soccer. All that remain with her are scars, six to be exact, and the array of pills she takes twice a day to help keep the disease at bay.

What would have happened if it took us more than two months and four doctors before we lucked into someone who could piece all the symptoms together? I don't know.

I do know that the fourth doctor, the one who brought in others to see our daughter's condition so they could easily recognize it if they ever had the misfortune to be presented with it again, was a step toward making sure other parents also never have to find out.

That, too, is my purpose today.

It is also my birthday gift to my wife, My Love, Rhonda, for all you have done these past seven years to make others aware of juvenile myositis diseases and help find a cure for them once and for all.

To read more about children and families affected by juvenile myositis diseases, visit Cure JM Foundation at www.curejm.org.

To make a tax-deductible donation toward JM research, go to www.firstgiving.com/rhondaandkevinmckeeveror www.curejm.com/team/donations.htm.

About a month ago, my son decided that he wanted to be – more than anything in the world – Green Lantern for Hallowe'en. More precisely, he wanted to be Green Lantern from the Justice League Unlimited DVD series that is currently serving as video-based crystal meth for all three of my kids.

And so, in my ongoing quest to enable my children to be all they can be… I dutifully went ahead and tracked down a kid-sized Green Lantern costume online, and ordered it.

Today, when we came home from school, it was awaiting on our front doorstep.

My son was thrilled when I opened the package and revealed its contents to him — he couldn't get it on fast enough. Granted, it's about twice as big as he is (note to self: don't order one size up next time), but he didn't care. He was a fake-muscled dude in black and emerald, with a cool Green Lantern logo on the middle of his chest and a new belief in his heart that he could fly.

For a moment, he was crestfallen to discover that the costume didn't include a Green Lantern power ring. I can hardly blame him for this, as the ring is for all intents and purposes the source of Green Lantern's power. But once he moved past that disappointment, he grabbed hold of the costume's cardboard packaging and studied it carefully, comparing it against his own costume, projecting himself onto the tall, strong, confident Green Lantern he'd watched on TV and now saw on the cardboard before him. His smile growing broad. His eyes growing full with wonder and joy.

And then, something else caught his eye. He looked at the picture, then looked down at himself. Then looked at the picture again, and finally looked at me.

"Daddy," he asked, his voice clear and earnest, his eyes wide and guileless, "Can I paint my face black now?"