I Jumped

The other day my brother sent me a video of Steve Harvey talking about talent and jumping.

A friend of mine who is a writer sent me an open call for submissions for New Reader Magazine. I have been going back and forth about submitting with them. I read and reread the submission requirement. And than read again. It did not say in what format they would accept the submission.

I hemmed and hawed over sending an email. Checked with a couple of friends who have done submissions as to what the standard was. I use Evernote and Google Docs. I sat here last evening and once more went to the site to again reread the requirements.

I did it though. I sent off an email and text my brother that I had done it. He wanted to know how it felt to jump. I laughed and had to explain I had only done a small jump. Now I needed to wait for the response. Figured that I would not hear from them until today. My email notification went off a few times but I ignored it. Than I didn’t and I looked.

They had responded! Although they preferred MS Word or PDF they would accept Google Docs. (Turns out that I could send as an email attachment and it converts to PDF.)

One of the requirements is that the work be unpublished any where else. And I wrote a poem yesterday that is different again from what I usually write. Mind you I don’t really have a category. I chewed on my thumb as I hemmed and hawed again. You can sense a theme here can you not?

T was here for the night so I asked him if I could read him the poem. He said sure mom. And listened to me. Than asked me if I had indeed made that up. I said yes I had written it. Oh, well it sounds like something from the 1700, 1800’s you know when they had like dragons and things.

First off yes I wrote the poem. Secondly dragons were not real. Do I wish that they were you bet that I do. However they are not. And it sounds nothing like the poetry of the 17 or 1800’s.

Still uncertain I asked him what he thought of it besides the above items. And he assured me that it was good.

The second requirement. A 50-150 word author biography. So I wrote one. And agonized over it because I don’t know what to say about myself. So after I wrote it I again went to my sounding board. T. And he assured me that it was perfect.

I wrote the email. I was very short and to the point. Not because I had nothing to say but  because I either over say things or present them in a flowery manner. Got it all ready and sat here looking at the send button.

Finally I looked over at T and asked if he wanted to come and watch me push the send button. He looked at me as though I might be a little weird but came and sat next to me. And I pressed the send button.

I am putting myself out there. This is not the norm for me. And now I wait.

I jumped. And my brother is the one who gave me the courage to do so.

****Brother of mine if you read this the above statement does not entitle you to any bouts of the ‘I told you so’ crowing that I just know I will hear.  Thank you Bro.

Parent=Antithesis of Cool

***Picture is mine taken Aug. 19/17 my bro and nephews.***

There is literally only one thing that any older sibling wants to do in their lifetime. And that is to crush an illusion that a younger sibling holds so that they are unable to ever hold onto it again. Last night I got to do just that with my baby bro. With the help of his children.  Apparently he has been suffering under the delusion that he is cool.

You read that right.

My 38 year old brother, father of 3 teenagers, believed he was cool. You will notice the past tense I am using.

Myself, my nephews and my niece, disabused him of that notion.

The conversation started off innocently enough. He had been texting me while I was at work and once I got home and settled we continued to talk. He was having a great evening with his therapist Wayne. Wayne Gretzky that is. Apparently the great one makes rye. Who knew?

First he thought that he could trick me. We were having a conversation about spelling. He told me he was a great speller. I informed him that auto-correct does not count towards his ability to spell. D than said to me ‘go ahead, give me any word and I can spell it correctly.’

At some point time in his life, D fell under the belief that he could trick me. Thus far, I have a score of about 1000 to his 0. My response, ‘dude if I give you the word it will already be spelled correctly and you will just copy it.’

I am sure he was sitting in the corner of his couch chortling away, thinking that he had finally caught me out.

Than he did something that drives me absolutely nuts. He began to shorten words and misspell them. When you are a writer that is enough to drive the knife in and twist it. I finally corrected his spelling and was informed that this is a new thing that the kids are doing these days. Shortening words. Cool lingo.

As far as I am concerned they just look illiterate.

I love my niece and nephews. I love my son. But they are kids. And kids are assholes. They think that they know everything and anything. I know this because I once was a kid. I was the biggest asshole around.

When I informed my bro of the fact that he just looked illiterate, he laughed and said ‘doesn’t matter I am still cool.’ I nearly fell off the couch I was laughing so hard. It is a good thing that I can type through tears because they were threatening to fall as I howled.

I made him ask his children if they thought he was cool. I also let him know that if they did say he was cool, they were liars. ‘You are a parent. You are the antithesis of cool.’

D asked. His children broke his heart. At 38 years of age, D must finally reconcile the facts. He is no longer cool. His children and me, we are cruel creatures he informed me. Crushing his dreams. All I could get out of him was that the kids told him ‘dad is not cool.’

It had to be done. D could not be allowed to suffer under this delusion any longer. After crushing his coolness dream, we discussed our weirdness. And how that is just who we were. And how it is kinda cool to be weird. But the kids cannot see that because to them normal is ‘cool.’

So with our weird freaks flying free D and me, we are cool. It is the kids that are not.