I've been thinking about putting together a podcast for a while. I have a ton of ideas, probably too many, and I still need to settle on an exact format. While I'm trying to figure all that out, I'm trying to participate in as many other projects as I can to get the hang of the whole process.

I've been given a generous offer to join Robert Merrill, Thom Allen and Matt Reinbold on The Couchcast this Monday to interview Dave Fletcher, CTO for the State of Utah. I can only assume I've been included as comic relief.

Hopefully the joke isn't on me. Be sure to tune in and find out.

"I remember when I found out Donny and Marie were brother and sister
and not husband and wife. I was shocked. Like finding out Santa Claus
wasn't real."

Donna and our two oldest girls are taking a road trip to Disneyland this week. Megan's dance company will be shaking their booties at the Magic Kingdom as part of their mission to spread their message of Miley Cyrus-inspired tween hoochiness around the world.

It should be a fun weekend of overpriced food, long lines and miles of endless walking between rides for them.

But you want to know the best part about their trip? Since they are taking my mother along, my house will actually be The Happiest Place on Earth.

Marie is almost nine. Her friend, Kelly, is also nine. Marie and Kelly claim to have counted over a thousand other things they have in common, in addition to being nine. They are totally BFF.

On Saturday, the friendship was tested. As was my patience. And my Zoloft. Let me, if I may, give away the ending to this story. All three passed the test but it was sketchy there for a bit.

The morning was spent, as a lot of Saturday mornings are spent, with Marie and Kelly on the phone. There's always a lot of whispering and giggling and that sort of thing but they seemed to be scheming something in particular this time. Somewhere around ten o'clock, Marie came bouncing down the stairs asking where her shoes were.

"We're going to dinner at my parents' for my mom's birthday tonight."

"How sober do you need me to be?"

"A little bit sober. Just take a Xanax and I'll let you sit in the

...read the rest...

Cindy, our twelve-year-old, is a bit of a mother hen. She can be frequently found in the kitchen standing over an open peanut-butter jar asking the younger girls in her best preschool teacher voice, "do you want this on white or wheat bread?" Or shooing Beth into the bathroom to scrub the boogers off her face and fix her ponytail.

Like a miniature mommy clone, she makes lists and makes beds, bustling about from one chore to the next. Usually helping the other girls with homework and cleaning while neglecting her own. At first glance, one might think she is the leader of her little gang of monkeys. A field general. And in a way, she is. Certainly the younger girls see it that way. Though I'm not sure she does.

I think she sees herself as needing to overachieve for us or we'll be somehow disappointed. She's a pleaser. Never fully satisfied with herself because she sees herself as never meeting other peoples' expectations.

Lookie! I'm a guest writer over at Real Mental. Now that I've got that out of the way, on to the business at hand.

I called my friend Hyphen the other day to cancel on some plans we made several weeks ago. We had planned to double-date to the Ben Folds concert last night. But as it turns out, I'm a total idiot and completely forgot to buy tickets.

Some friend I am.

I've had a few of you ask how I'm feeling since I started on the crazy pills.

I'm reminded of when my mother had her hysterectomy. When we picked her up from the hospital I asked her if she was feeling OK. She looked at me quizzically for a moment before finally muttering flatly, "I don't feel anything. Not happy. Not sad. Not anything."

That's me. I don't really feel much of anything. I think that's basically the point though. Isn't it?

The past few weeks have found me struggling, and mostly failing, to stay out from under a fairly heavy malaise. Simply functioning has been painful at times. At work, I've been hard-pressed to perform at the level for which I'm generously compensated. At home, I'm not even coasting. At night, I drag myself through the motions but fail to follow through.

Falling short in my personal and professional performance leads to feelings of failure and shame. The failure and shame inevitably leads to more feelings of remorse and defeat. And thus the cycle turns. What it doesn't bring are those manic, desperate artistic outbreaks like you see in movies.

So I finally got my sorry ass back into my therapist and took his advice to get myself some crazy pills. And by took his advice I mean that I told him I was doing it and that I needed some advice on staying conscious during a trip to my physician's office. He told me to stop being such a pussy and make the appointment.