Too Much You?

I’m not sure exactly what it is about the World We Live In today that suggests to us that we need to be careful, oh-so-careful, about the way that we speak, but naturally I have my own thoughts on it.

When I was “in the system”, growing up with a public-school education in the US, I was taught to:

• Follow the rules.
• Stay inside the lines.
• Not be too “informal” or “too much”.

This type of teaching was drilled into me with a deeper and deeper intensity the further into my education I went.  By the time I was in one of the country’s top universities, I was terrified of letting any of my actual personality out for fear that I’d break some sort of rule and be forced out.

Turns out this absolute soul-languishing experience, combined with my own incidental inability to conform, gave me enough bad grades for long enough that they politely asked me to pursue my academic exploits elsewhere.  Preferably somewhere that wouldn’t lead me back to them.

For the first time in my adult life I had made a decision based on who I was.  It was a real lesson.

An art degree gave me fulfilment I hadn’t yet known, but corporate life made that but a fond memory.

Years on, and yet another job with too much corporate rammed up its ass, and I really started to wilt.  Not long after that, I was doing what I should’ve always been doing:

My Own Thing.

So I was launched into the world as my own entity.  My own business where I made all the decisions, where I was the only gatekeeper on what was put “out there” into the world.

About 4 minutes after I launched my first company website, I heard those words again.

“Too informal” and “too much”.

I had to politely remind that I’m me, this was my website, and I’d have on it whatever I damn well pleased.

I also had to remind, myself included, that if the deal-breaker with a potential client was the fact that I wrote like I talk, like I think and like I act, then I was probably far better off without that client in my life anyway.

Years later, and I’ve revised my business and its offerings to something a bit different, and another iteration of the website has happened.  About 4 minutes after this one launched, a friend once again politely snuck those words in there again.

“Too informal” and “too much”.

I made the point once again, with my foot planted a little firmer in front of me this time, that if people didn’t like how I said what I have to say, then they are doing me a favour by not including themselves in my life.

We're all just people.

Clients are still people, and it still costs me a little bit of my soul to have to interact with them when I strongly dislike them (or they, me).  What amount of money is worth your soul, even a little bit of it?  (hint: don’t answer that unless you’re my brother)

Wouldn’t you want people who like you, who you in turn like, to engage you and your services?  Wouldn’t you rather deal with people that you get along with, that sought you out and chose you over the others because you’re YOU and no one else?

Everyday people engage in something that feeds their soul.  They happily part with their hard-earned dough to go to movies and listen to music and read books that are all almost completely made up of someone’s personality.  Purely (usually) and honestly (they try to, I'm pretty sure), nearly 100% THEM is boxed up and put out there and people gobble it up because they like it.

Why should someone trying to sell a website be any different?  Or a laywer?  Or a funeral director?  Or an accountant?

Alright, maybe not an accountant.  Heh.

But still, why should you be any different when you’re putting yourself out there?  When you’re running your own company and you’re the one making all the decisions and you’re the one trying to sell yourself and your services to folks you don’t know… wouldn’t you rather just be you, and know that you’re successful because of that?

I suppose if you think about it, that’s success in and of itself.

I’ll never speak corporate again, on my business’s website or on a client’s behalf.  It may not be proven that it helps or hurts, but I sure don’t think it’s worth the risk.

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.

I’ll have the bowling shoes one.

Inspiration, perspiration, aspiration, flatulation.

All very exciting "ations" and I find myself thinking about each this warm and windy morning.  The baby's gotten up at his usual 5:30 AM (5:28 to be exact and it should be known that he's never more than 8 minutes off despite how late we keep him up or when we feed him) and I find myself unusually awake.  And thinking about the past few weeks/months.

I get these cartoons emailed to me.  They're one-frame bits of awesome that are hard to describe other than to say this Irish-American fella is named Hugh, used to scribble on napkins and matchbooks for fun in bars while he sold his soul for The Man, and now he just draws these for a living.

The first one that really got me this week was this one:

I'd just spent the entire previous day trying to successfully integrate some web code that is probably not only above my (former) pay grade, but something that only an idiot would take on willingly.

Just to go powernerd on you for a bit, I've got a PHP script, running off of a CRON job, that pulls people's Google Analytics data via the Google Analytics API, then matches the on-page visitor statistics with a screenshot of the page that's generated dynamically from a Windows-based executable running on a Linux machine and emails you a dynamically-generated PDF.  All of this is a really, really nerdy way of saying, "you get your web stats emailed to you with pretty pictures and easy-to-understand graphs."

It's pretty slick.  It's something that I don't think anyone is doing.  I'M doing it.  And I'm doing it because I think it's cool, I think people need it, and I want to make the web a better place.  I'll spend over 100 hours on this by the time it's ready and I haven't even thought about what to charge for it (if at all?).

Looking at our feeble bank account balance and wondering for the 437th time if it's really worth subjecting my family to poverty merely to subject them to my constant presence at home, I wasn't feeling so hot.  Then this email popped in, with the cartoon above in it, and I felt instantly lighter, more capable.  Real.

I Cannot

Only a day or so later, I was having one of those moments you have when your kids are on School Holidays and have done that annoying thing that you hate with the burning intensity of a thousand white-hot suns and they've done it for the 863rd time in 4 days and you're trying your best to channel Bob Ross and his Happy Trees and you're counting backward from 10 while breathing deeply because you know, deep in your core, that you can't treat people as if they're you any more.

Yeah, one of those moments.

Not a "Parental Crisis" or any silly bullshit like that, just a moment where I was genuinely wondering where I was going wrong in my parenting that I couldn't get my goddam kid to just STOP doing that thing that I hate.

But the breathing helps, and the counting helps, and the Trying to Be a Better Man sure helps, so when you're at the end of it, you're left wondering what influence you DO have.

Then this pops in:

From this email, which may or may not have been Steve Jobs-inspired (though that really doesn't matter), and I realised that all the greatest teachers I ever had in my life never told me to do a damn thing, they simply suggested ways of doing something and let me think my way through the rest.

I reckon that's about the best I can do for my children.

Oh, and kick the footy around the park and tell poo jokes and make the best pancakes in the entire universe.

Life is Short

Friday hit and wife and I had just survived probably one of the best endings to a School Holiday our children could've had given our financial situation and I was feeling just a little bit good about myself and the idea of saying "hell with it" and just doing something in life because it was good to do it.

These words aren't new, they aren't even terribly quote-worthy, but they are all 100% beautifully true.

Life is short, so live it the best that you can.  If that means quitting your job and eschewing that hideous beast known as "rush hour traffic" in favour of squealing 8-year olds in too-big bowling shoes, then DO IT.

For all the issues, problems, obstacles and shitstorms that the lack of finances brings, I've never regretted my life choices for one single, solitary second.

And I'll bet you a dollar I never will.

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.

Quotable Quotes

Facebook and Twitter are flooded with it, as is the rest of the internet, and this makes me hesitate to use throw around some of his quotes, his words of wisdom and heart.

But dammit, that's a pretty damn stupid reason not to say something, especially if it's a really GOOD something.  I'm all for being original, but I'm all for following your heart too.  Sometimes, they're the same, but not always.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

- Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, June 2005

I had a friend once, somebody that I liked and only saw every couple of years, somebody that was somebody else's friend and therefore I always questioned our friendship a bit.  As in, "do they really like me, or just feel obliged?"

This friend put together a list of great quotes once with everything from Ani Difranco to "Land Before Time" and I was enjoying them until I got to one that said:

Trust your gut.  Think of all the times you've been in trouble in your life.  If you hadn't listened to it, you'd be dead.  Let your head act as advisor to your heart and your gut.  Do that, and you'll be alright.

I liked that one, though it was eerily familiar.  Then I figured out why.

It's mine.

The Lesson is a Simple One.

And I don't know how many other places say it, and I don't know how many other times you've read it, and I don't know how many times I saw it and heard it and watched it and felt compelled by it and ignored it anyway.

Live your own life as exactly who you are.

That's it.  Shit, even "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" managed to have George Carlin telling us to "be excellent to each other."

There's simple messages everywhere, most are epically awesometastic, and we just need to pluck up our goddam courage and adhere to them.

Or better yet.  Do one of the best things you could ever do for your own life.

Write your own.

Good luck.

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.

Why I’m Sleepy

Been a while since I've just sat down and blogged a bit. The mood may or may not strike me during my week, but these days it really sucks to think that the urge to find a way, ANY way, to sleep, is one of the main motivating factors in my day.

See, my poor wifeage has a weird-connective-tissue-rare thingie as well as other odd stuff-and-things in her bones and all, and they sometimes (almost all the time) cause her some pain.  This pain is usually only handled by something that's either illegal or should be.  And it knocks her out.  Such to the point that she's not able to pull her creaking and hurting body out of a nice bed in the middle of the night and make a bottle for our boy.  Plus, it appears that the li'l bugger's gone and went Lactose Intolerant.

FUN.  Breastmilk and standard formula both make him cry and wiggle and hurt, and since we don't like that shit around these parts, we try to keep him healthy but unhurty and the Lactose-Free formula is all there is.

All Mothers Should Get Their Own Day... I Mean MONTH

Personally, the "Y" chromosome in me now has a whole different opinion on women who do all the feeding during these, the early months.  The inner Man in me reckons all you chicks should get presents on your offsprings' birthdays and a friggin' CAR when they turn 18, they should get a pat on the ass and a "go get 'em Tiger" while you shove 'em out the door.

The Sensative New-Age Guy in me reckons that Wifeage had to get fat, not drink or have any fun and have somebody do interpretative dance on her bladder and spine for months.

MONTHS.  Friggin' holyhell MONTHS.

Months of All The Time, mind you.  No breaks.  No days off.  Constant.

So, we had a talk and it was decided that I'd be the one to get up at night with the rugrat.  I wear it as a badge of honour, not only so that I can look my incredible li'l Love Muffin in the eye and feel like I'm doing anything even remotely CLOSE to "my part in all this" (aside from the fun bits, BOY were they fun), but also for the bonding that takes place in the middle of the night.

Infant cries out, though really he just grunts a lot and nomnoms on his own hand usually, but he's quite noisy about it, so I wake.  He's seeking not only comfort and solace from the cold, dark night but something to fill his empty tummy.  I heat up a pre-made bottle (wife does this out of some misplaced sense of obligation, whereas she should really be waiting for a footrub while I do it) and cuddle my little guy.  He snuggles in, roots around and...

comes up with a mouthful of chest hair.

BOY does he get pissed too.  I've learned to either wear a shirt or just lay him in bed with me and cuddle him sideways.  If he gets dug in, your nipples can really pay the price.

But yeah, I love the idea that he'll always know, even on a primal biological level, that daddy isn't somebody that just went out and killed mammoths.  I like that idea.

So... he eats every 3 hours, or thereabouts, and I don't get much sleep.  If I do, it's broken sleep and my dreams haven't been very dreamy for a while.  They usually fuel the aspirations of my day, or at least make my writing or creative exploits more interesting.

Infants Take All Your Time... Because They're Awesome

I'm on Baby Leave, from a generous system here in Oz, and I'm not working currently.  Which means I've got heaps of time right?  I've planned on using this time to:

1. Finish Book Number One - Editing and revising is a beeyatch, but I want this sucker perfect before I put it out there in the world.
2. Revamp Jex Analytics - I ditched SEO as a bill-payer and am now onto more noble pursuits in the realm of Analytics & Reporting (what I really wanted to do all along, hence the business name).  I'm building neat thigns with the Google Analtyics API, which is geekspeak for "I'm going to make it really, really easy for you to know how your website works."  STOKED.
3. Finish and Launch Page Buoy - Sparked from what originally got me writing a novel, I built a website For Writers, Of Writers, that will help them all hook up with each other and inspire each other to finish their novels in as awesome a fashion as possible.
4. Finish and Launch Have a Good Website - A simple look at what you need to do to have a website that works for you or your business, no matter what you do.
5. Finish Book Number Two - Halfway through and I'm stalled out.  Bleah.
6. Start and Finish Book Number Three - The Sequel to Book Number One is just natural.  Outlines are great, but it's time to get this sucker fleshy.
7. Write more here and in www.juddexley.com - Just because I like to keep in touch, even if some of the f-word people that I am trying to keep in touch with don't really seem to care.

Of these, I've managed to do one of them.  ONE.  Page Buoy is up and rockin' and it nearly killed me.  It most certainly left stacks of dishes in the sink and a wife wondering if I even liked her any more.

I do, so there.  In fact, I like her a whole bunch, so the rest of these may just have to wait.

Yet I Still Manage To Go Out and Hurt Myself

All this on top of my already numerous hobbies like swordfighting and showfighting with The Grey Company, playing goalie on a Monday Inline Hockey League, building my own armour, brewing my own beer and hooch, playing with my other 3 yardapes, playing on any of my 6 guitars, or just mucking about on Facebook or the Author's Forums where we all talk about writing and how hard it is...

It's quite a full plate.

Not to mention that we got a new car (well, used, but new to us) when a client traded me a website for a 1993 BMW 520i (I KNOW) which is basically the nicest fkn car I've ever even sat in, my other car leaks from every gasket and seal, including the wind screen, and the truck caught fire.

Yep, melted a bunch of wiring, good times.

Houses Are Hard To "Keep"... Friggin' Things

The lawn is overgrown because the mower is broken and the guy I hired to do it won't return my calls.  My garage roof leaks and a bunch of my armour and hockey shit gets wet every time it rains.  It's winter here, it rains a lot.

I keep the kids as fed as I can and dream of being able to hook up the dishwasher in the buggery that is our kitchen plumbing, I love the little fish on my desk (thank you again Wifage) and the GI Joes guarding them.  I'm active in the Web Industry here in town (now an Australian Web Industry Assocation Committee Member) and I help run Chess Club on Fridays at the kids' school.

I also struggle to keep up with clients that are wondering what they hell they're supposed to do now, as well as the new "fun" projects that I keep coming up with like helping out the Perth Thunder, the Australian Ice Hockey League's newest semi-pro team.

Far out.

To be perfectly honest, I think I wrote that all out just so that I could keep track myself.  It's pretty difficult to extricate the ol' cranium via rectum these days, as you can clearly see, this is about the best I got.

Smooches for reading, I hope your toes are warm and curl when you eat yummy cheese and red wine.

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.

Well *I* think he’s a big effing deal.

I'm not sure what happened, but somewhere along the line I think I "faded out" of people's conscious thoughts.  Out of sight, out of mind, and when you move 10,000 miles away from "home", you are definitely out of sight.

I kept an online presence though, a website that I could keep up with that would keep folks up with me.  It started out as www.juddexley.com where I put pictures and videos of my adorable children, but that site has evolved into something that's a bit more Authory since I'm being an author now.

This site, this Judd Hole, was originally my place of refuge, where I could use no "real" names and talk about things as freely as I liked.  I could tell stories about work without fear of being "dooced" and I could talk about my life and relationships without worrying about anybody getting the wrong idea.  So much of what we tell people these days has to be so fucking sugar-coated and finessed and cut-to-fit that we end up losing the goddam message.

Well this was my place to deliver that message.

Then, I grew up a little.  I realised that I can't just have one place where I say "Jade is so cute!" and another where I say "that fucko at my kid's school needs his ass kicked".

Sadly, that "growing up" meant that the posts about asskickings had to go.

But did it?

Well, I wanted a place to talk about writing, and books, and publishing, and e-books, and reviews and all things Writery.  Well, my name is my "brand" so it had to be the other place.  This, by default, had to be where I could put the videos and the "oh isn't he cute" stuff.  My MOM is always cool here, but my dad?  Hmmm... my stepmom?  My Gramma Genie?  My Aunt Becky and my cousin Sarah?

Uffda, now it's getting complicated.  Who's reading?!?  And even more importantly, what are they thinking when they're reading it!??!

Oh dear.  Oh my.  Where to from here?  Self-censorship for fear of offense?

Um, yeah.  Not really my style.

I'm sorry, genuinely sorry, Gramma Genie, that I use language that I'm sure you don't approve of.  I really do apologise if some of the things that I say will offend your sensibilities.  I trust that you know though, that you raised a good man with a good heart and nothing but the best of intentions.  Regardless of the shape they take when exiting my mouth (fingers?), my words are only meant to make the world a better place, as my heart longs for nothing more.  You taught me how to be happy in my heart when I was very small, and I've taken that with me.

Mom, Dad, Becky, Sarah and even my misbegotten brother David... you're all welcome to read and interpret and judge me accordingly, though I dearly hope you'll raise questions and approach me if you think anything untoward.

See, the thing is, I'm pretty pissed off right now.

Actually, not pissed off, I'm just fucking hurt.

I don't know what you know about my children, but the fact is that the older two aren't biologically mine.  They're mine in their hearts, but I wasn't here when they were babies, and that sucks.  I got a chance to make one of my own, from scratch, and I find her pretty damn awesome.  As far as we were concerned, she was my only shot at that, so I was pretty pleased.

Then we went for another, against some odds and without any solid reasoning beyond we "just felt it was right".  There was some minor and very subtle opposition from just about every member of wife's family (except for Nic!) and my family was ambivalent as always (except for Granbo!).

It now seems like only a month or two ago that we announced we were pregnant, and then that he was a boy!  It was all so exciting that I've lost track of a lot of the details, but I know that the folks that had anything to say about the excitement are/were the same ones that are saying anything now.

And now that he's born and here and awesome and chewing on my shirt right now looking for a boob, not very many people are saying much.

So we didn't do the whole come-see-the-fluidretainy-tired-and-blergh lady in hospital.  We asked that everybody stay the eff away for a few days while me positively mooned over our new baby boy.  I sent out texts, emails and updated Facebook.  I felt like I put enough word out there, and some folks have been positively amazing.

But then the feelings start to trickle in.

Like how I feel about the fact that my wife called her mum out about how she acted like an absolute twat at Christmas (which was at our house) and how her mum then ceased all contact with us and her grandchildren.  The kids used to go stay there at least once a month or so, and it's been 5 months since they've seen any of them.  We've only just found out recently that Jo's mum is claiming WE'RE the ones that have kept the children from her.  Yadda yadda, bullshit ensues... and cleanup is about as fun as you think it would be.

Not that we're counting the "congrats" or anything, but Jo's family has been remarkably slow and unexpected in this.  Slow in that her next-youngest brother could barely be bothered staying in the hospital room and ended up acting like a 10-year old and her youngest brother only made mention of the new baby in some convoluted Facebook message with no mention of "congratulations".  Unexpected in that her sister and brother-in-law (the dry and sardonic doctor) have been WONDERFUL.  Seriously, vunderbar, and we've loved it.  Nic, sis-in-law, as always, has been awesome.

But yeah, less than excited greetings and thus far, NOBODY has brought a gift of any kind for him.  I'm not going to be silly about this, and yes I recognise that his cousins brought a lovely attitude and home-made cards (which meant huge things to us), but isn't it customary to visit somebody in the hospital with a teddy bear or a flower or a balloon?

We didn't get one fucking balloon.

That said, my mother, whom I have called "Mombo" and the kids "Granbo" for as long as I can remember, cleverly shipped a package from the US weeks in advance, so that it got here about 2 days after young Andrew was born.  Well... Hell Fucking Yeah.  Way to go Granbo!  A hand-written (caligraphy) card and a hand-knitted baby blanket.  What a fkn legend my mom is.

Know what else we got?  A hand-made quilt, complete with a poem about stars and stripes and the southern cross and it was FUCKING LOVELY.  This was before he was even born.  A few days later, we got another little patterned blankie and some bibs and a hand-made card with little stick figure drawings of all of the Exley family.

Guess who all this was from... that's right.  Sandra, from Grey Company.

Yes, the sweet little gal from my medieval nerd re-enactment troupe.  She's basically outshone every single member of me and Jo's families, with the exception of my mother.

WOW.

My father apparently didn't receive the emails where I announced his name (which was late, mind you, because it took a day or so) and his only email talked more about he and my stepmom's upcoming camping plans than about my new baby boy.  My brother emailed me and left a comment here, mentioning something about how we need to catch up via email because "it's cheap" but made NO MENTION of my new baby boy.  His wife is on my Facebook and said NOTHING about the baby until she chimed in on my "No Way I'm Circumcising My Boy" thread with, quite simply, "please get it done".  Nothing else.  No congrats.  NOTHING.

I've been to my medieval swordfighting nerd outings and to a couple of webnerd industry meetings, and at each I was roundly given handshakes and "congratulations".  Chrissakes, the gal at the school canteen where I used to volunteer gave me a hug and asked me all about how we came up with his name.

I guess I'm left wondering what the fuck happened.  I think he's a big fucking deal, and I've all but quit work for the next few months just to enjoy him and learn him and help wife bring him into this wonderful world.

I guess I just wonder what he means to everybody else.  Because I have the feeling that this kid is going to be bigger than anything else I've done (with the possible exception of his more-in-your-face older sister) and I wonder if I've made such a forgettable mark in people's lives that they'd treat this as if it's my favourite footy team winning the Grand Final.

Not looking for anything by writing this, other than catharsis that is, but I'm just genuinely perplexed by the majority of reactions to something that I have found veritably life-changingly profoundly fucking HUGE.

His name is Andrew James Exley.  He's small and curly and farts and looks like his mother in the eyes and me around the mouth and we both think he's the most beautiful thing we've ever done together.

I think he's worth a bit of a fuss.

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.