STEP INSIDE MY KIMONO: One of the things I wrestle with, blog-wise, is this: Seems like the most compelling blogs -- heck, the most compelling art projects of any stripe -- often deal rather directly with dysfunction, with tragedy, with conflict. They open up the kimono, so to speak, and let the readers in on their innermost fears, struggles, hopes, dreams, and other sundry important stuff. The creators let you see their stretch marks and smell their natural musk, right? It can get ugly under there!

At the same time, it's just not my style to peel the onion in such a public forum. I know who my few readers are -- friends, family, the handful of random rabble-rousers that wandered in from a Google search and happened to stick around -- and I simply don't feel comfortable asking 'em all in to fold my dirty laundry with me, let alone to peel my onions or share my kimono. Heck, many of you are my dirty laundry, my onions, etc., and you shouldn't have to find that out on some webpage...

My intention here, most of the time, is simply to entertain and/or titillate. To entertain myself, first and foremost, through the exercise of writing; and to entertain those precious few (you) who are kind enough to reward me with two seconds of browsing time during your days and nights. (And those of you that actually write comments, you have no idea how nice it is not only to be read, but to be digested and regurgitated in some small way. Writers are like hungry little birds waiting for a mouthful from any wayward bird with a beak of worms. Mama!)

And so I keep things relatively light in here, or at least I steer clear of parting my kimono any lower than navel-level, right? Sure. I do. You know it. I rarely even tease with my innermost thoughts, let alone all-out flash 'em at you.

But I do have this recurring thing, this thing that needs some third-party input. Here I am right now, in my life, at the place I always wanted to arrive at. Wife. Sons. House. Throw in a couple rescued dogs and I'm set. Set. But it won't hold still, this life. It wants me to travel, to work, to fly and flux and such. It has no time for dogs right now. It leaves me clinging to the edges of my family life like a man on the outermost horse on a willy-nilly merry-go-round.

I just can't figure out how to slow things down enough so that I can loosen my grip a bit, so that I can have enough time and attention for the things I love and have enough money for the things I need. I know this is not a novel lament. But beyond solving my mortality -- and I've mostly given up on that -- this issue of how to make the most of my fleeting time is my holy grail right now.

Perhaps the only way to solve this is to do what I advise others all the time: Surrender the problem to the universe and wait for an answer to materialize.

Hmmm...

The way that has worked for me in the past is that I start out by visualizing the solution, the endpoint. And then my life, quite often, just starts to Ouija its way in the right direction. Eureka! My first challenge lies in actually visualizing what success will look like. That's why I've felt so muddy about it. I just can't see it yet. Okay. I can handle this.

By the way...anybody wants to weigh in, I'd love to hear how you're solving this riddle. Feel free to open up your kimono in the Comments.