I love it when a plan comes together

After just a few days of making revisions, my original manuscript for Naked Snow Angels is barely recognizable. I have become so consumed with writing this new version that I spent nearly twelve hours working on it yesterday alone. But as I lay in bed last night, more and more ideas kept popping into my mind, causing me to toss and turn until about 4:00am when I finally decided to get out of bed and get my thoughts down on paper. I grabbed my notebook, plotted out the second half of the book including a new ending, and went back to bed in time to watch the sun rise through our bedroom window.

This book has taken over my life. I know my kids need more attention from me, but I rationalize away any guilt for their neglect by reminding myself that I have been staying at home with them for over two years now. They could probably use a break from me for a little while. When Bethany asks, "When are you gonna get off that computer and spend some time with your family?" I remind her that if I ever sell this book, the royalty checks will be my first contribution to our finances since May 2008. "Well then quit talking to me and get back to work!"

Yes dear.

Book Report

I am happy to report to my many tens of fans that after a lengthy delay, progress on my book Naked Snow Angels is coming along quite nicely. After the first draft of the manuscript was completed back in the waning days of winter, I set aside the work and put it out of my mind for awhile in order to be able to attack it from a fresh perspective later. As spring and the beginning of summer came and went, I struggled to find the ideal format for telling my story. This week, I finally made a breakthrough.

You may recall from my past updates that when I first decided to write a book, I grappled with the notion of writing a purely fictional novel. (I have two unfinished manuscripts saved on my hard drive that will likely never see the light of day.) Somehow, a novel felt contrived and artificial, so I gave up the idea--for now. Next, I attempted to compile a collection of essays gleaned from my blog and from the two aborted novels. The result was a mish-mash of disconnect that left me scratching my head searching for any rhyme or reason to my yammerings. Eventually I came to realize that by re-ordering my essays, what I had actually written was really a pretty decent memoir. However, I wasn't comfortable with the notion of a 38 year old, relatively unknown person writing his life's story. It seemed like a bit of a stretch to believe anyone would want to read it. As an acquaintance once quipped when I told her I was writing my memoir, "Honey, you haven't been alive long enough. That'll be one short story."

My immediate response was, "I've done a lot of livin' in 38 years." My more reasoned response has taken up until this week to formulate. I have begun re-writing my "memoir" in a completely new way. To my knowledge, a book has never been written in the manner that I have decided upon, so if I'm right, I am currently writing a truly original style of book. Of course I can't tell you what that style is just yet. Suffice it to say, of the myriad variations of memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies that have ever been written, I have found no examples using the exact device that I have implemented for my book. There are a few books out there that are somewhat similar, but I believe I've come up with a novel twist (pun intended).

So stay tuned, my loyal followers. Your devotion and patience will be rewarded soon. I expect to have the manuscript completed by the end of summer and will then begin the process of trying to get it published. Any help you can provide in that department would be greatly appreciated.

An open letter to our house

Dear Mr. (or Mrs.) House,

I can't help but notice that you seem to be mad at us. What exactly did we do to deserve such rude treatment from you? For starters, you decided that we don't need air conditioning during this most unpleasantly hot and humid Missouri summer. In my humble opinion, the Naughtons have done nothing to you that would justify cooking us alive within your walls. Rude. Second, you sabotaged the clothes dryer, forcing us to hang-up our damp unmentionables out of doors in the stifling heat. That's plain mean. Next, you cracked the shower head in our bathroom, making it almost impossible to take a cooling shower in a vain effort to stave off heat stroke after hanging laundry all day. All of these things are inconvenient, uncalled for, and ill-timed. But they fail to get under my skin to the extent that your latest effort has. You broke the Internet.

Every day during the past week, you have severed my ties to the outside world from the hours of 10:00am through 6:00pm. I don't know how you managed to accomplish this, but somehow you've made it to where I have no Internet connection for those same eight hours every single day. It is bad enough that I have to sweat, do laundry outside, and take baths instead of showers, but now you've decided to monkey with my best distraction from all of your needless destruction. House, you and I have had a pretty good run up until this year. Oh sure, I remember when you maimed the furnace on a sub-freezing night a few years ago and when you thought it would be funny to make the exhaust fan in the bathroom stop working just when the lingering stench of a partially digested Big Mac extra value meal desperately needed to be removed from the stagnant confines of your smallest room, but lately--you've really been trying my patience.

If I promise to paint the three rooms Bethany has been wanting to get "made-over" for the past five years, will you promise to stop making my life difficult? If we clean out your gutters, will you quit messing with the Internet? I think we've been pretty decent occupants over the years, don't you? We've replaced your worn carpet with hardwood floors. We've repainted three rooms. We landscaped around you and mow your yard regularly. We vacuum, scrub your siding, and even wash your windows once a decade or so. What more do you want from us? We'll be bringing another child from China home to live with us in the next year or so, filling another of your cozy rooms. Do you think you could help us save the money for the adoption by not destroying every appliance we own? Speaking of appliances, we replaced your aging fridge and stove a couple years back as well as the old washer and dryer, or did you already forget that? Please, big fella, give us a break okay? If you choose to keep doing things the hard way, we can play that game. I could unleash the full destructive power of two young Naughton boys on you. Trust me, ask the houses from my youth: you don't want that.

Think it over. And do the right thing.

Sincerely,
Travis "The Man of the House" Naughton

Brother Travis

Don't laugh, but today I became a legal, ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. Okay, go ahead and laugh if you want, but it's no joke. The ULC explicitly frowns upon becoming ordained as a joke. I read that somewhere on their web page. However, the mission of my ministry will be to promote and encourage laughter, which will help make people happy, which will in turn help make the world a better place. Naive? Maybe. I can hear you snickering as you read this. And that's perfectly fine with me. That's the whole idea.

After witnessing my friends Troy and Anita getting hitched by their mutual friend The Right Reverend Brandi Woolery (a beautiful soul who became ordained for the sole purpose of officiating their ceremony) I became intrigued by the idea of becoming a minister. After some soul searching and Internet surfing, I decided to take the plunge. The ULC has two specific reasons for being: To promote freedom of (and/or from) religion and to always do that which is right. They will ordain anyone from any denomination including Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, Atheists, etc. And they do it for free. The idea is to encourage people to feel free to practice (or not practice) their religion of choice without fear or shame. And we all know I have no shame.

By now you must be asking yourself, "What denomination is this wacko going to align himself with?" Well, the simple answer is none of the above. I have a working knowledge of several of the world's religions and have yet to find one that has satisfied my lifelong quest to make sense of my existence. Having a degree in philosophy, I have come to the conclusion that no single religion has all the answers. Each offers something of spiritual value to anyone who can stay awake during their weekly services, but none are absolutely right (or wrong.) Therefore, I think the world needs a new "religion" if you will. That's where I come in.

Welcoming believers and non-believers from every walk of life, the "ministry" I am creating will be focused on making the world a better place through laughter. (I know, it's not much different from what I've been doing up to this point of my life.) There are a few distinct differences though. As an ordained minister, I will legally be able to perform wedding ceremonies, baptisms, funerals, and even exorcisms! So I've got that going for me.

Why? For one thing, I think it will be really fun to call myself the Right Reverend Travis or Brother Travis, or whatever title I am willing to pay ULC twenty bucks to put on my certificate. For a little more, I could call myself Dr. Naughton, but somehow I think that would really piss off my brother who paid dearly for his doctorate from Stanford. Also, I can see all of my friends laughing and smiling and shaking their heads in disbelief every time they think of me being a minister--and that makes me happy. Really, the only goal I have is to make my friends laugh and hopefully they will take that laughter with them wherever they go and spread it around like the flu or herpes maybe.

Anyway, I thought you would be amused to know that your friend Travis Naughton is a now bona fide man of the cloth (well, some or other kind of cloth.) I am leaning toward calling myself Brother Travis or Brother T, but you can call me whatever you like, as long as there's a smile on your face. That's why I'm here.

Stay at Home Writer

*I wrote the following essay as a sample of what I am capable of as a newspaper/magazine columnist. Feel free to forward this and my contact info to any publishers or editors you may know. My wife would appreciate it if I could generate some income this decade.

Moments ago, I sat down to write an essay about the ups and downs of pet ownership. I was feeling inspired (and a slight stinging sensation) after having my hand bitten—again—by our pet bird Chi-Chi, a parakeet who apparently didn’t get the memo about not biting the hand that feeds him. I had just typed the title to this future masterpiece when I was interrupted by the ear-splitting screams of righteous indignation coming from my three-year-old son Truman—a phenomenon more common than parakeet pecks and often much more painful. I set aside my laptop, meted out some swift justice to Tru and his older brother Alex (the party who frequently claims to be the victim, but more often than not is the victimizer), and settled back into my work station/easy chair to resume writing. But the moment was gone. The pain from the bird-bite had dissipated, as did my inspiration to write about my feathered and furry friends. I’ll admit that I was tempted to pack it in and postpone writing until the boys’ bedtime, but I decided instead to write this piece about a day in the life of a writer/stay at home dad.

Just while I was typing the above paragraph, several distractions occurred that would derail most professional writers. The phone rang while I was responding to yet another domestic dispute, causing me to threaten Truman with a great deal of bodily discomfort if he refused to cease his screeching long enough for me to say, “Hello.” As I greeted the caller, he resumed his caterwauling, which forced me to repeat my initial cordial “hello” with a more irritated one. The caller turned out to be a telemarketer, a fact that removed any guilt I may have had for sounding particularly rude. She wanted me to pass along a message to my wife Bethany that her eyeglass prescription was now expired and that she should come in to get new glasses as soon as possible. First of all, I didn’t know glasses had an expiration date. Do they get all brown and mushy like bananas or are they no longer legally valid after two years like, say, a driver’s license? I was tempted to ask the caller these questions, but opted instead for the old stand-by, “I’ve got a screaming kid here. You understand. Have a nice day.” Click. Minutes later, another squabble ensued as did another phone call—this time from Bethany, who was “just checking in to see how everything was going.” I kept my response short and sweet, which she correctly interpreted as “It sounds like you’re busy.” She was right of course. She usually is. Oops, I mean she always is.

Although my kids can derail the creativity train that runs within me at the drop of a hat, or the taking of a toy, they provide me with a wealth of material to write about—if ever I can find the time. Take this morning for example. I was drifting in and out of sleepyland at about eight o’ clock, dreaming about peeing in the Pope’s Jacuzzi (I wish I was making this up, but it is unfathomably true) when I heard the toilet lid go up in the master bathroom. I pried open an eye in time to see Tru getting on the potty like a big boy. I was pleased to notice him dabbing a stray droplet or two off the rim with a square of toilet paper. What a conscientious little fella! When he finished, I instructed him to get a clean pair of underwear from his room, which he set out to do without argument. I was a proud papa.

Moments later, Tru returned to inform me that he couldn’t find any underwear in his dresser, and so I begrudgingly crawled out of bed—an unheard of act for a dad who is accustomed to staying in bed and “watching” TV with his kids in the early morning hours (until Sesame Street is over at the very least.) I dug up a pair of skivvies that were as yet unpacked from a bag of clean laundry following a week’s vacation and put them on my curiously smelly child. No sooner had I pulled up the Thomas the Train tighty-whities, than I spotted the source of the offending odor. An instantly recognizable brown streak was making its way from Truman’s nether-region to his ankles. I sprang into action, fully awake, putting aside all thoughts of how I would explain to the Pope why his hot tub was defiled and ran at a dead sprint with filthy child in hand to the bathroom.

Upon re-entry into the bathroom, I flipped on the light. The horror! My first thought was something along the lines of how relieved the Pope would be that I didn’t do that to his Jacuzzi. Poo was everywhere, and I don’t mean the Winnie-the-Pooh sheets, jammies, and toys that were scattered about the house. Real, non-Disney poo. I set Tru on his feet in the middle of the room and like a CSI detective, I began to piece together what had happened. Judging by the brown streak on the side of the tub, Tru must have leaned against it as he stripped off his diaper, which was protruding from the trashcan like a brown and white flag of surrender. From there, the trail led to the toilet where it became apparent that the boy had not been dabbing a few drops of pee that errantly landed on the rim. If only. Instead, as he hoisted himself up to the seat, he very obviously smeared a British Petroleum sized slick all over the commode.
I peeled off his fresh underwear only to find that it was—not so fresh anymore. I began to clean up the bathroom fixtures while my patient but stinky child stood motionless and eerily emotionless in the middle of the floor. He seemed to be completely unaffected by the whole affair, unlike his father who was alternately gagging and holding his breath while depleting the disappointingly limited supply of wet wipes in a vain effort to remove the now tacky substance from the boy’s, well, boy parts. The only remaining course of action was a hasty shower, one that left no time for proper preparation or the securing of a washcloth. That unfortunate fact left me no choice but to use soap, water, and my bare hands to extricate the thoroughly stuck-on poo from Truman’s little “peanut butt” as his mama calls it—a cute name for a portion of his personage that was anything but cute at that moment.

After some serious scrubbing, Tru was his old self again. I sent him back to watch his cartoons while I took a shower that I hoped was hot enough to sterilize my hands and burn away the nauseating memories from my mind. I guess I only succeeded on one of those fronts. And for that I’m somewhat glad. Without these types of experiences to draw upon, I would have very little to write about. Oh, I could make stuff up and call myself a novelist, but in regards to my life I’ve found that the truth is much more entertaining than fiction.

Fun in the Sun

Having retired for the second time just over two years ago, I am living the dream. Of course I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. You may remember that I formally declared the first summer of my retirement as the Summer of Travis. But the summer of 2010 is making a strong play for the title. In the past month, I have gone fishing many times, spent a lot of time with my boys, and visited friends and family in Colorado, Philly, KC, St. Lou, and most recently the Riveria Maya in Mexico.

This was my second vacation south of the border since 2005 and proved to be just as much fun as the first. I drank muchas tequilas, toured Mayan ruins, spent an afternoon zip-lining (including one run hanging upside down), and laughed myself to tears too many times to count. Accompanied by my beautiful wife, John & Kristen Briscoe, and Grant & Brenda Barnes, I had one of the best weeks of recreation and brain cell culling in my life. And I made some new friends in Mexico, both American and Mexican that I'll never forget. Grant and John accused me of developing a "bromance" with a bartender named Rodolfo who plied me with Don Julio shots throughout our stay. They may be right. We exchanged email addresses and I am thinking very seriously of asking him to become my first Mayan facebook friend.

The Summer of Travis version 2.0 continues next weekend with a reunion of the families who adopted kids through our agency, Children's Hope International. Also, next month will be my 20 year high school reunion, although I contend that most of my friends have failed to mature mentally past an eighth grade level. Both of these reunions will be fun--in very different ways of course. Hopefully I will see you at one of these events, but if not, don't be surprised if you hear a knock on your door at three in the morning followed by, "It's Travis Naughton. Remember me? I was the captian of our co-ed naked bingo team. I think. Let me in please. It's the Summer of Travis! And I gotta pee."