That’s really what I should do. What has me worried/somewhat distressed? My son’s interest in schoolwork, in particular reading and writing. Some of you know I have a largely useless degree in English, both in relation to my job (computer geek), and my writing (largely atrocious and riddled with errors). But I do love to read, and do so whenever I can.

This struggle mind you is in my head; on the outside I am nothing but supportive, calm and reassuring; on the inside I fight battles with myself over how I can best help him to learn. Over what things I can do to help him, and ways I can spark his interest in learning.

And what I realize is that its my own passion for reading that is fueling my desire for him to learn to read. I guess on some level I can’t wait for him to read. I loved to read as a child, and its something that I want to share with him.

Which is a great thing… but why is it driving me nuts? I guess it’s no different than potty training. It will happen in time, just don’t push it. The teachers in his school are on the ball, and he gets extra time with a reading teacher so he has the best that he can get with my tax money.

And I have to remind myself that he is six and his attention span is short. The truth of the matter, as it suddenly occurs to me while writing this is that I see his disinterest in studying as an echo of how I used to feel about schoolwork, and it worries me that he might end up having those same feelings.

In what can only be the wheel coming full circle I find myself thinking about cutting back on TV time and video games, yes.. I have become my parents. And it’s funny as hell.

I think that I need to make it a point to listen to at least one new song a week. It doesn’t matter what artist or genre, it just needs to be something new, and something that I actively listen to.

I say actively listen to because turning on the radio and listening to it in the background will not cut the mustard. The idea here is to continue to evolve my musical tastes, to continue to evolve my musical appreciation beyond my current catalog.

Growing up my parents never had any interest in what we were listening to beyond the question — Are they Satanists? Thankfully all of the corporate bands I listened to growing up were in fact not Satanists.

They knew what they liked to listen to and they were perfectly happy staying in their comfort zone and letting us have our own Satan free musical tastes. What I find most disturbing about this is that I find myself falling into this same kind of thinking at times.

I am ashamed to admit that most of the music today my initial reaction is — WTF? Who would listen to this? This is NOT the response I want to have, it tells me that I am beginning to be confined by my own tastes and experiences, much like what happened to my parents.

So this is what I am going to try, an experiment that hopefully will help me to continue to further my musical horizons. I will listen to one new song a week from one of today’s up and coming artists. It seems like a small thing, and it largely is — but I hope it will help me keep that musical circuit open in my brain.

For all practical matters, I am a social outcast. Not in the conventional sense of the term, but rather the social network world of the Internet. A 9rule member that I enjoy e*star LA has a great post and visual about social landscape entitled — Where on the Online Map.

I’ve thought about trying to meld into the social fabric of the net, it just hasn’t worked to date. I either have turned into my parents and can’t stand it (as in the case of My Space), or i just don’t have a group of friends whose like to form networks. Maybe its because of children, they tend to nullify a lot of free time and energy.

The closest I have come is 9rules, the members are what I would describe as cognitive, creative and interesting. Its more about content than glitz, its more about discussion than drama. I like it, and with luck maybe I’ll get the golden ticket and be a member. Or maybe not, whether it happens or not I still get to enjoy it and participate, so its cool.

So social network wise, I am a social pariah and I am okay with that. Besides what I find vastly more interesting than which social network a person belongs to is what browser they use, what search engine and what blog they run. I think you can learn a lot more about a person from those criteria than any social network they might belong to.

For what its worth: Firefox, Google, WordPress