—SEEMS LIKE YOU’VE GOT IT ALL FIGURED OUT

…I try not to ask for too much.

…When you’re raised on promises you have certain expectations.

…What about all the times you said you had the answers?

…Every now and then I get a little scared of listening to the sound of my voice.

…The thunder keeps getting louder and louder.

…Here’s the thing though—earlier in the day I hauled our bottles and cans back to recycling.

…You know me, I’m sentimental.

…I’m sorry I put your good shirt in somebody else’s free box.

…We’re moving in unison, hands feeding machines, the sun on our backs.

…We all know what moving is like.

…I’m here to help, just ask me.

…That smell reminds me of the day after a good bender.

…Maybe I was staring after all.  You know how I am—curious.

…Walk with me and I’ll hand over the whole set of keys.

…I’ve got to get back to fixing this tattoo.

…I wonder why I like words so much.

…It’s just one lone tree, but that’s enough to remind me of trees I knew when I was a kid, childhood, and I feel okay about it.

…Who do you think about when you step into the dark cave and are basically blind?

…I’m a man willing to live with my mistakes.  What other choice is there?

…I’m good.  I just can’t do myself.

…One is time released, one isn’t.  One’s long lasting.

…I’m being careful but maybe that’s where I went wrong.

…Sometimes I melt into this crazy shy riot of need.

…I know I said I’d be home, but things like this come up.

…Who do we ever know, really, past the skin?  How do we get there?

…I forgot the sun would still be shining, but there it is.

 

 

—SO MUCH WASTED TIME

…Sometimes it chooses you instead of the other way around.

...Why does anyone say Gone for good unless they mean it as a good thing?

…Mom and Dad were a closed system, busy with each other.  We, their kids, were their living conversation.  So there’s that.

…We used to ignore birthdays in our family.  My mother said they were bad luck.

…I’ve overcome my dread of my birthday.  I think birthdays are good things and that it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate them.  However, I think celebrating anniversaries is more important, and not just wedding anniversaries.  Anniversaries represent milestones.  If you’ve got one coming up, I hope you celebrate big time, and, oh yeah, Happy Anniversary.

…How do we even talk about that, the loss of something so special and important?

…All around me people are working hard to meet their obligations.

…People are mysterious.  Like how do you sit on an airplane with nothing to read, nothing to do?  How do you just sit there for three hours?

…If you let me, I can be your human shield.

…Physical evidence cannot be intimidated.

…Here’s what was said: “You’re a shy one, aren’t you?”

…Here’s what was also said:  “You keep saying you’re broken, but maybe you’re broken because you say you are, because you think it.”

…If you can’t move past it, push the boulder away from the grave, it’s bad news for everyone involved, not just you.

…Sometimes it’s hard to put up with people who are always Pink Clouding.  Sometimes you want them back feeling the way you feel.

…Some people try to turn you into the show they want to see.

…A year is more than just a unit of time.  It’s about all the people you spend that time with.

…It’s not exactly an emergency, loneliness that is, but it’s worth having it checked out.

…I feel the need to stay neutral yet engaged, sort of like Switzerland.

…Whatever you do in life, whatever age you are, it doesn’t matter if you think it doesn’t.

…Ricochet, go ahead and fire.

…Yes, I know my fingers are thin and soft, but I’ll still hold on tight.  I will.  I promise.

…It’s easy to confuse who someone is with what they do.

…Here’s what I try to tell myself: Even when things are going wrong, it still seems like everything will be okay.

…Sometimes I just need to get out of my own way.

…If you keep drinking there’s never a hangover.

…The difference between a connoisseur and a wino?  The connoisseur takes it out of the bag.

…If I can’t tell you, then who can I tell?

…Again, don’t try to make any sense of it.

…That’s all I can say.

 

 

—HERE YOU ARE AGAIN, AND SO AM I

…Hey, I’m back.  Thanks for waiting for me.

Milwaukee was just as fun and thoroughly enjoyable as I’d thought it would be.  There are few things better than having the kinds of friends who you feel naturally at ease with, where you’re comfortable enough to trust them with your good stuff and the bad.

The only problem with that is since these are long distance friends and I don’t get to see them often, sleep gets eschewed in order to be around them as much as possible, for as many minutes as possible.  So yes, I’m a little comatose, yet I wouldn’t change a thing.

…And because I hadn’t had enough fun in Milwaukee, the very next day (yesterday) I went to Deck The Hall Ball with my daughter, a mini music festival featuring six bands that began at 3pm and went to around midnight.

There were 11,000 people in attendance, the sweet spot (age-wise) being 23-30.  I didn’t see a single African American.

I did see some firsts—the lead guitarist for Portugal. The Man (yes, that period in their name is actually supposed to be there) was in a wheelchair.  That seemed pretty cool, but of course you never want anyone being in a wheelchair.  The other first was the piano player for The Lumineers.  He was barefoot the entire performance and often traipsed around on stage, bouncing atop different pieces of equipment.

The bands were all very different from each other.  Odesza was a mash-up of Blue Man Group and some very gifted techno band on steroids.  I was surprised how good they were, how incredibly entertaining.

But of course the highlight was the last band, one of my top three or four favorite musical groups of all time—The Killers.  It was my first time seeing them and I was worried they wouldn’t meet my expectations, which they didn’t, because they exceeded them.

Brandon Flowers is a beautiful man, but he’s also an ardent performer.  He sang his guts out, as did I, right along with him.  There were only two songs I did not know all the words to.
 

…So the fun is done for a while and now it’s time to get a rhythm back.  Today’s a big day for me...

…But Bud the beaver just swam by.  I always take that as a good sign.  I haven’t seen him in a while.  There’s so much fog on the lake I can’t see the other side.  But I can see a nearly-full moon out my window, which I also always take as a good sign, the moon visible during daytime.

…I hope your day is fabulous.  I’m pretty sure it will be.

 

 

--JUST HOLD ON LOOSELY, AND DON’T LET GO

…In a few minutes I’m headed to Milwaukee to spend the weekend with three of my favorite people on the planet.  It’s certain to be epic.  One of them I haven’t seen in nearly a year.  It’s terrible when the people you love most live far away.

On Saturday we’re doing a reading with some other writers.  I’m not a fan of reading in front of an audience, but I’m going to give it my best.

I tried to find a happy story to read, which isn’t an easy task for me, as you know.

This is what I decided to read (it’s about as close to a happy ending as I get):

 

                                                          Brothers

             The meds my brother takes no longer work and now I often find him carrying on conversations with the couch, just him talking to the sofa as if such a thing was completely normal.  Lately he’s become smitten with my wife’s parakeet.  He’ll kneel down in front of Piper’s cage and whistle off key, something that sounds like Beyonce’s, “If You Liked It Then You Should Have Put A Ring On It.”

            At night in bed my wife tells me she’s worried.  She always says this. 

            “This time I really mean it.”

            “Patrick?  He’s fine, just nuts is all.”

            “It’s only a matter of time before he does something dangerous.”

            “Patrick wouldn’t hurt a fly.  Don’t you see the way he is with Joni Mitchell?”  (Joni Mitchell is our calico, given to us as a wedding present last year.)

            “He recites The Gettysburg Address to Joni Mitchell, over and over and over.”

            “Yeah, isn’t that something?  I can never remember past the first sentence.  Four score and seven years ago, our fathers--”

            “Len!  Len, stop it!  There are places equipped to handle people like him.”

            “Yeah, expensive places.”

            “I married you, not your brother.”

            “What are you saying?”

            “I’m saying he’s a burden I didn’t sign up for.”

            “Is that an ultimatum?”

            “I guess it is.”

            True to her word, my wife moves out two days later.  The divorce papers come a month after that.  Then it’s just Patrick and I.

            When we were kids Patrick taught me how to ride a bike, how to ice skate and roller skate, how to fish, how to throw a perfect spiral.  When I read him poems I wrote (poems I have since re-read and now realize are absolute shit) he listened intently, never laughing, always finding something in them to praise.

            Our dad died when we were toddlers.  It wasn’t until seventh grade that we learned Pops hadn’t had a heart attack after all, as Mom had told us, but that he’d hung himself in the garage.

            The doctors I’d spoken to said this discovery had nothing to do with Patrick’s mental illness, but he started to spiral downward about then, streaking through downtown wearing only a cowboy hat, boots and underwear.   Another time he tried juggling watermelons in the produce section at Safeway and made quite a mess.  Another time he reached into the glass box of puppies at PetCo and let them loose inside the store.  Another time he…

            One day I’m at work when Mrs. Hitchens, my neighbor, calls and says I should get home as soon as possible.

            My boss is a dick, but I need the job in order to take care of Patrick and pay alimony, so I feign sickness and speed home where I spot Patrick on top of the roof in my wife’s old baby blue bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.  Not only that, but he’s got a fishing pole with him.  When I get out of the car, he grins and gives me a parade float wave.

            I start to think maybe my wife was right, that perhaps Patrick is getting more dangerous.  Still he’s my brother.  We’ve lived our whole lives together and when Mom died I became Patrick’s guardian.

            I go into the house, change out of my work clothes, find a ladder in the garage (how did Patrick get up there without a ladder?) and carefully climb the slanted roof where my brother sits on the center beam. 

            He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, nor does he mention the fact that I’ve change into a robe and slippers and have my own fishing pole.

            “Getting any bites?” I ask.

            “Just clouds so far.”

            “Maybe you should change your bait,” I say.

            “You think?”

            “Can’t hurt.”

            We cast every three minutes, our lines looping over the gutters below.  Eventually Patrick snags one of my ex-wife’s azaleas from the tiny garden by the porch and reels it up.  He whoops and whoops, the happiest I’ve seen him in a long time.  I laugh, too.  I tell him, “Let’s go fry that thing up and have us some dinner,” and he flashes me that grin again, saying, “Yeah, and we’ll split it.”

 

--IT’S JUST ME AND THE WHISKEY

…We tend to fight the next war the same way we fought the last one which makes us prisoners of our own existence.

…It’s very difficult to dispel ignorance if you retain arrogance.

…Fun is a big word, if you think about it.

…Most times life is an unguided missile dressed up like a bulbous cloud that looks like a husky elephant doing a jig.  It’s pretty difficult not to get sidetracked by a cute sight like that.

…I’m not a big fan of instructions.  Words rarely look like the things they designate.

…Clearly I am a private person and, quite possibly, I am a fool.

…What’s past is past.  One could leave it as it is.  And still, on the other hand, there are all sorts of after effects.

…From gavel to gavel, the answers land with impunity.

…Often I feel myself rocking between the sky and the land, somewhat akimbo, and twitching.

…I’ve heard it said that “You can’t step into the river twice” but then I think: don’t believe everything you hear.

…But wouldn’t it be nice to believe everything you hear and not have to question the validity of it?

…Quite often I wonder how I get by.  Like, how did I even make it to the airport on time?  Find my key?  Find my gate?  Get to the hotel?  There have to be merciful angels out there.

…I have left so many things on airplanes—a brand new Discman, laptop, phone, car keys, books, books, books.  I’m sort of like a skinny Santa when I leave a plane.

…I’ll be honest and admit that my major writing goal is to create something that outlives me.  Weeks and months go by and that still hasn’t happened.  I know I shouldn’t think that way.  I know it shouldn’t matter at all, yet it does to me. 

…Often times having an outlandish and egotistical goal will only create prolonged constipation.

…Almost no one knows it, but I had a third book published.  There’s only one copy, though, and I have it.  It’s called MY UNCERTAIN SEARCH FOR MYSELF.  I didn’t title it that, someone else did.  It’s a pretty slim volume, like me.  The cover is a winding highway with cloudy-but-blue skies.  I wonder how they know me so well.

…Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.  I’m not colorblind.

…Sometimes I am Silly Putty and other times I’m just putty.

…Sometimes I have to remind myself:  That’s my depression talking, not me.


…They say whiskey’ll kill you, but I don’t think it will.  I’m riding with you to the top of the hill.

 

 

—AS YOU WISH

 

…You think you do, but really, you don’t have any idea.

….You can ask me all you want, but I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

…When there’s nothing left to say, it’s best to use sign language.  If not, if there’s say, a notepad, grab it.  If not, if there’s a can of spray paint, grab that and find a wall or sidewalk and start talking.

…Someday soon I will write like a motherfucker again.  Someday soon, I just know it.

…The other day my wife and I saw a wonderful little indie film called “Lady Bird.”  I didn’t know a solitary thing about it, but hoped it wasn’t about Lady Bird Johnson.  It wasn’t.  What it was, was really terrific, one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time.  What broke my heart was the fact that there were a total of seven (7) people in attendance.  I’m sure “Thor” and those other superhero movie theaters were packed.  Yep, heartbreaking and sad.

…You can tell a lot about a person by where they sit on a bus.

…Some stories are so crazy you think they’re fiction, but they’re not.

…We all have this life and we live it or we don’t.

…The other day I did something brave.  I cleaned up my office.  While doing so, I found an old notebook.  I don’t know how old, but it was brimming with random notes and story starts I hadn’t remembered writing.  Most all of it was crap.  But at least the paper was recyclable.

…It’s good to be scared once in a while.  It means there’s something you don’t want to lose.

…Sometimes the boxes we live in don’t want us there.

…Grief wears a lot of different faces.

…If all there are is words, sometimes when you roll around in them, blood’s going to be spilled, and later on there will be scars, and in that way those words will always be with you.

…One of the most important things I’ve learned is—people can change.  “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is sort of shit.  People can change.  They really can.

…A lot of times, my most favorite time is 2AM.  There’s something about being awake while everyone else is asleep that makes it feel special.  The rain splats.  The vents hum.  Nothing glints on the coal-black surface of the lake.  At 2AM, I feel like a ghost with a purpose.

…There are a lot of emotions that aren’t very fun to experience.  I’d say fear and worry are my least favorite of the lot.

…I believe in Jesus.  I do.  Oh, sure, I am a bad Christian, and I have tons of doubts, not so much about Jesus, but about what came before him.  Still I try not to let my mind go down that rabbit hole where the doubts sit.  The upside is so much better for everyone, don’t you think?  Because if God is real, then hope really is a thing.  That’s what I most want to believe.

…Dear Diary: 

I am writing to you again.  I don’t know why, but for some reason it feels necessary.  Thanks for putting up with my junk.

…If I were you, I’d be tired of me already.  I know I am.

 --IT’S MORNING AND I’M WIDE AWAKE

 

…I hope you had a most wonderful Thanksgiving.  Mine is Saturday.  There should be 24 people at our house, packed and noisy, with a few kids running around giggling, just the way I like it.

This year I am grateful for so much.  As Keith Richards said, “I’m just happy to be anywhere.”  I’m grateful that you stop by here as often as you do.  Thank you.

 …Here is my favorite Thanksgiving Day poem.  I hope you like it:

PERHAPS THE WORLD ENDS HERE

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the
table so it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe
at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what
it means to be human. We make men at it,
we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts
of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms
around our children. They laugh with us at our poor
falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back
together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella
in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place
to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate
the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared
our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow.
We pray of suffering and remorse.
We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table,
while we are laughing and crying,
eating of the last sweet bite.by Joy Harjo


The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

—from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by