Cool Stuff

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Winter in Michigan...


I'm still alive...just haven't had a lot of time to write the last week or so (or much to say for that matter). I think it's natural for those of us who live in hard core winter climates like Michigan to kinda tone it down and go into basic survival mode (Semi-Hibernation) during the long, bleak winter days of Jan. and Feb. By that account, I have a ways to go yet before I get all my energy back...

Anyhow, it has been a long stretch of temps in the teens or single digits so I am kinda feeling lethargic. So I have made it a point to get outside and at least walk every day but the last couple of walks have been pretty short and brutally cold. Actually the last walk took less time then it took me to get bundled up....I'm kidding of course but just barely.

Even though it's cold, I do love Winter. It's absolutely beautiful for one and there is just something restorative about this time 'o year. It's a time to contemplate beginning again and I suppose I've always felt that way. I guess I'm just a person who really needs to experience the full four seasons of each year, in all their glory. As I've gotten older, I'll admit that spending more time in a warmer climate sounds attractive. Especially since I have friends and family who live or winter in warm parts of the country but I know that I would feel like I'm missing something if I went "warm" year round. I'm not knocking it for those who like warm weather but it's definately not my way.

Cheers from the great white North....

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Emotional vomiting on a Tuesday....

OK, I promise that I won't get angry...or sarcastic...or ornery. I'll be pleasant, professional and understanding, just like I always am (tee hee, a slight exaggeration, I'll admit). I'll be objective and try to look at all sides of the issue so then I can honestly evaluate my behavior and see if I can improve it. 

Now that I think about it, why would I want to change the way I am, huh?! Seems like there are folks that think I'm too intense, strung a little to tight and they suggest that I need to relax. Fair enough....I realize that I can be intense and that bothers some folks. The problem is that intensity is part of who I am, I doubt I could change it even if I wanted to. And believe me, I don't. If I am being rude, obnoxious, wasn't listening or being thoughtless, etc that would be one thing I could understand. But being true to myself which also means being very passionate about something I care about isn't a crime, just because someone is different and doesn't like it. Especially when the criticism comes from someone who typically isn't real accepting of different points of view to begin with.

Now I realize that I make mistakes...all the time. I'm about as far from perfect as you can get. I also understand that we are all different and not everyone sees things the same way. I get that too and I guess that's my point...I wish others could see that as well. I know I have experienced a lot of stuff in my 47 years on the planet and I hope I take that experience and learn from it. That probably gives me a perspective that some younger folks maybe don't have the benefit of and to be fair, I should also take the into account.

It's just frustrating when you have known someone for a while and they make some observations that are so far from being accurate that you wonder if they were paying attention to you at all the last 2 years or so. I don't know...some people don't get it and would rather go through life and just coast instead of taking the time to get to know how other people think and live. I have always enjoyed that aspect of getting to know someone...I've learned a lot from people who are really different then I am.

This blog falls into the category of a rant or vent style blog....I just don't care for intolerance or when someone shows a genuine lack of respect for the individuality of someone else....it's a pet peeve of mine so I felt like I could share it....and so I just did.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Boomerang

My crappy day got a whole lot better thanks to:

  • A two hour nap
  • Awesome coffee
  • Ate two really good and fresh doughnuts
  • 30 minutes outside, 48 degrees in January...woohoo!
  • Baked bread this afternoon
  • Then ate half a loaf, fresh and hot out of the oven w/butter.
  • Took a really long, hot shower
  • Reading a good book by and about Ted Sorensen (Key aid to JFK)
  • Now watching the NFL Playoffs on TV


So you see, even I can bounce back from the adversity of a bad start to a day...guess I'm prepared for about anything now.

Just sayin'

Ach, I'm an unhappy fellow who didn't get enough sleep (worked 'til midnight), finally I gave in and got up thinking I'll get a nice cup of coffee and read the Sunday paper. Simple right? I went out around 5:30a to get the paper and yea it was there...only it was soaking wet. I'm not sure what the freakin' qualifications are for delivering the Ft Wayne paper but having a fucking brain obviously isn't one of them.

They have been predicting rain for 3 days...torrential rain and this idiot (it's not the first time mind you, it's happened several times, like every time it rains hard!) is too stupid or lazy (yea, probably lazy) to put the paper in a plastic bag. Which the customer service rep just told me they are REQUIRED to do anyway!

I know this is a ridiculous, childish post but I'm annoyed and this Sunday morning I want everyone else to know about it too...Hope your day starts better then mine. I might just go back to bed and start over, that is if the delivery driver doesn't bump me off in my sleep....the CS Rep said he would send the driver out with a dry paper and I have a sneaking suspicion he won't be really happy w/me....Ach

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Hope

The unpredictable winter weather around here continues....I woke up this morning to 35 degrees and heavy fog over the ice on the lake. They are predicting temps in the mid 40's this afternoon continuing tomorrow as well. I will say that I much prefer a full on raging winter over this half-assed, wimpy, wet winter we've been having. Geez, I have a plow and don't even get to use it, boo hoo. (OK, now I've done it....tempted fate, we'll get a blizzard for sure now, tee hee!).

I would just like to have a little winter weather is all. I can handle the snow but freezing rain just plain sucks, any way you look at it. Of course, I drive part-time for a living so that makes it even worse. Most folks around here are pleading for spring to come...not me, I'd be content with snow and cold is it could be just a tad more consistent.

I spent a couple hours last night doing something I rarely do...watching television. Yep, I watched the "Help for Haiti Now" telethon and I was pretty impressed with what I saw. Not the telethon part so much with the melodramatic pleading for help though I get it, that's how it works. It's a complete, human catastrophe down there. But what impressed me wasn't the slick Hollywood production, the mega stars manning the phones, nope it was the way the musicians came out and played some incredible songs together. And they played without there usual bands...Madonna playing a gospel version of her song "Like a Prayer" with a choir, it was amazing. Members of U2 with Jay-Z and Rhianna. A duet with Dave Mathews and Neil Young left me speechless, it was beyond words. The songs were obviously chosen for their compassion, messages of hope, courage, redemption....it gave me goose bumps.

I just love the fact that what they could bring, what these folks had to offer to get attention for help for Haiti was just themselves and their songs.....there were no introductions, no audiences. If you didn't recognize the person then you never knew who it was...the artist remained anonymous, how rare is that in this day and age?! When the songs ended there was just...silence. Silence for those who were lost.

After it was over and I was thinking about what I had just seen I realized that it had actually left me with a feeling of hope. Hope not just for the people og Haiti...but hope for us all.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Veg?

In my last post I mentioned that I was sore from all the extra movement putting stuff together for a banquet we were doing this past Monday the 18th. Well here I am now 4 days later and I still feel like my legs have been battered with a baseball bat. This is ridiculous!

I know I'm 47 put I've been pretty happy with my health and fitness this last year or so. It's not like I was carrying bags of shingles up a latter or something...I was just doing some sustained (4 hrs) of repetitive standing and crouching, walking, etc. I can't believe how badly I hurt and I don't believe I've injured myself, I'm just really sore.

OK, probably need to give myself a break here....I probably haven't used these particular muscles and they got a major workout. I just need to work through the pain and stiffness....I've been getting leg massages and that's helped. I just need to keep pluggin' away.

Since I'm sort of talking about health here that brings me to something else that has been on my mind. I've noticed that I have been slowly reducing the amount of meat I eat. Not consciously, I'm just repelled by it so I avoid it. I have been eating allot more fruit, vegetables and grains. Maybe I'm to the point of just going to a planned vegitarian diet. Definitely something I'm going to think about.

Well, it's 20 degrees out today and a strong east wind...that is going to make my walk pretty interesting this morning. I just don't want to skip it....when I do I can really feel it. Plus I feel better when I'm able to get outside, even for a few minutes of fresh air.

Alright, I just re-read this post...geez what a boring life but hey....that's my life these days and I'll admit, I like it this way! Quite a difference then the "live as if there is no tomorrow" self destructive lifestyle from my past.

Of course when I started this blog i wanted to capture my life as it really was and I guess I'm doing that......

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Walmart...Yikes!

Whoa am I ever sore this morning. Set up a banquet for several hundred people yesterday and I can really feel it today. I thought I was in pretty good shape but obviously there are a few muscle groups that I haven't been using as much as I thought!!

The days are just kind of blowing by, not too much  stirring in the old noggin' of my right now.

 I have a good friend who is heading down to Haiti early next week. She lived there for over a decade and is going to stay w/friends . She is just devastated by the whole situation there and wants to do what she can to help. They didn't hesitate to tell her to come down, they can use all the help they can get. She is going to try and post updates on her BB everyday so that will be cool to follow along on the web.

Went grocery shopping at 6A this morn. I love it...no crowds, no two headed circus freak show performers or carnival workers. Walmart is one of my least favorite places to go but we are limited on stores here so unless your wealthy, it's really the only place to shop.

Alrighty then, I'm off for more errands....one of those kinds of days.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

I won't do it....

Honestly, I sat down here to write w/out really knowing what I was going to say. It's just that I can't handle the fact that my last post was about little shake and piss dogs so I had to do something about it.Perhaps it's ego, who knows. Part of me wanted to erase that post but when I created this blog I made the decision that when I wrote something I was going to leave it. I'm OK w/editing grammar, etc but I wasn't going to sensor the original thoughts, emotions or ideas...Part of the reason I'm doing this is to get the stuff out of my brain into the open so I can maybe learn something about myself. Whether that helps me in any way is yet to be seen.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Dog Day Thursday

There hasn't been too much going on the last couple 'o days. I saw the folks off to Florida so I am adjusting to having a great deal of privacy and peace/quiet. I enjoy it but it does take some getting used to.

This past Saturday I attended a monthly business meeting for a group I belong to. One of the other members brought her dog...Stanley, A Shi Tzu. I have owned dogs most of my life and with one exception they were all very large dogs, mostly German Shepard's. I never really cared for the Toy breeds....until now. My god, How adorable.


Since I've been a cat owner now for nearly 20 yrs (another surprise, liking cats!) I like the idea of a combo pet, that is the happy, warm, "go for a ride",  "come and play w/me" attitude of a dog, combined with the size and ease of care of a cat. I don't know if you can train one of these dogs to use a litter box, that would even be cooler! But if not I still like the idea of a small dog.


Above are the photos of two little dogs that I took last summer. The owner was visiting a neighbor. I can't recall the breed but it was one of those combination like PekaChow or some such thing. They have human like hair so they are a great breed for people w/allergies. It was seeing these two this summer that got me thinking about a toy breed, so thanks a whole lot 'ya little shits!

Ok, I'll admit it...I've lost my freaking mind here. Maybe I'm just feeling a bit lonely right now...geez. It's scares me a little bit when I get like this. I need a little rat like dog like I need another whole in my freakin' head, blah, blah, blah. Ok now that I got that out of my system....

Other breeds I've thought about have been Pugs, they are quite cool. English Bull Dogs have always been a Fav but they are NOT an easy breed to care for but I've always had a soft spot for them. Of course I admire Winston Churchill so perhaps there is a connection....

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

On our way to eternity


It's hot...the dust from the road rises in a light brown cloud covering everyone and everything. This includes my eyes....in my mouth, my nose, ears..my brain. Yes, it invades my every thought, it holds me, suffocates me. Water is a most valuable item right now. Every break in the march brings an urgent search for water.

The scene is one of controlled chaos...horses, wagons, men, mules. Every kind of imaginable transport moving all at once...mostly, to the East. Long lines of men on the march...as far as the eye can see. The very air contains an urgency hard to explain.

Perhaps all these visual distractions are a good thing. They keep us occupied, to busy to ponder what this may all mean to us. Because deep down we know...an advance. An attack, a full scale attack on the German main line somewhere...to the East. And soon, very soon.The Germans know it to...their aircraft are very active above us. Our aircraft are active as well trying to prevent them from observing what is happening in our rear.

The sound of the men marching, the horses, motorized transport, teamsters cursing, officers shouting, men singing....creates a symphony all it's own. A soundtrack, "The Prelude to Hell..." perhaps. The entire scene...sound, the sight, the smell it...energizes, lifts us up to another place. Prepares us for what is next. Or maybe it doesn't.....


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I am....

I...am alone. I...have no home. Not here, not there or anywhere. Really,I exist in a world similar yet apart from my fellows.
Detached and entrenched in my own, solitary journey to....I don't know. I've yet to figure that out. Perhaps I never will...can I live with that? Ach. I always expected an answer to why I was here, now I get a feeling that the answer may be that there isn't a reason. I am here because....I'm here.

From my very first memories I recall feeling different then the people around me. That feeling has stayed with me my entire life. I've rebelled against it, tried to ignore it, pretend that I fit in but it does not click. I am alone. I do not like feeling like a phony...I simply cannot pretend to be something that I am not.I've tried and it creates an imbalance that once it's released is hard to get back.

I do not feel like I belong...is there something wrong w/that? Not sure...it isn't a comfortable feeling, I assure you.I want to fit in with others yet part of me does not. I think it's a choice maybe it isn't. It is what I have to deal with right now though. I feel separate, alienated from other people. I have no natural ability to trust for I fear that when I do I will be hurt. Why? Because I have been hurt......

I don't know if I ever appreciated or respected myself. I think that I must have but then the way I treated myself suggests that I did not.The way I have been discarded w/out care or concern leaves me struggling to believe I am worthy of love. I feel worthy of only pain and unpleasantness. An unholy spectre of despair, my only friend. I am pain...in living, breathing color and I cannot repent, cannot transform to something that I am not.

Write then fold....laundry.

A frigid Tuesday morn in S Michigan. The day combines two things that I usually like individually but can't stand when they are together: Sun and Snow. The simple reason is it hurts my eyes. I know, ridiculous...I kinda thought so too but it is my reality. When I had Lasik surgery 6 or 7 yrs ago eye sensitivity became an even bigger issue then it already was. An it was....All that being said I am determined to have a good day though something deep inside doesn't really want to.

Perhaps I can update later on how this all turned out....

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Off I go

It snaps, locks then releases. As it does a jolt of pain shoots both up and down the leg. That is my right knee. The back, mostly lower back is best described as feeling like shattered glass and my ass literally feels as if it is going to detach and fall to the floor. The backs of both legs burn, all the way to the floor. Both sets of feet are basically numb, no feeling in them at all....Of course I've left out the pain in the stomach and lower abdomen....no doubt a result of a decade of taking high doses of anti-inflammatories not to mention the latest: intense pressure in my head as if my forehead is going to pop off.

The combination of pain is barely tolerable. Jesus I wonder why I do this as I hover on the edge of madness every damn day of my life yet....Why do I go on? Because I can.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Ice and I



Ice...is walking on ice the same as walking on water? Dunno but I enjoyed a good walk on the ice early this morn. 7 degrees today and everything felt so alive out there.

Been feeling a little lost lately....there still is so much uncertainty in my life these days while I wait for some major decisions to be made and worked out. The past five years have really left me feeling like a man w/out a home, direction, a reason so we live on w/out questioning. Shrinks would say I'm depressed...Ach, dunno 'bout that either. I always just felt like I dealt w/things as they were not how I wished they were. And so right now it's tough. I feel what I feel when I feel it and I express it in how I live. No excuses it just is....

I do not have any idea what that has to do with walking on a frozen lake before dawn but once again dear reader you have just gotten a glimpse of what it is like to be me, feel special? Didn't think  so....

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Brain in a bag....

It is morning...again. Most days I like getting up early and have always enjoyed this particular time of day. Yet I feel a tad melancholy this morning and have noticed a trend lately of feeling this way.

Of course my feeling this morn may have been influenced by an article I read in today's Fort Wayne paper about a family who is suing a funeral home. It seems that when they received a bag of personal effects belonging to the deceased after her cremation they discovered her Brain was in the bag...yea, her freakin' brain! The spokesman for the Funeral Home had some explanation about once a brain is removed (he didn't say who removed it, an autopsy I imagine, right?!) that's it's squishy (his word) and doesn't fit nicely back in the skull, it makes a leaky mess, he said. So they never really try to put it back. He doesn't really address how it got into the bag just that it is usually stored separately from the body, yada, yada, yada. I stopped reading at that point....

Any reasonable chance that I may have had at having a positive outlook on the day went to Hell in a fucking hand basket when I read that insanity. I just don't know about this world some days. I am typically pretty hardened to the realities of this life we lead but this just threw me for a loop and now I kind of want to climb back into my bed and see if I can rewind the day (so far) and try again! Ach...

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Thoughts

Hello, Hello.....Just wanted to write  a bit about this blog. I'm not sure if there are rules as to what these blogs should be but for me it's pretty simple. It's a place to write, share my thoughts, feelings, etc. Sometimes I do that by sharing a poem or work by someone else but mostly it will be stuff I write myself.Pictures, videos everything is in play here if it moves me in one way or another. 

I included a poem yesterday by Wilford Owen...an incredible Great War poet. I also included a little story I just kicked out, it too had it's background in the Great War. History is one of my passions so I suspect that subject might come up frequently in these pages.

Just thought I'd lay that out there in case anyone is going "what the heck is this?!....".

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

No man lives here...

It's cold, very cold and my body hurts all over. I cannot see much....visibility is limited by the fact it's pre-dawn and I'm cuddled round a corpse in a half frozen shell hole, reeking of rot and Mustard Gas. It is so quiet.....that at this moment that very silence seems deafening. Then I hear the thumping of my own heart.....well I'm pretty sure it's my heart beating hard and not the heart of a German corpse I've been sharing this hole with since the shelling started. I have no idea where the rest of my patrol is.....out here somewhere I suppose though I haven't a clue if any of them is still living or not. I mustn't shout out....I need to be...silent, still, alive.


The shelling had gone on for 3 or 4 minutes or so but God it seemed like a fucking eternity. Now in it's aftermath I can't focus. My soul has been knocked out of kilter and my brain is scrambled. I see only brief images, in my mind, smoke going by, flickers of movement...light in the darkness. But I begin to think my friend the corpse (I allow that now he is dead that he isn't really a German, or an English or Frenchmen for that matter....he is just another rotting corpse now, in the end.) I feel wet all over but the warm wetness in my crotch suggests that I pissed myself during the shelling....It doesn't matter really, it isn't the first time. I'm just grateful to be alive to notice.

As the minutes pass, sound comes back to me. Some where south of High Wood is the crump, crump of distant shelling impacting the sodden ground. I keep hearing a whistle, chirping in the night until i realize it's just my ears continuing to ring. I'm hungry, confused and I have to shit but I don't dare give my position away...I can hold it though it's mostly liquid and will leak out if I don't find away to....voices, several voices from out there. What language? German...a patrol? I pull a Mills Bomb out and wait....they are no longer speaking but I here the squish/crunch of boots breaking the semi-frozen mud....and then nothing.

I begin to move...west, south west back to the line. Never standing, crawling, hunched walking just a step or two at a time...connecting shell hole to shell hole. Since the lines haven't really moved much in the last several months rare is the shell hole out here that isn't occupied by the dead or pieces of the dead. Hollow empty eyes, pleading for...what? Their mums maybe? The silence, deafening silence has returned and every step I make seems like an explosion of sound then...a whisper. Sgt Millar...the patrol or what's left of them have gathered in this collapsed outpost with the dead and the rats as well. Seems three of our patrol took a direct hit. The Sgt. believes we were unlucky in moving into an area scheduled for a pre-planned sporadic box-barrage...non of us detected any movement from the German trenches though we never really got close, not even to the wire before the shelling dispersed us. The Germans routinely follow pre-planned barrages with a follow up patrol which all of us managed to avoid.

 Corporal Lakey took some shell fragments to the face and left shoulder but can walk with help. Adams legs are mangled and we carry him back to the trench....Smithy crawls forward to alert the sentries that we are coming in. The trench line further south took a beating from the shells and they have casualties as well. The Captain meets us as we come in and seems less then pleased that we didn't at least get a look at Fritz's wire and hardly reacts when informed of our dead and wounded. As we move quickly down the line to a reserve trench our mates pat us lightly as we pass....we have all been out there...outside the wire.

By Thomas O Davis

Use by Permission

A poem by someone other then me....





Spring Offensive


Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept. But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.

Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,
For though the summer oozed into their veins
Like the injected drug for their bones' pains,
Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.


Hour after hour they ponder the warm field —
And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the little brambles would not yield,
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
They breathe like trees unstirred.


Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste —
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun, —
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.


So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.


Of them who running on that last high place
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.


But what say such as from existence' brink
Ventured but drave too swift to sink.
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories, immemorial shames —
And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder —
Why speak they not of comrades that went under?


By Wilfred Owen

Monday, January 4, 2010

Newspaper thoughts in a small town

Just read a letter to the Editor in our local paper. Typically these are rants by locals about some issue and they can be painful to read. The grammar is poor, the opinions are rather shallow, biased, prejudiced or just kind of crazy. I think the editor at the paper leaves these imperfections on purpose to make fun of the individuals who write in (and they must include their full name AND address).

An example is a young woman Meth Addict in her early 30's who periodically writes in to tell everyone reading how wonderful it is to be sober/clean and the whole town should be proud of her...seriously. But everything she says in her letter tells the reader that she obviously is not sober nor drug free. I've heard from friends that she recently lost the rest of her teeth. She now looks like a survivor of a concentration camp, not the pretty young woman I first met 3 years ago. She is dying right in front of us and jails, treatment-centers, 12 step groups, nothing has been able to keep her off of the Meth. It's so sad and frankly tragic that I truly believe any compassionate person, editor or not would find a reason not to print it but they still do, every desperate word. It's sick and I can't find any reasonable reason one would have for printing it other then they think it somehow will discourage people from doing drugs....I think there must be a better way.

Other then that extreme example most letters are folks writing in to bitch about something they disagree with and as I mentioned, they are mostly entertaining for there flaws then anything else.

So imagine my surprise when I read today a wonderfully written letter from a fellow bitching about the Amish using their buggies on our roadways. At first I figured this would be another typical whiner/type letter and it started that way: "The horses shit all over the road, the buggies go slow and are dangerous because cars can't see them, they aren't insured, they damage the road, etc". But then after listing all the reasons they shouldn't be allowed on the road, he used facts to back up the issues he mentioned. The he followed that up with some suggestions to eliminate or help with the problem. I was truly impressed...especially since I drive for a living and use those roads frequently and happen to agree with most of what he said.

Perhaps this letter will start a trend and subsequent letters will follow this pattern but I suspect that won't be the case. So most likely starting tomorrow with Tuesday's paper we will get to read about hungry squirrels devouring some lady's bird feeder seed or the weather forecasters on TV getting the weather wrong AGAIN or how the President is surly a Communist, etc. And I'll sit back and smile 'cause these are the folks who I live with each and every day in Coldwater Michigan, USA....

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Lip

Creature cool and comfort error
Not a thought, no fear to bear
Heart breaks a murmur shout
Hated bastard throws it out

Sweat so sweet to tamed to tell
Held high to heat, tortured swell
A hope bound tight, tween tied up prick
Deep, defiant hard pressed lick

Friday, January 1, 2010

Ice Dreams Echo

Laughter echoes off the ice and I see the shadows of children in the moonlight, the snowy moonlight of last night. Kids skating at midnight on a shoveled patch of a recently frozen inland lake in central, southern Michigan. It simply made me feel good. It really did and that sort of surprised, sort of didn't. I want to be a happy boy again. I smiled, because it most certainly tapped into that part of me that spent countless hours on frozen water or snow covered hillsides. In my mind, my toes are still so frozen that I'm sure that when I get home mom is going to have to take me to hospital to have them amputated.It's going to be hard to break the news to her but.....that can wait for one more trip down the hill or one final game of pond hockey.

I don't really count the years anymore....I tend to take things day by day. Not the "live for today the hell w/tomorrow" philosophy of days gone by but the "squeeze the most out of each and every day I have" philosophy. This is better....take my word for it.

I've recently found myself drawing in the snow on the driveway. Not sure why exactly but it is kinda cool. I do think part of  my changing philosophy in the last few years has allowed me to feel OK being a kid again. Perhaps it's not so much being a kid as feeling alright in my own skin. That includes releasing emotion through artistic expression, could be writing, painting, poetry or simply the way I dress these days. I remeber a time in the not-so-distant past when in was quite difficult for me to just be me. I felt horribly inadequate and disconnected. Not that I am so together today but maybe I just don't expect to be and don't care about that so much. It isn't important in my world today.

OK, I know....why is it that every time I start writing about something, in this case about kids skating in the snowy,midnight, moonlight I end up reflecting or wondering or trying to figure something out? Shit, just did it again, didn't I? I do not know. It is the way I work I suppose...

It is New Years Day, 2010....I have always liked this day, it brings back memories of football and food, pleasant memories for me mostly and one profoundly unpleasant memory that I don't think I've even dealt with yet psychologically and it has been 4 years since it occurred. I won't let that define me or what I am becoming, a day at a time. Eyes focused firmly on living each and every day to it's absolute fullest, starting of course with today.....I will now don the old snow pants and head out onto the ice to listen for the sound of my own laughter, echoing through the years, it's been waiting for me all night.