The Black Suit
Current mood: pensive
Category: Life

Once upon I time I bought a black suit.

I bought the suit because I was in a community choir whose mission was to put on concerts to raise money for a local food bank – it was our uniform. This was a wonderful thing for me to be a part of, expressing my love of both people and music. As a simple uniform, it's not fancy nor expensive, just your basic no nonsense black suit. Heavy material, part of a musician's work wear. Meant to take years of careful abuse up on the stage.

Wednesday morning, I tried on my black suit again. It still fits – just barely, and uncomfortably, but it does indeed fit. It was so tight, I wasn't sure I even wanted to wear it that day, but I brought it to work so I could make up my mind at the last moment.

As I put it on that morning, the memories of playing and singing music in that suit, and then the years before I'd even bought it came washing over me. I imagine my father would get the same feeling trying on his flight suit from his years as a fighter pilot, if he still owned his uniforms.

This week, I was trying on my suit because I was to attend my best friend's funeral that afternoon. It was fitting, wearing a musician's uniform, because the first and strongest bond between my buddy and me was music. We met in marching band when we were both very young, and were subsequently in orchestra and jazz band together. Our love of music developed into a bond that lasted 3 decades. We had been through a lot together over the years, and I was very shocked last week to learn we were no longer going to go through life together.

Death has a funny way of causing you to selfishly reflect on your own life – where you've been, where you might still go, even who will be at your own funeral (and what they might say about you) after you're gone. This was doubly true for me, because my buddy's wife had asked me to talk about his life at the service. In thinking about him over all the years, I couldn't help but think about the missed opportunities I'd had to spend with him, and about what in life I might do different now if I could be confronted with the many decisions I'd made over the years. I can't say I have found any answers, but I can say that the thinking about all these things is not over. Beside, there aren't many do-overs in life. Better to get it right while you're young if you can.

Death has a funny way of connecting and reconnecting people. I got to spend time with my friend's mom, who I haven't seen since his wedding, and before then, not since we were all noticeably younger. I got to see his "little" brother and sister, and realized that I'd been missing an opportunity to stay connected with people who were a part of my growing up. When you move away from home, you have to work a little harder to maintain connections to your home, but I've come to believe you need the grounding those connections supply, lest you float away from earth and forget who you are.

I'm not sad, not really, at the moment. I thought I would be, when I stood up in my uniform black suit to talk about what kind of a person my best friend had been. I thought I might start crying in public, or just get up there and have stage fright, with nothing to day. I was relying on all the times I'd gotten up in front of an audience to play music (sometime not really all that prepared), or the countless presentations I'd given at work over the years to get me through the moment.

But in the end, the moment wasn't about me at all; it was about celebrating what kind of person my buddy had been. Hard to get to know, but once you were his friend – the best friend you'd ever had. A guy who would drop what he was doing at a moment's notice to help a friend in need – and not ask for anything in return. One of the smartest people I've known, who didn't look down on anyone. And someone who could find something positive, something funny about ANY situation, and make you laugh. He would have found humor in his own death, no doubt. I owe a lot to him for my own wacky and overly inclusive sense of humor.

In the end, when I needed to get up there and talk about my friend, no notes, no idea what I was going to say, I just talked about what kind of a guy my friend was when he was 14. He hadn't changed all that much, and HIS humor sustained me, HIS strength,. All I had to do was share a few funny stories (even though I kept even more  for myself). I believe I did my best to honor his memory.

Over the past week, I learned a few things about my oldest friend that I didn't quite realize over the past few days. He was NOT a person who gave up easily. If he failed, he just tried something different. He did what he needed to do to take care of his family. Which is why one of the smartest people I know in every way (academically, socially, and in every sense of the word) was driving a tow truck when he died.

I'm not overly sad, because my friend wouldn't be. He would be looking to tomorrow, and the day after, not the pain of yesterday. I won't forget, and I will try to learn the lessons he was trying to teach me both in life and death; wherever you are in life, don't give up. Keep trying, keep coming up with new plans when the old ones fail, BUT – above all – DON'T LOSE YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR!!!

I hope to retire my black suit now. I want to give up the things it symbolizes in order to pursue the tangible things they represent. I am no longer interested in community choirs, so even though my love of music continues, that particular avenue is closed. But I will look for other ways to feed the poor.  And I'll continue to look for ways to love the music that suit symbolizes.

8:54 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

A humble proposition
Current mood: content
Category: Art and Photography

Lately, so much attention has been given to the art of drunk texting in our culture.

You know the drill. Alcohol loosens our inhibitions, and texting already might feel somewhat anonymous, so there is a rash of people sitting at the bar, or at home afterwards, happily composing beautiful prose to send to friends, family, ex-lovers, and even would-be lovers.

Let’s face it, when you don’t have to actually hear the other person’s response right away, it seems so easy. And of course, alcohol already makes so many things so much easier. Every word flow like poetry, everyone is beautiful, and we can do no wrong.

It’s no wonder we’ve started to think of the drunk text as a new art form.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, it suddenly hit me this morning that we are making too much of it. I want to humbly propose that we hang the easy art of drunk texting on last year’s cultural wall, and admire it only occasionally.

The SMS protocol is limited to 160 characters, and you want to make each and every one count. This is not the case with drunk texting. It’s too easy.

I hope you now see what I realized today - hungover texting is a much higher art form. You have to struggle for the words, reach into the fog and hunt for them. It hurts to think, and we all know that art borne from pain is of a higher quality than the McArt that spews forth from all when we are artificially happy.

So next time you are tempted to hunt through your address book while drinking - stop and think how much better it will be if you wait until tommorrow to send it!

11:45 AM - 11 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

3 singles, in different phases of life
Current mood: happy
Category: Writing and Poetry

Lonely Lucy
Longing for love
Knows what she needs, and where to look
Window shops, but won’t buy

Tired Ellie
Heart’s little door
Left open too many times, suddenly slammed shut
Opens now under painful protest, too slowly to let him in

Lovely old Lola
Parade of lovers
She left main street just before the last band
Missing the end of the parade

8:31 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Scottsdale Suzy
Current mood: okay
Category: Writing and Poetry

Scottsdale Suzy -
Perfect platinum hair, this year’s color
Rolex on slender wrist, new nose
Camelback condo, looks down on the city

Scottsdale Suzy -
Sitting across from surgeon husband
Perfectly behaved children, aged two and four
Everything you ever wanted, except for your happiness

5:51 AM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Meh...
Current mood: overstimulated
Category: Music

I remixed the song, "Right in the heart", because a really good friend of mine told me the song meant something to her, and the lyrics were not intelligible before. And glad I did. Was stressed about multiple things before, and while I was in my basement working on this, many said things worked themselves out. Music cures all - even mediocre music!

FWIW, this song was inspired by something someone once said to me. Thanks for the song, you!

Only technical recording detail worth noting is that the guitar is my lovely black, Schecter "Hellraiser" 7 string guitar, which I bought partially because my playing on it seemed to annoy the old dude next to me at Guitar Center trying to play classic rock more than the other 7 string they had hanging on the wall. That was exactly the feeling I was going for! After all, they say it’s the feeling that counts most in music.

Song is now Numero Uno on mio profile...

Currently listening : A Hangover You Don't Deserve By Bowling for Soup Release date: 14 September, 2004

11:00 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

What iff?
Current mood: quixotic
Category: Religion and Philosophy

What iff?

What iff you heard everything eveyone said about you?
would it change how you feel about yourself?
could it change how you conducted your life?
might it get lost in the waves of information drowning our lives?

What iff you found out eveything you’d said in private, wasn’t?
would you rethink your percpetions, knowing they’d been heard?
could you change your thinking in the sudden blinding light?
might you just choose not to see the bleeding you’d caused?

What iff?

Currently listening : A Beautiful Lie By 30 Seconds to Mars Release date: 30 August, 2005

11:01 PM - 4 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Her Voice
Category: Writing and Poetry

I dreamt I heard her voice
Soft, silent early snow, tickling my senses
Surprising me, sustaining me, laughter for me

I thought I heard her voice
Thick, delicate distant fog, smearing my sky
Enriching me, enlightening me, enlivening me.

I almost missed her voice
Saran flower, almost too delicate to see
Now each dawn her voice tickles me awake.

Currently listening : Let Go By Avril Lavigne Release date: 04 June, 2002

8:01 PM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Desert Dawn
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Writing and Poetry

Day's heat dissipates from our desert sand
Silent saguaros guard you in sleep
I watch you, wanting the night to never end
Your heat and mine intertwine, fighting cooling sands

Closing my eyes, I see years unfold
We're old together for an eternal instant
I hold you forever, forget about the dawn
Endless desert night, silent stars smiling upon us

I'd rather be frozen in such a warm/cold night
But ancient saguaros stand hard as you wake
Harsh light touches your cheek, must midnight die?
Desert dawn warming sand, suddenly night is gone.

One single night shared under open skies
Youthful yearnings, and never again so young
With the years, my memory's made perfect -
Eternal night spent holding you, no desert dawn

Currently listening : Jagged Little Pill By Alanis Morissette Release date: 13 June, 1995

6:49 AM - 5 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

White on white
Category: Writing and Poetry

Here's a poem which - I hope - is more interesting than the humorous but mundane everyday event that inspired it.

White on white

I'd hurt you, harmed you, constricted your heart
In the depth of one night – destiny dared look at me, and demand:
What had I done?

I chose my words carefully – I wasted none
Forged in the fire of my heart, purified to perfection
Bright, blazing with the heat of love's truth
Words tattooed in white, onto our eternity

Your beauty blazed too brightly, my eyes burned shut
After all I'd done, I dared not look at its purity
My apologies most earnest, but your whiteness assured -

My words were white on white.
My words were white on white.

Currently reading : Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner By Dean Karnazes Release date: 02 March, 2006

10:57 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

The Interview
Current mood: content
Category: Romance and Relationships

They'd both done this countless times before, and so both expected it to be very businesslike. After all, there were rules governing such meetings, so there was no reason to expect there to be any surprises over the 2 PM interview, held over coffee.

He believed he had come prepared with a mental list of the perfect wife and mother, and that he was interviewing her to see whether there was a chance she could meet all of the items on his list, ignoring the fact that no woman alive in this age or any other possibly could. After all, the list's main purpose was as a safe barrier against his taking the risk of opening up to another girl, of giving her a chance to hurt him.

Because, in actuality, he had come prepared with a mental list of all the horrible things his first real girlfriend had done to him, when both of them were too young to know any better. Most people grow up and get past bad first relationships the best they can, but he seemed stuck in the past, doomed to relive that relationship because it was the only one he'd ever known. God knows he'd relived it enough times, through other women since. Now there was a sick comfort in at least knowing the script from beginning to end.

She believed she had come prepared to determine whether he was "the one." The Knight in Shining Armor, who would make her feel safe against any threat. The one who would cherish her more than life itself, and be her soul mate. She would accept no less, no cracks in the armor. Her sole purpose in the interview was to determine whether or not he was knight material. She had actually given up hope of meeting her prince, but was willing to go through the motions. It beat going out with the girls every Saturday night.

But really, all she had come prepared with was repressed hatred toward the father who had abandoned the family when she was 8. She knew she was supposed to love her father, and couldn't bear the hate she felt instead, so she needed a man to willingly step into the father role. This man would treat her like a child, care for her every need, and give her the childhood she had missed. In return, she would transfer the hatred she felt toward her real father onto the man, and add the guilt of those feelings as interest, for as long as he was willing to take it. Hopefully forever, in her fairy tale world.

But coffee dates are governed by rules, so neither of them could ask overt questions about their real motives - conscious or unconscious.

So they started with small talk, the weather. Family, nothing too deep. Kept off of touchy subjects like past relationships. And they each played a game of seduction, touching, flirting – just a little, to try to build a little interest, then pulling back – just a little, to give the interest space to grow. After all, they both knew how the game was played, what the rules were. As far as each knew, the rules hadn't changed since their ancestors first walked upright.

The interview went well, and they would meet again, maybe for a movie, maybe a drink or football game. They both knew the rules of the game so well that both passed the interview with flying colors.

And so another stormy relationship began. Scripted to last almost 2 months this time.

The only irony this time was the random timing of his getting the nerve to ask her for that first coffee date. One month sooner and she wouldn't have been available. One month later she wouldn't have been available.

But 6 months after that she would have.

Little could they know that they actually had a lot in common, and could have been life long partners and best friends. But unfortunately, both needed one more short, intense, and really painful reminder that the lists and scripts they had lived by so long were not working for them. One more failed relationship before each one finally rejected the rules, choosing to try getting to know the next one as a person, not trying to filter him through any list, nor attempting to script her through the "rules" of "the game." The next failed relationship could have been with someone else, and those exes they wouldn't talk about at their first coffee date the next time around wouldn't have been each other.

Pity they hadn't waited 6 months for that first coffee.

Currently watching : Singles Release date: 23 February, 1999

4:20 PM - 10 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment