Sometimes you have something to write. Other times you just want to write something. I said that.

41

I'm gonna miss u, 40.
There were ups and downs for sure.
I sang in a bar. I sang in a church. Again.
I had a relationship. I dated.
Damn u, Ray LaMontagne, for making me sentimental on today of all days.
Thank you, Jamey Johnson, for making me sentimental all year.
Its so hard to capture a feeling with mere words.

I'm a happy camper

I just got this:

rainy sunday

Awesome :-)

Awesome lol

Hot and Cold

A woman who my mother knows
Came in and took off all her clothes.

Said I, not being very old,
'By golly gosh, you must be cold!'

'No, no!' she cried. 'Indeed I'm not!
I'm feeling devilishly hot!'

Roald Dahl

I feel good...time to write something

I have not written on here in a bit. I have no inspired words or witty ideas to remember later, but I feel really good. How do you save a feeling to reflect on later? You can't take a picture of it. I suppose you could write an abstract poem, but I don't wanna do that right now lol. I will just leave a note for myself for some future date when I need to remember.....I feel really good about life right now, and someday when I don't, I hope to remember this moment and realize that it happened once and will again :-)

Thank you, Freddie King :-)

I love the tip, I love the top,
I love you better than a hog loves slop
'Cause you're a big legged woman, with a short short miniskirt
Promise me darlin', you'll never make me feel like dirt

Just like the vine, goes around the stump,
you are mine, call me sugar lump
'Cause you're a big-legged woman, with a short short miniskirt
Promise me darlin, you'll never make me feel like dirt

I've told you once, I've told you twice,
we go together, like fried beans and rice
'Cause you're a big-legged woman, with a short short miniskirt
Promise me darlin, you'll never make me feel like dirt

A Self-Indulgent poem with a hidden personal meaning :-)

Lovely days like this are so nice to have
Yet the things that are even more worthwhile:
Nights that end just as sweetly as the day
Nothing beats falling asleep with a smile

Sonnet 71710 (I'm OK, Just Listening to the Blues)

Just because I like the blues and old twang
And I like the way they make me reflect
Doesn't mean I am unhappy today
Just that I view my past with due respect

Life teaches us that we will lose sometimes
But that is not always such a bad thing
I can relate to Hank Williams Senior
And get the point when I hear BB King

If life was not hard or full of losses
Robert Johnson would not have had a voice
If none ever had to bear life's crosses
Then cheerful songs would be our only choice

I prefer today's music as a whole
Its the sad songs that pierce my very soul.

Sonnet 18 (by another Willie that I admire)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Where everybody knows your name

So, contrary to what a select few fair weather friends may think, I have never spent much time in bars. I have sent more time in bars in the last two years (since getting divorced) than in the other 38 years of my life combined. Although I have been known to consume some alcohol with friends, I am not a big drinker and never do during the week or on weekends when alone. Its just not my thing. So, anyway, its funny to me now that this Mexican restaurant/bar called Maria Bonita is like my place now. My son goes three and sometimes four times a week to a jiujitsu class and this place is around the corner. Its easier to kill time there watching their many tvs than it is to drive all the way back home for an hour and a half and get back out again. So I have been hanging out there watching tv or reading or whatever. Last night I noticed that the entire staff was basically treating me like family and they all knew my name. One of the teenage waitresses was explaining the meaning of some of my tattoos to another like I was her uncle or something. This is not a bad thing, it just struck me as funny. Anyway, there is karaoke on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and the chips and salsa are pretty good. Its like my own Mexican Cheers :-)

Quote for the day

"I ain't what I ain't, but I am what I am." -Craig Morgan

Status of my love life

Love is like a butterfly (that is slowly dying because its wings have been ripped of by some hateful kid). ;-)

If I had the nerve to tell you the way I really feel
Would it help you to get over him and would it help your heart to heal?
I know that you still love him, even though he hurt you bad
And you think that you can never find the love you thought you had

Just because he was so wrong for you doesn’t mean that I’m not right
If you’ll take a chance and let me I’ll love you every day and night
I know you think your heart will break if you let another in
But I want to be your lover, I need to be more than your friend.

If I had the chance to treat you the way that you deserve
I would love on every inch of you, I would cherish every curve
I may not be your first choice, but I don’t have to be your last
If you’ll let me be with you right now, you’ll forget about your past

You say if we make love that everything we have would change
That you would lose a friend and confidant and it wouldn’t be the same
But the reason that I love you is because you’re my best friend
I want you by my side to hold my hand everyday until the end

Just because he was so wrong for you doesn’t mean that I’m not right
If you’ll take a chance and let me I’ll love you every day and night
I know you think your heart will break if you let another in
But I want to be your lover, I need to be more than your friend.

Guy Clark is a genius.

Artist: Clark Guy
Song: Instant Coffee Blues
Album: Essential

He washed all the road dirt from his face and from his neck
And sat down at her table and she picked up his check.
And she took him home for reasons that she did not understand.
And him, he had the answers but did not play his hand.
For him he knew the taste of this wine very well.
It all goes down so easily but the next day is hell.

Morning - "Man was I drunk," she wispered in the shower.
While he lay there and smoked his way there through the final hour.
And she felt wholly empty like she'd felt it every time.
And he was feelin' just the same, 'cept he was tryin' to make it rhyme.
Time was of the essence so they both did their best,
to meet up in the kitchen feelin fully dressed.
She just had to go to work, and he just had to go.
And she knew where and he knew how to blow it off and so.

They shot the breeze quite cavalier to the boilin' of the pot.
And sang the Instant Coffee Blues and never fired a shot.

And him he hit the driveway with his feelin's in a case.
And her she hit the stoplight and touched up her face.
So you tell them the difference between caring and not.
And that it's all done with mirrors, lest they forgot.

I said it's all done with mirrors, of which they have none.
To blend the instant coffee blues into the morning sun

On my mind today, thanks to John Mayer

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire
Im on fire

Tell me now baby is he good to you
Can he do to you the things that I do
I can take you higher
Im on fire

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley
Through the middle of my soul

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the
Middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Im on fire

-Bruce Springsteen

Sailor Jerry

I am not 100% sure yet, but I think I am going to round out the Outlaws tattooed on my back with the main man himself, right in the center :-)

Little Boys

Little boys are a blessing.
I would imagine that little girls are too,
but I have never had one.
Mine is not so little anymore but I still like to think of him that way.

I am very fortunate right now to have two others to spend time with and laugh with and encourage and fuss at with quite a bit of freedom thanks to their very sincere and concerned mama.

Little boys need a man to guide them, no matter if they are already 15 or just 7 or even only 20 months.
He does not have to be a perfect man, just a man who cares.
I like being that man.

Faron (Poem)

Am I the exception, or just another in a pattern?
Young, White, Barksdale
If I did not have divine faith and instead felt ruled by destiny
I don't think I would have much longer
Maybe I should have thought longer before naming my son.

I shaved my head :-)

I have always had a desire to see myself with my head shaved. When I was 23 and went to army basic training I sort of saw it, but that was as a kid really and with no facial hair and not really what I meant. I had this idea that most women did not like bald heads, and that if I ever actually went through with it I would end up looking silly and all my friends would make fun of me. So about a week ago when I was joking about it with my girlfriend, I did not expect her to encourage me to actually do it. She mentioned it several times after, and I thought, "well, if she wants me to do it, why not give it a try? I don't really care what anybody else thinks about how I look other than her anyway." So I did it, and I am actually pretty happy with it. I think I may buy my own clippers and keep it this way a while :-)

Outlaws on my back

I grew up listening to Willie and Waylon and Johnny Cash in my dad's truck. I loved it when I was little, went through a teenage phase where I hated it because it was my dad's music, and then rediscovered it as my "roots" as an adult. So, I had this idea that I wanted the Highwaymen tattooed on my back.



Anyway, I was all ready to do it, but I thought, "Do I really want all four (don't forget Kris Kristofferson) of their faces on me? So I wound up getting a Johnny Cash silhouette on my lower back and decided to think about the rest.



I was really pleased with the result, but I immediately started wishing that I also had Willie somewhere. After all, he is my favorite. So I began looking through photographs and one in particular grabbed my eye. I knew I had to have it.



So, after a week to let the redness cool down, this is what it looks like on my right shoulder. I love it.



Happy for the moment and with two tats not even fully healed, I was laying on the couch with my head in my girlfriend's lap watching YouTube clips. She played a Waylon song and there it was, the big Waylon Eagle lit up behind him. I knew I had to have it to complete my set. Here it is on my left shoulder:



Now I have three of my favorite outlaws on my back, but still a lot of blank space. I wonder what will hit me next? :-)

New laptop

Aight, so I finally bought a new computer after months of only having the one issued for work (that is supposed to be only for work). I wanted a netbook, but I was afraid of regretting it at some point because they really are underpowered for most anything beyond web surfing (hence the name netbook). I started looking at the in-betweens; more powerful than netbooks but certainly not desktop replacements. I settled last night on the Toshiba Satellite T115, and so far I am happy with my decision, but we shall see:

Not a poem

OK, this is not a poem. I am contemplating writing more stuff here and maybe even renaming the blog to be more inclusive. Here is my conundrum: I NEED a creative outlet, for therapeutic if no other reasons. I feel like stuff is bottled up inside of me, but I am not focused on how to funnel it. So, maybe for now I will ramble. Anyway, I have that egocentric longing to be read, as if that would somehow make me matter more in the great scheme of things, but I am so undisciplined that if I did have consistent readers I would then be inconsistent and they would tire of it and leave me lol. Oh well, maybe I am not destined for recognition and instead this is all just for me, in which case maybe it will still be worthwhile :-)