Category: Uncategorized

And then I went to New Jersey.

I have heard some regretful things about New Jersey on the television and radio waves of our nation but my experiences are an anomaly for in the glorious Garden State I did do great things.

I rose before the sun and trekked across an alien city to do battle with electricity and sound! I lay my head on the firmest most comfortable thing ever and dreamed sweet nightmares in the dark. I talked pain with an old woman and I met two cats and an incredible dog. We became fast friends.

I did some deep breathing, a lot of reflecting and a fair amount of looking in during the long, still hours in the night. I saw bridges and tunnels and hills and basements – I met new people, I renewed myself with some of the best people I know. I even became acquainted with a beautiful coffee shop in the wee hours of the morning and saw a robot steal a car then bring it back. I carried letters I could not send.

In the dead of night I faced deep fears in the passenger seat of a white traffic defying demon and it was magical. I wore a suit that used to be too small and is now to big. I sang rainbow connection with people I love and had shots with the tender of the bar. I do not. Regret. One. Second.
Also, I re-learned a few things about myself that I had no business forgetting in the first place. Among those, this:

Hesitation is doing me far more harm than good. One day in a future not terribly far off, I’ll wake in the early morning to tea fresh brewed and waiting. I’ll grab that cup and a fresh sliced bagel and settle into a chair on my porch and watch the sun carry high into the sky over the city. And while Im sitting there on that porch in the future with my hot tea and with my bagel, and a place set for a stranger to join me- I’ll be regretting the things I didnt do and not the things I did. I want that list to be shorter than it is now.

I am awake, and seek not to sleep long again.

Sorry for taking a little while to get back here. But now im back settled at the table, a nice little brew on the right, Duke Ellington in the background and lighting that would put normal people into a sleepydoze. It feels like a big leather chair that long ago molded to me in a room filled with trophies of a life spent living. Baseball cards, vintage photographs, (with me in them! HA!) a quilt i helped make, and the books that move me. A reflecting room. I should really build one of those- and then spend the rest of my life filling it the right way. Wait. Shouldnt that be life anyway? What the hell have i been DOING?

This:

I had a pretty wonderful evening not long ago. I hung out with people I really enjoy being around doing something I dont do often but should: REALLY CONNECTING. So little of that is actually going on with me right now and isnt that the point? I always say that I do what i do in my professional life because I believe that the connections people make with other people are important. All of them (not just the ones I like, but even the ones I think are just ech.) I believe in us. I believe in ALL of us, but I try to keep myself just outside our reach. I think it helps me be objective, I think. It helps me help you- and helping you helps me. I think. Much better neighbors than housemates, but every now and then I’ll see someone hold someone else close and that looks like fun, to lose yourself in that. And then I question the wisdom in holding myself apart from you all. Deep thinkin. Ingrid Michaelson I blame you. Ultimately, this:

We deserve more. Every single one of us, and all we have to do is DO.

This past week:

-Wrote a poem about a boxer.
-Drank beer with a pretty lady who shared wisdom WAY beyond her years.
-Played a competitive card game for fun. (which doesnt happen as often as it should, given how often I play)
-Made Chili in cold weather while I drank beer and listened to beautiful music.
-Got to use my brains for a sideways solution.

SCORE: Yes

Sidenote: Spent time at the Londonner (in Allen?) and some little burger place with a nice bartender who loves us and has great taste in closing time music selection. The time you spend getting there isnt time wasted at all. REEVALUATE.

Neither of us is new anymore. We carry scars and rips and frays and we’ve been bleached by the weather and the sun. But every morning youre at my side and you brave the day with me until we’re home for the day. You carry my worries and troubles so I don’t have to and youve been good for a distraction when I really need one- as far as I know you are the best train buddy a guy could have. I know that sometimes I push you to your limits, try to make you do things you cant do. Im.. demanding, and youre patient with me. I remember the first time I saw you, resting there against a wall leaning on a display in the mall. I knew immediately I had to have you on my arm and I can hardly believe I made it happen. And now. Years later we’re taking the train together to work. Honestly, I wouldnt trade our time together for anything and I really hope you feel the same.

Thanks for always being there.

This morning was an almost silent, contemplative ride to work. Mindreader wasn’t even there So I was alone with my thoughts. Since I was sick yesterday and it’s Friday today I feel like I should maybe offer my fellow Pubtranspos some encouragement. It felt like we were riding together across the channel to be target practice for the Friday pre-holiday workflow. I SHOULD say something. Something rousing to get them through the day; to send them into the jaws of work with the good stuff to get them back out again at 4 o’clock.  Really we’re in this together. It’s not like the workdays are any easier on me. When those doors open into the blistering morning and the enemy day starts gunning for us I’m a target just like everybody else. She shows us no mercy. She gives us no quarter and she does not take prisoners. Some of us may fall. Not all of us will make it back in time, captured and chained in overtime long past happy hour. And while those things be true we don’t blink and we don’t quake like scared little interns. We’re on the job and we do not rattle.

“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.”*

8 Hours of blood and faxes, sweating through meetings, and sucking the last drops of bitter salvation out of little Styrofoam canteens.

Bring it on.

*Charge of the Light Brigade.
Get some knowledge in you.