Name This Post

One

Two

Nine

Eleven
Butch Wax

Twenty
No more Butch Wax

Twenty-Five
(with volcanic ash from Mt. St. Helens)
(Definitely no Butch Wax)

Twenty-six
(Borrowed suit... beautiful bride)

Twenty-seven
Grease was everywhere except my hair

Twenty-eight

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Finally... the post begins!...
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“I want something different. I’m sort of reinventing myself, looking for new beginnings, and I want a different look.”

That’s a dangerous thing to say to a hair stylist who sports a spikey hair thingy and several studs arranged haphazardly on facial features.

“Ooooooo Kaaaaaaay... Any ideas about what that might be?”

Brad is a pretty good guy. I’m tempted to call him a kid, but he is in his twenties and I hated it when people called me that at his age. Besides, he really is good at what he does. He knows hair styles.

“I think I want conservative.”

He smiles.

“But different. Something out of the ‘50s. Make me look like Perry Mason.”

He laughed.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

A half hour later I walk out with a sharper taper to my hair, and it is combed more to the side. Forward, over, and back. I go next door to the store and buy a tube of Brylcreem.

Bryl-creem, a little dab'll do ya,
Use more, only if you dare,
But watch out,
The gals will all pursue ya,--
They'll love to put their fingers through your hair.

(I was using butch wax when this commercial was out)

Fifty-two

I have a weird sense of humor. I found the whole thing very amusing. I need a little amusing right now.

I am trying to reinvent my life.

I have to.

The life I expected... growing old with Brenda... you know, a geezer walking on the beach with a white haired woman beside him who still wants to hold his hand... just ain’t going to happen.

I was just starting to get a little more sleep, but with Rocky’s death I’m back to three or four hours each night (the other night I kept taking sleeping pills throughout the night, only to discover in the morn they weren’t sleeping pills. I had placed my blood pressure medicine on the wrong shelf.

It's a little fun discovering who I am. I can be any person I want.

I’ve gone through changes before.

When Willy died, I went to a grief support group. When I called, they asked me if I was a SIDS parent. I thought, “Oh, is that what I am now?”

When I adopted these two boys I became a father again. Another sharp change in my life. One I still embrace.

I have had so many jobs, done so many different things... Let’s see... heavy equipment operator, head cook in a vegetarian restaurant, editor of a corporate magazine, milkman, insulation installer, construction laborer, graphic artist, newspaper delivery, newspaper telemarketer (sorry!), made moccasins, inept subsistence farmer, cook in homestyle cookin’ type restaurants, construction estimator, custodian, after school YMCA guy, baker, smoothie guy, waiter, dish washer, teacher...

After writing that list I wonder why I resist change. Change seems to be the only constant thing in my life.

It’s the only constant thing in the universe. The universe continues to expand (we think, it may be possible that we are just in a rather thin section of the universe, in which case the local expansion would make it look like the entire universe is expanding).

Brenda is lobbying for me to let her come back.

A character flaw of mine is I am a pleaser. I want to do for others. Too often at too great a cost to myself.

But, I am clamping down on that flaw, and am not willing to let her return.

She may be asking to come back... but I do not trust her. She wants to return to ease her guilt, not because she loves me.

She thinks she can rely on the part of me that wants to please, to help.

Though that part of who I am has not changed that much, the rest of me has. I do not want her back.

Simply put, I want a wife who loves me.

It isn’t too much to ask.

If I can’t find one... I’d rather do without.

I am nervous about the coming year. Jeremiah needs to be in a group home by June. Isaac has turned 18, and in July I am planning on going to Thailand for a month. He will learn to be independent, on his own, while I am away (after I spend the next six months preparing him).

By this time next year I will have lost many things I love. A wife, a dog. One child will move away, and the other independent enough to do so.

My heart swells with what hurts and what brings joy.

Oh... If it wasn’t that this world, this universe, is so beautiful, grander than my mind can grasp (for no matter how far I stretch to embrace it, the more I learn is out of my reach), I would not be able to handle it all.

I am changing now.

Long ago swordsmiths would heat and fold, and beat, and heat, and fold, and heat, and beat, and fashion swords mixed finely with iron and carbon... tools able to hold an edge, tools flexible yet strong.

It isn’t any fun at all to be between the Smith’s tongs.

My appearance has changed over the years, reflecting the inner changes.

I change the outward aspects of my life to express the inner changes I am going through. I cut my hair and rub Brylcreem through it. I hug my children and paint the living room orange and their images on the wall. I wrestle with my thoughts and stammering my mental dialogue through a keyboard I toss them into the internet sea, digital notes in virtual bottles.

There are more changes ahead.

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Well... not sure what to call this rambling piece. Want to propose a title? Give me a title. Or vote for one of the ones below... and I’ll rename this strange soliloquy.

A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

Between the Tongs

Note in a Bottle

Changes

Or... Bowiesque: Ch... Ch... Ch... Changes!

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One Last Pic... My son casting his first ballot




: )