Marco Simoncelli 1987-2011

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

It is with great anticipation and even greater joy that I take this moment to send my heartfelt congratulations to my dear friend Crisitunity on her upcoming nuptials this weekend.  A long-awaited moment for all of the friends and family of her and her fantastic BF, and even more so for the lucky couple themselves!

I’ve known a whole lot of couples in my life.  These two are among the bestest evar.  Y’all deserve a wonderful day, and even more, an amazing life together.  I sincerely hope that you have both.

My heartfelt best wishes to you both.  And I hope some “Dancing Queen” will be played!  😀

–TB

PS:  If I was rich, you’d best believe your wedding present would be a four-finger ring spelling out ‘C-TUNE.”

Hiatus

I’ve decided to put the blog on hold for a while.

Really, it took a friend talking to me about an unrelated subject last week to make me realize that, in fact, I’ve just been sort of going through the motions for…  what, six months now, with a couple of spotty breaks in and amongst that?  That’s just not good.  I never wanted to do this sort of thing out of some sense of obligation, I wanted to post because I had stuff to say.  And coming from a guy with MY reputation as a wordy sumbitch, this has just been an unusually quiet time for me.  I’ve stopped participating in my favorite motorcycle board, I haven’t been really reading or commenting on anyone elses’ blogs, I’ve dropped off of Twitter, I’ve been slow to reply to emails (not just you guys, but hell, even at work!) – and yeah, I’ve stopped posting everything but Monday Musics.  I kept thinking if I just kept the MM momentum alive, then when I got back to myself again, it would be easier to just crank everything back up.  And that may be true, but it still leaves me going about this without the right frame of mind.  Better, I think, to just walk away and come back when the time is right.

I think, really, what it comes down to is that for the last 20 years I’ve lived my life online to a degree that is, quite frankly, kinda shocking.  First there was the old MUD, then over time I slowly began to accumulate other online homes and change my focus from one to another as the years when by:  a couple of online forums, Myspace, then this blog, and then Twitter and all that sort of thing.  (I’ve still resisted the pull of Facebook, that’s like the last online bandwagon I have yet to jump onto.  It’ll probably come eventually, but not quite yet.)  For whatever reason, lately, I just…haven’t…been…feeling it.

I’ve gotten just plain old tired of sitting in front of a computer screen, to a level that I haven’t in a long, long, long time.  I’ve been blessed with a cornucopia of wonderful online friends over the last two decades, definitely and prominently including several of you fine folks.  But I have to be honest and admit that I’ve often done so to the detriment of forging real bonds with people I can see face-to-face.  I’ve let the internet be my support network.  Which is fine, but not as one’s ONLY support group, you know?

Hell, when it comes down to it, I kinda have an internet addiction.  I’m at a point at which there are big changes underway in my life, and I’m committed to being and doing better.  So one of the things I’m trying to do is get out there, spend some time with local people, and that sort of thing.  I didn’t really intend to step away from the ‘net so much, but while this has been going on, it’s sort of felt right.

I’m not dead, I’m not dying, I’m not depressed…well, I have been depressed, but I’m actually in a phase of getting better.  Much better, I think, and I don’t think I’m fooling myself to believe so.  And it’s not y’all, it’s me.  (Heheheh, had to work in a breakup cliche here!)  Y’all know I love ya.  Pretty much all of you have my email address – and if you don’t, duh, look in the sidebar! – and hell, most of you have my phone number.  Y’all can holler if you want, whenever you want.  It’s all good.

At some point, I intend to come back – when I’ve let my pendulum swing too far on the not-so-much-with-the-online-stuff side for a while and then come back to find a nice balance.  For now, though, I’m just going to walk my walk and think about it internally, and I’ll bore you all with the details some other time.

Don’t ask me why, but this song has been on my mind for a week or so now.  It feels appropriate for the moment, though, so I’m going to throw it up here as my last Monday Music for a while.

Neil Young, “Heart of Gold”

Love and serenity to all of you.

Catch ya on the flip side.  😉

TB

Monday Music

It’s funny, really.  I’m still sort of wrestling with a lot of things, what to do with this blog being higher on the list than it probably should be.  I kinda feel like walking away for a while, until it all starts to feel natural again; I also feel like I should keep things going just to maintain some inertia.  Hence me sticking with the MM’s even when I let everything else fall along the wayside.  Call it just a dogged determination.  Or plain stubbornness.  That last one has been hurled at me as an epithet more than once.  I refer you to the old story of my best friend once saying “Chad, you’re such a contrary sumbitch that if you drowned your body would float upstream.”

Heh.

I’ll figure it all out.

Things are really complicated for me right now, and I can’t exactly see where I’m headed, but for the first time in a long time I don’t exactly feel lost, either.  I don’t know where I’m going, but I believe I’m headed in the right direction.

I believe in my choices.

I believe in myself.

These are, for me, pleasant changes.  🙂

Joe Satriani, “I Believe”

Y’all have a good, sleepy, post-DST Monday!

Monday Music

Holy crap, Phil Collins retired because of chronic drum-related injuries?

Dude.

I mean, Phil’s not my favorite guy in the world, but come on.  The 80s music scene would have been weak as hell without him, you must admit.

Okay.  So you could argue that it was weak as hell because of him.  I just personally wouldn’t argue that.  They may have been cheesy but I will admit to loving the hell out of some of his songs.

Anyhoo, now I must salute one of the greatest drum-break-ins of all time.

Phil Collins, “In The Air Tonight”

Here’s the classic video.  Surely it’s embedding-disabled so I won’t even bother to try.

And of course here’s the hoary old urban legend about the song’s origin.  (I’ll spoil the ending:  it’s not true.)

Monday Music

On the other side, things look a lot different.

This is the last day of February.  February is typically a motherfucker in my life.  You’ll recall that just last year I attempted to sever a digit around about this time.  This February has been … interesting.  In a mildly harrowing but mostly growthful sense.  It’s been an opportunity for me to ask some serious questions of myself.  What I believe.  Who I want to be.  What is important.  Shit like that.

I’m reminded of this old favorite of mine.  And not just for the “Dr. Davis, telephone please…” refrain in the beginning, which is repeated as stock audio in so many hospital settings that it’s hysterical.

Queensryche, “Eyes of a Stranger”

But, see here Geoff-with-a-G, sometimes the mirror DOES lie, because your eyes will always interpret it for you…

 

Borrowed Wisdom

I love finding treasure troves at random.

A week ago Saturday I was at the local branch of my public library to pick up a Dummies book on ice hockey.  (Yes, I’m making yet another attempt to grow an interest in the NHL.  So far this one is sticking a little bit.)  While I was there, I reached over and grabbed The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Backpacking and Hiking.  I thought it would be vaguely interesting, and it was.  But while I was in that section, my eyes just happened to fall upon another book.  I picked it up, glanced at the cover and the dust jacket text, and put it in the pile to check out.  I’ve plowed through all three books in 10 days, and this one will someday rest on my personal bookshelf.

I just had to share these excerpts from my favorite book of 2011 (so far):

Perhaps, at the time, in our hearts, we do have an inkling that we’re only just beginning, but we don’t want to admit it.  We can’t.  To admit that would be to admit you don’t know what you’re doing, which would be to admit, that you have a long way to go, which would make the journey appear so daunting as to stymie even starting out.  Better to believe you know what you’re doing and keep doing it until you do.

Heh.  Been there and done that, brother.

But better than that is this.  This is, IMHO, some damn good writing.

Adulthood is an insidious process of accretion.  If you’re not vigilant, you begin to grow a shell, a carapace that you are expected to carry lightly:  the rigid, high-stress hull of security, status, status quo.  The thicker the better, right up until it crushes you.  On the inside, whether you can still feel it or not, your soul is trying to claw its way out.

Uh:  yep.  That’s some scary truth right there.  I’m trying to teach myself to shed as much of that carapace as is healthy.  But damn, it’s hard stuff, and it runs counter to most of what we’re taught (or, more likely, absorb by osmosis) as kids.

I highly recommend the book, folks.  It’s called The Hard Way:  Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure by Mark Jenkins, an avid climber and outdoor writer.  My penis-equipped friends will especially appreciate it, methinks.

Monday Music

Thanks to those of you who remembered my birthday last week!  😀  It was nice to hear from all of you, despite my extended mostly-absence.  While I’m not yet making any promises, I hope that part is about to get better.

Lots of things are getting better.

I was saving this song for this Monday, closest to my birthday – but recent events make it even more applicable than I’d planned.

Danny Gokey, “My Best Days Are Ahead Of Me”

Go watch it on YouTube.  Trust me.

It’s lookin’ up, people.  😀

Monday Music

Happy Valentine’s Day, folks!

I told you I’d have something less gloomy today.

King’s X, “It’s Love”

No matter whether or not there’s joy or pain, sun or rain, hope or fear, smiles or tears.  It’s love that holds it all together.

I just had to let you know.

May we all find a little bit of love today, from all around us!

Monday Music

It’s another wet and grey-ass day, spitting rain and snow and slush and just generally being suckish.  I’m about ready to put ol’ Punxatawney Phil into the cab of an old pickup and drive him off the cliff into the bottom of the rock quarry myself.

But hey, the Packers won the Super Bowl (‘grats to Dys and her dad, both huge Pack fans!  Condolences to my old bud FellowNerd, a Steelers fan), and the sun shone for a little bit this weekend, so it’s not ALL bad, right?

In the meantime, here’s some gloomy winter music for a gloomy day.  I have something more upbeat in mind for next week, promise!

Agalloch, “…And The Great Cold Death of the Earth”