my new hair--self-port.

I think it brings out my eyes, what do you think?

january 8

It would be a lie if I said I was living true to myself. It would also be a lie if I said that I was unhappy with the way I have been living.
And now, after the resolutions have been issued like a death sentence, I will start in with what I have been doing--and more accurately share what I have not been doing…

To put it bluntly, I have been coasting for months. But this is only in certain aspects of my life. And as a meticulous planner and logistics snob, it was only a matter of time before I had to have the talk with myself. Today was the day.

I have not been thinking. I have been abusing the routine of daily life to put off such things. I spin the records, I teach the pupils, I run the laps and lift the weights, but am inside a void of anything important.
What prompted this berating? Well, while sitting down in the limited solo quiet moments that I have in my week, I turned on the boss of the blues, Big Joe Turner. He is best described as background filler, again, for those who cannot abide having a moment of silence in their daily lives ( don’t get me confused with one of these average Joes…), sat down to a reheated tofu and veggie mess I tried to assemble the night before--abysmal and only tolerable with a shocking amount of soy sauce to cover the disgusting stench and lack of flavor-- back to the point,
So I picked up the first of a host of books recommended by my brother-in-law, this one being Notes From Underground, F. Dostoevsky. (Others in my stack include Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.) He included the cliffs notes and added in passing that it helped him to understand more thoroughly what was going on. Ok.
So in the few paragraphs of the forward, I am captivated. I have to stop reading to make a note to myself that this is the moment when life goes from thought to actualization.

Over the break I did relatively little to improve my craft. I read a series of mindless books including The DaVinci Code for the first time, a couple of silly Steve Martin books and one that was given to me by a student called The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky and immediately thought of Clint. I miss him.

I read that one in one day.

I researched a grant or two for summer travel, learned of a slew of new musical artists (Flaming Lips out with a new record in April, Decemberists have a major label and Colin is touring solo will be in Chicago in February), and watched a few movies; the only two that moved were Great Expectations and Walmart, the High Cost of Low Prices. After Great Expectations, I wanted to pick up a fresh copy of Dickens and fill in the gaps where movies always fall short.

I spoke to very few. The coffee shop people, the bar maid who pours my wine at Tutto, my immediate family and my daughter. I have lost the art of polite conversation with everyone else.

The last two days I spent following a flock (or is the correct term fleet--or gaggle?) of black birds around town. At my daughter’s request, we followed the well over 200 starlings from tree to tree in my car to watch them move as one. She was determined and I was game, so we did…from Third Street by Lambda Chi all the way to Jiffy Treat on Pete Ellis and back around to a patch of field near my new dwelling off Adams Street. We sat there and watched them graze for five minutes until the leaders picked up and the entire flock was off again.

I wished that I had a camera handy.


So this is the first bit of writing I have done in months. It feels good, however, I am rusty.

But I did run two miles today and wasn’t winded….

Hope you are well. Ciao.