Haw, haw. Good story.

I was fine, J.

GC

Okay, I lied a little, but it's no big thing. I don't feel like griping.

The days are longer, it's warm, the earth has thawed. It's going to be raining a lot, which I love. And if I don't mind a little chill I can sit on my porch and drink coffee on Saturday mornings.

And like the cold weather going away, my mood is bound to change too, but I'm officially, chronically, blue. Though... you have to be careful monitoring trends like this, because when you get sad, doesn't it seem like you can't remember when it started, and you feel like you've been sad forever?

Now, I no longer see a bout of sorrow as a tragedy that needs fixing. It's here, all wrapped around me, and I guess it's supposed to be. It's fine. It's not my first, It's not my last. I can take it. It's become a familiar experience.

But I'm thinking, I need something new. Not to make my sadness go away. It's here, and it's staying for a bit. But the discontent is kind of an opportunity, because it makes me want to change something.

So I'm thinking I'll troll here for ideas. Maybe some of you know me well enough to have suggestions.

I'm a busy feller. I'm working on my house, I'm working on music, I've started working on a little boat I've wanted to build for years, and I've started to work on my dissertation again, since finding out I can still finish.

I'm terribly unsatisfied with the band I'm in, and I want to do something different musically. Unfortunately, believe it or not, I don't know any people who have musical ambitions and are available and are interested in playing with me.

Sometimes I feel like it's time I took a vacation. I haven't taken one since summer '04, and that was not a vacation per se. But something like going to Europe alone seems a little dreary. And the thing about vacations is they don't really change you, except for the very best ones. I do miss a pair of friends I semi-lost in the divorce, and I know they'd be glad to see me if I visited. But there would be so much sparrow talk if I got together with them.

Also, I'd like to meet more women, duh. No online dating for me though. I tried it and disliked it.

I think about moving far away sometimes, but my parents are 70ish and I feel the obligation to stay close. Still, I've started to fantasize about finding a job and a nice piece of property somewhere else. Unfortunately, my career is not so portable. And I'm happy at my job. But I have started to develop a wandering eye. In a way, I feel like it's time for me to get outta here. Moving seems like a better idea all the time. But then I remember my parents...

As for my friends, I don't feel attached enough to them to stick around. Somehow I don't enjoy hanging around with most of them any more. Seems like I've changed and they haven't.

So there. State of the union.

Recap: very busy with solitary projects, don't meet many women, sick of my friends, sick of my band, wouldn't mind moving, could use a vacation.

Got any brilliant ideas?

GC

What an honest post. I try not to get too analytical about my feelings - I've got three children to care for and their needs for the time being must come first. But there are things I want to do. I want to stand at the top of Niagara Falls hear the mad rush of water and get soaking wet; I want to go whale watching, preferably somewhere where the boat has to break through the ice; I want to go to Ground Zero so I can count my blessings; eat gelato in Rome and tour the beautiful city of Prague. One of my ambitions was to visit the Great Wall of China which I did last November (awesome). And somewhere on my journey I want to fall in love again. And if you think it's hard meeting women where you are, try being a single white mum in Asia. Men don't stay lonely here for long but it's not my type who fill their needs. There are tens of thousands of young filipinas working here (Hong Kong) on the lookout for a man. Strange wonderful city.

Sometimes when we are alone and don't have kids it is easy to become too self-focused...and this is what leads to unhappiness or disatisfaction.

I do it too Gray because I am alone without my D half the time, but I am learning that if you want something the best way to get it is to help someone else get it. The best way to find happiness is to help someone else become happy.

I have an acquaintance I met on the dating site who is a muscian like you, went through a very painful divorce and now spends his vacations going to Africa with a group of missionaries constructing buildings to be used as hospitals and such.

You can find these groups at small churches which help fund the missions. From what he tells me they always need/welcome help. Don't have to be religious, just have to have the willingness to go and help.

Maybe a working vacation like that would give you a new lease on life and point you in a direction of some sort.

I'm thinking of moving too Gray, and I know just how you feel about having a sense of needing to make some major changes...kind of like out-growing your life as it just doesn't really fit you anymore.

Eggzactly.

A working vacation is a swell idea.

GC

Since I have seen Gray with my own two eyes twice now, I can report on some changes that he probably wouldn't tell us about. He lives with them every day, after all, and may not notice.

I met Gray in October, 2004, when he came to a party at Cerri's. He was skinny then. Really skinny. He was pale, too, in a sort of blotchy unhealthy way. At the time, I didn't realize how different it was from his natural coloring.

The look around his eyes was of someone who was a living, breathing ghost. There was no one really there. He was just animating his body because he couldn't think of anything better to do with it.

On Sunday, I saw a man who is considerably taller (honest to god! maybe it's the way he was standing) than I remember. He's filled out -- the way a scrawny teenager becomes a strong man. He's solid, reconnected to the ground. He met my eyes, which I don't think he did much at all last time around.

He was dressed nicely in clothes that complement his (much better) coloring. He chatted and played some with a small child and was cheerful -- even though Cerri and I were still in our pajamas when he arrived and we were all so tired from the previous day that he really, really didn't get very much entertainment from us.

All in all? He looks, well, yummy. There is only one thing that seems to still be lurking there, somewhere in his eyes and how he holds his hands, and that's anger. Not depression, which is what he talks about here, but anger.

So GC, if you don't want to gripe in public, you can e-mail me. Dunno if there's anything that can be done to correct the problem at this point, but hey, nothing says we can't try.

>He looks, well, yummy.

He could roll around in manure and dress in a sack cloth and still look nummy, imo....but I think it has more to do with the MAN he IS.........his ki will always shine thru.

- Kimmy

J, I was sure you'd spot that. In the company of most people it seems to go unnoticed. In the company I was with on Sunday, it felt tattooed on my face. Aaaanyway...

Thanks for your offer. I may take you up on it.

GC

Cut it out, Kimmy. Talk about rock and roll or something.

I read your post, by the way. Count me in.

GC

Know who I was thinkin' about last night when I couldn't fall asleep?

Mojo Nixon

Anyone remember him?

You TOLD me to talk about rock and roll.

I had this album way back when

http://www.emusic.com/album/10606/10606789.html

I remember him.

"If you don't got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin'."

GC

Apparently he's coming out of retirement to support Kinky Friedman.

LMAO.

Anyone up for a trip to Austin on the 13th?

Don't tempt me! I was denied on SXSW (nobody to go with) and just said I need a vacation.

GC

GC, most people would see it and not know what it is or what to do with it. What gives it away? The way your eyebrows work. The left one in particular.

My cousin had a band from Denmark (I think) stay with her during SxSW this year. She hosts a band from a different place every year. Met a lot of neat people that way.

Brave Combo is going to be here in SAT this month.

And the butterfly emerges, a little sore and pissed-off from the pain of the cocoon, and a little disoriented from the changes...but it's only a matter of time now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


What's that Gray? You say you would rather talk about music? Well alrighty then...carry on! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I once saw a butterfly chase a bumblebee away from a flower.

No jive. Happened in my own yard.

-ol' 2long

Fortunately or unfortunately for GC, he's got a whole boatload of big sisters to look after him....right Weav?

What a lucky man (giggle)....

(waving) Hi 2Long....

Just told someone in my office my Shiner story....