no worries, dear babble lovers, I do not read your silence as disinterest or rejection, I know you are shy and at a loss for words after exposing yourself to my endless streams of brilliant nonsense... and reassure yourself that the hole-filled entries that flooded past just recently will not go untended, there will be a time for everything as the world turns turns turns and the noble goal of filling in the blank spaces before us will not be forgotten, yes it will not, however meaningless it may be...

I am before you tonight by accident, sort of, for I intended just moments ago to head into the shower and then fall asleep in bed for a change because tomorrow is a day in the car, a 4-5 hour drive one way in the morning and the same drive in reverse in the evening, though we will probably turn the car around and not actually drive back in reverse, not for all the humor found in figures of speech and the occasional semantics...

but instead of the shower and sleep route, I came here because Precious started doing the dishes and when you start doing dishes that have been sitting there since Thanksgiving on December 5th (hey, what is this, RealTime�?), you leave little hot water for a shower in the way too small hot water heater which, being electric and not gas, takes forever to re-heat enough hot water for a good hot shower... one of the things I miss about living in NYC, gas heat and huge hot water heaters...

I shamefully admit (because I feel the environment crying) having taken two hour showers... not that the water stayed hot for two hours, but it reheated so fast that ten minutes of cold water to cool the steamed body and the scorching spray was back... and just a few hours ago while talking to Precious and her friends about shows and concerts, I remarked about missing NYC for Broadway... and just hours before at work my officemate and I were talking concerts and shows and again, I reminisced about NYC...

obviously the theatre experience is grossly missing from life these days... as are the long steamy showers...

but still, in the end, I would rather live in a place where the glass store fronts do not have graffiti covered heavy gauge metal awnings pulled down and locked with huge locks and alarm systems and where I do not sleep behind barred windows and triple deadbolt locks on my doors... I thought about that as we drove home after dark tonight past an open Amscot (some sort of check-cashing banking establishments that have late hours, some 24-hours, and offer all sorts of services like Ticketmaster, money transfers, money orders, bill paying, and more odds and ends and they seem to be popping up quite literally on every other corner around here... Rasputin tells me a new one opens in Florida every three days, but anyway, it's a money exchanging place like a bank, ok?) and realized that could never be in NYC...

alas, humanity's declining respect itself and life and this planet and for each other as human beings and so many individual's declining self-respect saddens me and I'd rather live in a place where I do not have to see it all the time... I spent my early years in NYC and most of my first twelve adult years there doing what I do down here, trying to turn kids lives around and instill some hope in them... I do not want to believe it is a losing battle up there or in any city so big, but I know I would have burnt out if I stayed there much longer...

but I do dearly miss the theatre and arts and culture that still somehow grows, albeit at an abated pace, amidst the cancer that is consuming the city... and wherever I go, I feel like an expatriate, like, in so many ways, home is elsewhere... but what saves me and reassures me and keeps me afloat and blissful and giddy even when the lonely tide rises and I feel starved for the kind of energy and creativity that only happens in a few places in this world is that my home is inside and wherever I am, I just need to remember this to feel at home...

and that's what we get when we come here instead of going to bed when the mind was set on sleep and vacancy (for I probably do dream, but I remember dreams so rarely that I might as well have a vacancy sign on my forehead when I am asleep... I think I might actually leave this body and return to my home world for some refreshments, but then, that could all be in my imagination...

meanwhile, somehow, after depleting the babble file of the previous forty entries (each entry average more than a page in this word file that is set to half inch margins all around and typed in 8 point Arial font), we find ourselves writing this new bit of babble on page seventy eight, which means there are seventy seven pages of potential entries preceding this page waiting for me to find the time to put them together and expand on the thoughts scribbled therein...

just tonight in real time (but not in RealTime�, if you know what I mean, and actually, it was a private message over at myspace so no link to respect privacy), I was asked if I ever turn it off... at least I think that is what she was asking... wait, this was the question:

I was wondering, do you have moments when you are not so eloquent? I being from Southwest Virginia and of a simpler mind, and having read all your profile am amazed at how it never ends. Now in reading my profile, it is obvious that I am plain jane run of the mill human. Same thoughts but no great talent for words. Is there ever a "duh" moment for you? Are you able to shut it off? I know all of this may seem weird but I truly am curious.

flattered was my first reaction, flattered to think someone, a relatively complete stranger, no less, would be amazed by my babbling about myself... as much as my ego believes the silliness that opened this entry, I have a rational mind somewhere amidst the manic word-play and a serious voice speaks to me (and only me) sometimes and tells me to chill (though in more serious words) and reign in ego and remember the fantasies are just fantasies (shhhh, tell Dia and the others to forget this paragraph) and there is no great Earth shattering value in what I do with words, but realistically there may be some entertainment value for those who, like me and some cats or dogs with newspaper stuck to their buts, enjoy chasing words in circles...

oh really?...

but then, maybe that wasn't my first first reaction because after pondering a bit, mostly distracted by the sad lack of clever or meaningful dialogue and complete predictability of Coach Roy, which Rasputin chose to watch tonight, was wonderment as how many paths I might have chose to take in answering those words sent to me... and what actually came out went something more like this:

maybe right now :)

seriously, I'm not exactly sure how to answer this... I can explore it in so many different ways... maybe that's what you mean...

I can sit quietly enjoying something or someone for many hours... I can be completely absorbed and even lost in something... I have wandered aimlessly through some years in this life, with and without chemical additives... I followed someone more than once to my death, very nearly physically, but somehow came back to life (and it took years to go down, years to come back up)... but if you are asking if my mind turns off, I don't think so... at least not yet... that's scary sometimes, lonely sometimes, but amusing most of the time...

though I don't believe what I write is all that profound or meaningful and I believe I've written some crap along the way... you should see my daily blogs :)

thanks for asking and if I didn't answer your question, ask again... hope you are enjoying life tonight :)

and so, dear absentee lovers and missing friends and silent readers and any others of you out there or not, I miss you and would love to meet you, especially if you understand this entry and what it longs for and rejoices in (because it does do both) for this apparent dichotomy is but one of the seemingly opposite facets of the carefully and randomly and at times haphazardly cut person I am (not a diamond, mind you, except in that I seem harder than most and yet can shatter just as easily... not a gemstone, in fact, except that I am constantly fascinated by light and dark and translucent shadows and infinite rainbows... I am made of much softer and, at least by common cultural standards, less valuable stuff than such metaphoric substances, however, if perspectives and interests can be called sides, then I do have as many if not more sides than the most abundantly cut of any of them)...

I keep my mind wide open all the time, to paraphrase Johnny Cash... and sometimes that is not too easy, but it's better than any other way I've tried and even if nobody shares the wide open spaces of infinite eternity with me in any way beyond or more intimate that words, I wouldn't be anywhere else or any other way... because I am home...

I hope you find your home, if you haven�t already... and I hope, if you never find anyone to share it, you realize that you are still blessed to be there... and if you do find someone, blessed doubly...

time for that shower now, and now, in keeping with my deepest hopes and dreams and wishes, I leave you with James Taylor's best thought, one I make mine and strive to actualize as often as possible...

I shower you with love...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)