Random Ramblings on a Cold Saturday

Waking up to no Zo is an unsavory affair. You miss her the minute 7 or 7:30 am slips past and there's no chatter from her crowded room down the hall. Sure, you sleep a little more, but you miss that beautiful inconvenience of waking up too early to keep up to an eager, curious little girl. If you're really lucky, as we were this morning, you fall back to sleep immediately and wake up two hours later feeling just as absent from her presence but better rested than you've been in awhile. I think June was awake an entire half hour before she loaded up to go scoop her up from her Baachan and Grandad's. We miss her when she's gone...of course, Grandad and Baachan don't mind her being gone provided she's good and gone right there in their laps. They love her like an old song but better.

I stayed home this morning to wait for friends who may or may not be coming to visit. Ambiguous, I know, but their people we adore so someone needed to be here and wait so that we wouldn't miss one another. I was kind of looking forward to the Partridge kitchen table but now I'm staring out at winter again, and the odd snow flake falling over the lake. Snowflakes? Just yesterday I was in shorts. Yeah, snowflakes...it is March in Ontario, Canada. Snowflakes shouldn't seem so surprising.

While I'm waiting for the girls...I like saying that, the girls...I'm occupied with coffee, oily peanut butter, and the many distractions that tend to bounce around my head ubiquitously...This morning I can't stop thinking about reading. I need a New York book, a good read that feels like Bryant Park in the Fall, that makes me think of walking down Fifth Ave at midnight with nothing more than a silly ambition to walk all the way down to Washington Square and back up to 44th again (why not?)....that sounds like Hell's Kitchen as the day winds down and the night is winding up...that feels like wandering out of Rudys and into a night of possibilities...Knicks game? Dinner? Village? I need that kind of book.

I leave for Toronto in a few days...bookless, and with damn near a week away from those same girls I'm eager to see back in my peripheral today, with only just a few hours apart. I'm going to talk to gangsters, the South Central kind...straight off the rez in Manitoba kind...Venice Trece, and Indian Posse...Hoover Crips and Bloods, and law enforcement, maybe the biggest gang of them all. I'll be fully out of my element and completely overwhelmed and summarily surprised at where my life has led me. How am I apart from my family for a week, knee deep in the discussion of drugs and gangs and young people when I used to shoot free throws with nine year olds struggling to understand why Mom and Dad weren't at home...who familiar enough with foster care to consider sleeping outside rather than going back. I liked that. I liked being the guy who rebounded their misses and shrugged my shoulders at their questions. How'd I manage to come to share an afternoon with a guy whose scope of worldly wandering never extended East of Crenshaw Avenue in Los Angeles or the West end of Winnipeg? I dunno. It's interesting stuff, and I like what I get to do but it confuses me how fast I got to this place. What's next, I wonder?

I'll tell you what's next...fun, light hearted living, incredible photos and tanned skin...a place to finally call home, and new distractions...the best we've ever felt and looked...a talking little girl...paying some attention to the space in which we live...summer plans...making friends a priority...finding new traditions...stepping out on limbs...reading more...working on making this life we've got better and more inspiring every minute of every single day.

How's that for what's next? Yeah, I thought it could use some work too. First, Spring, the return of my lovely ladies, re-heat this coffee, find something to read, get some more artwork and writing done, and wait for Dustin and Kelly...I guess waiting doesn't really count as an activity does it? Or does it?

I think I want to smile a lot today.

That last statement has inspired me to ramble a little...maybe even toss youa few fun links to fill your empty day...

Just about my favorite thing on the planet right now are my selvedge Levi's and Rainbow flops (the best on the planet earth)...just add sunshine and sighs.

I'm a dude and I'll tell you flat out that Sabon is one of the greatest places ever. My Toronto trip will see me emptying my wallet there.

Do yourself a favor and watch this.

I miss this place...a lot. I have dreams about it.

A subscription to this would beat the hell out of Sports Illustrated.

This post over at "A Time to Get" led me to this which led me to think that I wish I was friends with those guys.

This looks stupid fun. Why don't I know these people?

I think I want to go to Skagit County in Washington.

I think I want to go here too...today maybe...well, someday.

This makes me smile, and feel good, which I suppose is the rather illusive point. (Warning: Rated 14A)

I'm just a man, not even a great one...Great lyric from "The Thrills" song Saturday Night.

This photo is pretty much an exact replica of a lingering adolescent daydream of mine. Sigh. Which brings to mind two things...first, June has glasses that she wears every now and again and I love it...and two, when I was a child I loved libraries so much that when I got myself run over by a car when I was ten years old the paramedics said that when they asked me if I knew where I was while lying on the side of the road I answered, "at the library," proving the point that finding your so called happy place probably really works in times of awful uncertainty.

Someday I would like to stay here. Maybe even move there permanently.

Hey...I just learned that Howard Zinn passed away. That's a huge bummer.

A friend of mine used the term "those creepy kids," the other day after I was done ignoring him I thought to myself, "Hey, that's a great name for a band," which of course it is, so I was bummed out when I discovered that there's already a Creepy Kids band out there. They suck, but still, the name is all used up...buggers. I should note here that I don't play a single instrument and couldn't sing if my life depended on it. I still want a be in a band though.

I just discovered a quote by Carl Sandburg that read, "I'm either going to be a writer or a bum," which made me wonder why the hell he couldn't be both? Kerouac was...Bukowski was...Mike Lupica is sometimes.

Broken Bells is Danger Mouse and James Mercer (of The Shins) and I love them.

I've decided that musicians are funny people. Pay five bucks at the door, and they will sing and dance for you. For $10, you can take their heart and soul and all of their thoughts, and play them at home, in your car, and for all your friends...and they like that set up. Weird. That said, I'd certainly pay $10 to listen to this harpy goodness at my convenience, but I still think musicians are funny, which is a nice way of saying weird, I suppose.

Musicians are also !#$%ing geniuses...at least Brian Wilson was. Here's the final studio cut that we're all familiar with.

I just bought some of these. I didn't even hesitate.

Zoey's been a good girl and deserves these just in time for the summer. How fun is that? Awesome fun, that's how fun.

That Beach Boys clip was so fun I thought I'd chuck you another one. Listen to the change that happens in the horns and flute part at 2:33 (before) and how Don Randi steps in at 3:16 and changes the part-asking them to play staccato. Brian goes with it and that little change made such a huge difference in the section. I don't know uch about the technical side of music but I know that you can hear history being made right there. Here's the finished version. Awesome...just awesome.

BTW...How ridiculously beautiful is this family? That's Stacey, Sammer, and Bri's cousin Scitter...we love them. They're so peachy it makes lesser families want to barf, and it should. Zo is going to visit Sam at college someday and they're going to corrupt one another...someday. I can't wait.

Uhmmmm, that's about all for now.