Good Day Sunshine...

I know that I've got it pretty good, and that I've found a pretty great place in my life when the weeks fly past...when I forget what day it is, and when I regularly swoon over people and places and situations. I do all of those, and I really can't believe that the week is over tomorrow.

Today was a brilliant day of intense, but brightly lit conversations and before it was over I got to visit with one of my favorite flawed people. I wish I could say her name, because I adore her so much. She deserves so much and gets so little, and she's always smiling...always...even when people do horrible, awful things to her...even when she finds herself doing awful things to herself. I see her and she's smiling...and I know that just showing up, just being someone who has a genuine concern and interest in her is huge. Smiles...always smiles. I'm not sure if they're for everyone, but some of them are for me, and I'll hoard every one of them! She's practically perfect, you know, if she wasn't so completely not.

Sometimes I can't even believe how good of a life I've got. It seems ridiculous. I get to sit in the sunshine and hang out with people who are hanging on to everything that's said...who are listening, really listening...and who are saying things, I mean really saying important things. There's not much nonsense.

When Philip Seymour Hoffman exclaims in Almost Famous that, "the only true currency we share in this bankrupt world are the moments when we're not cool," I always think about my every day. I get to be not cool every day, and you could never imagine what shedding that awful burden does for a guy...for anyone. If you think kids are all too eager for the chance to be cool, you should see how voraciously they consume opportunities to shed coolness and just be. It's awe inspiring.

Somehow I won the lottery without ever getting a dime out of the deal.