Checking in

It's been a few days since I checked in. Sorry about that. Yesterday was my birthday, or "barfday" as we Beekslayers put it. I got a couple of emails that I have to record for posterity, as they seem to sum it all up for me-

Julie, our own Goddess Empress Babe, wrote-

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe, Kernel!

I don't know what to wish you for your barfday. I mean, you already live in a beautiful place, have a great job, and are married to an amazing woman. What more do you need?

Oh, I know. Here's wishing you the spontaneous combustion of the entire Bush administration. Except for Cheney. We'll have to do something else about him cuz if he spontaneously combusted, it might let out a toxic plume that could take out a small city.

Happy day, and may all your dreams come true!

-GEB the Barfday Fairy

And then DSA (Dear Sweet Aimee) added-

Snappy, Snappy,
Birfday from us here at the
Volume One Beeks Central HQ.
We bestow such loverly wishes
upon your head, that we hope you
can get up and out of bed,
let it never not be said
that Col.F. is one to dred
because somedays you might
find him out behind the shed
banging his head,
until he's really red
or perhaps has fled
back to his cozy
warm and fluffy wuffy bed
to be with one to whom he
has lovingly been wed.

We luff you muchly Colonel Flambed d Cherry Tartuffe
yours forever and all the days after that

Well, yeah. That means a lot to me.

I was sorta bummed out about 44. Don't know why exactly. It's not a "big one", as most people count them, but still. That's fucking Middle Aged... Maybe what really shook me was that a week ago I heard a story on the radio about a high school radio station that I knew of when I was in HS, and I got to thinking, yeah, my old station probably has a website, I think I'll go over and see. So I Googled and sure enuff, they have one. That was 1978-79-80. My friend Ned was my co-Student General Manager back then; he went into radio as an engineer and has been working as a radio engineer ever since, and after a while became the faculty advisor to the station we were both student GM's at. There was a picture on the website of Ned, their Station Manager, but it was not Ned... it was a slightly paunchy, slightly balding, middle-aged dude, the sort of guy we used to have as teachers.

But I saw Ned under there. It freaked me out, a little. I get these anxiety/panic attacks- have every once in a while since Bush was "elected" (not a joke) and I've been in and out of them for a week now. But GEB and DSA put it all in perspective. I have about everything I could really wish for- I work for myself in an industry in turmoil and have some idea what the fuck I am doing, I have a good family I get along with, a wonderful, beautiful, understanding wife, a wonderful house, and what more can I really ask?

Nothing. I guess I just don't believe how lucky I am, or that I deserve it.

I dunno.

My best friend in High School became the manager of a semi-big-name Rock band and jumped off a bridge. Another girl I knew there got breast cancer and died at 26. But I am here and continue to plug away, with much more than I could ever have hoped for. For that I am grateful.

All of the faces
and all of the places
I wonder how they all disappear.

If it suddenly ended tomorrow,
I could somehow adjust to the fall,
good times and riches,
and sons of a bitches,
I've seen more than I can recall.

Yesterday's over my shoulder
so I can't look back for too long;
there's too much to see
waiting in front of me,
and I know that I just can't go wrong.

It's those changes in latitudes,
changes in attitudes,
nothing remains quite the same.
Through all of our running,
and all of our cunning,
if we couldn't laugh,
we would all go insane.

Amen.




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