Farewell

Everyone,

Well, after 5 years -- 5 years! -- of sharing my insights into everything I could imagine and enjoying all those who have shared their lives and insights with me, I have to announce the end of The Great Elsewhere.

It's been a great 5 years, but the time has come.

So may the wind be at your back and the sun and the stars shine their light ...







SIKE!

I just wanted to know how gay it feels to say that.

I'll never shut this thing down. NEVER. One day when I'm hitting a mid-life crisis and every stuck-up punk is heckling me for being a technological dinosaur, this place will be here.

I've always done this for reasons I can't explain. And, while it sounds cliche, I'd do it if absolutely nobody ever read it. I'd like to do it more-frequently. That's obviously completely under my control -- although I have to say I've felt like I've been in the Dark Ages for the past six months.

Those things always turn, or at least I hope they do this time.

In the meantime ... peace.

Anal-ytical

Things feel good.

Except they don't, because I'm aware that they do.

There's not much comfort in surprises.

And I like to balance every equation.

Even if they aren't supposed to add up.

Regrets

The $260 million lottery ticket yesterday was sold at a Wal-Mart gas station a half-mile from the apartments where I grew up.

It makes me wonder how much better my life could have been if I had never moved out of that shithole, never went to college and never left town to have a career, a marriage and two children.

He Said Matter-Of-Factly ...

Staring out window
Wish for rotten milk to drink
Too sick for 4th grade

'Will I See Heaven In Mine?'

The little boy says, "Look at me! I can jump in the pool."

The 33-year-old man who passes for 45 struggles to think how he is important enough for a little boy to care what someone like him thinks.

He is the guy ...

Who could have had so much. Who lost so much before he had it. All the unique human qualities we wish we had. Who has lost hope that he will ever fully return to the the good inside him that others tell them they see.

Who would tell you he remembers, almost 20 years later, when we'd tresspass on farm ponds and fish until somebody ran us off.

Who would steal your cell to score a rock.

Who you'd want to smile with, because there used to be more to smile about, and it felt good.

But nothing can just be good. Feel right.

Yet here he is, in this moment -- important, implored by uncorrupted acceptance.

Uncontrasted.

He feels what he can feel. And he says what he can say -- before walking away with a smile difficult to see because his nature is to turn his head from the thousands of eyes dissecting him.

"That's good. Keep jumpin' in, just as long as you can climb back out."

The victory in just surviving. This is how it happens.