Twenty-eight and a half days later

I really haven't had much to say lately.  Last time I was 'round these parts someone had just shot 32 people to death at Virginia Tech.  I suppose I could have said something about how idiotic it is that some people immediately used the event to call for the arming of all college students (because, you know, someone would have shot the culprit right away, and there'd never be a time when a fully loaded college student got suspicious of someone else and just blew 'em away) but it seemed like a waste of time.

And kind of boring, quite frankly.

My absence can be attributed to the end of school year.  Four semesters of grad school down, one to go.  I've been writing like a bloody fool.  My thesis is about two-thirds done, I think, if you count first and second drafts as "done."  I don't really, so it's going to be a busy summer.

Writing can be a very lonely event.  It's best to be someplace where you can look at something pleasant, someplace bright.  It's hard for me to write when it's gloomy outside (I would have never made it in Seattle).

The Cubs are driving me insane.  That's all I have to say about that.

Saturday is my 40th birthday.  I've been saying for years that it's not a big deal, and while I believe that mostly to be true there are still moments when I can't quite believe that this point has come.  I guess the only way this conflicts me is that I don't feel like I am about to turn forty. 

I feel pretty much the same way that I did when I was 25. Or 30. Or 35. My mind set is the same.  Physically is a bit of a different story but that is completely my fault and not worth getting into. 

Am I missing something?  I think about my father when he turned forty (1974); I was six and don't really remember it, but he was married fourteen years by then and had three kids.  I'm married just over two and have no children yet; our lives at this stage couldn't be any more different could they?

That reminds me that we went to Vegas shortly after my last entry.  I lost my ASS.  I am still looking for it, butI doubt that I will ever find it.  You could not do any worse in a casino than I did during those three days in mid-April.  And yet I had a blast.  Vegas is funny that way.

What I've been listening to tonight:

1. "Regret"-New Order.  It's funny that this came up first, since I've been ruminating about forty.  I've reached a point in my life when I look back at my past and pretty much don't regret a single thing.  What's done is done.  I didn't always feel that way.  I was a short fuse/burning all the time...

2. "It's Money That Matters"-Randy Newman. Featuring the awesome licks of Mark Knopfler.  I could listen to this song for the next forty years.  All of these people/are much brighter than I

3. "Black"-Pearl Jam.  It's early 90s night on the i-pod.  Those boys from Seattle wrote some depressing junk, no?  I take a walk outside/I'm surrounded some kids at play

4. "Secondhand Love"-Pete Townshend.  From the best CD of all time-White City: A Novel.  It matters not that you have never heard of this.  I am not sure that I would have lived through the fall of 1985 without this cassette tape and a hideous white car (inside and outside).  I can guess where you've been tonight, (yeah)/you've been hanging out on the street/wearing your dress to tight/showing out to anyone you meet

5. "Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)"-The Flaming Lips.  Definitely the longest title of the 546.  Excellent driving song.  Perfect for Utah, ironically.  No words though, and I haven't figured out yet how to write instrumental.

6. "Bargain"-The Who.  OK, I never really had a desire to be a rock star, but I admit that I would have liked to have been in a situation to perform this song in public once.  For some reason, I know exactly how I would do it.  Kareoke wouldn't cut it.  No, I'd need instruments and three other folks in the band.  And some cool lighting.  I sit looking 'round/I look at my face in the mirror

7. "The Boy in the Bubble"-Paul Simon.  I'm pretty sure this is the only song with an accordion in it on the 'pod.  I'm stepping into the wayback machine tonight.  Whenever I hear this song I am reminded of a drive I took with someone once, back and forth, four hours each way, and we just kept listening to Graceland.  He died about a year or so later. Medicine is magical and magical is art/think of the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart...the way we look to a distant constellation as its dying in the corner of the sky/these are the days of miracle and wonder and don't cry baby, don't cry

8. "Broken Hearted"-Eric Clapton.  It's a good thing that I'm comfortable with my past now or these songs would have sent me for a fifth of Jamison by now.  It's amazing, absolutely amazing, how a life can change so much in ten years.  I press my fingers to the wound/to tell you of my dreaming

9. "Help Me Angel"-Steve Winwood.  I have a feeling that I have told this tale before but I used to stand in the window of my dorm room my frosh year at Iowa and dance to this (with my back to the street, of course).  It was on the first floor.  I was normally not very outgoing.  I have no idea why I did this.  It was all feet, just the feet.  It's such a damn catchy tune.  Shim shim, scooby shim/scooby scooby, shim scooby

10. "Dakota"-Stereophonics.  A guy singing about his past.  Perfect.  Thinking about think of you/summer time think it was June/yeah I think it was June

<FONTSIZE=4>11. "Temporary Beauty"-Graham Parker.  And we have to make sure to include a song that was big smack dab in the middle of high school, without question the most awkward time of my life.  Excuse me while I take a Brillo pad to my brain.  No, No, I kid, I kid!  And you need temporary beauty/and hope to God it doesn't rain/you need temporary beauty/even though it might be love in vain

12. "Closing Time"-Semisonic.  Perfect.  One last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer/closing time, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here

OK I am officially spooked.  I just went on about the past, turning forty, etc. and then every song that comes up has something to do with it.  Someone is messing with me.  It does make me realize something though: I would love to get together with some people that I don't see much of anymore.  That would be a heck of a present.