First off, I finally got around to updating to WordPress 2.5.1, and it’s very pretty and elegant on the inside.  I love it.

Secondly, I’ve been long puzzling out what to do with this blog, and I believe I’ve hit on an idea.  I just picked up Natalie Goldberg’s latest book, Old Friend From Far Away:  The Practice of Writing Memoir, and I think what I’m going to do is to kill two birds with one stone and publish what I write as practice while reading the book here on the ole blog.

How does that sound to you?

Then, what’s going to happen is, an editor is going to happen upon this one day, become enthralled, and publish the whole shebang after giving me a million dollars.  Does that sound like a plan or what?  I love it!

So, I’ll be back.  After I’ve written something.

If anyone would like to pick up the book themselves, and do the practices as assigned, feel free to leave a link to your posts in the comments!

Next month, I will have had this blog for four years.  That might sound somewhat impressive, but no.  I haven’t posted much in a while.  I’ve been somewhat neglectful for a while now.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to…it’s not that I haven’t had anything to say…

I’ve just not been saying it.

I’m not making any promises here.  I’m not going to claim that this post is the beginning of a new slew of posts.  I’ve absolutely no idea if I’ll even remember tomorrow that I posted tonight.  All I know is that Cat Stevens is coming out of my speakers and that’s sending me back in time a bit.

Not that I’m going to tell you about it.

What’s happening right now, at this very moment, is me, drinking some inexpensive yet very tasty wine, and being a bit sad still about my friend Frank Crist being dead for some eight months now.  Maybe it’s the wine.  Maybe it’s the dead thing.  Maybe it’s my birthday coming up.  I had no problem with thirty.  But I was a wreck at 29.  I’m hoping 40 won’t be a problem, but, well, DAMNIT.  I’m about to turn 39!

No.  Really.  39.

I don’t feel 39.  Though, what is 39 supposed to feel like?  I mean, my parents have a good quarter-century on me, and they’re having the time of their fucking lives, at least it certainly seems like they are.  So that’s something to look forward to, right?

This all sounds strange.  Because the thing is, I’m really loving my life right now.  I like everything I am doing.  I like all of my five-odd jobs, and I don’t even mind that together, they don’t create a living wage.  I feel free and clear and happy.  Yes, HAPPY.  Say the word ‘happy’ six or seven times really quick. It kinda loses meaning, doesn’t it?  Weird, huh?  I’m HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!

It looks like I spelled it wrong, doesn’t it?

Here’s this thing:  I really miss Frank.  A fair bunch of people have died in my lifetime, people who meant something to me in one way or another, but none like Frank Crist.  There’s even a handful of people still in my life whose death, if it happened tomorrow, might likely devastate me more, I don’t know.  But right now, at this moment, it’s Frank’s death that’s got me all wrapped up in madness.

And it happened many, many months ago.  Damnit, I miss him.  I miss him because he would have been so happy for me right now.  He’d be cheering me on and encouraging me in my dark moments and dragging me, kicking and whining and moaning, out of my self-pitying moments, and he’d do it all without saying a goddamn word.

It is wrong for Frank to not be alive in this world.

It’s just wrong.  Excuse me while I go sit on the couch and drink cheap-but-tasty wine and smoke cigarettes and be mad and feel sorry for myself.