Monthly Archives September 2010

I was listening to some of my old music tonight. I’m a big Meatloaf fan, because 1) I think Steinman’s lyrics are just amazing and 2) Meatloaf sings with so much passion, so much intensity, it’s nearly mesmerizing to watch him, listen to him. So tonight, I was listening to Objects in the Rear View Mirror (May Appear Closer than They Are).

This is a powerful song about how the past, the things that we experience, things we carry around with us. And while we sometimes can move past them, even be stronger for them, they are always there with us, closer than than appear most of the time.

Though the story of the song is from a man’s perspective of his best friend, his father and his first lover, it’s powerful enough it transcends gender and experience. For me, the most powerful part was the part about the father, because of two things that happened in my life, one involving my father and one involving my daughter’s father. My father is still alive, though I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of years and I’m working on whether or not I will or should contact him, but if you hear me talk about him in past tense, it’s because *I* am not the same person and it’s very likely he is not either, and it’s in the past… it’s not who I am today. It doesn’t mean he’s dead.

My mother and father married right out of high school, the perfect ’60s couple, and I was...

Life can change in an instant. In just one moment, something can happen that completely changes the course of your life. Perhaps it will be a path you were always meant to take, so the change had to happen because you were too far off the path where you belonged. Perhaps it’s a real and true change in destiny.

I don’t know why these moments happen, but they do.

In my book, THE PATH, I wrote about something I call ‘pivots’. These pivots are the moments in life when something happens, usually just one thing, big or small, that completely alters the course of your life.

Often these things come...

Whether it’s a mental disorder, emotional disorder, or simply being overly sensitive to things, I am the type of person who cannot watch the news and has a hard time randomly surfing the internet because there are things out there ready to zap me if I do. I’m not safe anywhere–not on my own blog, not on Facebook, not on my own writing forum even.

Let me explain: today, I saw a post on FB about a little girl who was apparently hurling howling puppies into a river one by one. The video of this was shown. I didn’t watch the video. I didn’t need to. I see it all too clearly in my mind. The problem is, since I saw this post on FB, I’ve been unable to function. That was about an hour ago, and I’m about to work again, but the thought of it is very much still on my mind. In fact, it will be on my mind tonight when I go to sleep, and it comes out in my dreams too. It will likely stay with me like this for several days before it will get pushed into the background, and even then, I will think about it at the oddest moments for days, months and even years. I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t push it aside like some, I dare say most, do.

On my forum nearly a year ago now, someone posted abo...

My sister came last weekend to take some vacation time off work. So this weekend, we got to hang out together, got to go to the aquarium, go to the beach, go shopping, go to La Kings on the Strand in Galveston, so a few haunted mansions and ate a lot of really good food. We treated her to Greek, fondue, seafood and it was her very first time to try sushi. My sister, when she was younger, would only eat double meat, double cheese chili burgers. Sushi and things like it were not in her personal menu choices. When she finally tried the sushi, though, there wasn’t a bite of it she didn’t like.

Anyway, by the end of the first day, my feet were both swelling already and my back ached. By the end of the second day, my arms were aching and sore, and my feet were swelling more. By the end of the third day, I looked like I had elephant feet and legs, couldn’t bend my legs at the knee they were so swollen, and my back was officially out. My ears were ringing, my skin was so tender to the touch I couldn’t even hug my family or pet my dog. I could barely move without pain shooting through me.

My sister left on Sunda...