for those few (anyone?) that read this still, i returned from my trip overseas late last saturday...

i picked up some kind of bug on the trip back and have been sick for the last several days. i think im over it but... i thought that the last several days, too, so... who knows.

it has been so hard to get my head back in the game. i spent two weeks in what feels like the garden of eden, with the lady i love, and now i feel like ive been ejected from the garden, and it sucks. back to traffic, to paying bills, to going to work, to cleaning house, to doing all the things that make up my "normal" life. it feels like a hollow black-and-white existence set alongside the paradise i lived in, and i just dont know how i make myself get back to enjoying... this. i wonder if post-vacation depression is a real, clinical thing? because i think i have it.

if i can get past moping (and get to the point looking at all the pictures dont make me so sad) im going to try to organize some photo albums and write some vignettes about my experiences. but i wouldnt look for them in the next few days or weeks... im still trying to adjust, and judging by the last few days, it might take a little while.

so, im about to go on my first vacation in... 30 years? somewhere around that, anyway.

im sort of freaking out.

anyway, if youre seeing this, youre on my "vacay list" and will see updates as i post them. im probably going to post most of the pictures and travelog here, because its easier to do long-format stuff than on facebook... but some pictures will probably sneak their way onto facebook as well, im sure.

if youre going to comment on these posts, please remember to UNCHECK the "post to facebook" checkbox.

im actually contemplating disabling the commenting so as to avoid people accidentally leaving it checked and posting my shit all over the interwebs inadvertently.

as the new year approaches, ive been debating closing down the blog for the last few weeks.

rather than shut it down entirely, i have come to the conclusion its time for a digital purging, much in the same way i purged physically (and emotionally) earlier this year. i NEEDED badly to discard the kruft of an old and broken life, and not doing the same here was a mistake... ive been avoiding it because in a very real sense this site has recorded the story of my life for the last 10 years, and just as in the other purges, its hard to let go sometimes.

however, my life is telling a different story now (and likely to get even more different still, as time goes on), and im ready to close the book on the old one. just as with my material things, im going to set aside a small digital box, in which i will place a few of the articles that i think are worth keeping... everything else must go. i dont need it anymore.

im finished with looking backwards.

[edit:]

ok so... its harder than i thought. just like it was with my stuff, i want to keep way more than i really ought to, but unlike with my stuff, theres no physicality to it, no box that is obviously full. BUT ive managed to pare it down to less than 10% (not counting the songs of the whenever, which aside from being a fairly good indicator of my mood at the time i posted them, are about as content-neutral as a blog article can possibly be) so i think thats pretty good. in a day or two, i might trim it down even more, i find it is often easier when ive had a little more time away from it to cull things.

ive had a kind of shitty few weeks, and frankly have allowed them to turn me into a little shit myself. im in serious need of an attitude adjustment, and cataloging my blessings for thanksgiving is just the thing, i think, to provide the proper perspective ive allowed slip away lately.

there are many, many things i have to be thankful for this year.

i am thankful that i am, seemingly, the luckiest man alive. there is nothing, NOTHING, that ever happens in my life no matter how large or small, good or bad, that hasnt ultimately worked to my greater good. id be even more thankful if i could learn to remember this, and not stress out over shit, because really what do i have to stress about? it ALWAYS winds up to be to my benefit. i dont know why this would be the case, but it is, and im glad for it.

i am thankful that, for whatever reason, the weirdest things seem to happen to me. as a rule, if a thing can happen in a number of ways, it is pretty much guaranteed to happen in such a way that it makes the best story possible. this doesnt always mean it happens in the best WAY possible, just the most interesting way (and usually, the funniest way possible)... often, this takes the form of some kind of absurd disaster, bordering on (or even crossing well into) impossible, wrapped in chaos and unpredictability. and, often, it causes me a great deal of stress at the time ("WHY CANT ANYTHING EVER BE EASY??") but hopefully in the coming year, i can remember point #1 above, and learn to just enjoy it for the inherent absurdity, secure in the knowledge that itll work out eventually, and leave me with yet another hysterical thing to recount over beers one afternoon.

i am thankful that i have had the best year of my life. this shouldnt be taken to mean its all been good, of course. it has, at points, been genuinely awful. ive been as depressed as ive ever been in my life (or, if not, then damn near)... i thought i might have serious cancer... i turned 40, and experienced a temporary form of insanity (no other word for it) on the run up to my birthday. i learned what it was like to have panic attacks (they suck, bad). i got diagnostic instruments jammed up my ass and down my throat. but in the end these things (and more) served to break me down to the point that i was FINALLY able to put myself back together again, and come out the other side a different, better (mostly), happier person.

but by the same token, it wasnt all bad either... i remodelled my house. i got adopted by the sweetest and most outgoing cat i have ever met. i finally got the poker table ive always wanted. i got rid of almost all my worldly goods and in the process re-learned that it isnt the stuff in my life that is important (its the people), and also completely divested myself of the fear of losing all my worldly goods (that seems to plague a lot of people). i went to SXSW for the first time and got to see my favorite band play live. i tried and mostly failed at both yoga and kareoke. i lost well over 100 pounds (if were talking about the last 12 months, 170-ish at this point). i entertained guests in my home for the first time in a long time (or, ever, really) and discovered i kind of like it. i learned the joy of living. and i am more than thankful for all of this.

i am thankful for the best job ive ever had in my life, even though it makes me nuts sometimes.

above all, i am thankful for the people in my life. my family, even though THEY drive me nuts sometimes too, and my friends, whom i couldnt live without. ive made new friends, reconnected or reconciled with old friends, and strengthened ties with current friends. theyve shown me a level of love, kindness, patience, understanding, support, and companionship i would never have expected and could never possibly have deserved. they have filled my days with fun and joy. they are what gives meaning to my life, and make it worth living.

in the end, i guess im thankful for EVERYTHING... because i could just as easily have nothing. truly, i am most richly blessed.

this is a response to a blog post from a good friend of mine, entitled "happiness"... you can read it at http://rickwiedeman.com/2012/09/14/happiness/ for context. i had originally intended to post the response there but it started to get pretty wordy, so i moved it here.

-=-=-=-

ive been struggling with this lately myself, as you know... and im not sure there is a one-size-fits-all version of happiness, or methodology for achieving/maintaining it... not just for different people, but also for the SAME person at different times. "happiness" is a slippery thing... but i believe its key element lives in the realm of perception. when i take a look at the times i was happy, and the times i was unhappy, and compare the variables, time and again i find there is very little to no meaningful objective difference in circumstances... the difference was in ME. in a very real way, as lynn said above, i was happy or unhappy because i had decided to be one or the other.

good shit happens, and bad shit happens, and with the exception of statistical outliers (that either really get fucked or really hit the life lotto) i think we all receive roughly the same proportion of each taken across the span of our lifetime. and yet some people are happier than others, consistently. why is this the case?

i can look back on my life and see that there were plenty of times i was happy even though my personal circumstances were actually pretty shitty, and conversely times i was miserable when things were pretty good. it seems the defining difference was how i approached my life at the moment. and youre right, its all about joy. approach your life with a heart full of joy, and youll probably be happy regardless. that joy colors all your perceptions.

of course, that leaves us no closer to an answer than we were before, does it? now were just asking, wtf is a heart full of joy? where does it come from? how do i get it? and in sufficient measure to be filled up with it?

after about 6 months of soul-searching, i have come around again to the same answer i have found each time ive tackled this question at many different points in my life. its corny as hell, and sounds trite as can be... but damned if i dont think it really IS the answer. or, AN answer anyway, and a good one.

its Love.

and i dont mean BEING loved. sure, we all like receiving love. its awesome. who doesnt like that? but receiving is both passive, and dependent upon a giver. its the kind of thing that covers you, but doesnt fill you. and at its core, its a selfish sort of thing... not that theres anything wrong with that, i dont have any problem at all with the concept of people wanting for themselves things that make them feel good. that just makes SENSE that you would, and isnt a negative value judgement. i just dont think its ENOUGH.

im talking about the active form of Love. its what comes OUT of you. its not an emotion or a feeling, a passive state of being. its an ACTION. its an attitude, one that informs everything you do and everything you are.

approach every person you encounter with love towards them, and see if you dont find your heart filled with joy, and your cup of happiness running over.

[edit:] another point i meant to make and forgot, in response to your desire "to study contented people, and emulate them"... i would warn away from this. if i have learned anything over the last year, its that "content" isnt enough. content is just another way of saying "not happy, but not sad either"... if you want to be happy, youve got to deal with unhappiness. its just the way it works. it isnt happy, its just not unhappy. content is not living. its just waiting to die.

i had fully intended to use this as the song of the whenever on my 40th bday, and just completely spaced it. senility i guess :) but better late than never... this is a great song, and has the incomparable johnny marr on guitar.

well, as most of you know, i turned 40 yesterday. its sort of difficult to believe that it came and went, just like that... it had loomed so large in my mind for so long that it almost felt... unreal. then before i knew it it was past... it is, honestly, a huge relief to be past it.

i will admit to being somewhat disappointed in myself over the whole thing. i honestly (and probably arrogantly) believed that i wasnt the kind of person to be affected by silly things like a fear of aging, that i was above the whole mid-life crisis thing. looking back on it, i realize now that it really started bothering me right at the tail end of last year... i think because i could pretend it was the distant future right up until it was in the same calendar year, at which point i couldnt ignore it anymore.

it was insidious and subtle, really. started with looking back over the last 10 years... my 30th birthday was a really good one, and still very clear in my mind, and it inevitably followed that i began sort of retracing my steps over the last 10 years. and frankly... they were a waste. the decade passed SO QUCKLY, it felt like about two subjective years, from the perspective of my 20-something self... and i began to realize that, while ive always accepted that one never knows when their end will come, even if you assume i DONT suffer an untimely death, i am now on the downward slope. more time lies behind me than ahead of me. and i had WASTED a full quarter of my time so far.

it depressed the hell out of me. seriously. just about as bad a depression as ive ever been in, second only to the period of time after my divorce. worse, i didnt even realize i was depressed... which means it wormed its way into my mind and affected nearly every aspect of my life. it compromised my judgement, it compromised my thought processes, it compromised my decision-making ability, it (of course) affected my mood, and it affected my appetite.

this led me to have the most rapid and large period of weight loss i have ever experienced. and because i didnt realize (or couldnt accept, see "arrogance" above) that i was depressed and that was what was causing it, i became concerned i was sick. which would stress me more, cause my appetite to further decrease, cause me to lose even MORE, and make me even more convinced i was sick. it became a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

combine that with my more unstable emotional state, and the self-induced body-blow to my psyche that resulted from one the most (possibly THE most) stunningly bad errors in judgement ive ever committed, and i found myself plunged into a pit of despair so bad i briefly even considered getting medication for it.

it wasnt all bad, though. part of my mid-life crisis included doing something i really SHOULD have done a long time ago, the clean-slate remodel of my home. of course i went way overboard with it, getting rid of everything i own and all but... hey, thats just how i roll :) chances are good it would have played out about the same even without the depression amping up and exaggerating my actions. im sure i would have enjoyed the experience a lot more though... it definitely wasnt healthy or helpful to my mental state to be sitting around in an EMPTY house with dusty concrete floors for almost two months, especially THOSE two months.

it also served to shock me back to life, to wake me up in a way i havent been in a long, long time. maybe not ever. i cant change the past, but i damn well can change my future, and i intend to do so... im ready to start living, instead of merely... waiting to die.

so im not 40 anymore. im exactly one day old. and by god, i intend the next 40 years to be LIVED. and with the help of my friends, people of truly the very finest quality ive ever met, i have no doubt they will be.

thank you, all of you.

im reaching way back to the mid-80's for this one...

kylee swenson is the lead for loquat, probably my favorite band. loquat's music is thoughtful, soothing, often jazzy, and always good. theres nothing kylee has done that i dont like. or should i say, there WAS nothing... i heard she had done a collaboration with a dubstep artist, and i thought "finally i might hear a dubstep song i like"...

no. a thousand times no. even kylee's voice isnt enough.

for those of you who have no idea what dubstep is (which is going to be most of you), its a newish type of dance music that the kids are crazy for. a friend of mine summed up dubstep pretty well: every dubstep song sounds like transformers fucking. thats it in a nutshell.

oh yeah and about that HTML5 stuff i mentioned in the last post? fuck that. it isnt just harder to protect the content, its IMPOSSIBLE. the very best i could do would be mere tissue paper... and because i dont want to contribute to the already rampant problem of people stealing music and never paying the artists that make it, im not going to use it.

every now and then, ill get "music-bored" (which i realize should be almost impossible when you have almost 500 hours worth of music ripped and another 200 or so more to go) and will roll the dice on a random album. or, not entirely random, but just something recommended by amazon or wherever, and cheap.

usually, it doesnt work out so well. but every now and then, i run across a real gem... and this morning, i hit the damn jackpot. "passenger" by lisa hannigan is one of the rare albums where every track is good. not just good, but stellar. so much so, its impossible to pick a standout track, so im just going with the first on the album.

some albums, for whatever reason, just... transport me. take me out, above, away from... everything. while im listening to them, im somewhere, ANYwhere, else... and oftentimes, that is exactly what i need. this is one of those albums. her voice, soaring and bright, is like aural drugs straight into the pleasure center of my brain, providing a much needed escape. i think i listened to this album non-stop for almost 6 hours today.