Mid-January Musings

JUST READ: "Riding With The Blue Moth," a triumphant account of Bill Hancock's cross country bike ride as he battled the incessant blue moth of grief. Hancock lost his son Will in the tragic Oklahoma State basketball team plane crash in January of 2001. In a quest for relief from the constant despair and in need perhaps of a challenge to redirect his life he rode on bicycle from southern California to Georgia during the summer of that very year. An inspiring testament to the love of family and the lessons that can always be learned even in the darkest of times, Hancock's horrible loss is turned into a positive experience for the rest of us. Maybe that is one of the true divine acts of life - to rise above personal setback and offer good to those wishing to receive it. I must say that the events of that gloomy Saturday resonate personally inside me as I had undeniable premonitions and weird signs from earlier in the day. Although I feel compelled to admit it I do not feel comfortable in elaborating further in this format. Suffice it to say that in some small way I do feel a connection to Hancock and greatly admire his grace and humanity.

READING NOW: Finishing up the "Best Short Stories Of 2005" collection. At this point "Death Defier" by Tom Bissell is my favorite but I still have 5 or 6 stories to read yet.

READING NEXT: Anne Rice's "Christ Out Of Egypt."

JUST SAW: "Munich" and "Brokeback Mountain." "Munich" is an incredible cinematic statement regarding the state of world affairs. The bottom line, of course, is that Revenge is an empty proposition because the cursed delineation of who-did-what-to-who-first winds way back to the Big Bang. So if anyone is to blame it's the damned creator who obviously has gotta go! In the meantime, it takes a Real Man willing to sacrafice to stop the insanity right here and now and you gotta question the availability of such a human being. "Brokeback Mountain" strikes me more as a story of Regret than blatant homosexual wanderlust. Something that we can all relate to regardless of the context provided by the film. Regret full of unhappiness, restlessness, speculating on what might have been. Regret full of despair as your life glides by and you never actually got on it for the ride. Remember this: Revenge is empty but Regret is full.

JUST FINISHED WRITING: The Ruminator. Actually, a first draft, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with it and that's because I'm not sure exactly what I want to say with it. I'll come back to it soon.

WILL START EDITING & EXPANDING: The Lost Child. Whew! There is alot of work to be done here. Some scrapping, a little weeding, some molding, and without question a bunch of new growth. Haven't touched it since the end of NaNoWriMo. The time has come.

JUST RECENTLY STARTED: a new story about a young woman coming home from the west coast for the holidays. Lots of familial turmoil and issues. Plus the family farm goes up in flames (see Oklahoma Burning). No title yet.

Monk's Mood

I woke up yesterday morning from a long winter's nap and found myself smack dab in the middle of Monk's Mood. I knew it by the beat in my head and the tapping of my foot. The funky mood of monk. So there I was, light of mind and empty of soul, and it found me waiting and willing to be filled with it. And it felt strange, like Halloween in April, and in the beginning I felt calm, serene, a little forlorn perhaps, and then there was something more bubbling up from my tummy. I'm free brother - that was it - a sense of freedom, cut loose, set free from worldly pain and the hurt, I was released, a golden balloon tossed into the wind and rising upward toward outer space, toward the edge of the galaxy. And beyond that, the final leap, the eternal pool of bliss.

And the beat in my head led me to the clearing in my brain and I saw it, I caught a fleeting glimpse of it, the King of Lights, drifting in that pool of bliss, I knew it all, for damn sure. Like an invisible wire, a radiowave, connecting my brain to my heart, the electric soul, I hummed with the coming knowledge, I sniffed the divine reflection, I tasted the sweet truth.

I was filled with it. All.

And with the snap of the mystic's fingers I fell out of it, fell back into my self, the slap of the baby's butt and the first new breath, immediately longing for another surprise descension of the ever-evasive Monk's Mood.

Bowl Predictions

COTTON: a fast track is just what T-Tech wants. Bama has a great defense but it's hard to prepare for the Red Raider offense. Texas Tech 31 - Alabama 20.

OUTBACK: Just a hunch here - Floirda 33 - Iowa 16.

GATOR: Less than a hunch here - Virginia Tech 27 - Louisville 26.

CAPITAL ONE: Auburn is still burning over last year's snub (and I don't blame them). Auburn 34 - Wisconsin 10.

FIESTA: Notre Dame is for real and where has Ted Ginn Junior gone??? Irish 30 - Ohio State 17.

SUGAR: home field advantage for a strong Georgia squad. Georgia 24 - West Virginia 14.

ORANGE: Florida State showed some life in their last game and I'm thinking it might just carry through. Still, Jo Pa finds a way in a thrilling overtime affair. Let's hope both head coaches took their heart medicine. Penn State 43 - Florida State 40 (Two Overtimes).

ROSE: Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Sooner fans are in a quandry over this one. It's like choosing between the messy affair of walking the plank into shark-infested waters or the quick and clean chop of the guillotine. Another SC victory and championship puts them into plain reach of the Sooner's beloved 47-game winning streak and establishes them as one of the greatest college football dynasties of all time. But a national championship for our arch rival and recruiting nemesis Texas? Well you know what, the Longhorns have earned it. They've been damn good for two or three years now and I believe it is indeed their time. Plus they will benefit from Oklahoma's poor showing a year ago. SC simply can't be that good again on this night. Texas 30 - USC 24.

There you have it. As for me, like my main man Socrates, I would just go with the poison and sit back, relax and enjoy it.

Oklahoma Burning

Well, I completed the 8K run yesterday. And yes, I made it the whole way only stopping momentarily to knock down some H20 at the half-way Turn-Around-Point, but no, I didn't have much fun. The first half of the race took us along the northern edge of the Oklahoma River and straight into a gale that nearly reached 60 frickin' mile-per-hour gusts at times. I spent the entire first half of the race leaning into it and holding onto my cap while I clenched my teeth in an effort to keep the grit out which proved useless as I had dirt in my mouth and, despite the sunglasses, stinging my eyes and I can only speculate what other unknown crevices.

My time was abysmal. But I wasn't last. And I did finish. And boy do my legs ever ache.

The real story of New Years Day 2006 was the wildfires buring throughout Oklahoma. When my run had started at 2:30 pm the skies were still blue. By the end of the race they had turned brown with dust and smoke and visibility was nil. In fact, we were not allowed to enter the tent for post-race black-eyed peas and cornbread and I assume this had something to do with the potential of a tent blow-over.

Driving home along the Broadway Extension there is a point where one ascends and usually has a great view of the northwest OKC skyline. But not today. I call Lou Ann to inform her of my finish and yep, I'm still alive, and she tells me of the fire burning along Memorial & Penn. By the time I reach Edmond I can see the black smoke pouring from a place only a mile to the west of me and the smell of smoke easily permeates my car. I'm thinking that we're all caught up in a modern-day lesson, a regrettable opportunity to understand what it feels like to be stuck in some raging Dust Bowl, and the winds blow while Oklahoma burns.

Just Another Day or A New Beginning?

Time keeps marching on, which is fine, as long as I keep marching along with it.

Speaking of marching, I'm heading down to Bricktown this afternoon for the annual New Year's Day "Run For Your Life" 8K. I ran the 8K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving and surprisingly made it the whole way without stopping. It was a cold morning as a brisk wind whipped across Lake Hefner but half way through the trot it felt perfect. No, my time wasn't great, but that wasn't the goal. For that first race the goal was simply to finish and have fun and it felt grreat to accomplish both. Then on the 3rd of December I did the 5K Downtown In December run which actually seemed harder on me, probably due to the more pervasive chill and the uphill finish. Today's course begins at the Sonic headquarters in Bricktown and from all indications then moves to the Oklahoma River trails. Here is the catch - yes, it continues to be unseasonably warm, we're talking mid 70s, yet wind gusts expect to reach up to 50 mph! I can only hope for some wind breaks out there but in all honesty I don't expect much if the course runs along the river. Could get interesting out there. Again, the goal, to finish and... have fun?

This past week I received five copies of Baked Plain, the book of short stories I tentatively completed a ways back. It's actually just a test run as I wanted to see if I could get a book properly self-published through the Lulu web site and also was curious to see how my words looked in a formally published format. Well, not so bad, its kinda fun to have your very own literary creation in hand, but I've already found a few things that I'd change with the next run. And I would also like to add two more stories to the collection (Your Windows To My Soul & This Moth, That Flame). So later this year I will attempt to complete those two stories, edit the initial stories, and then add a more relevant cover (included is a photo of the test run edition).