"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Back in the World

Just a quick note to all and sundry: made it back alive. Have 261 emails to ready, etc, and I'm down in SF for the week.

Overall I'm feeling quite good. Should take vacation more often.

Read More

Heading Out To The Highway

Sometime this afternoon I'll be getting on the road, sliding off the radar for a week, hoping as do all vacationers that some distance from my daily grind will prove restorative. We're getting out by the skin of our teeth, a real hobo ramble into the desert. It's the least planned it's ever been, but maybe that's a good thing. We're relying on our cagey veteran status -- senior year and all. Personally, it would be great if I proved to myself that I'm up for that kind of risky business.

I'll be back next tuesday, spending some time in the Bay Area. See you all then!

Read More

Slip-Siding Away

The Redman Wants Out!

Sunlight breaks through the fog, the clouds lift, and the earth practically reeks of fertility. I roll down my pickup window on the safety corridor, letting the air waft up off the newly re-greened median divider and ease my troubled mind.

Things have been better lately; getting a little more balance in life, and starting to trust in The Others to do their thing at the office. That's an important thing for improving the overall outlook. Letting some of the weight fall. On the downside, the little muscle spasm that's been intermittently but persistently troubling my right eye has expanded its territory down to my right tricep, a much more noticeable flutter when it crops up. Seems like a bad sign.

Sometimes I wonder if this context really argues for taking my first real Time Off and going to a balls-out bacchanal in the Black Rock Desert. But wow, I'm sick of doubt. No more second-guessing, just forward progress.

As someone close said to me a few nights ago, it's hard being talented and gifted. I laugh that kind of thing off -- forbearance against deadly Hubris, doncha know? -- but it's undeniably true that those of us with pronounced personal expectations and ostensible potential have a tougher time finding our grove. There's always more, and it's never enough.

Read More

Silencio

Not much to say of late it seems. I've been head-down trying to clear the decks so I can take off next week for a little Black Rock vacation.

Things to report briefly:

  • I got a haircut. Less tangles, more angles. The barber is a local fixture in Eureka: a half-Yurok half-Irish man named Rockey who's been cutting hair in the same downtown spot for more than 35 years. He's up in everybody's business.
  • Visit from The Big Irish on her long-awaited tour of California cheeses. People always think we're related or dating (hopefully not both), though neither have ever been true. She is my best female friend, and something of a confidant though, so it was well-timed for her to arrive what with all my Sturm und Drang of late.
  • Also had a good talk with the moms about life in general. I'm feeling lighter about things this week as compared to last, but generally increasingly aware that I need to shake things up to get my life to be where I want it -- the lack of creative outlets and physical exercise is causing some serious moldering of the soul.
  • Politics is a drag again. "Obama leads 20 points with 18-34s, McCain leads by 1 with everyone else." WTF? Hopefully the buzz will return post-convention.
  • This music my blow your mind.

Things seem to be coming together slowly but surely. Life is a two-steps-forward/one-step-back affair most of the time. That's frustrating for a guy like me, especially when I make the mistake(?) of extending my sense of responsibility to include a lot of things outside my control.

Read More