lying through my teeth...

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

life is a rollercoaster, with its ups and downs; its highs and lows. the only sure thing is that the biggest highs are precedent to the massive lows.

not that lows are always bad. in fact, in a rollercoaster, the lows are the part that gives us the greatest exhiliration, ripping the screams from our mouths, tossing us into loopty loops and twists and turns that cause us to laugh out loud. the highs lure us into the complacency that make the lows twice as exciting. or twice as agonizing.

to say that my wife and i are perpetually happy isn't really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

sometimes our relationship is one of complacency. the day to day takes hold, the classes, the job, the doctor's appointments for the boys, homework and parent/teacher conferences. this is not unhappiness, it is mundanity. it is life.

to confuse my analogy a bit, i consider these the lows in the rollercoaster of our existence together; my wife and me.

these lows generally coincide with highs in another part of my life. in this case, the band, big dumb animal. in the somewhere near 8 original songs we have mastered and perfected. in the hours spent with s the drummer and s the guitarist in the garage drinking and playing through our setlist and laughing and the euphoria that follows a rollicking rock song performed to perfection when three distinct individuals read each other's signals exactly and the song thrums to its climax in such a way that makes the heart beat faster and the fist pump involuntarily, ending in a steady hum of that final guitar chord that wrapped everything up so magnificently.

even the momentary lows of a pourly-performed song are their own version of highs, punctuated with humorous and harmless ribbing: "i fucked that one up." "yes, yes you did. have another gin and tonic, lush."

and without instruments in our hands, these highs are continued in conversations only found amongst those select few who are truly kindred spirits that fate or god or the universe has inexorably pulled together to be present in each other's lives at this time.

and this is how guitarist s and i found ourselves having a drunken conversation at a cuban sandwich joint in downtown ybor city on a random tuesday night as we waited for it to be time to watch roger waters perform his legendary "wall" concert.

this is how s told me he had been talking to this old friend of his for some time, how he felt connected to her, and she to him, which was really saying something considering what they had both been through individually prior to the moment they began talking again. and he isn't just whistling dixie. i can't speak for her, but personally, i have watched s battle with himself over the loss of his wife to another man, the woman he expected to be with forever. the woman he would pine over (until this sainted friend reentered his life) and with whom he would share custody of his daughter, the apple of his perhaps tainted eye. i know how huge this confession is. i know how hard; how tentative and unsure and yet needing-to-be-there-so-badly it all is for guitarist s. i also know how much i have moved into his inner circle of closest friends as he shyly, watching closely for my reaction, admits they sleep together--

"till our phone batteries die."

in the back of my head, i hear the death knell. not of my dearest friend and kindred spirit, s. but of something that i selfishly think of as all mine, even though it involves two other individuals.

the woman who has made s believe in love again is some 3000 miles away, in arizona.

and i know that big dumb animal is terminal.

what i didn't know is that the doctors would give it such little time.

it's been months since we have met in my garage with drinks and a plan for wowing audiences. life for one or another always gets in the way. we were on the verge of playing our first gig of all originals complete the three of us on our own instruments in front of a real (and not culled from friends and acquaintances) audience.

but chances seem good that s will be in arizona, perhaps for good, the end of this month.

this low in big dumb animal's rollercoaster coincides with the high; the rekindled spark, i think is the popular phrase, between my wife and i.

when s breaks the news, i am all for it. through our many and varied (and often inebriated and uncensored) conversations, i know this is something he must do. and i want him to. and i am always a proponent of love.

i tell him, "dude, this is your fucking happiness. if you don't play this hand out, you will regret it the rest of your life."

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

because i am happy for him, and i really want him to go, and see where this fork of his road takes him. but in the same breath, this fork takes him away from me. and i wrestle between the selfish desire to have this friend who actually gets so many aspects of myself that no one else would, and whom i get in kind be truly happy, and the selfishness of having him here, and available, and in my garage helping me see through the boring patches of my own life with a placebo excitement that can be derived from a small group of like-minded individuals playing music together in a way that most bands only dream of.

i pass a couple days being sad to the point of tears on the inside, and smiling on the outside.

until my wife asks me about something seemingly innocuous. at ten thirty at night. as we lay in the dark bedroom, my fingers against the skin she feels is "too fat" but which my body only registers as electric and smooth and pleasurable and i laughingly say a sentence that is light and airy. that leads to a comment about s' impending move. that leads to a half-hour discussion of how happy i am for him and at the same time so unhappy for myselfish self.

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

and she laughs when i say that i would be lying through my teeth if i didn't say that it just plain sucks ass that he is moving, for me. but she also knows it's the truth when i say that i am happy as can be for s.

and in that simple unplanned spontaneous shared conversation when both of us should've by rights been sleeping, i worked out my issues with the demise of something that was beautiful and as ephemeral as the final big plummet/loopty loop/twisting spiral that precedes the braking, clicking entrance back into the terminal of the rollercoaster, followed by the laughing, adrenaline-fueled conversations of the individual experiences that brought the different riders to that spot at that moment.

thanks for playing along.

darth sardonic

and o thou beloved non-existent readers, thou stalwart though silent few who continue supporting me even as i myself only pass by this rusty nail in the sandlot of the world wide web on occasions when i am seeking answers only i can give, should you seek to see big dumb animal at the height of their career, performing their greatest hits as if there were no tomorrow, ask me how, and i will point you in the right direction.