While I Was Mowing My Lawn...

Stick with me if you drop by this tiny but significant 3-bedroom 1-bath of the world wide web, O thou non-existent reader.

I am neither dead, nor in jail, and not even disgruntled nor disinterested in Life in general.

I will give the all-too-often-quoted excuse of "I was busy."

But we know that there is more to it than that:

I was too busy smoking pipe tobacco, occasionally wearing hats most appropriately dated to the 1940's or '50's.

I was too busy buying a house.

I was too busy spending quality time with my two sons, of whom I could never be prouder.

I was too busy watching awesomely bad movies with my local good friends on a regular basis, and grabbing Life by the metaphorical balls, and wrestling it to the ground, and thumping my chest with my fists and shouting to the angry night sky, "Fuck you, I WILL NOT go quietly into this dark night!"

I was too busy turning the new house into something that is undeniably "mine" to the extents that my free time, energy, and budget allow.

I was too busy re acquainting myself with long-term friends of the quality that few ever know.

I was too busy inventing new drinks:  I.E. The Misenthrope (yes, it is misspelled, and no, I have not better reason than the simple fact that I have already been misspelling thus for nigh on a year now, and it is far too late to change it!):
          2 oz. Rye Whiskey
          1.5 oz. Amaretto
          1.5 oz. Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice
         
          Over ice in a rock's glass, the way a real man drinks his booze, and preferably with something by Poe,           Hemingway, Burroughs, Bukowski, or Steinbeck in your lap. Aaaaand, you're welcome!

I was too busy learning again what it means to love.

I was too busy finding myself in a mental position to write again with the range of emotions I once wrote. Lately, it has all been either guilty or angry, and even occasionally guilty and angry simultaneously. An unpleasant but necessary place to write from, perhaps. But ultimately, not my overall style.

Most importantly, my non-existent readers, my droogs and only friends, O thou faithful and stalwart and true, I have been learning to live again.

Yesterday, while I was mowing, I was contemplating hard over the impending visit of my two boys for the summer. I desperately want to give them almost a Boy Scout summer camp feel, albeit with Dad as every camp councilor and Scout leader all rolled into one, combined with a bit of the task master and a dash of confidante and guide all thrown in for good measure.

And I hope as a result of all that tossed into a comfortable but weed-ridden back yard with heat and 90% humidity, I will find myself in a position to write as I once did; that is to say, a father, who loves his sons, and finds Life this on-going and ever-learning, ever-changing wondrous world of imagination and light and beauty and most of all, Love. A man who loves himself, loves his sons, and finds Eternity in their eyes with humor and sarcasm and a jaded sort of optimism that is difficult to attain, but incredible beyond words once found.

I invite you to come back, and partake with me, share as it were, at the banquet table of Life.

Ever yours,

Darth Sardonic