Is life so different than it is in your dreams?

I am pooped. Its a perfect fall day and I don't have the energy to leave the house. My sleep schedule is all over the place. When I finally do lay down, my mind just races. I'm having a hard time quieting my thoughts, sometimes they come so fast I can't even keep up with them, let alone shut them off. Start to nod off...another thought shows up and startles me awake like a loud knock at the door. Its all the usual stuff, I'm not special at all worrying about work or fretting over relationships...wondering about friends and family in far-flung places. I've got it narrowed down to the night shift with plenty of time alone as the ultimate culprit for the times it gets more intense than normal.

Woke up on the sofa in my clothes at about 2. Felt like I could've slept till 4. Coffee tasted extra good today, out on the front porch. Traffic hasn't picked up yet, the only sound on the block is arguing squirrels.

I saw online that my man Tom is nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. I'd say its about time, but honestly I thought it would be several more years before he would be nominated...so this is a nice surprise.

There's not a lot of artists out there that make me think like Tom does, so many of his songs bring up detailed sense memories. A few weeks ago I was looking through pictures with some random iTunes playlist going in the background. Tom's Please Call Me, Baby came on at an amazingly poignant moment. It made me stop on that one particular page for the whole song. Tom has written all kinds of songs that cover the ups and downs of relationships; take Martha for example. Some guy trying to get in touch with his girl from 40 years back, hoping she remembers him and praying that there might be a bit of reciprocation of his nostalgia. In reality the guy is most likely drunk and making the call at about 2am, standing in a phone booth that hasn't worked in years. But Please Call Me, Baby seems much more lucid to me. He realizes that the relationship has soured to the point that treating each other poorly has become the norm; he admits to his bad behavior and wonders if he can change it, but still asserts the fact that he's responsible for exactly 50% of the problem.

But the chorus...that's what is in his heart:

So please call me, baby
Wherever you are
It's too cold to be out walking in the streets
We do crazy things when we're wounded
Everyone's a bit insane
I don't want you catching your death of cold
Out walking in the rain

Just one of the things I appreciate about Tom, he can make you think twice. He can make you remember what its like to be soaked to the skin, standing at a pay phone in the middle of the night.

Good mail for a Monday

September 21, 6:08 am

Sometimes I don't mind the night shift at all.

When people ask how I cope with the schedule I don't really have much bad to say because like everyone, I've found upsides in my situation and do my best to focus on those. Every job I've ever had, I found moments that were each uniquely special. When I was on mornings, my favorite times were the 5am bike ride in to campus, now that I'm on nights its the thin hint of sunrise along the horizon on the way home. That light is amazing; pre-dawn glow comes up from under your feet. Barely enough light to make out the path.

Sitting on the front porch at 5:30, I know I'm the only one watching a wrestling match between two albino squirrels in the tree across the street...with a beer in my hand.

You pick your moments. Each becomes special unto itself.

A freak hail storm came through last night and I missed it, in my well insulated cocoon at work. Some hail. The trees in the neighborhood really took a beating, there were leaves and small limbs down everywhere. Its a fitting metaphor; I frequently seem to walk in at the end as of late.

The mail included treasure today, my recent eBay purchase. A DVD copy of Tom Waits: Big Time. I put it on and as the first few numbers played, I suddenly realized how I was completely caught up in the aesthetic Tom creates. I read Innocent When You Dream and a collection of 20 years worth of interviews with Waits simultaneously. I saw two sides of a dirty coin; Innocent When You Dream is biographic, but with the interviews its all embellished truth mixed with hobo legends. Things he thought up on the spot, some old chestnuts he pulled out over and over. The problem is no one knows what the proportions of each are. Sometimes the interview gives a little insight to a moody nature. Sometimes he's just a jerk. But this persona of a well-traveled loner...a man who has existed (and even thrived) for so long on the fringe...well, he must have some incredible stories.

I started to wonder.

I wonder if the fact that I've romanticized this persona for so long...if it hasn't actually manifested itself in my life. For real. I wonder if this tendency of mine to shy away from groups, to not actively make more of an effort to socialize...I wonder if I haven't somehow brought this on myself.

But even this strange loner has secret desires of...being home. The most seasoned leathertramp must occasionally want to let the engine cool for awhile...and be around people that are important to him. Say what you will about the delivery; I love the lyrics on this one. Pure beat poetry. Its the feeling of distance I identify with, but the whole story is so evocative I feel like I walked along right beside him the day it all happened. By the end, I was just as ready to leave as he was:

...I wondered how the same moon outside
over this Chinatown fair
could look down on Illinois
and find you there
and you know I love you Baby

and I'm so far away from home
and I miss my Baby so
I can't make it by myself
I love you so

Shore Leave...

I have to wrap up here. Tom is doing his Civil War pregnancy bit.

Crested Butte: Epilogue

I thought things would be different when I got home from Crested Butte.

After 5 days of riding 3 or 4 hours, followed by micro brewed stout and long conversation, I really felt as though I had turned a corner as far as my recent mood was concerned. I believed that I had 'bumped into my old self', cradled in that idyllic valley.

It physically hurt to leave CB. My chest was tight, stomach felt sour. I had the same feeling leaving Mr. Toad's the night of the last session before my move. I felt as though I was choked up to the point of losing it, and wondering if that might not be a good thing. Maybe there would be some relief afterward...but in the end the break down never happened. The thoughts and emotions stay bottled up. Trying to talk about it gives off a pathetically narcissistic aroma. Not talking about it causes heightened paranoia.

No sooner had I gotten back home...I wanted to go back out. Anywhere. To just grab what I needed, throw it in the car and go. I've got the playlists from the trip in almost constant rotation, plus the new release by Ray Lamontagne and the Pariah Dogs. Beg, Steal or Borrow feels like it was written just for me. Sometimes I'd jump on the interstate and get between a couple semis and imagine that the cloud line in the distance was actually a mountain range, that my next stop would be to set up base camp for another outdoor stretch. I even took it a step further and headed off into Western Wisconsin to do an afternoon hike through a nature preserve. It almost worked. The Timber Rattlers we ran into almost made me forget that Highway 35 was less than a mile away.

While typing in my journal entries from the CB trip, I ran across a note I had written to myself almost a year ago when I first bought my little Moleskin (incidentally, check out this list...I was a cliché without even trying on this front).

It said “Where has your backbone gone? You didn't used to be like this.”

Truth is, I don't know.

Cue music. Roll credits.