The Six Hundredth

Six hundred is a lot. Don’t think I don’t know and appreciate that, because I do. And I guess while in the process of writing 600 blog entries I didn’t really focus on the numbers. But I think when you get to 600 it’s probably about time to focus on the numbers. In fact, I honestly think I might go through a top 10 of the walk down memory lane,  for this, my 600th blog entry. First, though, I want to thank every single one of my followers, because this wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling for me without you. Every single time someone writes to me telling me how they identify with what I’ve said is just bonus for me. I still can’t believe I started this blog less than a year ago and I’ve done so much with it, but the interactions are where it’s at. So, again, thank you. Now, on with the show…

From “The Dividing Line,”:

As I sit here with my children, I am trying to think about what life without them was like, and I truly can’t remember it. It’s like a dividing line between one entire existence and another, like I time traveled and skipped over that diving line to safely arrive right here and now, and with kids. I can vaguely remember a club, once, a long time ago, where I would dance all night, by myself. Or a karaoke joint, with “Love Shack”. And a puzzle club (yeah, I said a puzzle club) where I would imagine I was king (but I really wasn’t). And there was this guy. I’ll call him “Before Me”. He was one cool guy.

From “The Friend Manifesto“:

You see, friends are people with hopes and dreams, just like you. They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you. They have fears and insecurities, just like you. Never lose track of these things because just like you they need reassurances when things are going wrong. Just like you they need stress relief when it feels like their world is falling apart. They need everything you need and sometimes more. Lean on them but also let them lean on you.

From “Ode to Siren’s Silence“:

It was 10 o’clock of a Thursday night in the city of brotherly love, the witching hour in some circles, when only the crazies and pseudo-crazies were out and about on South Street, so you know I was there. The year was 1995, but it could have been 1996 or 1997 as well, because it was almost like time stood still on South Street then, where you could lose yourself in the record shops, the hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and the coffeehouses that seemed to spring up overnight. Not to mention the parade of goths who made it their home then. Dark of night, dark of clothing, it was a dark and magical time and place.

From “But What Does He Look Like?“:

That doesn’t mean looks are everything, but think about it. It’s the first thing we notice about someone when we meet them. She might be the most interesting conversationalist, or the next Oprah, but all we know when we first meet her is if she has a nice smile, what her hair looks like, what color her eyes are. And you know what they say about first impressions. They last. So, if we aren’t physically attracted to her, it may take a long time for her personality to win us over enough to make us re-question our physical attraction.

From “Sunday Mornings“:

Sunday mornings used to be ours. You know, before marriage, before the kids, before the chaos, and before the early morning wake-ups. We would bask in them the way a seal basks in the sun after a long swim. The sun would come streaming in, yet still muted, through the thin, closed blinds in our small but cozy bedroom. The only noise from the rest of the house, if we held our breaths and listened very intently, was the low hum from the mammoth refrigerator three rooms over. Perhaps a dog or two would stir, from their spot on the rugs beside the bed, but they knew better than to try to jockey for position on the bed. It was off limits, save for the two of us, in our own little Sunday morning cocoon.

From “Does Your Soul Really Have a Mate?“:

If you believe in soul mates, then you must believe that there is only one out there for everyone, and if you for some reason never match up with yours, that’s it. But does that mean you can’t be happy living some other life with someone who is not your soul mate? And what if you’ve settled down with someone (note the word “settled”), and your soul mate appears, what do you do then?

From “Paving Our Own Path: Getting Married, The Un-Traditional Way“:

Every once in a green moon, I wonder what it would have been like to have a traditional wedding. But then again, I didn’t meet my wife in a traditional way, we didn’t date in traditional fashion, and our first few months “together” certainly weren’t traditional either. So if we had gotten married in front of a hundred friends and family, that would have been the odd happening indeed, no matter how traditional it seems to others. In fact, on our wedding day we both wore jeans and tee-shirts, the officiator offered us the speedy version, and we were out of there in about twenty minutes. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

From “Laundry Days“:

As a stark juxtaposition, outside in front of the corner store was a fella I would call “brutha man.” He had his booth set up every time I would pass through, and I wondered if he ever slept. And he was his own corner store because he sold everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. From sunglasses, to gold chains (no way were they real), to fur hats, to pirated video tapes, to pirated audiotapes, to toys. He was a one-stop shop, and if you didn’t see it there, he could get it for you. He often had the latest movies on the day they came out in the theater, and I always wondered how he did it. Periodically the owner of the Chinese corner mart would come out of his store and just stare at brutha man, like they were at war, and I guess to him they were, but brutha man must have greased the palms of the local police because they never stopped him from selling at that spot.

From “Feeling Gravity’s Pull“:

And you wonder why my poetry is so dark, why my characters harbor such deep, foreboding secrets. It’s how I get out all of the disappointment, how I bleed clean and replenish myself. It is my penance and my salvation. But don’t worry, it doesn’t mean I’m lost. It means I am in the process of being found.

From “The Trees Have Faces“:

The trees around here have faces. I had never seen that before, outside of science fiction movies, and in those cases the trees also had personalities and were animate. These trees not so much. And yet they still have faces… I imagine these trees with faces watch over us in a benevolent way, that they treat us with kid gloves to give us a chance to spread our wings and fly. Or maybe they really are just trees. With faces.

I hope you enjoyed those entries as much as I did going back through them. Wow, I had even forgotten about some of them, but that’s the journey. It keeps going forward. It’s fun, though, to look back and see how we got this far, every once in a while. Thank you for indulging my look back. Happy 600th to me. And onward.

Sam