WOOF!

Ok, I don't watch much TV, but here's a guy who makes me think I need to start watching more -- Josh Gates from Destination Truth on the Sci Fi channel. I really don't know anything about it, but I was looking for the preview for this week's episode of BSG and I saw his handsome face looking back at me in one of Sci Fi's ads.

Marc's Midweek Return to Beef Haiku

Seeking inner truth,
Now I'll tell you what I found:
Beef inspires me!

Special thanks to The Slabber for this fine beef!

Feelings

I'm not sure exactly where it came from, but the moment I woke up this morning, I had that gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I asked myself what it was about -- I hadn't had time to worry about anything yet or to think of anything negative. The only thing I had time to notice was that I was awake again, back in this life. WTF?

Leave it to Nina Simone to explain it all:

"As a robot gets herself together and we do it and we get to the middle where we have forgotten our feelings of love, you will help me, huh?"


Some days it takes a little effort to find those feelings of love again.

Home Again

Sorry for having a light week when it comes to posting. Last week was a busy week. Along with trying to put together a last-minute memorial CD for a friend who passed away a few months ago, I also headed back to Notre Dame for a weekend conference called Alumni Senate.

I won't bore you with the details, because a lot of it was meetings and workshops and dinners with other Alumni. I guess the big thing for me was that I had come last year and had really struggled, having lost my job a couple of months before, I was wrestling with the questions that inevitably come with that along with the heightened sensitivity of being around so many people who are successful in traditional ways.

Flash forward a year: While many of the circumstances, on the surface, haven't resolved themselves yet, I've been coming to accept that I really am in a much different place. While I may not be a partner at a big law firm or deeply ingrained in a Fortune 500 company, it's okay because that's not really want to be anyway. Maybe I don't know how to make my dreams come true yet, but when I stop to look at my life, I know that I'm involved in things that I really care about (and enjoy, if I let myself) and I'm excited about the possibilities of what is to come.

What makes it more special to me is that Notre Dame is the one place where, despite the fact that I had stepped away from my family and everything I knew, I felt like it was home, a place I knew was incredibly special and that I was a part of it. That's a bit of a mixed blessing. Throughout my college experience (and even through last year) I had a hard time with that -- maybe it was being gay on a conservative, Catholic campus, perhaps even deeper. So many times I wondered whether I deserved to be at such a place. Notre Dame isn't the easiest place to be different.

Of course, it's not necessarily easy being different wherever you happen to live. That's been my work -- to recognize that I'm unique and that what I have to offer is valuable, more so than if I had been willing (and able) to stuff myself into the expectations that somehow I placed on myself.

It was a new experience for me -- being able to hold my head up high and say, "Here I am. I'm damn good at what I do. I belong here. I'm proud of myself and of this place. We are part of each other and we always will be." I'm not perfect, at least in any of the ways people would define it. And at the same time, I know that not only will I never be, but that I'm figuring out that I don't need to be and never did. It's just a matter of setting down all the excuses and justifications I've used to hold myself apart from the things I love and diving in. I'm not always in the place where I can do that, or am willing to do that, but I'm getting SO much better at it.

Eye Of The Storm

I've had the feeling that my life's about to change very soon. I see it all around me -- the old ways are passing away: whether it's politics, economics, or the particulars of my life. I guess that's been the thing that's jumped out at me about the Hillary vs. Obama race -- to the underlying dynamics are really all about this generational shift: the old ways vs. the new ways.

In any event, I've felt the change coming, most of the time I've been very focused on the changes coming in my own life. I've had my share of angst over them -- on one hand, some of the particulars in my life have been a struggle these past several years, whether it's been about work or (lack of) relationship or what have you. In a lot of ways, it's been the struggle of feeling like they're not really working out for me. Yet more and more I'm coming to see some of the lessons that they've been teaching me and appreciating them for the things they have brought to my experience.

Circumstances seem to be accelerating now -- sometimes I'm feeling like I'm racing against the clock. Will I be ready? Can I handle what's to come? Will these changes be for good or ill? I guess the main thing for me has been paying attention to those last few parts of myself that are still afraid of moving forward -- those somewhat muted, but persistent, elements that have kept me deeply rooted where I am. This long process, I can tell, is almost at an end.

Of course, it's not just about me. This evening I got a reminder of that with a nice family shitstorm that has absolutely nothing to do with me. I'll spare you the details, though I can assure everyone that nobody is dead or even seriously injured. Rather, it's just your garden variety family explosions. To be sure, everyone in the family is apoplectic, convinced that it's all coming apart. They may be right. At the same time, I can't help but stand back and feel like it's just the catalyst that gives things the opportunity to come back together in a better way. And that is a very comforting thought.

Lighten Up

Sometimes I get bogged down with the things in my life I'm trying to change. Leave it to the Discovery Channel to give me a little perspective. Note to self: There's a lot more out there that I like than I don't... and breaking into song always makes things feel better.

Trees

As soon as I felt like I started picking up some momentum, like I was getting a handle on things... WHAM! Like driving straight into a tree. Not a fun experience by any means, even less so when it seems like I've hit the same damn tree more times than I can count. I'm tired of feeling like my life is like Groundhog Day.

So this morning essentially began the way the night ended -- seething with resentment; weighed down with disappointment. In the past, it's taken few days in that mode before things finally cool down. I decided, however, that this time I wasn't going to be satisfied with spending another day stewing in my own bitterness. I decided that I was going to find a way to work my way out of this.

A couple of hours after I got up, my Dad asked me to help him with some work he was doing in the yard. If there's one thing I despise, it's yard work. That said, I've really been trying to quit bitching about those sorts of things and just get them done. Not that I enjoy it, but it's made things run a little more smoothly.

Anyway, after I pushed aside my normal annoyance at such things, I went to see what he wanted. There's a dead tree in the yard -- my grandfather, Tony, gave it to my parents shortly before he died -- shortly after I was born. It died last year, right after my Uncle, Tony Jr., passed. My Dad decided that today would be the day that we pulled that sucker out of the ground.

As soon as I heard what was going on, I couldn't help but smile to myself. Like I said earlier, it's the Universe speaks to me in metaphor. I've been working to uproot that dead fucking tree I keep running into and the Universe decided it was time to give me a few pointers.

One of the things I learned is that while the tree seems unmovable to begin with, you've got to dig a little and get at the roots. Once you can chop some of them, the tree starts to give way. You push at it and it's easy to tell which roots you need still to get. A little more hacking and then it finally collapses. Maybe that's obvious, but something about going through the physical process of actually uprooting a tree made things much more clear.

I've done a lot of work already, now I'm ready to do a little digging. That fucker's coming down.

A Nice Bowl of Puttanesca

One of the things I've learned over the years is that the Universe speaks to me in metaphor -- that is, I've come to believe that certain aspects of events going on around me are a mirror for internal things going on in my life. It's like watching other people act out the stuff that's going on in my head.

I finished my latest CD a few days ago. I've really been trying to focus on myself and rediscover the joy in my life -- I really do love so much of what's going on in my life right now, though it's sometimes I lose track of it. Anyway, I've felt like this latest CD is really reflects the core of what I'm trying to learn -- to relax and enjoy myself and find the things in my life to feel good about, instead of worrying about how to "fix" things. I really do believe that that's the freedom I've been looking for: the ability to enjoy life as it is and to trust it to unfold as it should. I've been working to reach that point that Mary J. Blige talks about -- "I wouldn't change my life, my life's just fine." I've felt like coming to really live that on a deep level is the missing piece I've always needed.

Alex emailed me after listening to the new disc, commenting that he thinks that it's the best he's heard from me and that he can tell that I've really been in a good space. On balance I've felt like things are coming together, like I'm on the brink of the things I've been asking for to finally come into place. So, when Notre Dame's hockey team made it to the championship game, I felt like it was a nudge from the Universe telling me that I'm definitely on the right track and that I'm almost there. There have been other things going on that make it clear that my life is going to change soon, one way or the other. So, the past couple of days for me have been about wondering whether I'm ready to take that step forward, whatever that may be, and feeling like, yes, I'm ready to go.

So when Saturday rolled around and Notre Dame got their asses kicked in the championship game, I tried to downplay it. "Oh, it's not a big deal, it really doesn't have anything to do with anything." When Alex sent me a cute photo of a box of Fusilli Puttanesca he saw in the grocery store because he thought of me, I thought it was oh so cute and was thankful that I really haven't a nasty "Puttanesca!" moment in a while and maybe I'm done with those. Ah, wishful thinking. Rather, they were harbingers of what was to come.

The details of it aren't really important. Instead, just focus on the essence of it -- that blinding anger that says, "After all the fucking work I've done, why the fuck do I have to go through this again?!" Hello darkness, my old friend. In the scheme of things, it wasn't a big deal (and before you ask, I'm fine, everything is ok...), but nothing quite like a steaming shit sandwich to remind you that the job's not quite done.

Proud

1. Happy People (Original Mix) - Offer Nissim feat. Maya (Available at Star 69)
2. Creer En El Amor (Club Mix) -Guru'S'ound Project feat. Jose Gonzalez
3. Hi'N'Bye (Eddie Thoneick La Guitarra Mix) - Eddie Thoneick feat. Alexandra Prince
4. Give It All You Got (Bimbo Jones Extended Club Mix) - Ultra Naté
5. Waiting All My Life (J Nitti & Steele House Mix) - J Nitti feat. Shirley Davis
6. Enjoy Yourself (7th Heaven Club Mix) - Viola Wills
7. Everything Is Beautiful (Solitaire Remix) - Static Revenger feat. Taj Bell
8. Proud (Illicit Remix) - Heather Small
9. Stars (Tony Moran Peak Club Mix) - Erika Jayne
10. Freedom (Tony Moran Club Mix) - Tony Moran feat. Nicki Richards (available at Masterbeat)
11. Just Fine (Scotty K Vocal Klub Mix) - Mary J. Blige

Go Irish!

Congrats to the Notre Dame Hockey team, making it's first trip to the Frozen Four in Denver. They just beat Michigan in the semifinals to face Boston College on Saturday for the national championship. The Irish have never been known for hockey and it's been great to see them play the underdog to beat Michigan. It'd be even sweeter to win our first title by beating Boston College.

GO IRISH!
Beat Eagles!

Marc's Midweek Geeky Beef Haiku

Juxtaposition:
See the once geeky schoolboy
now encased in beef.

A Pirate's Life

I've been eagerly awaiting my good Pirate friend Jon's return to Phoenix. It had been a while since I was able to visit him in Palm Springs and he hadn't been able to make it out here either. Thursday marked the first time we had gotten a chance to get together in 3 years or so.

I had thought that we might make a return to Tasty Kabob, where we had gone out last time he was in town. In fact, Jon still asks me about Tasty Kabob from time to time. Instead, being an Asian food aficionado, Jon suggested that we try out Roka Akor, a high falutin' Japanese place that happened to be right across the street from his hotel.

Roka Akor is the first US version of Roka, a Robata-style Japanese grill. The other three restaurants are in London, Macau and Hong Kong, which leaves Scottsdale in some rather heady company. I'm not the uber-trendy type, nor am I an expert on Japanese food but I definitely enjoyed the place. It was classy, yet simple, the service was excellent, and the food was top notch. I ended up enjoying some things that I didn't think I'd care for, so adding that on top of excellent company, it made for an excellent evening.

We could have stopped there, but if a fellow Pirate is in town, you'd be mad not to go lookin' fer booty. YARR! So, we made the trek across town into Phoenix intending to do a little plunderin'. There may have been strippers involved, but there's absolutely no photographic evidence of any such activities. There was, however, a nasty straight chick who thought that a bar full of gay men wanted to see her fulfill her life's ambition as a pole dancer. Oddly enough, this bar wasn't quite as classy as Roka Akor. Nonetheless, it was a nice counterpoint to the earlier Scottsdale experience. To top it off, Jon & I decided that we absolutely MUST tour Europe together... and soon.

Good food, grog, good Pirate friends, and hot man-wenches. A pirate's life, 'tis for me.

FINALLY!

I'm so excited that I think I just wet myself. Don't know what to do with myself until the show airs tonight.

Disco Square Dance

Sometimes I forget just how influential Disco was... here's a great reminder.


Thanks to FreeBradley for twittering this.