I'm Every Woman

Not really. I stole that from a song. In fact, I’m actually a boy, and not a woman. I thought the title was catchy.

My synapses fire in twelve different directions tonight, so let’s see if we can make some sense out of this.

The weekend

The weekend was almost perfect. Gunner, Chief, the Diva, Blog This, and Georgiagirl had a great time watching the Dawgs restore order to the football world. I am not as thrilled with the outcome as many are, as I don’t think the win was as impressive as a lot of people think. I’m ridiculously glad we won, but we’re not even halfway finished.

After reveling a bit too much in the recreational activities that not working at a game tends to allow, we experienced a brief recurrence of the “No Bullshit Policy,” which shall henceforth be renamed the “Bullshit Policy.” To date, I can’t recall a time when the old “No Bullshit Policy” ever resulted in the revelation of truth. It rather normally revealed an imaginative mind’s twisting of reality in such a way that multiple dear friends became profoundly pissed off at the words that were coming out of my mouth (Tell ‘em, Dave). It’s an occasional byproduct of my weirdness, but I am learning that there are far more productive and less dramatic ways to allow my own creations to see the light of day. In the meantime, I will only say that I deeply appreciate the understanding and forgiveness of those who were this week’s victims. I think I have almost victimized everyone, so I hope this phase is ending. Nevertheless, I thank you and love you all for being willing to deal with my worst moments and hanging around for my better ones. Just so you have something to look forward to, please know that there are many better ones on the way.

Good (mostly) times, good football, good drink, and good friends. Go dawgs.

The beginning of the week

The adjustment to a life in which I am not constantly needed, asked questions, and depended upon continues. In many spare moments of this relative “free” time, I have indulged in the Bravo Network’s “West Wing” Marathon. Though the policy is frequently not my own, I love the writing and the point of this show. I kept getting one lesson out of every episode: “Stay on message.” For me these days, I think that instruction is closely akin to the line near the end of Star Wars, “Stay on target,” or the caption on your second grade report card, “Stays on task.”

On Tuesday, I attended a somewhat productive band rehearsal, then had a great conversation with an old friend who is supremely capable of reminding me of who I am when I get “off message.” It was exactly what I needed. I posted a blog about it for a few hours, knowing that those who really need or care to know what’s going on in my head would probably see the entry. I then removed it, knowing that casual readers of my blog neither want nor need to know the more intimate details of my life. I like this practice and intend to continue it for things that don’t need to remain a part of the record.

Writer’s blog

I have been writing for some time with a former attorney (from Atlanta) turned songwriter named Bob. Brad has requested that he be referred to in internal communication as “Matlock,” and I have agreed to comply.

I wasn’t really thrilled with the early efforts and communication in my writing with Matlock. He tended to look for phrases like “heart on the shelf” and “killin’ me” and so on… the long since cliché snapshots of a once brilliant common practice of writing songs in this genre. But there is something about Matlock. He is in his mid-50’s and has the wisdom of a man who has experienced great heartache, a divorce, the separation from one of his children, and the tell-tale stress of a somewhat free spirit who attempted to live a textbook life that was never to have been one in which he felt at home. I have since begun to learn how perceptive he is, and have truly begun to look forward to our writing sessions every week.

This week, Matlock and I assumed new roles. Being able to tell that I am very far into the process of making sense out my life, Matlock transformed himself from songwriter to opportunistic therapist (utilizing the Socratic method of which many attorneys are fond) and he began to drag a song out of me, one piece at a time. In a brilliant combination of prodding and questioning, followed by stepping out of the room, Matlock gave me the impetus and then the space to create something new. And it is new. If we ever write something great together, you will be shocked when Matlock steps onto the stage to accept his trophy, because you would never have guessed it. We only finished one verse tonight, as he recognized early on that I hadn’t sorted the entire story of this song out in my head. He said to me, “This is too important to try and rush. We need to get this right, and we need to make sure we have fully explored the idea that you are pursuing.” We broke and will meet again next week.

I had to kinda step back tonight and realize it. But for all of the bitching I do about being lonely and lost in this town, I have five tunes that I believe in, growling and reeling for completion. That’s the first time I have ever had five things I believed in on deck. This is good.

This weekend

The Dawgs return to this state again this Saturday. A very dear friend and I have decided to seize the opportunity to make a weekend of it. When I’m not obsessing over one of these tunes, I am hopping up and down to the annoyance of my downstairs neighbors in excitement for an upcoming weekend of laughs and gourmet meals (as long as I can be kept away from the kitchen utensils). I am so excited about dropping the guitar for a few days and soaking up the moments of being with someone who gets me. It’s harder to do these days, and that makes the times when we can infinitely more valuable. This is exactly what I have needed for a long time, and I’m just as excited as I can be.

Outro

There are still good days and bad days, and to expect that that is going to change completely misses the point. I’m doing a pretty decent job of realizing that the only end we ever encounter is one which we won’t be alive for. I’m pretty free right now, with few obligations, and I’m doing a pretty good job of making something of it (though there is much more to be done). Not to be hokey (yet to be hokey), but I understand more everyday that this isn’t about looking for something. It is about knowing, believing, and enjoying where you are, when you are….