I posted on 2/22/08:  "…The one thing I now want some definitive information on is the fate of whatever content I posted in the last incarnation of the Cafe.  Most things I had saved to my computer, but some I wrote on the fly and submitted without making copies.  None of the content is worth much to posterity, but I would like to the ability to salvage those things important to me.  Will there be a time in the future when we can regain what we submitted, or is it  irretrievably lost?  Can you let us know one way or another?"

Andrew replied on 2-22-08:  "It is not lost, it will be loaded onto the site once the new server is up. Early next week."

Has early next week been pushed back?  If so, to when?

Things have changed, and that's fine.  Things still need to be worked out, and that's fine, too.  The one thing I now want some definitive information on is the fate of whatever content I posted in the last incarnation of the Cafe.  Most things I had saved to my computer, but some I wrote on the fly and submitted without making copies.  None of the content is worth much to posterity, but I would like to the ability to salvage those things important to me.  Will there be a time in the future when we can regain what we submitted, or is it  irretrievably lost?  Can you let us know one way or another?  Thanks.

It's gone.  If this ever shows, it'll be a major miracle.  Sorry, Andrew, but you might as well diss the Cafe and put the front pagers somewhere else.

 

This is for the Café "back benchers."  It just ain’t the same as it was.  I'm not really folding my tent and stealing away into the night; I'm just taking a sabbatical.  I’ll check back to see how things are shaking out.  I ain’t angry, and my frustration has subsided.  I’m saddened, but change sometimes does that.  So, I’m just going to drift away and leave a few songs behind that say thanks for the conversations, the sharing, the learning, the friendships, the community, the smiles, the hope.  Like me, they’re a bit dated, a bit schmaltzy and don’t say perfectly how special the back bench and the Saloon have been.

Poems, Prayers, and Promises
You’ve Got a Friend
Canta Libre (Sing Free)
Thanks for the Memory
Auld Lang Syne
Beautiful Noise

Véale pronto, mi amigos (see you soon, my friends).

Andrew, you really need to get the Delete button back, because I'd take this down later today.  In the meantime, the pic is me, sorta, and here's a song I really like about Saturday night at the movies.  To quote Jim Carrey from the The Mask, "Somebody stop me."

Well, since we're in a state of flux here, I thought I'd do something even more frivolous than usual.  If you need your daily dose of gold  lamé, you've come to the right place.
Blue Moon
Duke of Earl
Pretty Little Angel Eyes
Three Bells
Saturday Night at the Movies
Unchained Melody

Sorry to take up more bandwidth, but here's the real deal about Starting All Over Again.  Andrew, need links in replies -)

Well, we are starting over, so to speak.  Change can be good; we learn and grow, even if we become frustrated.  Two tunes for change.  BTW, Andrew, I really need the spell checker back (too much stress to actually read what I've written) and the preview button (see previous paraenthetical).
Starting All Over Again
Changes

Just experimenting

An occupational hazard of getting older is losing friends and acquaintances.  Today, I learned that a special person has completed the transition from this life to another.  I don’t think Mack has actually died; she has just shed the cocoon of human existence.  If anyone’s spirit lives on, Mack’s does.  More than any other person I’ve yet to meet, Mack had a special insight into living and was attuned to the rhythms of Creation.

Mack, thank you for choosing to dwell among us for awhile.  The world is richer for you having lived, and we who knew you are vastly richer for the experience.  Godspeed.

I’ve written about my cat before, and I am again and probably will again.  If you care to meet Moofie, go here (what does it say about a person when the personal photo is of his cat?  that’s fodder for another time; and I don’t want you to explain it to me; who, me? dude, you got me all wrong, hehe).

Anyway, I was just sitting at the computer (dude, you ARE sitting at the computer; hush; now, where was I? oh, yes, at the computer) contemplating my navel and other weighty problems when it suddenly occurred to me that I really need to find that box of Q-Tips and clean some things out, my navel being one of those things (eeewwwww!! you sure you want to go there? hush; who’s blog is this anyway? I’m glad it’s yours and not mine; shush).  Well to make a short story long, I last left her highness asleep on the back of the sofa, anxiously awaiting the coming of the warming light of the new day (geez, you over wrote that and badly; if you really want to overwrite it, try this—the small feline lies serenely atop the cushioned softness of the quilted pillows that oft do make her throne, while she awaits the new dawn to come at her bidding and warm her regal self; not bad; I’ll take it under consideration; “take it under consideration”? harrumph; see if I try to help again.).  Now, where was I?  Oh yes, I was engaged in a lively game of solitaire when her highness awoke and starting meowing, quite loudly, I might add.  Well, her meaning was clear—“get your fat ass out of that chair and take me outside, NOW, you lousy #@*%$.”  Nothing could be done except acquiesce to her command.  So, we went outside, even though it’s damnably cold.  Fortunately, for me, we didn’t stay long.  Her highness also concluded it was damnably cold.  As we came back inside, she looked up at me as if to say, “Shit, why’d you let it get so friggin’ cold?  Can’t you do anything right?  I don’t know why I even bother to keep you around.  Sheesh!!!”  And she proceeded to her food bowl which had just been replenished, also at her bidding.

All’s been quiet now for about 5 minutes, but we’ll repeat the process several more times ere twilight.  It must be nice to be unabashedly and unapologetically egotistical and to know with all certainty that you ARE the center of all Creation and that all other inhabitants exist for the sole purpose of fulfilling your needs and desires.  Yes, a finicky feline I choose to be on the flip side of this LP called Life (dude, you need to get a life, first; hush).

A middle-aged white guy sits in the spring semester offering of English 101 with the kids who flunked it during the fall semester (the school wouldn't accept my CLEP credit from 1972, but it turned out good).  We were discussing some short story that I forget, now.  The teacher was pointing out the meaning of a passage.  I didn't see it all and, being the smart-ass I sometimes am, said I thought she might be over reading the passage.  She was taken somewhat aback but said I might be right.  She is also the teacher who encouraged me to pursue technical writing.

My aversion to over reading things started in high school.  In senior English, we were reading Romeo and Juliet.  Our teacher was fresh out of college and no more than 4 years older than us.  She mentioned that the average contemporary audience member of a Shakespeare play had no more than a sixth grade education.  She was picking the play apart, line by line by line.  I finally raised my smart-assed hand and asked how, if the audience had no better than a sixth grade education, could they find all the meaning she was finding in the play?  She sputtered and said something about the people having intimate knowledge of the underlying themes, and so forth.  I can only imagine the expletives she used in the teachers' lounge.

As with beauty, meaning is in the eye of the beholder.  Damn, this is going to be a daunting segue to an Eagles song.  The more I listen to Hotel California, the more I find in it.  I won't go into any of it, because I'm probably over reading it.  I love this video.  I think it's from a tour the Eagles did in 1994.  I like the lyrics, the musicality, the musicianship, the chemistry of the performers that seems to transcend any personal differences and coalesces around the music.  I especially like the interaction between Don Felder and Joe Walsh (the lead acoustic guitarists), and I have a soft spot for Spanish style guitar.  I hope you enjoy.

Hotel California

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?  One, but the light bulb must have a sincere desire to change.

I called in sick today, but you can’t see a wound, hear a cough, feel a fever, find an abnormal lab value, palpate a swollen gland, or visualize a spot on an X-ray.  I’m tired with what I call that “bad kind of tired.”  Other than a profound sense of fatigue, the only other physical feeling is that of my brain having broken loose from its moorings and floating on water; it’s an odd sensation.

I’ve lived with clinical depression for the past 15 years or so.  Nothing special about that.  Depression is just another malady like diabetes or hypertension.  You can’t cure them, only control them or ameliorate their symptoms.  Occasionally, despite your best efforts and religiously taking medication and watching your diet and following doctor’s orders, your blood pressure or blood sugar spikes, or you get that “bad kind of tired.”

It’s strange to have a disease where you can’t point to where it hurts or measure or see anything abnormal.  You start to wonder if maybe you’re just weak and really should pull yourself up by the bootstraps.  But you also have a sense that it’s more than just a character flaw.  Sometimes, you wish you would just go insane and get it over with.  Mostly, you hope your family and the people you work with can understand that you do occasionally catch a cold of sorts, and for me, I try to overlook the stigma I’ve attached to my own mental illness, and that’s the most difficult part.

I am the light bulb.  I have changed and give off a little light, even, if like the light bulb, I got a little screwed in the process and if you shake me, you can still hear stray bits of filament rattling around inside.  Why did I write this?  I wanted to, and I needed to, and maybe someone needed to hear it and begin to know that what they feel isn’t all that out of the ordinary.  Depression isolates; sharing integrates.

Oi yea, oi yea, oi yea.  All those having business with this most honorable court draw nigh and ye shall be hoird.  Actually, you'll hear some Mary Chapin Carpenter.  Yes, kids, tis time for some music, all by Mary Chapin Carpenter.  To me, she's such a good song writer and performer that it's hard to choose what to include, and some things I wanted to include, I couldn't find.  I hope you enjoy.

Passionate Kisses
The Twist and Shout
Come On Come On
Let Me into Your Heart
Shut Up and Kiss Me
Tender When I Want to Be
Wherever You Are
Almost Home

I always wonder if these kinds of posts are worth the bandwidth and space on the screen they consume, my innate sense of insecurity and self-doubt coming to the fore.  And then I read something and decide that it’s OK to occasionally talk about little things.  It reminds us of living, of from whence we’ve come, which helped shape who we are, which informs where we hope to go, a continuum, if you will.

I got a haircut yesterday.  It was my bimonthly shearing (a 4½ on the sides and a 6 on top, blended and tapered); it’s short, not high and tight, but short (geez, the volume of gray hair that fell was disconcerting).  My barber and I attended the same school.  He graduated 3 years ahead of me and lives in the next town east, about 9 miles.  He is also the mayor of that town.  I’ve said this before, but if you get the chance, go get a haircut in a small town barbershop and listen to four conversations being carried on at once.  They deal with the politics of the day, reminiscences about very large hogs demolishing a house, the barber talking to his daughter through a Bluetooth thingy, while the barber’s wife admonishes him to eat more fruit and veggies and to be more concerned about his heart than his prostate.  It’s a cacophony of concern about many things, but no one voice seeks dominance over another.  It’s a wonder to behold, all having something to say but not at the expense of the others.  And I just realized that this isn’t actually about any of that, and yet, it’s about all of that; all of that being a catalyst to thoughts about competition and mutual respect.

In junior high and high school, I participated in athletics—football, basketball, track, and baseball.  Rivalries in athletics are as old as time itself.  In my youth, our biggest rival was the town where my barber resides.  If we could beat them, we had had a good season, even if we lost every other game.  A funny thing about rivalries, they can breed respect and friendship; that’s what this rivalry did.  We knew each other and respected each other, even if we wanted to beat the tar out of each other at game time.  I think this is best typified by a track meet.

I was pretty fast, not world class by any stretch of the imagination, but not bad for a kid from a small town.  I consistently ran the hundred in under 11 seconds; my best being 10.2.  In the next town over was a boy as fast, if not slightly faster, than me.  We both anchored our relay teams and usually finished either first or second in whatever event we were entered.  Somehow, somewhere along the way, we became friends.  In between events, we would sit in the infield, our legs outstretched, and talk.  We talked about sports, the cute girls in the stands, and hopes for the future.  Then, first call would come for the next event we were in.  We’d get up and start to stretch and warm up muscles.  Second call came, and we would start jogging slowly around the infield.  Third call and we were in the starting blocks, ready to outrun each other.  At the finish line, we congratulated each other and went back to the infield and resumed our conversation.  We were competitors who wished each other well, even when we both wanted to win.

If there is a moral to the story, it’s that competition and respect are not mutually exclusive activities.  I’ll leave it to others to decide if another moral resides in the story.