March 4 Lists

I need to make a list of things to do. Remember the Menendez Brothers? They were the two young men that were found guilty of slaying their own parents, for what seemed like and endless number of reasons, but what the prosecution boiled down to "They wanted their money." Now I am sure that two young men that could do something as horrifying as take a shotgun to the people that gave them life, had some higher grievances against their parents besides that their allowance wasn't enough to buy a Rolex "President", but they did raid the father's bank account and did indeed buy a Rolex "President." The point here is that their own meticulous planning was what finally did them in. One brother had made a list that said things like "Pick up dry cleaning", "Take out trash", "Wash the beemer", "Kill Mom and Dad." It sounds awful, but when they were arrested, the house was clean, the car was shining, they looked very nice in their freshly pressed suits in court, and Mom and Dad had been brutally murdered. The list really worked! Although they should have added "Throw away list."

My life has taken a turn that is not a solitary story, it has happened to many people and has ruined many a relationship. I have been a nice, straight shooting, tax paying, married father for many years, but inside I've been, as James Taylor once put it, a "Churnin Urn of Burnin Funk." I realize now that's quite a thing for the whitest man ever born to say. I also realize that I am quoting a man who's first and greatest hit song, Fire and Rain, was about his stay in a mental institution. My wife and I went to marriage counseling to save our relationship, that led to me seeking personal counseling, and has led to our separation. Once I was pushed into getting my own place I thought I would accomplish all the things I've wanted to finish in my life. I would, after all these years finally become the Renaissance Man that everyone knows I'm hiding inside. I was going to finish my novel, write a play, record my songs, write a whole new album, shoot clever photographs, and take my shirts to the dry cleaner. So far In 3 months, I've washed my car once and had my haircut. I know I should make a list, but I find it highly presumptuous to put "Write the great american novel" on a list after "Buy Saran Wrap." How contrived it would be to write "Have an inspirational moment and write the best song that you've ever heard!" But I guess I should start small and list myself to just write, and to make time to play, and even time to do nothing at all but think....and buy Saran wrap.

One very wise and now nauseating writer once penned, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!" It was the opportunity for all who had created a melange of wasted days and pointless ramblings to pick themselves up and start doing meaningless crap like crazy. There used to be a personality test for joining the Peace Corps in which you were shown a glass and asked if the glass was half-full or half empty. If you answered half-empty you could just forget about ever getting into the Peace Corps buddy! You would never get the chance to go to a third world country and hide in a hut until your year of global service was up. I told them that the glass was half-full of shit, and so is the Peace Corps. Oops!

Today "is" the first day of the rest of your life and tomorrow is too. The day after that is yet another chance to fix what you screw up tomorrow and so on and so on. Life is an M.C. Escher painting being viewed by a society on acid. The stairway to heaven disappears into a stairway to Marshall Fields that by the way will probably be called Field-way in 2006, and then back to meld with your feet. My sister once told me that the stairs that an escalator makes, once they disappear, just pile up in a giant heap in the basement of the department store. I accepted this theory because I couldn't stand the thought of that escalator continuously performing the same mindless act over and over, until the day it died. At least making a mess in the basement would have to be addressed someday, and poor people who didn't have stairs would get them for free from the magnanimous store owners.

So remember my children, make a list, it's never to late to start again, hold on to the hand rail, the glass is half-full, and the Rolex "President" is one of the finest timepieces you can buy.XXXXX