On A Quantum of Dark Knights

Happy Day Before The Big Gobble!

I recently saw Quantum of Solace and liked it. During the summer I saw The Dark Knight, and liked it as well. But it occurred to me, after Quantum of Solace, that the movies had a lot in common and yet were worlds apart. In the Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne continues his quest for absolution and redemption by taking it to the bad guys. And he's so successful at it that the entire city of Gotham is turned upside down and it gives rise to a battle with the Joker who might be the very epitome of evil itself and his allies. In Quantum, James Bond continues his quest for absolution and redemption by finding those responsible for the death of his first love (in Casino Royale). And he's so successful at it that he threatens to turn the entire shadow world upside down unless he is stopped, giving rise to his battle not only with a very realistic corporate type villain, but also those that have allied themselves with him. James Bond and Bruce Wayne being two sides of the same coin, and yet, I'd watch Quantum again, but I won't watch The Dark Knight again. Quantum still manages to remember that at the end of the day the hero belongs in the light, or else he shall become a shadow and a dark soul like those he fights. So far, the Dark Knight doesn't seem to want to come back into the light. Bruce Wayne likes the dark. And as a result, while Dark Knight was the better film, Quantum was far more enjoyable to watch.

Speaking of enjoyable to watch and Thanksgiving... if you're unlike me, you probably have time on your hands to sit around and watch movies this long weekend. So I thought I'd recommend a few enjoyable movies that, if you haven't seen, you should watch. Feel free to add to my list in the comments below.

For the holidays, I usually like to watch The Sound of Music again. A classic movie that is eternally upbeat and just so darn wonderful to sing along with. You can't beat this movie.

If you're looking for an action movie, I like The Great Escape. Again, its been around for a long time, but it never fails to wow an audience.

Some more recent movies that I've seen that I totally recommend, "Dan in Real Life," surprised the heck out of me for how good it turned out. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and its quite entertaining.

Some movies currently playing that you ought to check out, "Bolt" from a more-or-less true Disney/Pixar hybrid, Quantum of Solace - James Bond still learning to be James Bond, and, if you can still find it at a discount house, "Wall-E" -its worth it just for the closing credits, but the movie itself is quite fantastic.

Anyway, enjoy the holiday. I shall be finishing up my movie this weekend and working the basketball games at the Odwalla Classic (Women's tourney at USF), so I'll be back again on Monday with The Further Adventures of Jeremiah the Prophet.

On Character Assassinations and the sin of football...

Rejoice fellow citizens of the world for Thanksgiving is almost upon us and there is much to be thankful for.

To start with, tonight is the annual showing of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. The only thing I can really think of with regards to this particular special is the scene where Charlie Brown thinks he's going to finally kick that football, only to have Lucy yank it away at the last second. How much is that like real life? What are the footballs in your life that you're always trying to kick? For me, lately, its been my diet. Just when I think that ball is finally in my sights... yank, AUUUUGGGGHHHHHH! Thud! I go boom. Put in that context, human failure is actually humorous, especially in light of the fact that WE ALWAYS THINK WE'RE GOING TO KICK IT and we always end up flat on our backs. So keep that in mind these holidays when you can look around at a nation flat on its back because we all thought for sure that that football was going to stay in one place this time and we were finally going to kick it.

Tonight I'm also putting some of the final touches on my summer film. I'll be adding the credits which somehow can't possibly convey my depth of gratitude to all who participated in this project. My one hope is that all who participated had a good time doing so. Beyond that, I just hope they enjoy the final film.

But as for me, I'll be spending a lot of time (scene 4,6,7,9,12,14,17,25,and 28) getting popcorn during the premiere. Its not because those particular scenes aren't good - in most cases, they're fantastic - its more because I'll be on screen during those scenes. I'm not one of those actors who doesn't like to see himself act. On the contrary, my ego is very healthy. Its more the fact that my character is, at best, a pompous a$$, and at worst, dull as dog poop. Sometime between the concept and the creation, Harry turned out to be one of the worst character's I've ever had the displeasure of being associated with. Now, I'm not the greatest actor, but Lionel Barrymore would have turned down this roll.

So, it was with some pleasure that I realized that there were a few story problems during the final edit that could only be fixed by filming some additional material. I, naturally, assigned this new material to Harry so that I could have a chance to redeem his character and make him somewhat palatable on the screen. I wrote the scene, showed it to the director, took notes on how to best do the performance, and then filmed it. I had great anticipation of seeing the final product because I had really done my best to make the scene sell as a funny scene. Oh... it was funny all right.

Apparently, I somehow managed to transform Harry from a stick in the mud boring Jedi into a cross between Denethor (from LOTR, played excellently by John Noble) and Liberace. For a scene that I wrote and performed, I was shocked at the way it finally came out. I almost didn't recognize my own performance as the in the closet Pink Jedi. And I seriously contemplated reshooting the entire scene until I realized that it made me laugh - oh how it made me laugh. Unintentionally I had made Harry's scene the silliest thing in the entire movie. Sure, it doesn't match any other Harry scene in the film, but it was so over the top that it kind of balances him out (like Gollum's two-face scene kind of balances out all the scenes where he's just obnoxious). So Liberace Harry survives in the final film and I have, once and for all, completely assassinated this character never to be resurrected again.

Yes, there are many things to be thankful for. So keep up the good spirits, fight the winter and holiday blues, and come back again tomorrow when I compare and contrast Bond and Batman (who's going to die this week - or so I heard).

The Glorious and the Absurd

Sometimes I feel a little like a sponge - soaking up the mood of the world and then regurgitating it to everyone else. This can make you great at a party, but a bit much at a wake. Lately, we've been much more in the dark than the light and, as such, my blog's been about as much fun as a hangnail. I'm aware of it, but I've been merely writing what's been overwhelmingly on my mind at the time. I'd like to change that now. I'd like to spend some time in the sunlight. So, for the rest of the year, I shall be concentrating entirely on the glorious and the absurd.

On Friday, I was witness to an act of athletic terrorism. The Academy of Art Urban Knights, in their first preliminary season, tried to enter the gates of Basketball Valhalla on the hilltop of the University of San Francisco. The USF Dons set the dogs on them. It wasn't pretty. The Urban Knights ran around the court like they were being chased by their own tails. I think even the coaches were just hoping a mercy rule could be implemented. I've never seen a team destroy an opponent by 51 points and know that it should have been much worse. Still, the hot dog was good and the half time entertainment was a scrimmage by the kids of a youth center in Marin City - a notoriously lower class neighborhood across the bridge from San Francisco. It was good to see kids just having a good time (and thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would have been more merciful to have the Urban Knights play the kids from Marin City ;)

On Saturday, I was able to sleep in. Do you remember the days of old when we all used to be able to sleep until past noon on a Saturday? Yeah... those were good times. After that, I visited with friends and then headed over to my sister's to help celebrate my nephew's fifth birthday. There are some skills my sister and her husband have not quite perfected yet, but parenting isn't one of them. Her kids are delightful and I always enjoy spending time there (especially if Carl makes me a cup of coffee - his coffee skills are at the opposite spectrum of his acting abilities and that is indeed something to rejoice about ;) I'm trying to figure out a good time to take them to see Bolt - the newest Disney movie.

On Sunday, during the Children's sermon, our wonderful head of Christian Education - J.D. - was trying to teach the young children the importance of feeding the hungry. After explaining to them about the economics of the world (fully half of the people on the planet make less than $2 a day - which apparently is just enough to get a good toy at the dollar store ;) he then asked the kids for some advice. He said he had some money in his wallet and he needed their help to decide what he should give to the local food bank. So he pulled out a one and a five and a twenty and ended with a hundred dollar bill. Then, one by one, he asked the kids which bill he should send to the food bank. Each one answered the hundred dollar bill. But when he got to the last kid, he asked, "Why do you think I should give them the hundred dollar bill?" And the kid looked at him and replied, "Because my daddy has one just like it in his wallet." Needless to say, that brought the house down. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

I'd like to pass on some prayer requests here as I receive them. A.J. from over at Bittersweet Life is asking for prayers for his family and for his upstart church project in downtown Kansas City. I really think this is a cool idea and I'm fairly certain that God does so as well. Still, a quick prayer for his endeavor and for his family can't hurt and might just lend them a feeling of strength and support. Also, prayers of thanksgiving for my good friend Nick Kibre and his wife Susan who are celebrating the birth of their second child and first son, Nathan Rhys Kibre. Congratulations you two (and a little extra prayer to their daughter, Winnie, who now has a little brother to protect).

That was fun. And I feel much better than evil sponge Will, so I'll probably continue in this vein until the end of the year.

Check back tomorrow when I lay out the gory details of my very first, and maybe not last, character assassination (and long overdue if I might say so). Yes, that's right, movie news - tomorrow!

NFSC - Not For Safe Christians

Blackness. I'm Lord knows where. Not thinking. Don't even know if I'm breathing. Doesn't matter. I'm in the sweet embrace of the unknowable, the unseeing, the unbeing. Shattered, by the sound of a large gray metal trashcan crashing down the aisle. I shoot up in bed, bewildered, shocked, and in that moment before I know where I am, images come flooding into my brain.

I am nearly forty - how the hell did I get to be nearly forty?! My life has not turned out at all like I expected it. But the disappointment is hidden behind a genial smile and a punishing schedule of new activities and goals. I am still at church (well, there's something good at least), but I seem to be seeking something, some answer. I'm not even sure I know what it is.

Back to the course wool blanket and the hard bunk, back to the uniform blue sailors storming through the barracks yelling, "Get up! Get dressed! Get out of beds!" My eyes go wide in shock. How the hell did I get here?

She is before me, her curves melting into my thin straight line. My young mind explodes with heretofore impossible thoughts. There is a nagging thought somewhere in the back of my mind, a wisp of a bad dream remembered from youth group, something about temptation and desire and... oh hell, she looks good and her skin is so warm and smooth. My brain shuts down.

I want to scream, but I can only manage to blink back the sleep deprivation hard. I spin in my top bunk, my face already feeling as tough as the stiff, cold clothes that I slip on the second my feet land on the frigid tile floor of the barracks. I watch as a complete stranger is roused out of his bunk by two uniforms who prod him with yelling and cursing. Chaos swirls around me, but I'm stuck in slow-motion, as my brain tries to make sense of it all.

How did I get to be like this? Forty years of broken dreams lie behind me like the remains of an archaeological dig. I sift through the wreckage to find the clue. While everyone else is prospering, I don't seem to be going forward. Its like my life is in neutral. I go back through recent classes, back through family issues, back through one job, back through another state... I see friends with kids, friends getting married, and I keep going back, back through a crappy job, back through college, back into the Navy. I see nothing, nothing at all to point me on to this path.

We are rushed out of the barracks. Pushed, prodded, the cold black air assaults us like nothing else. Nut to butt, we are thrust together like puzzle pieces from the opposite end of the box. Cold, shivering from more than the physical sensations, we are told things - words that wash over us. My watch calls to me and I look at the time through tired eyes - 3:30am. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

She reclines under my weight. Long past the point of no return, I pause, briefly, and I hear this screaming admonition - STOPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!! - but I ignore it and plunge ahead. It feels so good. This must be love.

We stumble through the cold morning to stand under harsh street lamps in a big square. I expect to see German Shephards dragging guards around the perimeter, straining to be set free on defenseless fresh meat, but there is only the cold to keep us at bay. More blue clones arrive and depart, and we stand there - first to arrive, last to leave into the nice warm confines of a chow hall. Food is on our plate and we sit, only to be told that we're done. We snatch something off our plate, shove it into our mouths, and lunge to our feet. Poked and prodded again. Why am I here? Why am I doing this?

Back through my tour in Hawaii (Hawaii... cool!) Back through my school in Virginia. Back to boot camp... I see me standing there, outside the chow hall, looking dazed, confused, and completely miserable. I pause... but realize that this is not it. This does not explain me at 40. I keep going back.

I catch a fleeting glimpse of me at 40 and I know it must be a trick of my sleep deprived mind. We are marching again, if you can call it that. Marching to who knows where. We don't ask. We just move. Move forward without knowing what we're doing or why. We obey. As we enter another room and watch our hair fall to the ground, and another room and watch as we're thrown into matching blue uniforms, each room peeling back a layer of who we are and who we wish to be - I feel like I'm losing myself to this place and I can hear the screams of outrage coming from my pampered inner self. Don't let me go down into that good night! Don't let me die! But I'm too cold and numb to try and save me. I succumb. I give in. I don't fight it. I become something else.

She is beauty and love and warmth and I embrace her. Her face looks to me like heaven. Her lips feel like promises of things to come; good promises, factory warranties and blue ribbons. I brush those lips with my own and I can't help but thinking that I would do anything for those lips, and that because of that resolve, I will be able to conquer the world and be its master. It is a good feeling.

We are no longer people with names. We are part of something greater. Individuals with a combined purpose. We struggle daily to accomplish simple tasks and work together. But there are occasional flare ups of individuality and we work hard to stamp them out. We temper those feelings with hard labor and work to strain them from the whole. Because we have an important mission to perform and we can't have any one going off in their own direction when it might have an effect on the lives of everyone else.

Back to my life before the Navy, back to High School, back... slowing now... back to her. Stop. Back to that moment... yes, that moment. That first moment. I see it now from the vantage of forty years. I see us lying there and we think we know it all and we think that we will conquer the world. But what I see is someone who ought to know better, who thinks that the rules don't apply to him, who is so desperate for love and understanding that he is going to delude himself into thinking that he can find it in her. She looks young and indifferent, clearly not in the same place as him, clearly not seeing him as the end all and be all of life. She has become his idol. She has become his icon of hope and glory. And I just know that this is it, that this is the moment where he rebelled against God.

The moment where the sun shines upon you and suddenly you are basking in its glow. Part of something bigger than you now. You have been broken down, destroyed, left in despair, and bewildered, so that you can then be put back together again in a new mold. Now, I belong to something bigger. Now I am just a small part of a large whole. I take orders and hopefully I follow them. But I understand and appreciate the consequences of failure now. I know the difference between life and death... and I've decided, finally, to choose life.

Total gibberish

I'm so totally exhausted right now. I've been basically firing on all cylinders for the last five days, with at least two days more to go. This on top of the previous four weeks of nuclear scheduling and academic Armageddon. Besides dealing with the cluster**** created by the new government safety regulations, I've been fighting through the opening weeks of basketball season, upcoming preparations for church holiday season, completion of all my final film projects, finishing the edit on my film, and my own financial meltdowns. But this morning I woke up woozy and I haven't stopped feeling woozy all day long. I think my synapses have all decided to take the day off and are sipping margaritas on a sunny beach somewhere without me. Its hard to take serious things seriously when you feel like you're rolling end over end in the tumble dryer of life. Drum roll... and WIPE OUT!

Its probably just fatigue mixed with hay fever or something, but stress induced pre-cardiac arrest sounds more in keeping with the rest of the economy right now.

(Its really hard to spew depressing rotgut in my blog when I'm too busy smiling - one of the curious side effects of wooziness. I seem to be happy in my misery).

Anyway, ignore me until I feel myself again... which should be sometime after January 20th.

When the credit crisis hits home

On Sunday, my Mom had two of her credit cards credit amounts slashed to $500. On Monday, my Step-Mom had a credit card lose about $1400 of credit. On Wednesday, my Dad had a credit card drop to just $100 credit. And yesterday, it was my turn - one credit card lost $1100 credit.

The Great Depression hit America a full six months after the market collapse. There have been many reasons credited for the start of the Depression, but the main factors included a tightening of money, a loss of jobs, and extremely low consumer confidence. I'm not making any predictions, but when we're daily hearing about companies slashing thousands of jobs, and extremely low consumer spending trends, do we really want to add fuel to the fire by also cutting off people's access to what funds they do have?

I should point out that all four people mentioned here have EXCELLENT credit. So, if we're being targeted already, how much longer until the rest of the country finds its credit gone?

These idiots were the ones who got us into this mess. Are we really going to expect them to make wise business decisions now?

Its time to start fixing up a nice cozy cardboard box for a house and to find a nice, defensive place in the park to live in. The Greater Depression is coming. Its as unavoidable as stupid people on the highway.

Beach Nut

I'm either a little early or a little late, but I always remember the birthday of a certain blog celebrity falls right around Veteran's Day, and so I'd like to wish him a happy birthday.

When I met my friend, he lived a little bit less than a mile from the beach (maybe 500 yards as the crow flies?). We were fellow youth at Lakeside Presbyterian Church. We grew up together in boys choir, then youth fellowship, then bell choir, and youth group. Basically just our entire formative years together. I can relate hundreds and thousands of adventures we shared, laughs we made, and a few tears we shed. I was a co-best man at his wedding and met his children when they were both very newly born. Through it all, through all the good times (2002 World Series) and bad times (1985 Giants season), we've remained best friends.

So I'd just like to wish my fellow beach person, Andrew Lie, a happy 30-somethingth Birthday (actual age shall not be disclosed for reasons of the fifth amendment!) and hope that he has many, many, many more adventures in his lifetime.

Just no more sailing in Lake Powell in a leaky boat... okay?

The Greatest Songs of the 80's

I usually ignore "Greatest of" lists because I tend to find them to be very self-selective. The basis for the rankings on these lists tend to be as subjective as, "Well, this is what I like." But half the people voting will have no idea what they're in fact voting for. I lived through the 80's and, quite frankly, I'd have a hard time coming up with a personal list of the greatest songs from that decade, but if I did, I guarantee you that it would look remarkably different than a list of songs generated by someone half my age. So, it was with some reservations that I flipped on this special on VH1 the other day to watch.

I happened to catch the top 13 songs (out of 100) and I couldn't disagree with any of the songs being on the list - but in the top 13? Maybe only a couple of them belonged there. Tops. And there were some definite omissions (presumably they ranked lower in the top 100).

I remember watching lists like this from earlier time periods and invariably the greatest song of the 1980's would ALWAYS be Thriller. This time it was Living on a Prayer from Bon Jovi. It got me to thinking about the nature of these kinds of polls and how we are influenced by current events into how we think about the past.

Clearly Jon Bon Jovi is still a very vibrant and sexy singer to most of his fans. Does this play into the fact that Living on a Prayer is now the #1 song versus Thriller - from a guy who has most recently been linked with alleged child molestation? Surely that was a factor in most people's decision to vote. One interesting fact given on the VH1 show was about the Journey song, "Don't Stop Believing" that was in the Top 5. They noted that the song set a record for Amazon downloads after it aired as part of the soundtrack for Laguna Beach. Did that have an effect on it being in the top 5?

Now, I don't want to sound bitter. As I said above, I doubt I could come up with a list myself and quite frankly, I don't care where songs rank on a hypothetical list. I know what I like and to heck with the rest of you. But I was wondering why we constantly feel the need to come up with these lists?

Culture seems so intent on justifying itself and we seem intent on justifying our beliefs in our culture that these lists keep appearing for everything. Its not enough to read a book and like it; we seem obsessed with making sure that others like it as well - as if our opinion on matters isn't important if it doesn't have the backing of millions of anonymous people as well.

But we humans have been at this justification game for a long time, asking questions to certify that we are on the right path with the right opinions and the right decisions. Even Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment.

He answered that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind and soul. And the second was like the first, to love your neighbor as yourself. That in these commandments was the law and the prophets - meaning everything that God had been trying to tell them for years.

Here is God's answer to our need for Greatest lists - its simple, "Love God and love everyone else." God's answer to the greatest songs of the 80's - He loves all the musicians equally. God's answer to the greatest novels of the 20th century - He loves all the writers equally. God's answer to the greatest philosophers of all time - He loves them all equally. Every single one of us is precious in God's sight and every time we love God or love one another, God approves. Everything else is either a variation on that, or its not. God doesn't need 100 top commandments, He only has two.

Experiment Gone Awry

I have a shocking confession to make.

Back in 1991, when I was in the intelligence field, I became part of a secret government experiment called Operation - 1M. After scouring the African continent for years, the United States of America had finally amassed one million primates for a dubious project.

Secretly smuggled into a hallowed out volcanic crater in Hawaii, these monkeys were fed, housed, and ultimately trained. Strapped into chairs, in eight hour shifts, and placed in front of keyboards, the monkeys tapped away - all day and all night. The government thought that we could finally prove the theory, one way or another, that an infinite number of monkeys pecking away at a typewriter will eventually write the great American novel.

But the folly doesn't end there.

Some politicians discovered the project and derailed its original intent by getting the government employed monkeys to start writing political dialog for them. However, this plan was quickly scrapped when it was realized that the monkey's spelled potato with an "e". So, instead, the monkeys were set loose to write, once again, anything that they felt like writing.

At first, random nonsense escaped from their typewriter keyboards, but eventually, through neuro-motorized autanomic feedback responses and other technological mumbo-jumbo, their nonsense became less randomized. The experiment was finally released onto the unsuspecting public when the monkeys started posting randomly to newsgroups in the mid-1990's via the internet. When no one suspected this, new avenues for expression were sought - first with homemade websites, then with social networking sites like myspace and facebook, and finally with comment driven interactive media available everywhere.

Most people assume when they read comments on the web these days that there are some pretty ignorant people out there typing this stuff, but the truth is, all of these comments are written by a bunch of randomly writing monkeys in a lab in Hawaii. The government experiment has clearly gone too far and its time to return to normal civil discourse again.

So, if you'll all please join the outcry and tell everyone you know to Stop Monkeying Around On The Internet so that we can get back to our normal peaceful conversations, I would appreciate it.

Towards a better world

Regardless of what both candidates might want us to believe, change begins with us. To that end, I've been reading a lot lately about a movement out of the Catholic Church (USA) towards a Sanctity of Life. The idea is a profound one - that before we can simply embrace an end to abortion, we must adhere to an idea that ALL LIFE is sacred - not just the life in the womb. I think this idea has resonated with me because although I've been labeled pro-choice my entire life, I've really been pro-sanctity of life my entire life.

The way I see it is that we'd be hypocritical indeed to just ban abortion without also addressing the very real problems of what happens to all humans after they're born. While I recognize that all life is sacred, I certainly don't feel comfortable forcing others to conform to my beliefs. But I would feel differently if I felt that society wasn't just claiming that life was sacred, while doing everything in its power to show that it was otherwise. It seems that if you're going to claim that life is sacred, then you can't advocate the taking of life whenever it suits your other needs or fears. You can't be pro-life and pro-death penalty, for instance. Or pro-life and pro-war. Those things, in my opinion, don't mix. However, to balance that, I'm wondering whether such a sanctity of life movement can really work or if I'm just being naive. Is it possible to live in a world where all life really is sacred? And, if so, what sort of world might that be?

I'm not convinced that Jesus wanted us to create an equitable society where everyone had equal opportunities to succeed and such, but I do think that Jesus was interested in creating a just society where goodness and mercy thrived and evil and condemnation did not. Amongst the very basics, to create such a world, I think we'd need to address the issues of adoption and foster care for all unwanted children. They need to be able to grow up - if not equally - then certainly safely. I've heard so many horror stories about orphanages and foster homes that I wouldn't condemn the worst child on the planet into such a state as a punishment, much less an entire generation of unborn children. Education is, naturally, a priority - though I'm not sure we need to provide a college level education to every child. Health care for all is a good idea (even if its just the basics of a place to go when you're sick and dying) and not necessarily a separate issue. And, of course, there's the real question of capitol punishment. These are all aspects of the Right to Life debate, but I'm not sure they all have solutions.

What I'd like to do is invite anyone and everyone who would like to leave a civil comment to address what they would do to make this a better world if they could just snap their fingers and make things happen. It seems to me if we could at least agree upon what sort of world we want, then the matter of figuring out how to get there should be much easier to address.

Some valleys are deeper than others

You might say its because I'm getting closer to 40, or it might be an attack from the Enemy, or it might even be some sort of depression, but I think its just exhaustion. No matter what the cause, lately I've been feeling bluer than normal. Its hard to remain optimistic when you slog into yet another hard period of your life and know that there will be little to show for it on the other side. It makes you start questioning things that ought not be questioned.

I know that God loves me, but there are times when I just feel like paraphrasing Dr. Evil and saying, "Could you throw me a frickin' bone here, Jesus?" I look around at other more settled lives and I think, why not me? What did I do differently? Where's my happiness? Am I just meant to be lonely and tired and sad my whole life?

See, it's clearly a case of the blues.

Happiness, like sadness, is usually just a matter of perspective. If I were a Katrina refugee or a hunted tribesman in Congo or Somalia or something, my problems wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. Others might chastise me for worrying about being lonely when I have a ton of friends and family that care for me. And still others, more poignantly and pointedly might just say, "You don't look like your starving... for attention or otherwise."

In the famous poem, "Footprints," the author wants to make it clear that there are hills and valleys in every life and I'm not sure that comparing one life to another, for good reasons or bad, is very helpful. No matter how well off I am or how bad off, I still have feelings of joy and sadness, hope and despair, like everyone else. It is in those bad times that faith in Jesus carries us... even if we question whether He has our best interest at heart.

So, somehow I'll muddle through until the sun comes out, and then I'll be right as rain again. I'm not sure when that'll be since I don't see an end in sight until the middle of December for all this hard work. But I can guarantee that by early to mid-January, I'll be getting back to myself by doing something that I know will make me feel better.

Until then...

I work all day...
And edit all night...
don't make no money...
but that's all right...
Ain't got no one...
to spend it on anyway...

I've been so down...
but I don't gotta pay...
Cause da Blues is free
for one and for all
Whether you want'em
They come to call

Da Blues Is free...