11.2.08

good show last night and great turnout.  sold out of the cds i'd brought though the audience was loud.  post-halloween candy highs and hangovers.  but good to see some old friends there in b'ham where i went to school.  so many places i knew well now closed.  things change.

what if could change yourself back into someone you used to be?  inhabit those shoes, be that ghost? or someone you want to be? imagine yourself a different future than the one that is coming ...

been difficult, this coming off tour and struggling through the mess of what life you left behind.  boxes and moving and business left to decay.

i have two months now set aside for writing and songwriting.  90,ooo words on a memoir i began in '04 that call to me like a neglected lover, begging to be finished off.  and songs for the new record yet to be written.

have scheduled a weekly songwriting meeting with holly o'reilly and megan peters, two veteran songwriters whose work differs from mine. but we challenge each other to bring a brand new song each week, which is good to get things flowing, and to force oneself to be open to input and positive criticism.

sometimes i feel certain i have nothing left to say.  nothing of value or importance or consequence.

have not yet typed up the copious journaling i did while on tour.  i'd promised folks i would but ... now it seems a huge task and i have so much other writing i want to do ...

election in two days now.  have been stridently anti-political since my heart was broken with the start of the war.  i worked at a school then, and once the war began, each morning we lit a candle that burned throughout the day.

is it still burning?

i am all out of sorts today anyway.  a very late night last night, has thrown me out for a spin.  hoping a good night's sleep tonight will help.

today i think about how many lives i have lived. how many men i have loved and how many causes were so critical.  how many jobs.  how many overs.  how many songs.  how many left?

today is a day when prayer is forced.  forced hope.

my dog pappy is not feeling well, and it has been my great joy to snuggle him close and to call him my baby, and tell him everything is going to be ok.

i wish god would do that more often ...