Today, I am beginning to feel the veil of funk lifting. Honestly, I don’t think I could have said that a couple of hours ago, but it’s a B-E-A-utiful day here. I biked up to my office, and opened up my planner to glance over yesterday’s to do list.

Smile.

I found more check marks next to tasks I had set for myself to complete than not. And the things that I needed to put off…there were valid reason for moving most of them forward. This morning, I got all the phone calls I needed to make done, I’m updating this blog, and then I will get some script stuff done in advance of a meeting with Debi tomorrow morning. At least I’m battinng over 500. That feels pretty good.

Wheeeeeeeewwwwwwww……. Breath, Bill. Breath. One foot in front of the other.

P.S. I know that I have been tauning you all with the promise of news on the RB front sometime soon. I apologize for the tease, but bear with me, folks. I hope in the next 2-3 weeks to have some really cool news. I promise to keep you posted.

I hate times like these. I try and I try to figure out why they happen, but I never can. It’s like a puzzle, with one key piece forever missing.

I know that I am in a funk. I can FEEL it. I know it specifically because it’s during these times that I want to avoid writing in this journal. And I get why. I mean, it’s not like I don’t contemplate journaling here. It’s simply that in times like these there’s SooOOoOo many things swirling around in my head and all of them seem to relate and inter-connect somehow. I try to break them down into bite-sized chunks, so I can at least COMMENT on them. Alas…no. Somehow, in times like these, I just can’t seem to get my choppers around any chunk of the proverbial elephant, and I can’t begin to fathom a way to carve the thing up into smaller pieces.

The one difference between this time and others, however, is that I think I have at least a CLUE as to why my head’s where it is right now (okay…insert smart alec joke response here, such as, “where..? In your *ss, Bill?” Ha, ha…Droll…very droll…). I think it comes mainly from three things…and when I tell you what they are, you’re all gonna go, “Uh…DOY!” And then I’m gonna go, “Well! I…uh…you know…just…uh…well, you know…” Then you’re gonna go all, “Whatever.” Then I’m gonna be, like, “Yeah…I know.”

Here they are:

1. I just finished a screenplay — I am beginning to see a pattern when I get done with big stuff like this. I suppose, on wone hand, it’s a little bit like giving birth. It’s all the pressure, pressure, pressure…then the pushing, pushing, pushing…then the EEEuuuuuuGGGGGHHNNNGGGGHHH!. Then it’s all the euphoria of being done and having this little miracle in your arms. Then it’s taking the thing home and realizing you gotta live you life again. And then…oh yeah…you always want to have another baby…but you wonder whether you’re ready to begin trying yet, if you catch my drift. So…no wonder you get a little twinge of post-partem depression and have some–to say the least–sort of adjustment period. A recalibration, if you will.

2. Lynn’s most recent cancer struggle seems to be coming to a close — while this is SuperFantasticRatFunkyMojolicious, at the same time, it presents an odd position for me. Umm…like…what do I do now with myself? It’s funny, when Lynn and I argue the most..? When she’s come off some profound health crisis, and now she’s feeling better and wanting to begin living life a little. “Umm… Yes, Honey. Thanks. But I can do it myself.” “Yeah, but…I already did it.” “Well, stop doing things for me.” “Uhh…”

And the space we’re in specifically a this moment is a real kicker. Because, see, I know a secret. Lynn is ready to take on SOME additional responsibilities, but probably not as many as she WANTS to right now. I know my wife. God bless her; her heart is in the right place. But (and, crap…I’m like this, too) her eyes are bigger than her stomach in this respect. I have to admit that as much as it frustrates the hell our of me sometimes, it’s also one of the things I love about her. She thinks big. She’s got vision. I like that. No…I LOVE that.

But I am walking something of a tightrope right now. I’m still doing most of the stuff around the house, etc. (well, as much as I can right now, considering my own fatigued state), but I sense that’s going to be changing soon. But it ain’t quite there yet. And the transition’s gonna be…delicate. It will need to be. So…I get in a little bit of a funk about it all because I don’t know exactly how to handle the whole thing.

Well…I do…but it’s hard. I know I handle it with patience and love. I know. I know. Me. Patience. Heh.

3. The world is my oyster — Due to circumstances beyond my control, this screeplay isn’t getting buttoned up to ship off to the H’wood powers that be (and who will inevitably offer me the standard “Rich and Famous” contract toot sweet, I am absolutely certain) as quickly as I would like (go figure). And RB, though I hope to have some cool news about it soon, still ain’t quite percolated yer. In the meantime, I am trying to figure out what my work life looks like without, well, working. Okay…really I mean without needing to return to the workaday world, per se. I’ve been reading this book called “Making a Living Without a Job,” and it’s been helping. I still find myself struggling to stay organized and productive, though, without the external structure of a “real” job. I believe that I will lick it, but it gets a little scary sometimes…daunting even. And it also makes my head spin.

Then there’s a fourth thing…

4. The World — Yep…Capital “W” and everything. For years, I would characterize myself as being on the outside looking in when it came to this world. And when I say that, I mean it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve committed those very words to paper. I don’t know where I thought I was living, but it sure wasn’t “here.” And I lived like it. And I despised this world. Then one day, something happened, and I found myself smack dab in the center of some great epiphany.

I DID live here…in this world. I was part of the human race, whether I liked it or not. And then I realized something further. Know what..? I liked it. It felt comforting. Comforting to not be some separate being distanced from the muck and the mess and the stuff of this world, but right in the thick of it. I realized that I wasn’t so different from everyone else…and for the first time in my life, I began to revel in that knowledge, as opposed to shuddering at it as I had in the past. I was Neo, waking up in the real world, and it blew my mind.

…And it still does. I struggle on a daily basis to perceive the workings of this world. To make some sense of it all…at least in terms of how I can apply myself in it in the most meaningful way possible.

Truthfully, I can’t quite get lay my hends on it. I can’t even understand parts of it, unless they’re so small they’re like specks of dust in comparison to the whole. Crap…even smaller. Like molecules…or atoms…or freakin’ quarks. And that leaves SO MANY individual pieces to examine and get! And then to figure out how the whole thing fits together and functions? Yikes! By the time I get to that point, I throw up my hands and thank God above that He invented faith, because that’s where that comes into play for me. At that point, I have to just stop worrying about it and have faith it all works and that I’ll understand what I need to understand when I need to understand it. And I let the rest go.

But it’s not easy…to let go. And I still spend a considerablt amount of time churning it around in my mind in hopes that it will set in my mind. So far, all I’ve yielded it a lot of heavy cream that eventually begins to curdle. By that time, I just gotta dump it out and start churning a new batch. But that damned churning…

What’s it all add up to? I don’t know. Now I’ve used this blog for it’s right purpose, though. I’ve dumped it all here, and that is, as they say, “right and salutary.” I leave the spin here, and have faith that I will do the things I need to do when I need to do them, and that these things will be revealed to me when the time is right for them to be revealed. And I have faith that, though He never said it would be easy, he did say it would be worth it.

…And every day I will continue to use my planner.

…And every day I will continue to walk the path.

…And every day I will continue to cherish the journey.

If I do that, perhaps this brew will turn out to be not so strange after all, eh?

–Okay, now…may, uh…the, like, Lord bless you and keep you.

–Uh, yeah…and kinda shine His light down on top of you, too, eh?

–Good one, eh?

–Thanks. And I guess He should probably give you peace.

–And a beer, eh?

–Knock it off, man! That’s, like, hairspray.

–Like what?

–Or is it Balsphoney?

–Like, whadd’re you talkin’ about?

–Like it ain’t good to talk about beer and God in, like, the same time.

–Well, He invented beer.

–Take off!

–No way, you hoser. He did.

–Wow, eh?

–Yeah…like, amen.

–I’ll drink to that.

Later…

Yeah, yeah… It’s an affliction.

So the comment from my dear friend Sheree on my last post made me think. I wonder whether sometimes I simply sound like a blow hard?

I know! I know…shocking as that may sound, work with me here for a moment.

My last post helped me to realize something about taking a stand on things. See…taking a stand–a real, live stand–is something I usually try to avoid. I mean, I have stances on plenty of topics, but I usually keep them to myself or prefer to present them to people and in situations where they won’t offend people. So…I let the blow hards be the blow hards, while I am happy to (usually) remain the jester in the court of public opinion. It’s the Minnesotan in me.

I find myself today wondering what this animal “taking a stand” really means? Was I sounding like one of those blow hards when I spouted off like I did yesterday? Honestly, I don’t know. I can only speak to my intention, which was to demonstrate the series of mental events that are leading me to take some unesxpected actions in my life. It surprises me–and somewhat embarasses me–that the impetus for such action….well, not exactly the impetus…the straw that broke the camel’s back was something as shallow and selfish as feeling like I’m paying too much for gas.

Yet, for some reason, it, in synchronicity with a number of other events in my life, has shed some light on an interesting new path at this point in my journey. For some reason, I’ve begun to not only understand the fragility of the world in intellectual terms, but in real life terms. In very personal ways.

The reason for yesterday’s post is that this strange turn in thinking has compelled me to something I had previously avoided…action. …And it feels strange and wonderful and scary all at the same time. I don’t know exactly where it’s leading me–the way is still obscurred–but I feel it’s the right one.

For now, I am having lunch sometime next week with my new friend Rod at Messiah Lutheran Church to see what I can possibly contribute to their mission to help out the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis. In the and/or department, I also realize that this is a good time to take up my Catholic mantle again and pay a visit to St. Pat’s parish in St. Paul. It’s pretty poor–the Catholic version of Messiah, though maybe not quite as destitute. Perhaps that’s another place to explore.

…And, yes…I am riding my bike.

So…all that said, I still wonder… I think about guys evangelizing on street corners. Or people making impassioned speeches of any kind. When they make me feel uncomfortable, is it them being blow hards, or is it me being a dunderhead because I just don’t get it yet. …Or worse…I DO get it, but I don’t want to admit that the guy’s probably right.

Man…I’m going back to ridiculous pictures and corny captions. This other stuff is too damned heavy.

If life was a movie, this whole $2.00 plus a gallon for gas would be some great, big conspiracy. You know, throw the gullible public some “minor” problem to mask the greater and more insidious machinations of a corrupt government. It would be the surface peel of an onion that is very rotten–quite pungent–with each successive layer our hero would pry away.

Or…the whole thing would be some form of mind control. You know, get the masses to move beyond some psycholigical barrier–like $2.00 for a gallon of gas. Once you get them to accept that, who knows what they’ll buy, eh? You’re home free.

Then again…this isn’t a movie we’re in…is it?

I was listening to NPR in the car yesterday. They had some guy on from some non-partisan Washington think tank (no pun intended) that focuses on energy resources. The guy confirmed what I knew all along. The reason why our gas prices are so high is that the companies that pull it out of the ground and the companies that refine it are making more money per gallon of gas created (representing over $1.40 of the price of a gallon of gas that costs $2.00) than they did in years past. In a nutshell, they are enjoying record profits.

All of this, while the poor guys who pumps the stuff are making no more than 5 to 10 cents on each gallon sold. No wonder why they stock everything else in their stores. Gas is definitely a loss leader! And these margins are being squeezed even tighter. Further, we, the gas-buying public, experience our sticker shock at the retail outlet–not the oil well or the refinery–so we blame the guys pumping the gas for our fiscal misfortune.

It isn’t, however, all the oil guys’ fault. Studies show that, in spite of record-high gas prices, people are still buying gas-guzzling cars and actually driving MORE. One needs to ask, my fellow Americans, what’s up with that? Back in the 1970s, didn’t we call something kinda like this an energy crisis?

Think about it. Do you want your pocket book–and more, so much more–to be held hostage by oil companies, refineries, OPEC, et al., whose pockets are bulging with more and more of the fruits of your labor? I certainly hope not.

A week or so ago, I heard about a gas boycott that was supposedly going on. I guess it was perhaps on the news, but I didn’t hear about it. Luckily, someone mentioned it to me while I was standing in line at the grocery store. I had taken my bike there…whew! So…I decided regardless of whether the guy was right or wrong, I would go ahead and leave the Jeep and the Saturn in the driveway that day.

I’m thinking that another one of those days would be good soon. Maybe a week. Other countries do it–go on some sort of strike our boycott to show solidarity for a cause. Why not us? Is it because we don’t want to give up our creature comforts, even if it means sacrifice a little of our own flesh every time we fail to take action against some governmental or corporate injustice that is being perpetrated against us? Of course…when we start talking about stuff like that, we’re not just talking about gas anymore, are we? One might be tempted to ask, at this moment, do we live in a democracy or a consumerocracy.

And don’t think I’m acting the pot calling the kettle black. I’m right there with you folks. I’m the worst of the worst when it comes to standing up and being counted. Hell, I’m sitting here writing this thing IN MY FREAKIN’ RECLINER! Geeze!

For my part, though, I think I’m gonna get up out of the recliner. Start remembering what two great presidents–one real, one ficticious–said:

JFK — “Ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.”

Andrew Sheperd (THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT) — “Everybody knows (being) American isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight.”

Soon as I can, I’m getting me one of those hybrid cars. Yikes. And I am BIKING to Dunn Bros. today.

…Then there’s this little thing about some war in Iraq.

…And then there’s the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis.

Hmm….

Sunday morning… Ah..! Quiet.

You remember in the movie ON GOLDEN POND…oh, hell, just about any movie or TV show when some folks head up to some cabin way out in the boonies. It’s one of their favorite places in the world, but over the weeks or months or even years, life has intervened. As a result, they haven’t been there forever, and the place has laid dormant, ignored, and subject to the harsh will of entropy.

The car drives up. The people, all chatting and happy to be “going home” get out. Then the anvil hits them in the head. They look at the place; then they look at each other. No words need to be shared because their eyes say it all. “Holy shit! This place is an absolute dump!”

Unless the movie’s a horror movie, which in that case means that 80% of the people who just got out of the car are going to very soon die horrible, painful, gory, and very creative (if not improbable) deaths, then there is likely to be some quick montage showing these good people all pitching in to return the place to ship shape before some grand dinner (replete with free-flowing wine or other TRUE-th serum to loosen lips and pump up the presumed and underlying interpersonal tension).

They’ll sweep, they’ll mop. If there isn’t the obligatory clearing of cobwebs scene, the movie’s not worth its salt. And of course, there needs to be some happy, slapstick accident–a pail of water falls off a step ladder as one character is washing a grimy, old ceiling fan and douses a pretty girl, or some succh nonsense. And, of course, no clean up montage would be complete without the moment where everyne who pitched in stands in front of their masterpiece. It sparkles. It shines. It looks like a whole new place.

Coming back here (with the exception of the occasional drive-by) feels somewhat like getting out of that car and seeing how broken down some place of my fondest memories has gotten. Here I am, opening the door and sweeping the cobwebs out of my way, and I’m saying to myself, “Holy shit! This place is an absolute dump!”

So, there’s only one thing I can do. That’s to roll up my sleeves, get out the proverbial buckets and mops (read iBook having launched TypePad), and start putting the place back together again. …’Specially as I plan on staying for a while. This place is a GREAT place to write.

Mostly, I notice that the Exhibit G and M corners need work. A lot of it. Then, I’m not quite sure what to do about that Exhibit A area. This whole damned “iTunes revolution” thing has changed the way that I listen to music (crap! I sound like a commerical!) because I find myself NOT listening to “albums” so much anymore. Well, I’ll clean it up, anyway. It might come in handy later (especially if this thing turns out to be a horror movie. Music calms the savage beast, and all). Then, there’s a few improvements I’ve been thinking on for a time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll work on those, too.

So, dear reader, stand by for the montage. In the meantime, I will try to keep up the voice over, which in the movies is always in the form of some story that, of course, hints at some underlying conflict in the main character’s life. Not certain whether that’s what mine will do, but then again, this is TRUE LIFE.

Later, gators…

No bones about it, these two words are hands down a screenwriter’s favorite.

It’s an odd thing. We swear up and down that doing this is something we can’t live without, yet in the same breath say it’s one of most gut-wrenching and painful experiences in our lives.

The guy that will direct RUNAWAY BOYS, Tim McCann, who has been described as one of the “best pedigreed” indie film directors in the country, told Indiewire magazine that “writing a script is like cutting pieces of your skin off.” The only reason he wrote his own screenplays in the past is because he couldn’t find any others he liked. Aside from loving our script (for which we are thankful), he told us last summer as we met in our producers’ offices that one of the things he was glad about for being involved with the RUNAWAY BOYS movie project was the fact that he didn’t have to write the thing for once.

Even Robert McKee, arguably the most popular screenwriting guru out there today (remember Brian Cox’s excellent portrayal of him in ADAPTATION? Yep, he’s a real guy), said in a recent interview that “professional writers do not love to write…because they know how terribly dangerous and difficult it is to write.”

The only word I can think of to adequately sum all of this up? Paradoxical.

We run the race, and we run it to win. Yet, we know that–like anything truly worth it–it will not be easy. Far from it, as a matter of fact. We can only hope, in the end, that it will be worth it.

Today at 12:22 PM CDT, I typed those two wonderful, magical words. After months of toil, after far too many large mochas with no whipped cream and veggie medley sandwiches at Dunn Bros. Coffee. I hit that period key, saved the document, and quit out of Final Draft. Then I closed my computer, stuck it in my bag, and beat the hell out of Dunn Bros. because I didn’t want to break out in tears right there in front of all the other people trying to enjoy their coffee and goodies and conversation.

Then I called Lynn, and then I called Action Jackson. Then I called Debi. Then I called Jim Jorgensen, who was balsy enough to ask the author of this great novel to let me adapt it a screenplay. And I thanked them all for various and personal reasons. Then I printed the damn thing out and took Lynn out to lunch at Big Bowl to celebrate. Then I took a nap because I was exhausted: physically, mentally, spiritually.

Then I wrote this…because I miss all of you, and I miss this blog. And I knew after all this time and all this waiting, that (in the immortal words of Jerry McGuire) “it wasn’t complete, wasn’t nearly close to being in the same vicinity as complete, because I couldn’t share it with you.” Well, I am sharing it you.

I did it. I did it. I did it!

And, I have to be perfectly honest…there were times when I had my doubts I could.

And further, the oddest thing about this feeling is that as great and relieved as I feel at this moment, I know that I am not at the end, but merely at the beginning. Tomorrow, I get to read the thing through and see whether or not it sucks. Once over that hump…the real work begins.

Thanks for your patience, folks. It feels good to be back in TRUE LIFE.

See you tomorrow.

I know I know…It’s been a long time. If you’re reading this, though, you’re one of the few, the proud…who have had faith that Bill would be TRUE to his word. Yep…I’m back. Fresh off my short sabatical to Ooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.

To answer a few questions:

Yes, I got to relax a little. And I got to spend some quality time with the parents. Had some really neat conversations and got to know then a lot more (as strange as that sounds).

No, I didn’t get exactly as far as I wanted on my project. Then again, I knew walking in that I wouldn’t. There were simply too many distractions before I left. A lot of the prep work I thought I would have done by the time I left was left undone. I did, however, attain my (in corporate speak) amended target. 🙂

Yes, Lynn and the kids are fine. Her mom, by the way, is nothing short of a goddess and a saint. I can’t tell her how much her taking care of them while I was gone menat to me.

No, I still can’t say anything more about RUNAWAY BOYS, though things are definitely percolating…I can say that!

No, I still can’t talk in specifics about the project I’m working on. Soon. I am hoping to have a draft done here in the near future. At that time, I am hoping that things solidify enough to be a little less mum about it.

Yes, I missed you all! I didn’t realize how much I had come to rely on this litle blog. How much it’s become my…well, the word that pops into mind is “sanity”. I almost chose another word, then I thought…maybe that’s the right word afterall.

Anyway, I gotta start working on my other thing. Just wanted to check in. I know I know..! I got something like five or six movies to add to Exhibit M, I got lots o’ stories to share, I got pics from OK, some of which I’ve slapped into a haphazard photo album. Gotta get that all straightened around.

So much to do, so little time.

But I am back. Keep tuning in…much more to come.

See ya!

Yeah, I know…I know… Here I am, should be working. Lord knows I am not as far on my project as I’d hoped I would be be now. Yet, I end up here once again. A junky getting just a little fix, man, just a little to get me through the rest of the week and then I’ll be okay I promise man okay I’ll stop buggin you.

Blame the damned comfy bed I slept in last night.

Blame no alarm clock this morning.

Blame the peaceful winter view (it’s Canada, remember?): the snow-covered river, the (what I believe to be a) bald eagle circling overhead.

Blame the unexpected presence of wi-fi here.

Blame our friends for their overt display of hospitality.

Blame Canada! For our visit here has moved me to commentary in spite of myself.

Help me! I’m an American stuck in a foreign land where everyone’s nice and things are quiet and pleasant and peaceful! What am I to do..?

I know it’s driving Stew crazy that I don’t make some definitive statement regarding the The Devout Order of the Kamikaze Cowboy. I don’t know why I don’t, Stew. I think about it every day…no kidding. It always feels too big. I wonder whether I’ll do it justice–capture the essence, the proper proportions of wry humor and deep profundity and sage wisdom.

Truth is, my Kamikaze Cowboy brother, it was never about the book or the Cylons or the Richard Hatch jokes, it was all about being a Kamikaze Cowboy with you. In the face of the various dragons that their huffed flames upon us, in the belly of the beast with seemingly no way out…it was never about the external concept, not about the light we made of the whole thing that eventually (and appropriately) transformed itself and us by the treasure trove we found hidden within the context we created around the whole Dirk Benedict/Richard Hatch business. It was about the two guys on the phone and the context they created. This is what made it special…this is what has countless times saved me.

I can only tell you this: everyday I wear my clothes and chew my rice. And because I do this, and largely because of two guys yucking it up on the phone one day and (courtesy of Madame h2oMan) decided life could be largely encapsulated in a little mantra, “a little more Dirk and a little less Dick” I continue to function and to even move forward–albeit a little slower–during these difficult days when I often don’t feel like dragging me sorry ass out of bed much less taking up my sword. And as I do, I keep repeating these words over and over as a litany.

Someday, my friend, I will tell the whole story. Someday. People will laugh; people will cry. People will re-evaulate their lives. It’s too funny, it’s too touching, and it’s too cool to let die a quiet death. For now, I must let it rest–no, I must let it percolate a little more. For the implications of being a chosen as a member of this great order is something I wrestle with on a daily basis. I feel yet honored and scared to death all at the same time, for honesty, zen-like discipline, and those pesky Cylons are weighty things. Such as they are, they can never be taken lightly. And yet, they can never be taken too lightly.

In the meantime, one and all, might I suggest reading the venerable Mr. Benedict’s book.

BILL: What did you think, man?

STEW (over phone): Thanks! It’s great.

BILL: Yeah. I thought it would be a great gag gift for you.

STEW: No, man…I mean I started reading this book last night and…I finished it. Do you know when the last time I did that was?

BILL: Really?

STEW: Yeah, man. You really need to read this book.

BILL: Really? We’re talking about Dirk Benedict’s book, right?

STEW: One and the same, my Kamikaze Cowboy friend.

My great-grandfather, God bless his eternal soul, was a man named Austin Walsh. He came to America by way of steam ship and settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. He got a job at the St. Paul hotel as a doorman, and it is there that he met my great-grandmother. She was eleven (having come over to America on her own at age 10).

She was Irish, too.

And they were both Catholic.

By all accounts, they were married when she was eleven (he was somthing like 20), and she had her first live birth at age 12. She had 25 more kids, all of whom lived into adulthood.

My grandpa, Gene, was the fourth oldest. He married my grandmother, the daughter of a MN country doctor who had fled England because apparently it was illegal to do exploratory research on cadavers at the time. The had nine girls and one boy. My mom, Mary Lou, is their third oldest.

I am my mom’s youngest…the youngest of seven.

My one regret in the entire scheme is that my mom lost her Catholicism along the way. Through my wife, I have joined a Lutheran church–Catholic lite, as my friend Mike calls it. Three weeks ago, I attended my Aunt Dolores’ funeral at St. Patrick’s church in the still Irish and still Catholic Phalen area of St. Paul. And for those two hours, I pretended that, like my cousins, I hadn’t lost my Irish Catholic roots.

It felt good. For those two hours, I felt like I had returned home. I was the prodigal son, and though no one else could see it, I was quietly embraced by the place–the environment. And when I wept, it wasn’t for my aunt. Heck, she went onto a better place. In fact, the whole tone of the morning was more celebratory than anything else–she was that kind of person. I wept for me, for years gone by, for missing all of it, for…I don’t know.

I am not certain what I am going to do. I mean, I’m not one who’s really hung up on religion, per se. The bottom line, however, is that I am pretty integrated into my current church community. I love St. Stephen, and the folks there have done so much for us. I won’t throw that away. I can’t. I don’t want to.

But something needs to…happen.

Perhaps I need to pull a Paul (a good friend who is also a member at St. Stephen) and do both. Be Catholic AND be Lutheran. Apparently he does it. I don’t know how. I didn’t think you could BE BOTH.

I am seeing him tomorrow. I will ask him then.

Then, I need to stop back at St. Patrick’s, for that is where I am drawn.

How unexpected.

Hmmm…this post was supposed to be about how I started working out again after laying off for a few weeks. I got injured at the end of February, and…ah…who cares? Now all that shit seems insignificant. Strange thing this extemporaneous writing. You never know exactly where it’s going to take you.

I am glad, though, that it took me here.

Today I honor the memory of my Irish forefathers. I raise a glass to them.

I am Irish.

I am Catholic.

Amen.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.