6 of One, Half Dozen the Other

Somehow, today's an important day for me.

Ah, yes. It marks the halfway point in my journey through Evansville, Indiana.

That's right. Six months down, six to go.

Look out. These next six months are going to be a whirlwind of zen road trip-ism.

I look forward to seeing you all on the other side.

(It's actually kind of interesting that this is the halfway point. It coincides almost perfectly with my transition into my next book. What I'm about to do is going to forever change my life. I'll tell you more about it when I'm done.)

Hail to the Chief

Life is advancing on me at all fronts. The only recourse is phalanx.

I just watched the premier of Commander-in-Chief. That show is a joke. The subject of the show isn't two guys, a girl, and a pizza place. It's the Oval Office. The intellectual capital of this solar system. How many people told me I would like this show? Do none of you see the difference between this and Aaron Sorkin's work? What about between Kelly Clarkson and Rachmaninoff? Pat Buchannon and John Calvin? James Frey and David Hume?

Within 5 minutes of her presidency, the first First Lady has already egregiously violated the God-given sovereignty of another nation in favor of Western ideals. Cited empathy. You would be sickened by the courses of action a similar breed of "empathy" toward these United States by a great many of our foreign counterparts might prescribe. We are, however, presently in a position to divert these tendencies. Ironically, these empathetic tendencies of ours will play the jester who strips us of that robe of protection. Think UN, seventy five years down the road.

Who am I kidding? It's inevitable. Just give me the high ground and a bunch of rocks.

Perhaps I've grown a little cynical. I still love my country. What it should be. After careful consideration, I've decided I would be willing to bear the burden of national office for my countrymen... I do not propose to serve them directly. I may be the first politician in several centuries to say that. I will serve God, and as His mandate, myself. By preserving my right and theirs to do so freely, I stand for every man, woman, and child born, sworn, or carried into this great nation.

I stand ready to serve at your call. The unspoken truth, of course, is that you won't call.

Death in the Family

Oh dear God...

I have been in recluse for a little while, tending to work and my overgrown reading list, and I'll be back under the sheets for a while yet, if I had to guess, but this can't go without comment.

I feel like I could've saved it. I look back at all of you Huntingtonians with an unjustifiable sense of anger and disappointment, directed at no one in particular. And then I feel like I dove from the deck just as the explosion rendered devastation behind me. Less an explosion. More a slow, gruesome death. Like the plauge. What plagues Huntington? West Virginia? My old life?

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. To witness my beloved Keith Albee reduced to this (let alone to imagine its "not-for-profit" times to come) twists the dagger further into my heart, but I'm committed to enduring the quest I've chosen, and so I'll carry on, turn my head back one last time in disgust at you and in respect for the fallen hero of days gone by, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.


(If you don't understand any of this, go about your business. Nothing to see here.)

Viva La Musica

Good song. I'll be back with you as soon as I'm finished reading Ayn Rand. I miss you, the internet.

Let's Go Exploring

This was the last Calvin and Hobbes strip ever printed.

For a child, snow is a miracle. The heavy white fog that blankets the world, casting the sun's rays brilliantly back into the sky, pleasantly illuminates our adult lives, but the weight of the snow on the ground presses against our more "mature" senses in a less romantic way: "I'm going to have to shovel this stuff." "I wonder if the roads are safe." For a child, the vivid white powder bears no burdens. In the most impressionable stage of his life when all his experiences are adventures and he's developing his perception of the world with every wisp of sensation it provides him, the snow is nature's most comprehensive sudden impulse, reshaping and refocusing his lens. Do you remember taking your first delicate steps into the fresh white snow as a child? I do. I tried desperately not to break through it for fear of shattering the dream I felt all around me. When the serenity remained intact, I realized I had my first canvas spread out at my feet. It was magical.

Grown up now, I don't always take the time to stop, hold my breath, and step out onto the snow with that childlike wonder, although the ability to appreciate such an immaterial act was crystalized in my mind long ago. Bill Watterson tends to pluck that particular chord within me more often now than I let nature do the same. That's why I posted my favorite strip of all time today. I didn't really think I had anything else to learn from that spiky-haired hellian and his strip-ed friend, but this morning when I saw that strip and I felt the excitement of the world through Calvin's eyes, I realized that the snow is just another color. When I open the door today to step out into 2006, there won't be any snow on the ground. The world is still my canvas.

Make 2006 the best year of your life. Don't leave your canvas waiting, untouched. From every step you take, the ripples of beautiful colors will flow and blanket the world like so much fallen snow. Step surely. Walk straight. Go in peace, and know that you go with God.