Austin! City of music and very aggressive drivers...funny how my last entry and in fact my view of many of these places I have traveled is so informed by automotion. Coined word, meaning the act of moving around in automobiles...

I felt at home in Austin, way more of a crunchy granola place than I ever expected in Texas. I'm guessing part of that is because it is a school town, another part might be that it is a center of a rebellious, anarchic loosely associated group of musicians and songwriters. Grunge country, outlaw country, good songwriting with bad production values, whatever labels have been slapped across the face of this town's music scene it does seem to be pretty active. I'm guessing the participants would rankle some at being labeled at all. One way or the other, it seemed a warm welcoming place to me.

I spent a week there, started by walking the entire circumference of the city's riverfront park from Congress Avenue on the Austin side across and down to Zilker Gardens, back across and up to the city again. I capped the trip Friday night at the Broken Spoke an local institution and regular haunt of musicians who's music has accompanied my life. I got to meet one of them, Gary P. Nunn, and listened to some music, made at least one friend, bought a CD right from the artist himself.

"Gee, Gary thanks so much for the music, Texas homesick blues was an anthem.." "LONDON homesick blues" "Oh crap!, Uh Uh I'm sorry", grins..."OH heck thats alright, it's been called lots worse..." grins...

A gentlemen and a great singer songwriter and showman.

Great music and dancing, (I watched), it made me yearn to learn to dance with Mary-Elizabeth...

Back from several trips to Portland, the one to the west. Portland, OR always looks to me in print as if I should be saying...OR...something else and it is not something else. Portland is in fact a city that seems oddly familiar. Grey and a little funky, with city and residential streets that remind me of home. The architecture is different, lots of wooden homes and many old ones but with large chunky columns on wide dark porches with dormers overhead. Spooky Tolkien Tudor style and Starbucks sprinkled liberally throughout neighborhoods.

Funky bars and record stores and at least one world class bookstore spilling over with funky people. Casual and it's OK to be middle aged and single in this city, in fact it seems as if it is desirable.

None of that is why this city seems like home to me. It's because they have managed to screw up their highways and city streets just as badly as Boston or Newark or Providence.
Roads turn north then west then north then northeast, change names three times and there truly are places in the city to which you cannot get from other places in the city...
I'm glad to be home at last and at least for a week.
Next week, Austin!

My wonderful sister Robin has started her own blog at:

http://robinhaffner.blogspot.com/

So this makes me want to be more forthcoming with these entries from now on...

Today is like many other days but the radio in my car has been inoperative since last Friday... and I'm starting to enjoy listening to all that noise in my head.

And I now sing out loud to myself as I go down the road, never once thinking about how much this must alarm other motorists. The sight of this large man in a little black car zooming along mouthing and gesticulating...what a sight!

I'm leaving for Portland, OR this weekend and so tomorrow will be swimming day. Marc Robert and I have been swimming at the pool at our gym whenever we can, we've tried to make it a regular Friday event. Just he and I, sometimes we pretend to be Star Wars characters, sometimes we just splash around until we get tired. It's great dad time.

It's been a while since I posted here...

Life has been interesting, I really don't have much to say this morning. My family and I are getting ready to buy a house. This is a second pass at this particular buffet of the American Dream. It doesn't seem much different except perhaps in my reaction.

My first pass was in, (Oh crap I never thought I would be alive long enough to say this...), my younger days...in another place both in my life and in the world.

It has been a longer and much more thoughtfull process this time around, and I am ambivelant almost to the point of being indecisive. This makes for a better negotiating position, but I can't honestly say that I did any better in the marketplace as a result.

More I guess, when the decision is made...

So, where are we today...is that the editorial we? So, where am I today...

We're still here in Fall River, Massachusetts. (Live here long enough you learn how to spell it...).

My family and I are here, minus one who we miss, but who is well.

Darian you should call your brother when you can, he misses you, though he doesn't mention your name as much these days as he used to. You should call him to remind him of how much he loves you. I know that might not mean as much to you now, but when you grow older you'll regret not keeping that connection. You only get so many people in your life who give you love, every one is precious. I love you too, DAD.

In the mornings, sitting there on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands or my hands on my knees, I wonder. I'm amazed that I feel no different than my eighteen year old self. Maybe it's because I didn't spend all that much time looking in the mirror at that age, becuase that would certainly have changed my attitude.

Maybe not.

No matter, the point is that I feel like I should have gained some wisdom, that I should have more answers to life's persistent questions, (apologies to Garrison Keilor). I haven't, and now I have to wonder, "What will I tell my son when he asks...?".

Monday evening and all seems so well in my world. I am afflicted like most of my generation I think, with this constant fear of the other shoe…We were the first generation to truly understand the threat of annihilation, it might have been cute to see all those pictures in the World Book Encyclopedia year book and Life magazine of kids cowering as directed under desks in the late 50s. By the time we were in school we had realized the futility of any such action and stopped the drills.

No more hiding under seats…why? Because it’s fucking ridiculous that’s why…why make the kids crawl around and get their jeans and blue chinos all scuffed in the knees when the likelihood that it would do any good was slim to none.

If they drop the bomb then we are all going to die, except of course the few who built bomb shelters, oh we make fun of them now, and truth be told the combined power of all those bombs going off at once is as likely to crack the globe like an egg as not, so there’s an even chance that even those were a exercise in fu-fucking-tility…

So where do I go from here…Oh! I started this by talking about what a seemingly, (there I go again), good time this is in my life…

This crowd of mine… always waiting for the other shoe…

Fuck the other shoe, fuckabuncha shoes…

Another week begins and they all have promise. This is spring and truly so now since the weather has finally warmed...and, I hope, my heart will soon. I have felt a distant leaden presence, not quite foreboding, more like that feeling you get when you think you might throw up but you don't really feel all that bad. There are few things that make me happy in the news these days, everything I hear and see makes me start to think of ways to move my family out of harms way...

The problem with having a large extended family is that the issues around somehow protecting them all from harm multiply geometrically...can I convince them to move to some part of the country least likely to get hit? Would they agree to go? Does such a place even exist?

I gravitate towards the far northeast these days. Maine, the Canadian Maritimes...cold but clear.

I don't have much to say today, but for some reason feel the need to update this page.

We never should have gone to war in Iraq, am I saying something that is obvious, preaching to the converted. I don't care...

The worst part is that some poor ignorant sons and daughters of bitches will take the current turns of events over there as some kind of opportunity to justify what has been done.

Like succeeding at something wrong is somehow a justification for doing it in the first place.

It's the same kind of thinking and rationalization that created the cult of the anti-hero...now there's a concept:

Make hero's of people who do bad or anti social things because they look so cool when they act like that...nothing succeeds like success...so Michael Milken should be a hero because he successfully robbed a million people...I'd have traded a couple of years in minimum security for 3 or 4 billion 1980 something dollars...

So this is starting to sound bitter...so screw it, let's end this small tirade and start again tomorrow. One thing that staying alive for a few extra years has let me understand is that you can always start over again, it is never too late while there is life and if you have hope...

I do.

Good luck is the coincidence of opportunity and preparedness...

I’m not sure where exactly to begin, so I’ll start in the middle and work my way out, top, bottom, left and right and to all points of the compass rose.

More to come...