—I WAS A SECRET TO MYSELF, ONE I COULDN’T EVEN KEEP TO MYSELF

 

 

 …Two things I pray I never lose—my curiosity and enthusiasm.

 

…Everybody has something about themselves that they’d like to change. The trick is figuring a way around it.

 

…Seeing boats in the near distance, around sunset, just floating there in the grey-blue waves, now that’s a treasure, for sure.

 

…I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with Anthony Bourdain. It’s like Carver and Mac—I found them after they were gone, yet, for some reason, I feel betrayed and angry, when I have no right to feel either of those things.

 

…Being a good friend is right up there with being a hero. In fact, they’re often one and the same.

 

…Every time I hear this song, I cry my eyes out…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE5t-VNpPd0

 

…It’s really shameful to feel sad when the universe is dropping gold in your lap, day after day. 

Yet it still happens to me.

 

…Decisions can be undone. It just takes a hell of a lot of willpower to do that, or to not do that.

 

…I think Brontez Purnell and I share the same belief—My only desire is to be desired. (And I know how shallow that makes me.)

 

…Who reads this? I wonder that a lot.

Like why?

But like, Thank you so much. Really, thank you so much. 

 

…Sometimes, if you were dropped inside my head, you’d be frightened AF, and running for cover.

 

…I just want to feel warmth. How about you?

 

…It should be enough to want to want, but we always seem to want more than that.

 

…Four-legged Girl by Diane Suess…I mean, really, who guts themselves like that?

 

…Puppies and children can make anything better, even the apocalypse.

 

…When you see a family that pulls together, despite all of the inevitable obstacles, that’s really a picture of love fighting for itself.

 

…Mentors are like convicts—if you know the right questions to ask, you’ll get a hell of an education.

 

…I wanna dance with somebody. I wanna feel the heat with somebody. Those are hackneyed lyrics on the surface, but if you look a little deeper, well, there you go.

 

…My best friend in the entire world is moving. He threw away boxes and boxes of stuff, much of it ancient memorabilia. (I probably couldn’t do that, since I tend to dote so much on nostalgia.) He said he found a poem I had written him, some 40 years ago, about my gratitude for his friendship and all that he meant to me. I cringed, thinking the poem was likely terrible, but then I realized whatever it said, the poem had to have been completely authentic and true—that he had become a vastly important part of who I was.

That’s now true to the 40^th power.

I love that guy unconditionally, and always will.

 

…My kids and I have a language all our own. Linkin Park!!, for example. 

Years ago, I was talking to my daughter about a song and couldn’t remember the band who sang it. Three days later, lathered up in the shower, it came to me, and I shouted into the spout, “Linkin Park!!” 

The same thing just happened moments ago. 

This time it was me rolling down the window and yelling to my daughter below, “Linkin Park!! Marv Albert!!”   

 

…Sometimes I get sad, or even depressed. Sometimes I think too much about death.

But today, I just thought about life, about how lucky it is to have a life, how fortunate it is to see the sun dip over the trees beyond the lake, and to know, it will rise on the other side tomorrow, that I’ll see you then and there.