And so.......................

And so we bought a car.

Carol's dream car for a while has been a Chevy Trax. Green. Cacti Green. She has obsessed about it for a while. Drooled. Wished. Hoped.

We made it happen yesterday. A 2025 Chevrolet Trax ACTIV. Brand spanking new - 6 miles on the sucker.

Cacti Green.

Fucking beautiful. Nothing better than a brand new car. Trust me, we have not had many in our lifetime. It rejuvenates your outlook. Makes you smile. Jacks up your pride. It's just plain fun.

And it smells so damn good.

I have finally learned how to mine Carol's happiness to make it my own. When we drove out of that dealership I was bursting inside knowing how happy she was. I want Carol to be happy always.

I tamped down my natural tendencies so as to not ruin her day. Made a conscious effort to do so.

I hate buying cars. The bullshit games the dealer plays. The fucking time it takes. But I sucked it up, held it all in, and maintained a positive, supportive attitude throughout. Kept it light.

Even though it took about 3,000 hours to get it all done.

Carol apologized to me a couple of times for how long it was taking because she knows I have zero patience. I smiled and told her not to worry, I was ok with it. And really, I was.

But this ain't about me.

We just went out to do some errands, Carol driving the new car, and she was beaming. She must have said "I love this car" ten times while we were out.

So the pecking order has changed. I now park in the driveway, I gave Carol the garage and the remote garage door opener. My suggestion. She hesitated because she is so loving and considerate, but I talked her into it. She deserves it. She can look out from the kitchen any time she wants to and ogle her new toy.

This is life stuff, baby. The good stuff. The happy stuff that opens your eyes to how easy happy can be - when you're feeling it, looking for it, appreciating it - when you make it happen.

It caroms around to everything else. The flowers on the porch. The exceptional weather. The community we live in. The new friends we've made.

We have earned it. Took a long time to get here. We sacrificed a lot, sometimes unnecessarily just because saving money was just what we did. But we got a new attitude, baby. We are digging our new life as deeply as a life can be dug.

Laissez les bons temps rouler, baby.

MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 "Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness."

Allen Ginsberg

Under 180

I weigh 178 pounds.

I haven't weighed under 180 since I was in diapers. This is fucking amazing!

A month prior to knee replacement I exercised like a pig-donkey to get in shape for surgery and lose some weight. I started at 192 pounds. By the time of surgery I lost two whole pounds - down to 190 pounds.

Since surgery I have lost 12 more pounds and I am lovin't it (Kramer impersonation). It has been a long, long time since I got under 180. I am psyched and extremely motivated now to get down to 170. That's where I want to be. Unless I can do better, of course.

I am getting into dangerous territory here. Gaining confidence. Kicking ass while recovering from knee replacement surgery. Losing 14 pounds. Getting a taste for what I am actually capable of. Perhaps I am a God.

Perfect timing. I got more details of my life to get straight. To get in order so Carol and I can live worry free. Things I have to do and want to do. For us. And to soothe my battered ego.

And the hits just keep on coming.

The past year has been extraordinary. All kinds of good things have been cloud seeding my natural pessimism (realism), modifying my outlook to enthusiastically face and embrace hope and optimism.

My face feels so weird. What the fuck - am I having some kind of seizure? My cheeks are getting tight involuntarily. I'm scared - I'm almost 71 years old - anything can happen. What is this?

Oh my god, it's a smile. 

Is this what it feels like?

Pretty cool, baby - pretty damn cool.

A Lot to Think About

 Everything that I am and everything I'm not.

From The Mouth of Jesus

Wrapped up Al Pacino's autobiography this morning.

The book was like the Bible in my hands. His words were as if they came from the mouth of Jesus.

Love the man.

The people who inspire me, I love deeply. I suppose everybody is like that. These people mean so much to me that they are deeply a part of my life. In my mind, my heart; they inform my soul.

It is not an abstract thing.

Most of my idols are creative people. Pacino is fiercely creative. So his perspective comes from that angle. He sees life differently, he talks about his life uniquely, his perspective is original. He as a man and everything about him springs from creativity and a worship of the arts.

People like that touch me deeply because I wish my life was the same. It could have been, should have been, but wasn't. 

I am familiar with most of his movies so I could picture in my head what he was talking about. But the inside stories make it all more real, more interesting. Like the fact that he almost got fired while filming The Godfather. Can you believe that?

Apparently he was not bringing the intensity to the role that they were looking for. They gave him a warning. The next scene they filmed was the restaurant scene when he kills Sollozzo and McCluskey. He was so focused and intense that any doubts about him vanished.

My life is better for knowing that.

A well written, honest autobiography reveals a lot about the author if they are brave enough to be truthful.

You get a sense of who they really are.

Pacino did it right. 

He was often self-deprecating, and also often proud of his work. He revealed some of his insecurities and some of his fears.

I got to know him as a human being, which fleshed out my reverence for him and makes it more meaningful.

He's 84, man. He talks about friends and relatives who have died, he reflects about what's coming for him. But of course he does it with soul and sensitivity.

When I turned the last page I was spent, because I did not want the book to end. I want to know him even better.

So Al, please pop over to my house. We'll drink wine, eat spaghetti, and talk like brothers.

It will be devastating.

From Pacino With Love

 "There was something so absorbing about that gift of reading. It could calm your mind and give you another world to be engaged in. Television was too distant; books were more intimate, like having friends and enjoying their company."

"But I ask myself sometimes, as I grow old, how many illusions do I have? Charlie and I used to say that when you're put in the grave, your illusions come out of whatever box you're in, they hover over your tombstone and evaporate into the sky. They're the last to go."

"There is a cold, clear determination about what Slade intends to do, the weight of that depression, the way I imagine you have to die spiritually, inside yourself, before you kill yourself."

" Objectively, I never knew what the fuck I was doing. It's that simple. I went from one thing to another. I'll never learn, and that's my problem. Or my gift. I don't learn things. I'm the first one to raise my hand high and say, "I don't know." Who wants to wallow in the pretense of knowing everything? What knowledge? What do I know, that I can sit with a pipe and expound on? I'm not Socrates." (This quote really resonates with me).

Charles Laughton was 84 and paraplegic from MS - he pointed to his heart and said to Pacino - "Al, you're right here. Don't worry about me. I got my dreams at night, I got my memories, and I got my imagination. I'll be okay." (I hope I have that kind of grace when I am 84).

"This life is a dream, as Shakespeare says. I think the saddest part about dying is that you lose your memories. Memories are like wings: they keep you flying, like a bird on the wind. If I'm lucky enough, if I get to heaven perhaps I'll get to reunite with my mother there. All I want is the chance to walk up to her, look in her eyes, and simply say, "Hey, Ma, see what happened to me?"

Delightful

 I'm having such a good morning.