Music Monday: Horizons

It's twilight.  Chilly, but not awful for February.

The forecast is calling for 4 to 6 inches of snow tomorrow.  Of course, we've had approximately eleven winter weather advisories in the past fourteen days, and it has snowed exactly once.  All of a quarter-inch.

The night is mostly clear.  Here on the outskirts, half a mile from the city limit sign, it's dark enough to enjoy the evening sky.

Venus is the most radiant.  Hanging above the western horizon.  I realize my knowledge of Earth's sister planet is limited.  I know that's where women are from and that's pretty much it.  Then I remember a couple of ex-girlfriends I haven't heard from in years, and assume they must have returned to the mother planet.

Barely visible at Venus's five o'clock is Mars.  The two are so close together!  I enjoy the spectacle.  And wonder how Earth looks from there.

When I think of Mars, I always think of George Bush saying we're going to send a man to Mars, which leads my mind to Will Ferrell as George Bush, and I smile.

Overhead, I find the well-adorned Orion with his belt of three stars.  I see Betelgeuse. Then to the left and a bit lower, there is Sirius.  

Using a star gazer app on my phone, I am able to locate Jupiter in the eastern sky.  This makes me think of the movie "2010: The Year We Make Contact" and the message: "All these worlds are yours except Europa.  Attempt no landing there.  Use them together.  Use them in peace."  I shake my head at how I can remember that line exactly, yet can't ever seem to remember much else.

An airliner in a holding pattern circles overhead.  It looks for all the world like it will knock Jupiter right out of the heavens.  I watch to see if it will eclipse the planet, but its turn takes it barely below.

By now, my neck has begun to hurt from all the craning.  I think about how difficult it must have been for sailors in olden days, what with all the no-stargazing-and-sailing distracted boating laws.  And it strikes me that I may have just inadvertently solved the Titanic mystery.   

As I start to go in, my last view is of the horizon.  It's one of my favorite views.  Giant trees, skeletons of winter, against the evening sky.

Horizons.  It feels as if I'm standing squarely between two right now. 

I am in the midst of quite a lot of changes -- in life, not with my blog template -- and likely more are on the way.  As one who typically loathes and fights change, it seems all the more strange that this is me -- calm, content, and at peace with it all.

On the one side, I see the hope and challenges of tomorrow with its untested waters and brand new adventures.

On the other, the light has begun to fade on the day that was, with its different adventures, misadventures, familiar paths and beautiful indiscretions.  The people and places from these days evermore sewn into my soul.

So as much as I'm looking forward, and I am, there will always be times I will look back.  With a smile in my heart and nostalgia in my eye.

For I have loved these days.



"We're going wrong, we're gaining weight / We're sleeping long and far too late / And so it's time to change our ways / But I've loved these days..."

A Trans-Siberian update

I'm sipping on my second cup of hot chocolate of the evening, listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Anytime I hear someone say how nothing good came from of the fall of the Soviet empire, I remind them of TSO.

Sometimes I get really into the music and start pretending I'm conducting the orchestra with a series of emphatic arm movements. I don't know if I'm conducting correctly. But according to Wikipedia, "There are no absolute rules on how to conduct correctly, and a wide variety of different conducting styles exist." So I would venture to say that I'm pretty close.

Occasionally, it gets so intense that I go straight from conducting to playing air guitar behind my head, then I transition seamlessly into air piano. It's a sight to behold. It's like Slash meets "Flight of the Bumblebee" meets Billy Joel.

As you may have heard by now (or read in the comments to my last post), my beloved Crimson Tide are the SEC Champions in football following a 32-13 victory over the Florida Gators. We also had the first Heisman Trophy winner in school history. 'Tis a good year to be a Bama fan.

I'm trying to enjoy this incredible run of success, I really am. Things are going so well. Maybe a little too well? It's making me nervous. I don't like to be the favorite, the talk of the town, the cat's meow, the bee's knees. I'd rather be the cat's hack, or the bee's thorax. I'm much more comfortable being the underdog. That's probably why one of my favorite cartoon characters was Underdog. Also, I like Eric Cartman, Handy Smurf and Rocky (of ...and Bullwinkle fame).

Now it is on to Pasadena to play for the national championship. Bama's last national championship came in the 1992 season. Then, I was nineteen -- full of hope, dreams, and theoretically, a future. Now, I'm thirty-six -- a solitary man with a messy apartment who sits online playing Scrabble, swapping pictures with friends of nieces and nephews, and mostly avoiding interaction with the other humans. Football is all I have. OK, so it's always been all I have, but it wasn't so obvious back then.

Between now and then, it looks like Bone's 5th Annual Festivus For The Rest Of Us will take place. This, despite my perpetual indecision and general disdain for committing to things more than three days out. The past couple of years, I've been thinking maybe this is the year I won't do it. Then invariably, people start asking about it. First, it's one person. Then two. Then -- well, two's pretty much all it takes. By that time, I've begun printing out the lyrics to Silver Pole and reminiscing about Festivi past.

And so, in the immortal words of Frank Costanza, "Festivus is back! I'll get the pole out of the crawlspace."

"There'll be meatloaf, maybe pizza, at the Festivus meal. After grievances aired, hearts are heavy. Then it's time for feats of strength, it's Frank Costanza's big scene. Festivus won't be o'er till someone's pinned..."