How will you spend eternity?

I didn't mean to scare you.  I just wanted to check in, really.  Make sure you know I'm still here.  That I'm not going on another one of my Tony Geary-esque three month hiatuses.  Side jobs got a little busy this week.  Plus, I'm poeming once a day for National Poetry Month.  It really is true what they say, a poem a day keeps other blogs posts away.

Also, I continue to name my future children.  (I'm really gonna have to get on the ball to get all this begatting done.)  My latest adventure in nomenclature has yielded yet another gem.  Are you ready for it?

Annie.

Little orphan Annie.  Annie, get your gun.  Annie freakin' Lennox!  Annie are you OK, so Annie are you OK, are you OK, Annie?!  It's classic.  I think she'll fit right in with little Luke and Adrian.

Picture, if you will, a dad and daughter walking hand in calloused hand through an overgrown meadow.  OK, so it's more of a yard that the dad hasn't mowed in four days, but it looks like it's been three weeks.  That's because the dad put out some Miracle-Gro a couple of times to try and save a fledgling tree, never once considering it would cause the grass to grow like the ever-loving national debt.

Anyway, back to our story.  The daughter pauses to ask one of those age-old questions that kids ask sometimes.

"Daddy, what's that three-foot tall purple thing growing by the house?"

Now that could have been a stumper.  But little does she know he's been waiting for this moment for years.  He looks down into those trusting eyes, pulls out his phone, swipes it from camera to video so that he can Facebook this immediately afterward, and responds with four words he's practiced and perfected.

"That's poke salad, Annie."

Sigh.  Raising my future children is so rewarding.  Will be, I mean.

I thought I'd close today with a short poem from my NaPoWriMo collection, a little cross-pollination if you will.  Also, ideally, this will help explain where the title of my post came from.


Beyond the blue
If I make it somehow
That first day

While everyone else
Is in a scurry to
See the Savior

I'll search out
He who built the ark
To discuss mosquitoes


"Every day 'fore supper time / She'd go down by the truck patch / And pick her a mess of polk salad / And carry it home in a tow sack..."

There is no joy in Port Charles

We now interrupt what I had originally planned to post for today, which was nothing, to bring you a matter both of extreme importance and immense sadness.

The news came yesterday, in an email from a trusted friend. Her words: "I wanted you to hear it from me first." I clicked the link. My heart sank when I saw the headline:

Curtain To Fall On GH

I wanted to believe it wasn't true. That somehow there had been a mistake. But deep down -- in that part of the heart reserved for secret hopes, dreams, and fond memories of Luke & Laura and Frisco & Felicia -- I knew. You can't fight Katie Couric.

I just like to come home from work, take off my pants, get a snack, lie on the couch and watch my stories. It's one of the few simple pleasures of this workaday life. And now even that has been stolen from me.

By Katie Couric. Seriously? How many shows does one person need?!?!

It's been a rough past decade-and-a-half for me. First Opryland closes, and now this. I have watched General Hospital, sporadically, for the majority of my life. Tony Geary is on my mental top ten list of people to meet. (I say mental because I haven't gotten around to writing it down yet. Also, I've only come up with eight people so far.) And some might assume my rugged, stoic, somewhat emotionless facade was heavily influenced by Jason Morgan. And I cannot say for sure that they would be wrong.

Several concerned friends have asked if I'm going to be OK. And honestly, I don't know this time. Maybe this is the end of the road for me. I mean, let's face it, I never really figured out this whole, quote, "life" thing anyway.

Eh, who am I kidding? I don't even have a will. And I can't risk having my most prized possessions -- namely my Milli Vanilli CD and my Welcome Back Kotter DVDs -- falling into the wrong hands.

Besides, according to the article, it's not happening until the fall of 2012. So that leaves a little over a year. Those will be good times. Assuming, of course, that by some small chance the Mayans were wrong.

Maybe we can fight this. Boycott ABC daytime. Take it to the streets. Bring back our soaps! Are you with me, ladies... and, uh... guys?

"Now I'm sittin' here, I'm wastin' my time. I just don't know what I should do. It's a tragedy for me to see the dream is over..."