i must be getting very, very old.  a prarie home companion (a.p.h.c.) has become my comfort, like brioschi, or motrin.  some parts can be tedious, but it has gems, jokes, and joy.  And a fair amount of 'biting' satire. 

i would like you, generous reader, to do me a favor.  below is a link to a sound clip from a.p.h.c.'s most recent show, of John Hiatt singing a song he wrote, and i would appreciate it if you would listen to it.  be patient if you do, for the song does not begin until about 2 minutes in.  but it's a very nice song. 

they say all good things about you in retrospect.  he had a good career, he did good things, he was a good man.  but while we are in the throes of these moments what's real is all there is, and what people will say or are saying cannot matter -- because what's real is all there ever needs to be.  the mistakes we made, the bad choices, the stumbles and falls are all forgotten in deference to the flying we did, but i have always been troubled by the dismissal of those lesser moments when we take time to remember, for there is as great a dignity in them as in any. 

Mr Hiatt flubs a line, but in so doing, and in the way he recovers, he makes the experience of this song immeasurably more moving -- at least for me, and for you, too, i hope.  and it's timing in my day today was almost appropriate, too, because i heard this song right after i started writing this post, which was right after i got up at about 2:30 pm.  it took forever to get it posted -- but you know me and tweaking... 

good morning.  it's a bit past my bedtime, but the roast beef sub i had at midnight keeps returning (it's the onions).  so i tweak.  all night i tax blogger's web servers with tiny template alterations and style sheet touchups.  i am insatatiably curious, but lazy and undisciplined -- a combo that leaves me comfortably unsatisfied.  not comfortably numb; i don't want to lose my curiosity, i just don't persue it, much. 

staying up all night is not so bad -- it keeps me out of the world and away from... from people?  so i post a weblog.  this really is like mumbling in the subway: know me know me know me know me know me know me know me, but... don't come near me.  those wild-haired subway lunatics and i have a lot in common; we're all stuck in isolated prison cells aware of the world and unable to engage it, aware of each other down the halls or through the walls, and gaining some half-assed sense of companionship from that, and always afraid to be released.  "don't hate me cuz i'm beautiful," i hear the pretty boys on the street call out to each other in mock indignation, disembodied voices intruding through steel-barred windows, and sometimes i want to lift myself and glance at life, sometimes i don't. 

i don't hate you cuz you're beautiful.  i hate me.

alright, 'nuff a-that.  time to take a nap, reset the neuro-chemicals to a better place.  time has turned us again to face the sun, and i need get me cheerful for that, or for what's left of it after i awake.  good night.