The Good Life


I've been having a lot of really good days lately.

Good as in just appreciating being alive, my FAITH (First and Foremost, my Faith), having a great family, good job, holidays looming, a car that runs, (despite the oil leak and the fact that she needs a tire balance) a roof over my head, and enough food that I can give some of it away to the food pantry.

I think people are so caught up in more, more that they lose sight of the "all, all" that they have. Greed tends to roll downhill and gain speed. Greed breeds greed.

Take Christmas for example. I love the holiday, love getting the family together, love getting gifts and all the rest. This year though when prodded for a list by my mother, I had a hard time thinking of anything that I needed.

I need a stapler that works. That I DO know. This writing class I'm in has me using a stapler every week. The one we have sticks in a down position and it is super annoying. I showed Donna last night and then told her how I have to pull it back to right using my teeth. "Don't use your teeth!!!" I believe was her response. So, now I use one of these over sized paper clips. It seems to do the job well.

This is why I need a stapler. No one should have to suffer with bent staples or a run to the emergency room with a staple in their cheek. It's not right.

So yeah, I need that. And blue socks.

You see there's 400 things I really need, but really don't. For starters I could use a new desktop computer. Then again, I can continue using the 7 year old Dell beast that I'm typing this on too. Yeah, that would work. It could fry tomorrow, but may last another 7 years. My point is, do I REALLY need it? Can the landfill wait for another day? (I'd recycle it of course, but you get my point.)

We live in such a one-up society, and I'm not buying into it. I don't want the story of my life to end with a pile of junk.

Which brings up the point of death. My wife and I were talking about death and burial/cremation the other day and we are kind of on the same page. We both want to be cremated. I want to be cremated in my corduroy fishing shirt with a black tee-shirt underneath. Oh yeah and while wearing my Ipod blaring with Green Day.

Is that wrong?

Then, I want my ashes sprinkled in the BWCA, and a bit in Canada. People say don't you want a place your kids and grand kids can go to see you? Yeah, I do. It's called a photo album. I sure as heck don't want to be fossilized in some concrete vault in the ground with the threat of some day being exhumed because the stupid cemetery couldn't pay their taxes.

That would suck.

So burn me up, man. Put me in a hefty bag, inside the safety of a Duluth Pack and take me camping. Oh, and San Diego too. You can sprinkle some of me in the best city on the planet. I'd like to live there for eternity anyway. (Picture above)

It seems Donna is in agreement. She wants some sprinkled in various spots too, like Savannah GA, the Madison farmers market (sounds like a breech of some sanitary guideline somewhere) and San Diego.

We're just not great sentimentalists. (I am more than her). I told her that if she could get away with it, she could bury me in the backyard with the cats (Bogie and Jez). I told her to be sure and make it good and deep.

But enough on death. As I started to say, life has been very good lately. I think my medication must be working. (Only kidding.) There's something to be said for "Don't worry, be happy". It's really that simple.

Worrying isn't fun, no matter how you dole it out. Stinks in the morning, worse at night. So why do we like to dwell in it? Human nature I guess.

I'm screaming toward my 49th birthday, and I've a strange feeling that that is what provoked this blog post. Some continuation of my mid-life philosophical crisis. For that I am sorry. Sorry I pulled you into it.

I think the whole writing obsession of late is a manifestation of the recognizing my mortality. Now that I see how much I truly enjoy it when I do it seriously, I realize that there's so much I want to write before I die. Poetry, memoir, non-fiction, fiction, prose. I want it all, so I'd better get to work.

On that note, I'll be blogging off for now...

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