The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Jack Steiner

Ten Years And Nine Months

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Spent a few minutes cleaning up this joint and wasn’t surprised to see there are some closets filled with the equivalent of cyberhoarding.

Dug into a few like the page that links to where I have guest posted and hell if I didn’t discover a half dozen or more dead links.

Yep, the fine people that asked me to share some of this mediocrity on their pages up and left the blogosphere.

Heck, I don’t know if they quit or moved online homes but the blogs are gone and so there is no point in my pointing anyone towards those spots anymore.

So I deleted broken and left some of the others which is how you got your headline because in the course of verifying what is still alive I saw comments that said they were made 561 weeks ago.

Other Places You Can Find Me

If you are curious you can click on the link above and tool on through some of the older stuff that still remains online.

Some of it points to the joint I first hung my hat on when I got into this which reminds me that I ought to go update that spot too so people know where to find me.

Have to ask SQ for her opinion on this because you know she has got one. And it will be fun to give her five details instead of the 25 she’ll want.

And now I am off to do some cleaning up there.

Still Dancing

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Still dancing in that fire and maybe the truth is I always have and the exception is when I haven’t been. Could be wrong, but it feels more right to me.

Maybe SQ knows, there is insight there no one else has for reasons no one needs to question because some things need to be accepted.

What happens in this life isn’t always based upon logic or reason and that becomes more evident to me each passing day.

Got a mix of melancholy and happiness with more emphasis on the latter than the former.

I suspect it is because I feel the end of one thing and the start of something new. Transitions are hard sometimes, but they are necessary.

And they aren’t necessarily bad things.

Heck, many times they are the good things, the harbinger of the better times.

Might seem strange to say it, but it works for me and that is good enough.

I feel the change coming and recognize the baby I thought I would see you one more time isn’t fire and rain but anticipation of a new spring.

A Letter To SQ

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When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old
April, come she will– Simon & Garfunkel
I told SQ that some things happen for reasons we cannot explain nor rationalize. Said the poets were right when they said truth is stranger than fiction and that song lyrics hold fragments of truth, but not all.
 
Soon we shall see what that means and learn if that which we hear and sense is based upon more than fragments of a time that once was or if that magic carpet ride has lasting magic.
 
It has been a long and winding road filled with more than a little pain and more than a little hope and a whole lot of life. 
 
Some would suggest it is not worth what it took and others would say there was no choice but to take the road not taken and to blaze our own trail.
 
But me I don’t say because I won’t focus on the past and the future is shrouded in mist and there is no purpose in trying to see what remains hidden.
 
Live in the present and stay in the moment because I know what will happen now and soon enough what the future holds and that is good enough for me.
 
Live in and with the mystery.

The Shmata Queen Tales

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The readers write in and ask why I don’t publish every day anymore and inquire about The Shmata Queen tales.

They ask what happened to Datingmaster Jerusalem and wonder if he ever solved the mystery of S and J and I smile because there are stories and there are answers.

Because one day I’ll put down on paper more than the skeleton of the tale and fill in some of the blanks that leave the fine folks wondering about friendship, epic romances, marriage and silly tales of thus and that.

They ask for the words to rain down upon them and shower them in a waterfall of answers and so I nod, smile and promise.

Except they cannot see my face or hear my words so the promises made about The Shmata Queen Tales are left between my lips and hers.

Perhaps I’ll send them here or here or perhaps not.

 

Winter In Texas

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Been a crazy time in which we got one of those twenty-year storms here in Texas in which the temperature plummeted and the snow fell in large amounts.

It wasn’t the kind of snowfall that would make Northerners notice or most midwesterners cry but only if it fell in their cities.

Because it was bad here…very bad.

The cities aren’t prepared to deal with snow and the bad drivers are made worse in times of ice and slick roads.

We can blame the state government for bad policies and probably put some blame upon city and local authorities too, but the bulk falls with Austin.

Damn near had to go rescue the Shmata Queen and others because of power and or water issues.

It wasn’t just that it was in the teens outside, but that it was exceptionally cold inside homes that had no heat.

Homes that were wrecked or severely damaged by water from broken pipes.

Who knows if it turns into a $500 million or $2 billion in insurance claim nightmare.

It was bad and it didn’t have to be.

Been A While

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It has been a while since I read this post and others I wrote for The Red Dress Club.

Read this one, this one and this one too.

Didn’t go through them all, though I ought to if for no other reason than to clean up some of the coding issues that add some weird characters here and there.

Many of those posts got a ridiculous number of comments and more than a few questions about whether they were based on reality or spilled out of my head.

I don’t think I ever gave someone a straight answer for no reason other than I didn’t want to or so I seem to remember.

Truth is ten years later I can’t remember who I used to be and I can’t forget either.

There were some pretty good moments there and some very rough ones. If I drop myself into it I can pull it back into focus and I am not sure I need to.

I am sure I will get there at some point, but I don’t have it in me to revisit and relitigate what I can’t change.

And the hard truth is at this moment that is what I’ll want to do. I’ll look back and wonder why I did XYZ and not ZYX and there is no benefit in that.

It is done.

So I’ll check it out when I am not inclined to try to figure out why that younger version of me wasn’t as smart as I am now.