High Wire Act

So now the Gazette is two years old.

I was looking through the archives yesterday and I saw that I actually missed my blog's second anniversary, which was yesterday.

With the recent death of my father, it's hard to get worked up over much of anything and I let my blog's birthday slip right on by me.

I went out to a local Meet-Up group event tonight in Bay Ridge. I didn't want to go at all, but I like the people and I want to see this group succeed.

It didn't feel right going out and hanging with people in a bar. I didn't tell anyone at this group that my father had just died on Jan. 7 as I don't know them that well and they don't need to hear to my problems. I put in an hour and left.

It feels so strange being in this house by myself. After complaining about not being able to go places or not having any privacy, now I can go anywhere I want and I have more privacy than I know what to do with. I feel pretty foolish about all that whining I did.

Last night I had this old song called "Bluer Than Blue" playing in my head. It is a shamelessly weepy number about some guy who goes on about how much freedom he'll have once his girlfriend moves out. But instead of being happy, our hero is miserable. And so am I.

The song starts off like this:

After you go
I can catch up on my reading
After you go
I'll have a lot more time for sleeping
And when you're gone it looks like things
Are gonna be a lot easier
Life will be a breeze, you know
I really should be glad...

Words of Wisdom

My father, whatever his faults, didn't ask for much. He certainly deserved my time and, honest to God, I did my best. It's just that I couldn't always do it with a smile and yes, sometimes I complained--not to his face (usually) but there were times I felt put upon.

A woman at the funeral parlor told us about a friend of hers who is taking care of her mother, who has Alzheimer's.

"Sometimes my friend wants to kill her," the woman said.

I was shocked and a little relieved to hear this, I guess, because there were times I wanted to strangle my father.

I see that a large number of the posts in this blog refer to my father's condition, so my loyal readers--and God bless every one of you--know a lot of what's been going on. If I come off like a self-centered boob sometimes, I hope you can forgive me.

Several of my father's sayings have been coming back to me lately, which is good in that I am forgetting my anger toward him, but a little painful as I realize he won't be around to give me advice any more.

When faced with a hard job, my father would simply say, "better behind you than in front of you." In other words, get the thing over with and get on with your life. That's great advice, so simple, but often so hard to put into practice.

He also liked a quote that went "Never take counsel of your fears." I googled that line and found it attributed to Andrew Jackson, StoneWall Jackson, and George Patton. I've decided that it is now my father's quote, since he's the one who told it to me over and over again.

I've been doing just the opposite for so long. I've let fear run--and ruin--my life for too long. I'm like a tightrope walker who constantly looks down. That's no way to succeed if you only focus on failure. All you will do is fall to the ground.

I see in my first anniversary post that I said I wanted "to get in touch with my inner geek and make this blog wail." Well, that hasn't happened, but I am looking into getting a web cam and adding some video rants to this baby.

Then you'll able to see and hear me--and you thought life had lost all it's meaning, hadn't you?

So I'm getting back on that tightrope and I'm not going to look down anymore. I'm going to look forward and I will never, ever take counsel of my fears.