love life...

Let it love you back.

word

J^2 will make a friend anywhere. Standing in a checkout line, she'll strike up a conversation. Pumping gas, she'll compliment a complete stranger. Her magnanimity betrays the awkward ugly duckling high school years when she was much too tall, much too shy, and far too conspicuous. Her dynamic personality and her profession make her an automatic confidant. Thereby making her a keeper of secrets by default.

J^2 will sometimes retell the secret lives of her clients... but only the very juiciest of tidbits.

The scandals of her clients have become one of my guilty pleasures.

I just finished reading Cat Power: A Good Woman and enjoyed it very much. The author, Elizabeth Goodman does a good job in telling the tale of a shy southern girl turned singer, songwriter/actress, artist, fashionista. From the early years of singing folk songs for her grandma to her breakdown after the release of The Greatest (the album critics named her best work ever), and the period of sobriety that shortly followed, the constant battle of addiction and mental illness.

Cat Power songs are the type of songs that deeply move people. The songs reflect hope, strength and vindication through what seems at face value to be sad. Getting a deeper understanding of the background of these songs was a special treat, as they are stripped down "Naked as the News" for the reader/listener.

I remember reading about the book somewhere, and it being sold as the book Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) doesn't want you to read. True, Chan refused invitations by the author to do interviews, and even took some legal action (but not much) to prevent the book from being published. Goodman found a loophole by interviewing family members, close friends as well as utilizing previously published Cat Power interviews. For the die hard fan, none of this will be brand new info. But it might just make you dust off your old records, as appreciation for the music is rekindled. (The Greatest has been on rotation on the hi-fi at my house for the last couple of days.) Most of all hearing second and third hand accounts gives the read a strange thrill, like shoplifting or sharing secrets.

resolution

I will do everything in my power to make 2010 feel like this:

Hardly naive. Feet on the ground, head in the sky. Roots. Wings.

(So good.)

decade

"'Do you hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your death. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson.'

'My name is Neo!'" - The Matrix

Back in the day, the little nerdy jdk saw the year 2010 with skies full of rocket cars, labor lines filled with robot replacements, and video phones where telephones used to be.

2010 is here, and the little nerdy jdk might be a tad disappointed. No rocket cars. Corporations and the media have turned us all into robots. And, thankfully video phones haven't caught on, as my friends often rock hideous Members Only jackets, Wayfarers, and Dayglo colors... as ugly now as they were in 1987. (Whoever brought the 80's back is not doing anyone any favors.)

However, the old man jdk doesn't care much for rockets or robots. His future car is a diesel VW wagon. His new surfboards are based on retro designs. He rides a bicycle older than he is, simply because it is older than he is. The old man jdk, likes anything throwback or retro, and is fearful of change. The old man jdk wants the next decade to be much like the last.

Truth, the last decade was at many times sad, often lonely and just plain scary. I was adrift. I was lost.

That being said, the last year has been a renaissance of sorts. Once a daydreamer with eyes on the horizon, now I keep close watch, alert to keep my family safe. I once had a list of goals, destinations and of things to accomplish, I now spend time to take an honest inventory of myself. I still run, but mainly to loosen my legs and stretch out my lungs.

I was lost, then found, and still often find myself as lost as ever. But...

if nothing radically changes, if the next ten years feels like it does today, filled with promise and prospect, I won't mind a bit.