...a Big Difference Between Kneeling Down and Bending Over."

The original quote by Frank Zappa reads, "Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." Naughty, suggestive, outright crude: those things always appeal to me and that's why this quote caught my eye. The gift here is that after you smirk and chuckle at the inference, every fiber of your being agrees with the greater meaning.

I've come to accept a few key things about myself since leaving a job I thought I would retire from in twenty years. Well, "knock a sick whore off a piss pot!" my father would say. (He was a poet: it's the same meaning as "what light through yonder window breaks?" Just let that sink in....Okay, how about this: it's the "A'Hah Moment" Oprah talks about all the time. She just can't say "whore" and "piss pot" on national television, that's all, alright?) Looking back, it seems impossible I could ever have felt that way. I am thankful that the Universe forced me into a level of awareness and clarity that loosened my tongue sufficiently to seriously hasten my departure. The fact is, I deserved a better life. All my angels in Heaven wanted this for me. They were up there with their pom-poms and air horns shouting, "J-O-N-I!!! Kick 'em low! Kick 'em high! Don't give in! Don't you cry!! We'll make sure you prosper! WHY? Beeeeee Cuz We Love You!! HEY!!!" See Frank? I finally stopped bending over.

I accept the fact that I'm not going find a regular job any time soon. In chatting with Solana yesterday on Facebook, I learned that a pal of hers, a paralegal, has been unemployed for more than a year in a large metropolitan setting. Both she and her attorney were laid off at the same time and neither has found work. That's grim. Living here in a small coastal tourist town, having less than five ads in the help wanted section of the local paper is not uncommon as winter creeps in. We accept that here.

The exuberant Pearl Bailey, "sultry and statuesque, a muse in high heels," is quoted as saying, "You never find yourself until you face the truth." My revelations also include the fact that I no longer find my Self able to feel or really, pretend to be subordinate to any one ever again. This may well be the admission of a lifetime: I've never felt subordinate to anyone. Defined as: "under the control or authority of another; submissive to authority; to make subservient; of lesser order or importance; subdue," in it's various forms and usages. I could bray just reading the definition, me and my not-so-inner jackass. I don't even see this as arrogance, but self-awareness; as facing the truth about my Self. I need to work for me.

I owe this unfortunate calling to a hearty strain of kick-ass entrepreneurial genetics. Mom said Dad came home one day from his regular paying job and told her he'd quit. (They only had FIVE kids at home then.) After he picked himself up from the floor and pried the frying pan out of his skull, he explained to her that he wanted to try antique dealing and believed he could make a go of it. In fact, he knew it. Over time, both Dad and Mom became antique dealers and they were very successful, running Pigeon Hill Antiques for many years. They were self-taught and savvy as hell. I wouldn't say Dad was a liar, but he could talk the hind leg off a mule. Mark Twain said "Never tell a lie except for practice." So, let's just say, he was well-rehearsed. I guess once you took into consideration the wife and the now seven kids at home who depended upon him, it was easy to cut him some slack for his lack of veracity.

I'd like to think that my Dad sees all this, and reads my blogs from somewhere between Heaven and Hell. I'd also like to think he has access to both; one for climate and the other for society. I know he'd be proud of me because I'm proud of me.

"My Father, now in Heaven is a keeper of the birds. And his eye is on his sparrow." Don Williams, Jr.

Working Stiffs

I think I just got the meaning of "working stiff" as I wrote it. The working a/k/a walking dead? Sorry to say, I'd agree for most of my life I was a working stiff and working "stiff." Hey, I must be accepting this path I'm on!

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important," said Bertrand Russell. I felt my work and my position were vital. Truly vital. [Sigh] In truth, I realize it was just an amoeba's pisshole in the Cosmic Snowbank of Life. I'm sure by the following Monday, all traces of me were gone, the coup complete, and my effigy, ash. I'm also sure that all decorum is lost and the standards have slipped sufficiently that no one like me will ever work there again.

Now I work here, at home, trying my best to write my best. Pondering my next move on the keyboard, delving the depths of my forgotten knowings, I'm awake every second. Getting the day-to-day out of the way, laundry, vacuuming, dishes, or cooking; it never stops being about the writing. By day's end, after researching and reading more now than I have in years, I feel brain-tired for better reasons than I've ever known. Sir Roget and I are tight again and we're both pretty happy about it. Tennessee Williams wrote, "When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing."

As seemingly trivial as this blog has been, it is a launching pad for what lies within. Every thing starts somewhere; the first blotch of paint, the tap of the chisel, pen to paper. Do I possess any talent? Sure I do, but the only way I'll ever know for sure is to tell Houston I'm a go, light the fuse and fearlessly blast into the unknown.

"Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you." Henri Frederic Amiel