It was a tough gig last time. Is one again. Pain. But we’re ahead of schedule. ☺️

I, I need some young blood
Come Friday night
Bring on the big flood
Like September’s coming on
Summer won’t be back for long

Hey, let’s start a big fire
Let’s shake it up
Let’s try to burn brighter
There’s no one here to catch our fall
No one here to hear us call

Tonight, this dirty September night
We’re stuck out here
You’re caught in the starlight
Running through these empty streets
This city’s built for you and me
Running through these empty streets
This city’s built for you and me

I, I know that the road’s long
It lingers on
And Lord knows it’s uphill
Seems like you’re not getting anywhere
You give up just before you’re there
Seems like you’re not getting anywhere
You give up just before you’re there

Hey, don’t lose your spirit
Feel all alone
But it’s there if you need it
Seems like you’re not getting anywhere
But don’t give up you’re almost there
Seems like you’re not getting anywhere
But don’t give up you’re almost there

**********

Something’s wrong tonight.

Well, somewhere.

Maybe it’s here. Thank goodness you’re neurotic about saying a blessing before eating anything, even a snack, because it’s been FAR TOO LONG since you had a great convo with Him.

And why not? No particular reason. Deep down, you feel like you’re in the clubhouse, and you don’t need Him on the day-to-day.

Dad’s dad was an alcoholic, wifebeating son of a bitch. Dad to this day is terrified of you drinking, but in a fine twist of irony, sometimes it takes wrecking your inhibitions to realize just how cold it’s gotten spiritually.

So what? Spoiled ass you hits Con, literally hangs out with the homeless, listens to them, talks to them, and gives out a hundred bucks if they promise to read Proverbs and you act like you get to take the rest of the month off? You do that every year. Not necessarily Proverbs, but every year it’s a “therefore by the grace of God” tour for you, and you pray with people you’ll never meet again and hope against logic you made a dent somewhere.

Why do you take ANY time off? Away from your Savior? From the Creator of the Heavens, the Earth, and College fing Football?

Why? Why does hitting the Whiskey draw you closer to Him?

Better question, given how inhibition works…

What the fun is wrong with you?

Why do you HAVE SO MUCH BABBLING FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT AND YOU DON’T WALK THE WALK?

Isaiah has been a train wreck.

Face it. You’re going to have to start over. AGAIN. Because you’re sick of stories of Bronze Age desert kingdoms. Forests. Trees. SEAS, for fun’s sake.

You haven’t absorbed anything from this book. That’s why you haven’t gotten instructions on where to go next. Oh yeah… you’ve pretended. Ezekiel. Acts. Romans. Trying to act like like you felt what you felt when you heard those whispers when you asked Him what He wanted you to read, and if not, you’d just head to Revelation.

You aren’t going to be able to absorb ANYTHING of Isaiah tonight. But that will not stop you.

Because even if you don’t understand… ENOUGH OF THIS ALBATROSS.

If you can’t figure it out? Whatever. So be it. Read it with Jim Beam Vanilla as a buddy. But NEVER as a bro.

Alcohol is NEVER a bro, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself that it often leads you back to where you need to be – in the arms of the Holy Spirit.

Thank God something does, but what does it mean when you have to have inhibition to, etc?

Fuck it. Fun it you mean. Whatever. Stop lying to yourself. Finishing Isaiah tonight. For the first time. And when you’re done? Isaiah sounds awesome.

He led you to it. You heard what you heard. You know what you know. And whatever is interfering with your own Spirit on this dirty September night can go screw itself.

The Word of God is sacred and holy. Quit funning acting like it’s a hobby. You have seen with your own eyes things no one else would believe, and you’ve started acting like the Savior of All is a freaking interesting Sunday morning watching YouTube.

You aren’t you.

Fix it.

And pray to yeet whatever hibitions need to be yeeted.

Maybe it’s because when you drink, it’s because you need Him more. Whatever. This is not healthy, physically, mentally, or spiritually; no matter how amazing you can spell while inebriated.

You going to pray for the Spirit of your dad’s dad? Nope. Because the dead are simply that. Dead.

They had their chance, and they chose Death over Life. Like the Crib of as all there was, instead of getting through their heads that it was a choice between the Light and the dark, and shade is accepting darkness into the soul and acting like it’s okay because we know better than the Light of Creation itself.

Grade A Arrogance – but you dare yourself to act like you’re better when you haven’t said a non-blessing prayer in…too long.

Enough. 3:04am. Store has been pumping out 20 books worth of sales a day and things are going amazing in so much of your life.

And here you are babbling in an online diary instead of finishing Isaiah for the first (prolly of many) times?

Hey. Don’t lose your Spirit. Feel alone…but it’s there if you need it….

Seems like you’re not getting anywhere… but don’t give up – you’re almost there…

Seems like you’re not getting anywhere… but don’t give up – you’re almost there…

Bars aren’t really your thing anymore. You get your year’s worth of partying at Con. But hey, someone wants to get decked out and hit downtown. Never something you say no to, lolz…

Many years of it. Never gets old. Walking down the same streets men with muskets once marched, and many a glass raised.

Good times, bad times, a hundred years pass, and still people love those old streets.

The young. The old. The happy. The sad. Been a long time since you hit the scene down there. Eh, it’ll be fun to get out like old times though. In a suit with a palmetto flag tie; lolz….

These are STILL the Good Old Days.

Enjoy them, and give thanks to Him you get to have more. 🙂

He definitely has one… 😂

Another gig? Here’s hoping. Never been there. Been to colder. But North Dakota in October sounds like fun. 🙂

No one really knows you. They really don’t. How could they?

Joy has filled your heart since your very first memories and at this point you’re too freaking stubborn to allow that to change.

Waiting.

Waiting for the RAVE. 😂

Somewhere in ATL there’s a woman who’s either gonna lose her heart or her balance keeping up with ya. 😂

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

John 14:17

If’s time, baby…

It’s the time of year for nerd Mardi Gras. Party like you were 25 again. Money was going to be tight, but the store passed algorithm threshold and pumping out money again justintyme… Thank goodness. 

Taking Ted to the cattery means going far enough from the interstate that the fastest way is through Bamberg. Past Bee City, then many a corn field and solar farm. Scuppernong patches. Creel Indian community. Canadys. Smoaks. Denmark. Little towns like so many others in rural SC. In all your years you’ve never gone through this little corner of the state. Not that many people at all, but still somehow filled with the brightness of life. Huge pastures. Medium size houses next to them in large driveways with lots of cars. Just the low version of the small towns like the one dad‘s from in the upstate.

Then meeting new friends…

Reuniting with old friends…

So alive…

SOFA KIMG ALIVE… 😂

Sometimes ADD is just a strange companion. Who knows… maybe it was from a half-remembered dream…

Part of you hears this and subconsciously imagined it to be a part of some action movie…

You’re driving a giant 18-wheel truck as fast as it can go… Lol yeah… 😂

It’s on fire. Because of course it is.

Whatever is in the trailer is something you have to get away from those you love. Probably a bomb.

You’re on a long bridge all alone, perhaps the brige connecting Key West to Florida, or the Chesapeake bridge before the tunnel. Late afternoon. The sun setting on all you know in this life.

You’re on a road knowing you’re getting it away from those you love. You have 4 minutes. It takes 35 seconds to get this on the speakers.

Loud as it can go. Tinnitus is a problem for those who will still be around in 5 minutes.

You sing each voice. Well, do each each impression. You’re proudest of Orbison, because he doesn’t hit that high note he does in Pretty Woman and you can actually go with it.

No idea why. You’re a non-beta man in the West born in the 70’s, so casual fantasies of you saving the day like you were in an action movie are literally programmed into you from early on.

No beating yourself up. You’re not gonna feel bad for not having the guts to sacrifice yourself for something in your life. There hasn’t been that calling. Sure you have regrets for the past, but, as soon as you do…

Tapestry 😂

You like who you are. Sure, you could be better. Really wish you were – far more often than not.

But holy crap… you could be worse…

…in a thousand different ways.

Is that weird? Nah.

What’s weird was this song coming on the playlist in the car with a funeral friend (…as in one of you will be at the other’s one day…), he told you it made him think of driving a massive truck away from people on a long bridge to save them all from an explosion.

You smiled and agreed, saying nothing. He wouldn’t have believed you. 😂

Lolz… might have been in some movie a long time ago. Had to have been.

What does it mean? Jack squat nothing – Other than JR was a funeral friend. You have a bunch. Good people you’re blessed to know and care about….

Living well. Love. Fellowship. Goodness. Camaraderie. (Sigh) really cheesy dad jokes…

Well, it’s alright.

Even when push comes to shove.

Well, it’s alright.

If you’ve got someone to love.

Well, it’s alright.

Everything will work out fine.

Well, it’s alright.

We’re going to the end of the line.

This song… stuck in your head the day of Grandmama’s funeral… such a happy life. Joyous. You can’t imagine that woman without a smile on her face.

Why wouldn’t she be happy? She ate dirt in the Great Depression in the poverty-stricken rural South Carolina pastures and worked her ass off to be the first college grad of her family and spent a lifetime teaching future generations with a song in her heart.

Piece of shit alcoholic husband beat her until dad at 17 chased him out of the house. Son of a bitch remarried and roared the engine past her house with his new wife afterwards.

As if she prolly thought anything besides… “that poor woman…”

That one didn’t last either.

Sigh. Ask for forgiveness, Atreyu. “Honor thy father and thy mother”… yeah. That applies to him too. He died before you were born. How would you have interacted with him?

Well… you never would have. No matter what. No chance Dad would have brought you around him. If somehow he survived until you were over 18, how would you have you approached him?

Like a hero, that’s how. It’s all in your mind, so why not? Like the guy driving the tractor trailer over the bridge.

Fuck your demons, old man. Now get in – we’re saving our loved ones, and your literally broken schizo ass is being dragged into the light if we both have to have five shots of whiskey each. Turn into that angry son of a bitch all you want, see if it matters. 😂

You know who YOU are when the fruits of inhibition hits. Happy. Joyous. Prolly annoyingly giddy and loving this life because it’s the blessed life that He gave you, and you are forever grateful. It’s who you are when all is stripped away and there’s nothing but who you are deep down.

Which requires a bit of willpower because that’s not great for the liver. 😂

Nah. It’s alright.

Even if the sun don’t shine.

Well, it’s all right.

We’re going to the end of the line.

Probably not driving a big rig carrying a bomb.

But please, Lord…

Please…

If somehow that happens… let there be amazing sound and the right phone cable. 😂

Death needs to be LOUD!

At least loud enough to hear over your laughing.

Would be nice. At this rate, you’ll be dying alone, husk of who you might have been in a middle-class nursing home.…

…but laughing. 😂

Until the last moment. And then…

The song you (so far) wanted to hear as you died, as the last neurons in your brain processed the last sounds your ears hear in this life.

This world.

This Crib.

So come on all ya losers, ya bastards, ya cheats!

Vagrants and barflies down on the streets!

The path to salvation, to vindication awaits!

We’re marching on these Broadway streets tonight!

Here’s hoping by the time you leave this crib, you’ve leveled up, and deserve an actual hymn by getting closer to Him, as you always need to…

Pretty good place to start. 👊😂

*Lord, please be with all those I love and care about.*

*Give them confidence when they feel weak.*

*Give them strength when theirs fails.*

*Give them grace to stand back up when they fall.*

*Most of all… Give them Your Wisdom to find their way Home.*

*And please pick me up when I fall so I’m there that day too.*

Amen.🙏

Things picking up. Several areas. Doldrums are a pain. Don’t usually last long. The world always has ways of taking shots at us when there is long-term positive change on the horizon. Often we seem to let our fears dip into anxiety to help.

Hasn’t been an easy month, but the current churning slowly beneath the surface is still there. Walking an hour a day at the faster pace you go is definitely your jam, at least when a t-storm doesn’t hover off the coast at 3-5mph… for a week…

You’ve always walked fast. One of the contractors in Texas said he could tell you used to be a sprinter just because of the form. That was great. Finally found out the BPM you’ve always walked at…108.

Funny… there were a series of songs off an old college football VHS tape you’d gotten long ago you’d audiotape off the TV to listen to when you tan later on. Try to work on pace, both for cross country and track. One was just energetic. Perfect for half a mile. Another one was a more lighthearted sound that was literally the pace you walked normally, and actually still do. Wide stance walking with it when alone is just natural. 

A bit goofy, but that’s par for course for sports music from back then.🤔

Eating loads of pineapple lately for snacks. Focusing more on trying non-processed foods. Two ingredients: pineapple, pineapple juice. No hydrogenated polydextromaltodextrinicsucrose, etc. Trying to burn cleaner. Feeling better at least. 

Something always has to be off-kilter though, and sleep is back at the top of the menu. It’s been worse… but you just can’t off the top of your head remember when.

Mask is annoying as ever, and the mouth guards can be helpful, but when you wake up from discomfort, Morpheus is just ‘gawn’… Thoughts race. Boredom follows. Trying a new thing to nuke it soon. Hopefully that helps.

Lots coming up. Sadly no Texas gigs though. Could have gone one more week last time, but when the godson gets married and wants to meet for dinner while they’re honeymooning, that goes on the calendar, lolz. Wasn’t nearly as surreal as you’d thought it’d be. Turns out it ended up costing you a huge pile of money. Still worth it.

Within sight of closing out Isaiah, but you’ve had to start over, reread and even find a cliff notes style book to help. Not sure what’s next, and won’t until you’re done if things go the way they usually do. Romans might be on the plate, but you really are in more of a Peter mood than a Paul mood.

Ell hasn’t communicated in a while. Prolly for the best. Been thinking about tendencies lately. How it seems like you are the only man on the planet generally more attracted to women in their late 30s and up. That energetic girl in Texas was such fun to talk to. Too young for literally anything besides conversation, but that energy was just so different. After a while you realized someone like her would drive you nuts after a few weeks though. Extroverts, lolz…😂 It all seems like “choose your drama…”

Two hours of walking tonight. Just enjoying yourself. Life. Banter w crypto guys. Prayer, not enough though.

Snowsport has been its name for 35 years, and you just found out now; the old VHS vid is uploaded and you don’t have to keep going back to the timestamp anymore. 😂

Some Stargate SG-1 and relaxation tonight. Praying for good, solid sleep later. 🙏