My friend Robert called out of the blue yesterday; he is full of laughter and honesty. Robert and I met in college, but really got close afterwards. I moved to Galveston, and he was in Houston, ostensibly trying to break into acting or the burgeoning local film industry, but mostly having a good time. He would drive down and hang out with me every couple on months. I have this great headshot of him from that period, around 1991, if I can find it I’ll post it here. In it, he looks like an early version of Jack Black in Tenacious D.
Archive
I’m up early today; I woke up at about 5 a.m. again, somehow. That’s happening more and more lately, no matter how tired I am the night before. I came downstairs and tried to meditate, but my session didn’t go so well. That’s the way it goes, sometimes.
The whole family is rising a little earlier these days; Zeke has to be at school earlier this year and we are making a concerted effort to get out the door before 7:30 a.m. That would have been unheard of last year, but we’ve managed it almost every day so far this school year.
The television has not been turned on, and neither of the kids has asked for it. I have been surprised about that, as it was a regular feature of our mornings last year, much to my chagrin.
I’m hoping we can keep this momentum going; it feels pretty good.
Anyone who knows me well knows I’m a big fan of Bob. His latest release, Modern Times, is an ear-pleaser. The more I listen, the better it gets; that’s usually a sign of a strong album. The first song, “Thunder On The Mountain,” is one of the album’s strongest, and contains my favorite of the album’s many oddly-turned lyrics:
“Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons-of-bitches
I’ll recruit my army from the orphanages…”
That’s gotta make you smile.
Lots of folks are calling Modern Times the third in a trilogy of albums, along with Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft, that signify Dylan’s music has entered a new era. The implication is that this music is as important as any he has ever made. I don’t have a real problem with that sentiment, but Time Out of Mind just doesn’t fit with the last two albums, at least not to my ear. In an interview in the current issue of Rolling Stone (not yet online, it seems) Bob seems to hold the same view. Makes you wonder what might be coming down the pike.
I surprised my family by announcing that I was going to go to church this Sunday, and that anyone who wanted to join me was welcome to come along. I don’t belong to any particular church, and rarely attend services of any kind. Lately, I’ve been feeling the need to change that, but I’m not necessarily drawn to return to my Southern Baptist roots.
Anyway, Zeke surprised me by announcing his intention to join me, and together we attended services with our local Unitarian Universalist congregation. I have a vague memory from years ago of someone characterizing UU services as “weird” and “anything goes,” with people in one corner speaking in tongues and folks in another corner worshipping a different way altogether, but it wasn’t like that at all.
One of the cool things we did on vacation was travel back in time. Big Sam took Luke, Zeke and me on a short drive in the van, and simultaneously 240-280 million years back in time to the early Permian period.
We stepped out of the van and onto an area littered with Dimetrodon fossils, including teeth, vertebrae, sail spine fragments, etc. We spent the whole morning rummaging around, looking at nice examples of lizard parts, and wondering what life was like for these animals.
Zeke was especially into it, and had a great eye for picking the fossils out of the thousands of normal rocks that lay about. Luke, being three, was as much interested in running, jumping and sliding as he was in ancient lizard parts. 
We are home again, having arrived after a long drive on Thursday. Poor Zeke is having a tough time of it. He spent the night in the hospital last night. His incision had become infected and needed a cleansing and debridement. He’s home now; thank God it’s the weekend.
What a rough two weeks for him. We are all ready to turn a corner.
That’s a paraphrased line from an old Guy Clark song. The first half of that couplet is “He ain’t going nowhere, he’s just leavin’…” It’s paraphrased because I think it was written about a woman, not a man. But, in this case it applies to Zeke, who didn’t have your run-of-the-mill stomach bug after all, but a perforated appendix.
It was a scary experience for a six-year-old, I’m sure. He’s held up well, though, and has done everything asked of him, including drinking that nasty barium milkshake. He shook the surgeon’s hand, looked him in the eye and talked to him man-to-man. He’s a trooper, that kid. Looks like he’ll be in the hospital for three or four days, then we can start to think about going home.
Zeke, my hat’s off to you, buddy. Rest easy tonight.
We were supposed to leave for home today, but Zeke came down with a stomach bug yesterday afternoon. Looks like we’ll be here at least through today. Poor kid…it’s a shame that his trip, which he enjoyed so much, gets capped off with a couple of days of misery. I would take it on for him in a heartbeat if I could.
We are in Wichita Falls, visiting Mary’s family. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and I woke up tonight –this morning, rather– about 4 a.m. Yech.
I’ve spent much of the last several days hunched over the laptop, moving the havards.org site to its new home, consolidating its three separate blogs onto one database, etc., so I’m sort of saturated, but there’s not much else to do at this time of day. The house is so dark and quiet.
Zeke spent a week up here, and ran out to greet us as we drove up. He missed us as much as we missed him, though it wasn’t apparent when we called every night. Mom and Luke both got big hugs up front; I just got a high-five. Later, though, he came sneaking up and plopped down in my lap for some snuggle time, as I knew he would. Six-year-old boys can be conscientious about hugging on their dads.
The weather has been hot and dry here, practically a drought. Our presence has helped a little in that regard; it’s rained twice since we’ve been here. We must be lucky that way; last year we brought a flood.
I think maybe I’ll step outside and sit on the front porch…watch the sky lighten up and drink some coffee. People will be getting up and around soon, and this silence I’m enduring now will soon be a memory. I should savor it. Maybe it’s a gift, not a burden.
This site is switching hosts (yay Cornerhost!), and I’m taking the opportunity to make some changes. Like a lot of things in our life right now, it’s kinda in flux. Hopefully we’ll emerge from the process with a focused, fun place to keep track of all of our other changes and goings-on. 
