I just had to post this. This is a photo of a greeting card we carry in the store.

One of our regular customers wandered in tonight really late. My girl Alma is what you would peg as a very "butch dyke" if you had just met her.

She is surprising her girlfriend with a trip to an awesome little bed and breakfast in Key West on Christmas Eve!. She's not telling her about it until tomorrow morning, and she is going to whisk her off in a plane tomorrow afternoon! I mean really...how incredibly romantic is THAT? People so amaze and encourage me sometimes.

Wait, there's more. Here's the kicker. Their 20th anniversary is tomorrow...Christmas Eve. This is the kind of story I get to hear as a retailer that melts my heart and makes it all worth it.

She bought this card for her girlfriend tonight and was just glowing. She was so excited to have found this card. As she was talking about the anniversary, her partner, and her suprise...well, I was almost reduced to a big wet puddle.

Cheer, romance, faith and thankfulness are in my world tonight.

T

This song always makes me smile. Two of my idols proving that "It's okay to have too much fun" Give it a listen. I dare ya not to grin after hearing it.

Merry Christmas, yall. T

Ok, so I'm in a old skool Bowie mood tonight.

I get that way sometimes...in a very private and intimate way. When I was 18, it seemed all I had to cling to was music...and Bowie was my guru. It seemed to me then that my friends and my family and the delicate fragments of my life were all being flung in tangents. I most likely was clinically depressed. I'm not sure what brought me out of it. Maybe it was "coming out of the closet", maybe it was my friends, maybe it was learning not to be so fucking serious and tight-assed. I dunno.

I do not have the magic antidote for depression. I have an inkling that it has nothing to do with meds and something to do with exposing yourself and making yourself "available", even when it is most frightening and uncomfortable.

I was a displaced late seventies Brady kid...seeing my parents go through a really ugly divorce that lasted for years and on top of that, trying to come to grips with the fact that, hell yes...I was "different". I mean shit...when you get the "homo" card dealt to you, (as cool as it is later in life)...it aint no fun to a 13 year old who just wants desperatley to fit in.

So anyways...David Bowie sang through the crackly vinyl in my bedroom in the dark. He said "you're not alone". He said "wait for the gift of sound and vision". His is the music that reveals all my old wounds to this day, and heals them. Even when I had dark days, he reminded me to pay attention to Sound....and Vision.

(I just realized that I sound like a stalker. Good grief.)

We had a very special guest appearance at the store for Grand Opening tonight.



This little boy was enthralled...



...so was this big boy.



I think Santa may have gotten into the wine at some point of the evening.



The best little team workin' it! They kept customers wined and dined and smilin' until midnight. What a night.