Ok...let's just pause, breathe...and break this shit down.

I was 3...my grandpa died. From the yellowed newspaper clippings my grandma saved and all the recollections of family and friends-of-family, I gather he was quite the man. Seems everybody loved him...in a spiritual, political, and down to earth intimate way. If I can garner a fraction of the respect and love that his family and peers held for him, I'm good. I only realized his role in society in Chattanooga when I started working at the stadium for the B team baseball games when I was 16. They were just beginning to renovate the stadium, and when we walked into the old press room for the first time in 20 years, there were old press pieces plastered in frames all along the walls. A good percentage of them had my grandpa "mugging" in them. I was amazed and really proud.

I want to make John Sr and Jessie proud. My maternal grandparents? They don't make them like that anymore.

Now for some real shit...

On my "father's" side...I aint too hip. There was always an uncomfortable shroud when I was growing up with members of my paternal family. It wasn't entirely missing, but it was, when I look back...just sorta incomplete and formal. My brother, in his usual fashion, lays down the truism (as we were all gathered in the car behind my mother's hearse)...that my "dad" was impotent and my mom had several boyfriends along the way...two of which produced me and Gerry. Some shit, huh? But you know what? Johnny raised us like his own. He loved and nurtured us. After the divorce, when my mom snagged all the furniture, he used to blanket the entire house with these big rolls of kraft paper and we would color and make up stories all weekend. Damn, that man knew how to teach and tap into my creativity and nurture my brain. He was the only father I knew, and as it turns out, not only a good one...but a DAMN good one.

And then there's Marc. No human walks the face of the earth with more compassion, sheer unaffected humanity, humility, and genuine love than he. Marc throws sparks and energy he is unaware of. This man is unaware of the love he radiates because he expects nothing in return. He feels he deserves nothing in return. Sound a little like Buddha to you? Obviously so. My mission is to make sure he gets the dividends from all the genuine love, humility and karma he has been building up all these years. I'm gonna make my sweet Marc a star. If anybody deserves it, it's him.

Some layers of love transcend convention. Some layers of love just are.

Seems I've always had my angels. Strange angels. Angels nonetheless.




T

Kudos to the folks at Southern Voice for the design. This is the ad that will be running in the local tabs Friday and next week.

I'm taking a break at the store. I'm about to go crazy with a little brush painting inside the gaps of 30 feet of slatwall. We'll be here into the wee hours this morning.

So, we hired our first two employees today. Jessica was a manager at an Anthropolgie, (www.anthropologie.com) so she knows the merchandise (our's is very similar) and has a good background in display. Michelle came onboard with us too. I had worked with her in my old job, and she is dynamite.

Ok...enough break...back to painting little crevices.

T

Plath and Kafka aint doin' it for me right now. Oh, I love to go where they go sometimes...I really really do. I go there alot. But fuck no, not now. I just don't want them near me right now, feel me? There is a time and a place for everything.

Just so you know, since Halloween, I've shed the Lion head and the phat goatee. I'll keep the Hello Kitty tee shirt just in case.

Right now, there is more time for Clinton...I'm talking about George...not the other two. And The Ohio Players.

Shit, yall...there's a lot to be said about reacting and living and acting the fool instead of thinking and brooding too much sometimes.

Oh shit...just breathe.


Update: 5:20am...I'm channeling...chan-nel-ing...chan-el...uh......why am I picking this image up?......


......

T

This was the first picture of myself that I posted. It's me working on getting the gardens going the first year at the house. It captures the desperation, single sightedness, and insane focus that a typical Aries child exhibits when they begin a project or set out on a goal. EVERYTHING has to be ABSOLUTELY perfect. Second best will not do. To make things more interesting, they hold everyone around them up to the same standards they have set for themselves at that moment. We can drive our loved ones and everybody around us crazy when we get into these modes. Aries can be hard to live with during these phases. Oh well.

Things are sorta like that with me right now. I'm single-minded...will snap in a heart beat...tears one second, insane laughter the next. Dammit I love this. Life.

Life nowadays is simply list-making...reacting to list items...crossing off items on lists...making more lists...scribbling semi-coherent messages on boxes and adding them to lists...compiling 10 lists into one list...crossing off 5 list items while adding 10 more.

1) The guys from "Signs of the Times Antiques" delivered our check-out counter tonight. It's from an old turn-of-the-century cigar shop in NYC. Very cool.

2) About 45 cases of merchandise is flowing in every day now.

3) Our CD's came in today. I opened one of each and was dancing around all by myself in the store. If anyone peeked in through the cracks in the paper we have covering the windows, I'm sure they thought I was certifiable.

4) Opening day is NOVEMBER 16th! It's serious now.

5) I have decided that people in Decatur are "pod people". I'm used to Midtown and Virginia Highlands...where people are very cool, but very savvy and hard. People over here are really really nice and naive and upbeat. People peek in the door and are so excited about the store. I love that. I've had a stupid grin on my face for the past few days that I can't wipe off.

6) A lot of the sexy Indonesian shelving units we are using for display got delivered yesterday. They are gorgeous. I'm on a wierd high just looking at them. I am so dumb.

7) I had the ultimate urban experience this morning. Our store is a block away from the Decatur train station. I walked down to the station in our neighborhood and took the train into Decatur this morning. It sounds so silly, but I got an epiphany out of it. The realization that I don't actually have to be a slave to my vehicle to get about is cool. I am going to do this as a rule now.