been paying to make lemonade for 10 years.

thinking it’s well fermented by now.

let’s start seeing what we got.

‘good morning America how are you?”

i know i’ve started a post with this line before but every time i thought

“sunshine on my shoulder”  Justin trolled John right out of my head.

that’s what 8 years of kids will do to ya

anyway,

nearly 7 years ago i started auto paying for this site

and had high hopes of

well more than 5 posts

but here we are in global reflect and reset moment and its time to make some lemonade.

see you tomorrow

be well

enjoy

A picture falls off the wall

It’s 4:07 a.m. 

An unusual cough from the monitor

Followed by 40 minutes of flailing,

Flogging, fear and loathing, 

And finally a plea for a sign 

That it will be okay 

but

It’s that cough again, then again

The baby’s throwing up 

Again and again 

We wait it out on the couch

The sickness passes as

Daylight saving peaks 

No answer

But fatigue has a way of numbing 

It down 

  I was sitting at the bar drinking a Trooper, mouthing the words to “We Are The Road Crew” and trying to devise a strategy to defeat The Famous Kuma Burger when I read the news.

I came to Chicago with a notebook and every intention of beginning a story for my children; the one that has been floating in and out of my slumber deprived mind since I became a stay at home dad. But now, with the kids sleeping marginally more consistently and beginning a less daddy dominated educational path, my head has been able to breathe in more than just our .37 acre world…ah…only to exhale a swamping of smelly toddler like babble in dire need of pen and paper for order but those thoughts have been momentarily muted with… 

Seeing you at Radio City Music Hall, wondering if I was the youngest soul not dragged there by their parents…

How the years may have faded my Santa Fe “I have tried in my way to be free” tattoo but the mantra still pilots my “Bird On A Wire” mentality…

That unsent letter I wrote you when I was living in Madison alone, cold and drunk, then I remembered you were at Mt. Baldy broke, refraining but ordained…

The night at Merriweather Post when my wife whispered in my ear that you were the sexiest old man she’d ever seen and I agreed…

How just yesterday I listened to Songs of Love and Hate, the copy with the orange A&P thin sliced sticker in the corner from Aunt Dana’s record collection…

That my daughter knows you are the author of the Shrek song I often catch her singing to herself through the baby monitor, Lord how it pleases me….

That the last time I visited this city it was to attend my college fraternity national convention but I skipped it to spend the day in the Water Works photocopying “Death of a Lady’s Man” and then ditched my brothers attempts to get into bars with fake out of state ID’s for a park bench, a yellow Hi-Liter and a pack of Cigarillos…

Ah again…so this morning I sit in a coffee shop under the brown line yearning for tea and oranges but settling for a cup of black local roast and writing.

L. Cohen, Sincerely

I thank you.