Friday, Looking Back In Anger, Aging, Gut Feelings

It’s been a long few weeks and I’m pretty wore out mentally, emotionally, and existentially. Between the fiasco with the dog(yes that dog again), the drama at work with “when will we close?”, and my looming 50th birthday I feel like I’ve been walking a tightrope.

My wife stayed the night at my daughter’s place last night. The reality of the situation is starting to sink in. Up to this point she’s held onto the hope that the Justice system would work for her and she’d get her pooch back. But it didn’t go that way at all and now she’s feeling the weight of helplessness in the situation.

I told my wife that for myself I have to move on from it all. I want nothing more than to get that dog back, but I can’t. I’ve been in a heightened state of anger, sadness, and worry for my kiddo since the weekend of Labor Day, and I feel it’s taken a toll on me. I was pissed and disappointed with the Judge’s verdict, but I also felt that pit in my stomach lighten up. We got an answer, it wasn’t the one we wanted or expected, but we got one. I need to move on and worry about all the other stuff on my worry list(there’s a lot.) Get back to normal, everyday worry like unemployment, authoritarianism in America, and what things are going to look like in another five years.

I do feel selfish for feeling that way. Feeling relief from the worry, especially given that my daughter is hurting and the doggo still isn’t at home with her. Nothing I say to help her feel better about this situation is going to do much good right now. She needs to work through it herself(with our support.) I told her in a text yesterday when we were discussing the possibility of getting another dog of her own – after she’d said she didn’t want to replace her Frankie – that Frankie did something pretty amazing for her. Frankie opened her eyes to the fact that she was in a toxic relationship, and that up to the point before Frankie arrived that she was miserable. The dog made her realize that she didn’t need or want to be in a relationship like that anymore. Frankie gave her the push to do something for herself, and stand up for herself.

Like I said, I’m not sure that statement made her feel any better. But seeing her health improve exponentially since she dropped that dead weight makes me feel better about her and her future. I do wish Frankie could be with her to enjoy that freedom together, but sometimes life is a dumpster fire and we just have to let that fire burn down.

It’s Friday and as always I’m thankful for that. I’m planning on digging into that new recorder and seeing what I can come up with. I’ve used plenty of Tascam multi-track recorders in my time, so it should be a breeze to jump into and mess with. I scrapped the two songs I started on the old one. Nothing really inspiring about them. Besides I like fresh starts. And with a USB port it will be a breeze to import tracks I create in Bandlab, so that way I can add live instruments to those loop-based tracks.

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I bought a couple albums on Discogs last week and they arrived Tuesday. Both are albums from Weather Report, the Wayne Shorter/Joe Zawinul fusion project. I had a couple of the later 70s albums which are considered seminal, but not their Miles-adjacent early records. Can’t believe I slept on those early ones as they’re amazing. I picked up their debut album and Sweetnighter, both are amazing and full of weird, alien grooves. More on those later.

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Burt Young, aka Paulie from Rocky passed away this week. He was 83. It was strange as I had just brought Burt Young up to my friend and work pal just last week. I think I was wondering if he was still alive, oddly enough. I was thinking about Sergio Leone’s masterpiece Once Upon A Time In America and had remembered that Young was in it as a gangster. When the news came that he’d died I was saddened, but more so I was shocked to learn he was only 83. If you do the math, that means Burt Young was only 35-years old when he made Rocky. Here’s a picture of Burt Young in Rocky:

While we’re at it, here’s a picture of Wilford Brimley in John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982. He was 47:

Folks, I looked like I was 12-years old at 35 compared to Burt Young. And I was 47-years old two years ago. I’m going on 50. Wilford Brimley is two years younger than I am now in that photo. Granted, both of those guys were marines and part of “The Greatest Generation”, but holy cow. I figured they were both in their 60s when they made those movies. Either we’re doing something right in Gen X, or we’re just a bunch of mollycoddled, fragile boys and girls. Either way, at this rate I won’t look like those two till I’m in my 70s(if the world doesn’t burn before then.)

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If you’re reading this then you probably already know what I’m about to say, but in case you don’t please take my advice: Don’t let just anyone in your life. Lock down what is yours and hold onto to it tightly. You may think you know someone, but you only know them at their best; when they’re wanting to impress you and make you laugh or make you feel special. When their worst comes out it’s like you’re meeting them for the first time. As much as you think you know someone’s intentions, you might not know them. My daughter learned it the hard way. Don’t ignore the gut feelings. Most of the time when it comes to people, your gut is your best B.S. meter. Listen to it, even if it’s telling you something that goes against what your heart is telling you.

Okay, enjoy the weekend. I’m sure as hell going to try.