God put a smile on your face.

This lyric is from a Coldplay song, in fact it is the title of it, but I thought I would link something I thought was funny. If the video doesn't show up in this blog, if you haven't already seen it, you have got to click the title and go see the latest glimpse of Alanis Morisette's genius!

A few months ago some of the Bluffton kids assigned me some poetry writing for a project they were working on. This one was my attempt at writing a poem about laughing. I would give myself a C plus. Kinda choppy, and no profound phrase.

But, hey, it might be good for a laugh.

Storing Joy
By J.D. Rose

A sentence is uttered
that is both truthful and transcendent of life’s
empty repetition. I hear it
and cannot choose to ignore it nor fail to respond.
The day stops, as I shake
off a thousand minutes of sadness with a single burst
of joy, like machine gun fire
knocking down my gathered friends
as the echo sounds our shared delight.
The heart beats wildly, loudly, as it pounds
fresh blood into thin veins and my vision blurs
in the midst of my pleasure,
air finding its way to my lungs and vessels in only trace amounts,
as my reaction to what has taken place manifests itself
physically by sound and exhalation out my mouth in repetitive blasts.
My eyes shrink to slits through grinning flesh,
my teeth, parallel but not touching, sandwich the black
of my open mouth and release the uvalations of my happiness
as I look like I’m smiling but about to speak and only nonsense is uttered.
Were no one here the moment would have passed quickly;
a small burst of joy, then return to calm.
But in this room with ones so loved,
so versed in my follies, there is much to make each of us humble
and joyful for endless moments. This has been but one.
Heart slowing, brow cooling, tear ducts drying, normalcy returning to my face
the moment has gone, but the aftershock will reverberate through my every smile
for days to come.

When you're gone the colors seem to fade.

I heard Amos Lee play this song one night when I was watchng Austin City Limits. Check him out by clicking above.

I am having trouble sleeping and just needed to post this small rant.

I AM MISSING THE HELL OUT OF...


Camp kids.


Bluffton kids, especially the girls who I haven't seen.


Johnny Cash, always.


Pizza in the Mid-West.


And this guy...more every day!

Hope y'all are sleeping better.

Not much chance for survival if the Neon Bible is right.

Lyric/title today comes from Arcade Fire, off of their title track to their amazing album Neon Bible. Check them out by clicking the title.

Just found this and thought it'd be good to discipline myself and post again. So here you go...it's been a while.

THE WEEKLY INAPPROPRIATE CHURCH SIGN


I imagine the sermon is even scarier!

There just ain't nothing feels so fine as loving a good hearted man.

The title today comes from Tift Merritt's song about me called Good Hearted Man. Check her myspace page out by clicking the title!

So what could bring me back to my blog. After all, I am afraid to screw up my current fresh start by being me and blowing off some steam here on my public journal. Every time I get ready to write here I think of what someone might take out of context and I chicken out. So lots and lots of what I have written in the last months hasn't made it to these pages. I was no longer ready to expose my thorns.

When I was writing in Bluffton, being able to say (somewhere publicly) how I felt was VERY important. I felt I was somehow countering the small mindedness I was encountering by offering my take regularly, Since my move things are pretty good and I've not felt a need to write a public rebuttal nor work out my own feelings with spectators. So what could bring me out of my hiding?

I have dreamt up a new series...

WOMEN I AM IN LOVE WITH!

Perhaps by exploring here the women I am currently in love with I can piece together a list of similarities and maybe things I should be looking for in the future. Huh? It might work.

For our first installment...

WOMEN I AM IN LOVE WITH Part I
I am in love with Tift Merritt.

Tift is a singer/songwriter from North Carolina who sounds a lot like Emmylou Harris if she drank some whiskey before her set and was really horny! I can't get enough of this woman. She opened for Nickel Creek last weekend in San Antonio.

I had heard of her, but never heard her. I was just blown away.

She plays guitar as well as any troubador I've seen live and almost blew up a keyboard on a rickety stand. She sang a song about love lost, then broken children of God, then love faked, then loving a good man, then covered a song for the people of Texas. In each song, finding a way to summon whatever loss, lust, longing, and reflection was required.

By the time she brought cutie Sara Watkins onstage to play with her I was no longer crushing on Sara, I had found a new muse.

It may have been the Texas sky, smiling moon and light breeze. It may have been my one hundred percent sobriety or even the fact that this was the first concert in a long time I had attended with a girl, but not one I ever intend to date, which freed up my affections. But I felt a spell was cast and I didn't shake it all through Nickel Creek's humorous and impressive Farewell (For Now) set.

As her set ended she had said she would be at the merch table and I was half tempted to head there right then, just to say how much I loved her set and maybe see her smile up close instead of between songs. But I was only four or five people from the front of the stage and I was excited to see Nickel Creek. As they played well into the night I kept hoping Tift would still be available for my praise following the concert. I couldn't have imagined the encounter we would have.

As the crowd thinned, quickly and with strangely high energy for as late and as dark as it was, I found my way to the corner where the merch table was. Now I have famously frozen at the sight of talented women, and maybe I would've this time, but there was Tift selling Nickel Creek t-shirts and CDs, smiling at everyone and helping the poor girl all of merchandising had been assigned to. Just as we approached I could tell she was genuine.

I slid to the end of the table where her CDs were and immediately told her what a gift her music had been to me that evening as she walked over to my friend and I, tailed by an older woman. She was delightful. I can't explain it. She seemed honestly glad that I liked her music. She seemed sincerely interested as I told her why I had my CDs signed to people that don't exist. She was all smiles and talked with me and my friend and the older woman, Marebeth, for ten minutes without looking over her shoulder for a way out.

I wanted her to sing to me right then, to give me her next album at the very least. I wanted her to let me rub her shoulders and draw her a bath as she recapped what she was feeing that night on stage. I wanted to give her a big hug. She offered me her cheek as we departed and I kissed it clumsily, so unused to her brand of authenticity. Becuase I had just found her I wasn't armed with any words to say. Today I would tell her she'd already written me a song, for her, as I am a good hearted man. I'm sure it meant very little to her, but as we walked away with her goodwill written all over her fine art, I was well aware I had fallen in love in a single evening.

It feels good to fall in love, even if it is temporary. Even if what you are really doing is taking someone talented and pleasant and using an instance of inetraction to create a back story and future of bliss with a passionate good woman, who finally found a good man. That has made this week a good one. Possibly it has ressurected Exposing Thorns. For now, it has sealed this declaration...

WOMEN I AM IN LOVE WITH Part I
belongs to the beautful and genuinely kind Tift Merritt