This Balcony Ain't Closed

I had some time today between existing, working on my website and conversating with a possible customer I met on facebook about a round trip to Atlanta. I did all the design of the above poster myself (like it? Let me know in the spaces below!) While some folks in this country are ready for this weekend's NCAA Men's Final Four in Atlanta, I decided to go ahead and refresh my memory on why this month has sentimental reasons. This blogging can help me ease my mind off of today's headlines from CNN, ESPN and everybody else. I may have mentioned this before, however I may have been nuts to even speak the truth. I don't have a favorite in the college basketball tournament, so I'll just watch something decent on Investigation Discovery or Movieplex. How did I use my time from not having bell/choir rehearsal? Trying my best to eat this 13lb ham I got several weeks ago! This takes a lot of work to eat this!! I'm lucky I'm about half-way finished now!! It's a damn shame I don't have a kitchen in this motel room. Imagine the possibilities.

Longtime film critic Roger Ebert passed away yesterday. My condolences to his family. I grew up in my younger years watching him and his fellow film pal Gene Siskel from their Chicago stomping grounds. Yeah, I may have disagreed with some of his film reviews over the years, but it was worth entertaining. His constant weight issues were comedy fodder, as with mine over the years. But we got over those obstacles. My pastor just posted a link about Ebert's commentary on death that was done in 2011. Roger didn't fear death quite the way I have looked at it. Everyday I wake up from a slumber not only realizing this could be God's way of reminding me you still have a pulse, so make the best of it...sometimes after doing my duty on the throne. We are well aware we have an eventual date with the Grim Reaper. I just don't want him knocking on my door on an important day (wedding, birth of a child, etc.). I don't see why at times it would make some sense to cheat death by becoming immortal, like the legendary vampire Dracula or any of his nocturnal ancestors. You can have a youthful complexion while everybody rots to ashes. Ever seen Death Becomes Her with Meryl Streep. Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis? The story of that film was mainly two women--one an aging, washed-up untalented actress (Streep), the other a one-time couch potato (Hawn) obsessed with getting even with the woman that took her then-doctor fiance (Willis) and left her a complete wreck. The two ladies take this potion provided by a mysterious woman (Isabella Rosellini--love saying her name), who warns them to take care of themselves in order to stay young at an older age. That doesn't happen, and the now-chronic alcoholic doctor comes to his senses and leaves them, finding his own meaning of life. 

Death will always scare me to the point where I would wonder what I could have done differently to make my life better and for the reaper to visit me at a later date. This isn't like that series Dead Like Me, where those reapers get a new life and identity, yet they set up those souls for their untimely demise. Sheesh, I still feel for Toilet Seat Girl! It's played like a comedy-drama, but with a lot more of a conscience.  If I was to get called home within the next 24-49 hours, I could honestly say right here, right now that I would God that my life is unfinished. Incomplete. To be continued, as they say. In the 42 years of living I know that there have been so many things and places I have wanted to see or do that I will never get the chance to make become a reality. His probable answer? "Too bad! You had your chance!" Just saying this could happen. No one ever knows why people "go home' at different stages in their lives. Just like I never know what to blog about on days like this.