I have survived another year

"Speak now... what do you want for your birthday?"

How a prayerless beast such as myself has made it these past 36 years is quite a mystery to me. My life at times has been a battleground between dumb luck and bad. Opportunity has indeed knocked on the door... sometimes I would answer that door to find a half-naked, drunken strippergram standing there, one who would introduce herself with a bubblegum flavored name and then immediately go into a very loud, off-key rendition of "King of the Road". Sometimes it was the Law though, throwing a bouquet of pistols and warrants in my face right before tackling me to the ground... from there they would bark out my rights - my rights a single word - "None". Most of the time though I would run for the door only to find that there was no one there... just the night air giggling a promise lost forever.

Now-a-days it seems Opportunity only knocks when she's forgotten the keys after drinking all night with her friends ... she shows up all bruises, hickeys, torn stockings and smeared lipstick. I don't even ask anymore. So long as she crawls into bed with me when all is said and done.

Yesterday I had a real 'Happy Ending' moment. I walked hand in hand with Vee as the sun set in the west. The city skyline lit up behind us with a red dappled dusk. Trees bare or blooming with soft explosions of white petals off pear trees. Yellow dandelions scattered in the shadowed grass. Park benches empty. Dogs unleashed to give chase after passing bicyclists and skateboarding teens. Distant families drifting over the hills with tri-pod strollers, restless children or kites that would not fly trailing behind them. Around us homes, not simply just houses... but homes as somber as they are safe. The waters of a gentle silence lapped at everything around us, the twilight golden... almost palpable.

I kept wishing I bought my camera. I said as much to Vee.

She stops and tells me in so many words that I don't have to record an experience for it to have meaning. It is beautiful and as such, enough.

But that's what I do I protest. That's who I am. It's hard-wired into the brain circuitry and written in my blood. I record. I shoot. I write. I am!

She silences me with a kiss right there and then.

"Let it go" that kiss said, "Let it go and grow into another moment undone".

What else is there for me to say, really?

Oh... and tonight you will all dream of strange and terrible Hentai!

Good Night, LJ!

Ganked from Oletheros: Everytime Bono claps his hands...

You go Glasgow!