Sunday Convalescence

I'm feeling a little better today. Still not totally with it. I've been reading a lot, which is nice. That's the one nice thing about being sick is that you can catch up on your reading. I read Studs Terkel this morning. What a nice man. If he had interviewed me, what would I have said? I'll never know now. Maybe Ira Glass will do a show on eccentric ex-cons and they will do a profile on me. I wonder if people would understand me more, or if they would tell their friends that there was this crazy murderer on "This American Life" who makes butter now and blogs about it. (Call me up Ira! I'm ready to tell my story! lol).

But I was thinking about this this morning: Do you ever think about whether there was a day or an experience that marked the end of your childhood/adolescence and marked the beginning of your adulthood? At the time it happened and I started having so much cause to reflect on it, I thought that the shooting would mark the beginning of me being a man, or rather that it would necessitate me becoming a man. But it never happened, I always felt like this kid who wasn't ready to handle the things that grown-ups handle. I still feel like that, and I'm past middle-age. It's like that whole journey-not-destination idea. I wanted adulthood to be a destination--I wanted to arrive at it, I wanted to see a sign in the window, I wanted to know I was there, that childhood was over. But the road kept on going, and before I knew it I was practically an old man. And I do things more appropriate for someone half my age, blogging, making butter, joining chess clubs. But those are the things I like doing. And I still don't feel like I know the "things you should know when your are an adult". Maybe I was still in prison the day they published the list in the newspaper. Maybe it's because as I felon I still can't vote yet. But I feel like a big old kid. And some days I feel guilty about that, and some days I think it's too bad more people don't live like I do and let themselves focus on the little things that make them feel good and whole. And most days I think, maybe I'm not as different from everybody else as I think, maybe everybody is like this, and I think that's probably what it is. Everybody just tries to get their lives together, package them up in little manageable boxes, try to figure out their place in the world, and maybe most of us don't do a very good job of it. And then we die, unfulfilled most likely. And maybe it's okay to start every sentence with "and" "but" or "maybe" . You tell me!

If you read this blog for my butter musings, I'm sorry for failing you today. I felt like writing first today so that's what I did. Hopefully today makes up for last nights minimalism. Butter later, I promise. Thanks for listening!