A Confession to Make

Now that we're rolling, I want to talk about something that might surprise some of you--and I'm okay with that. Because I know that when some people look at me they can never get past the lefty trappings, etc etc, the avant-garde resume, blah blah blah, but you know what, put that aside a sec. This is just David talking. And inside of this body, which has been around the block a few times (I don't mind telling you), there's actually a scared little boy. Scared, yes, of this crazy world we live in today. Well, who wouldn't be? And that's why I think it's necessary to say, in public, because maybe other people are scared, and feel the same way I do, that this guy right here is okay in my book:


He makes me feel safe, y'know? And he makes me feel like a country that David can be proud of just might be worth fighting for after all...

Welcome Friends!

This is my new blog. Why start a new one? Well, when a man turns 48 he starts to think he is running out of time to show the people he loves (I do!) who he really is. And the truth is, I have a sensitive side that I sometimes feel the people close to me don't get to see enough of, if they can see it at all (I know I put up lots of walls--I'm working on it, okay?). So I'm starting this new blog as a kind of safe space where just my closest pals can come and check in on the real me...just David.

I'll be posting lots of the things the real me loves, here, and I'm kicking off the whole grand experiment with this gem from a favorite writer:

Child Development

As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.

--Billy Collins

Now I ask you, how sweet and clever and funny is that? I'll pay it the highest compliment--I wish I'd written it.

Yours until next time,

David