A MONTH OF UN-DAYS

A LOT OF PEOPLE DIDN'T THINK I'D MAKE IT THIS LONG, and I confess, I had my doubts. Particularly when I've squandered aimlessly instead of effectively repurposing those dearly departed hours on the links. 

I keep wondering when I'll actually sit down and start working on my next book. When will I pick up my 6-string and give it a long-overdue tune-up? When will I actually master the little things, like chords on the piano? When will I just quit fooling myself and put the Cobras, Titleists, Clevelands and Eidolons back in the trunk? 

If the answer is "when hell freezes over," I'm afraid we're almost there. The course was blanketed with frost this morning. But with the economy flown south for the winter, another kid going off to college next year, and a bailout of the ad industry nowhere in sight, who has time for golf anymore anyway? No wonder the book isn't written, the guitar's out of tune and the piano is merely a piece of furniture in my living room. All I do is work these days.

But I guess it beats the alternative. 

Or does it? 

RETREAT, YES. SURRENDER, NO.

FORGIVE ME FOR NOT WRITING. It's difficult while wearing a straitjacket. I have to peck the keys with my nose. The spacebar's a bigger target and I can use my chin, but capital letters are a bitch requiring simultaneous strikes of the chin and nose. 

Speaking of big targets, they were blowing the leaves from the 16th green this morning as I sucked down a cup of coffee on my deck above a hundred feet above. I wondered if the jump would kill me. 

Then Fletcher called to inform me that the forecast for tomorrow is 71 and sunny and suggested I trade in the blog for a more desirable four-letter word. Fuck.

And then Mully and a couple of our coldblooded Canadian friends called from Vegas to let me know I was an asshole for not making the trip, and that they were off to play 36. 

And then Brain rang me and told me of his recent adventures at Pumpkin Ridge where he mercilessly drove a golfball into the chin of his cousin who had to have reconstructive surgery. 

Aha! Who am I to feel sorry for myself? At least I can still use my chin. Spacebar, look out.