Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Driving home from school this afternoon, I stop at my parent's house because my dad needs some help maintaining the website I built him for his birthday, IDoTunes.com. Driving up to my house, I see him in full-on early fall ritual, playing music on our front porch like it's his own personal Carnegie Hall. South Street's own Stephen H. He does it all throughout the summer but moreso, I think, when his oppurtunities are about to run out. Occasionally, a few passerby's will gather on the front lawn to watch him, or the creepy kid from up the street will come to play harmonica in accompaniment.

As I walk from the car to the house I'm overcome by the exhaustion of working late nights and schooling early mornings, so instead of walking up the steps I crawl, and stop halfway, settling their in the sun laying across three steps. My father is singing Lionel Richie's Hello, except I don't know the name of it, and it is warm outside and the leaves are just starting to tint, and I'm not sure whether the performer has even noticed his audience, but I lay there and listen, and in the moment I am writing this in my head, which is a feeling of tremendous relief.


I've had writer's block for the past month and a half, and it has been an empty feeling.

I might be able to write more than this now, but I don't want to chance that I will get frustrated and abandon the whole thing, aside from which there are things to do. Somewhere amongst the clutter, there is a card I received in the mail. On the front, it is decorated with a collage of all things perfectly autumn, with the exception of my father on the porch. Inside, there is a statement from my credit card company saying that they want me to enjoy my fall without the stress of adding further damage to my credit report. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't done as badly at they're making it out, a few late payments, maybe one or two missed. Still, they've kicked my interest rates into the freaking-impossible-to-ever-pay back numbers, so it's time I overcame my pride and called, to see what they can work out for me. Because this is adulthood, this is responsibility; this is what people in the fall of their lives do.

Just figures that when I finally sit down to get it out of they, I can't find the damn thing. I guess, like today, there's some summer in me yet.

On with it.