Wyatt, I am Rolling

Spent the morning with Ruthie and Little G, hit the Goodwill for some shirts, picked up Ruthie's car from the shop (it cost us $35 instead of the $750 they'd quoted us). Finished our Christmas shopping via Amazon.com. Had lunch with Tom & Ken, which was nothing but good, (and a reminder that Love is the antithesis of Fear,) and included a cameo appearance by Justin. Soon it'll be off to Randy's for pizza.

Plus, Ruthie and I have signed up for Netflix, and we partook of our first selection last night. The Human Stain stars three people we like alot, (Nicole Kidman, Gary Sinise & Ed Harris,) as well as the greatest film actor of all time. Good show. (It also happens to be based on a novel by one of my Pulitzer authors, Philip Roth.)

And now, back to my Little Black Book...

First thing atop today's page is a question:

Does forgiveness demand vulnerability?

And unfortunately I can remember exactly the circumstances that prompted the question. I'd been attacked (not physically) by a coworker and although I was determined to make myself forgive him, (he didn't give a rat's ass -- still doesn't,) I wasn't sure whether or not that demanded that I put myself in a position for the whole episode to repeat itself.

Next is a list of four albums recommended to me by my friend Mark as we sat at Friday's drinking pints to commemorate his leaving town for Virginia (or some such state). I'd met Mark in passing each morning for a year or so -- he worked overnights and was leaving as I was coming in around 5:30 AM -- but we never discovered that he'd done time at the Biblical School and in fact, knew Justin, until that afternoon at the bar. We also discovered that we liked lots of the same music, and he made these reommendations as he left:

Jeff Buckley -- Grace & Letters from my Sweetheart
Ryan Adams -- Heartbreaker
Damien Rice -- O

True to form, I followed up on none of them and therefore spent about a year of my Life without the Damien Rice record, which (most days) is now my favorite in the world. Still haven't gotten to the others though. Wonder how Mark's doing...

Then another recommendation from a friend who has moved away (Jason went to Scotland, wonder how he's doing).

Rick Steves writes books about going places...

...is what I wrote, though (you guessed it) I never did track down any of his stuff.

The next note:

Bill -- paypal.com -- "shops"

is related to yet another friend whom I've lost track of. Bill was looking into setting up a website to sell tatoo designs (Bill draws) and I was trying to be helpful. He finally, and without my helf, got the site up and it looks great. Bill was cool -- you'd have dug him. (Wonder how he's doing...)

Then I quote Joey:

"Stupid closet full of bugs!"

And either you're down with that or you're not.

(Oh -- Rufus Wainwright just came up on the random iTunes -- another friend I've lost touch with. Love his stuff.)

The next two were business to conduct:

Contact Heather about Sunday

Have Holly get the U2 books from the bookstore

And then a name, the significance of which I do not remember:

Mark Anthony?

Could as easily have been the singer of a song I was trying to track down or somebody who'd called needing something. There's no telling.

That seems to me like a lame page, but in looking ahead, I've noticed that the next one marks a pretty significant date in my Life.

But I still can't spell-check.