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When Asked for a Preference

     I won’t let the sun go down on me.
                              —Howard Jones

I have to laugh at that question. It
just reminds me of something that 

gives me a jolt, how when friends,
people who know me, suggest that,

of course when I’m going through
something that at that moment is
a fairly extended hell, for example,
I mean I’ve had some tough times,

and friends would read these, on 

occasion, folks who know me (it 

used to happen), and say I should

n’t be so...nostalgic is a word I would 

use, but, backwards-looking? the funny 

thing about nostalgia with me, and that

word rings more sweet than bitter, right? 

I can look back at times when I was a

horrible mess, weeping at every turn, 

say, and think, Weren’t those the days?,
I can, and they were, looking back fills 

me with such pleasure, an uncontrollable 

smile forming, I can’t help it. And those
days, even though they were horrid, I 

tell you. In reality. Or so I thought at 

the time.... In retrospect some were

hell in actuality. I can see that.
I came of age, well, I came of
age in my late 30s, at the earliest.
But.  I was an adolescent at the end

of the 1970s, the cusp of the 1980s,
so people my age either glow for disco
or for, say, Duran Duran, The Thomp
son Twins, Howard Jones – well, I’m

dipping a bit into obscurity, but that’s
where I am, and always was: the pre
sent as it aims like a madman at the
future. So when you ask which I prefer

most, sunsets or sunrises? I like dusk.
I love walking through a quiet city at
four in the morning. And when I’m
working, when I have a regular busi

ness hours weekday job, which has
been my paid career, which, thanks
to one of those not so great times
I almost got shut out of completely,

for several years, basically, but I’m
back in one now, and it’s energy for
me, and it’s awesome, say, to get
up at three in the morning and just 

do this tap tap tap or scribble scribble
for an hour or three before heading
into the office, somewhere in the
between of which the sun in my

vicinity will start to seemingly float
like a fishing cork upon the bay
for a while until the sky takes it
as its own for a few bright or,

perhaps, foggy hours. Either way,
if it’s straight above or starting its
descent or seemingly about to drown
in the Pacific, it’s all about where it

is. And where it’s going. For me. I
can find some happiness remember
ing where it’s been, who I was then,
but only in relation to who I am now,

and, well, just as importantly, how
that has me aiming toward some
body I want to be later, tonight,
tomorrow, next year, however

long it takes me to get there,
if I make it there, will I make
it there? I’m a now guy on the
move, always have been. And

yet, in answer to your question,
I have to say, and this may be
more about where the sun winds
up, for me, when it winds down,

but I am a sunset guy. Yeah,
I prefer sunset. I’m a morning
person, but the beauty of a sun
diving into the Pacific tells the

truest and most beautiful story
as far as I’m concerned. Go figure.