nobody worked on easter?

Well sure, somebody did. Just not on the corner of Southard
& William Streets.

ashe street, old town

Lord, I believe that I live on one of the most beautiful blocks in Old Town. . .

side streets

It's been a couple of weeks and hopefully you've been wondering, "why don't he write something?" Well, I've spent the past couple of weeks like I spend the first couple of weeks of every new year. . .
Trying to decide how the hell I'll want to spend the other 50 weeks of the year.

I'm not talking about "resolutions" like quitting smoking or drinking or even over-eating. Frankly, I don't smoke or drink or even over-eat enough to make any of that worthwhile. Besides "resolutions" are Fascist. If you make one, you MUST pull on your metaphysical jackboots and brown shirt and stick to it without compromise or latitude as the days and weeks and months grind on while the universal forces try to trip up your lock-step forward march. If you falter it feels all alone in the world so you join a "support group" of like minded faltering fellows.
"Resolutions" take up a lot of time and energy for about 6 months until, at the fourth of July bar-b-que, you chow down on a rack of ribs, lay back in a lawn chair, spark up a smoke and enjoy the hell at of your first Bud of the year. Then you get to spend the last 6 months of the year feeling the quilt.

But that's not what I'm talking about. . .
Why worry about what you're NOT GOING TO DO with the year when you could be thinking about what you ARE GOING TO DO. . . Probably.

My process starts like a game of 20 questions. . .
• Are you going to need to buy a car this year?
• Will you have to find a new apartment?
• Is it time to say bye-bye to Key West, move to Miami and get a real job?
• Can you break away for a 2 week vacation in California?

. . .and what about new projects?

• Do you want to dedicate 8 months to creating and oversized piece for Sculpture Key West?
• Or is it wiser to invest the time in establishing a profitable internet business?
• Do you feel good about taking the guitar back up on stage?
• Or is this the year you finish writing that damned book?

. . .you get the idea.

The next step in my self imposed process is finding answers to the questions. . .

Now, I'm an agreeable kind of guy so this year, with the exception of finding a real job in Miami, the answer to my questions was "yes". But as agreeable as I might be, I'm also not delusional. I know for sure that the sea is not going to part to clear the way for me work uninterrupted toward my goals. "Face it boy", I remind myself, "in this life, sh*t happens".
So I consider my annual affirmations with that world famous "grain of salt" and accept my choices at the end of my 2 week inquisition as direction.
For the next 50 weeks I'll move along, this way or that, focused on the road ahead but always with a sly eye on the side streets I'm sure to discover along the way.

I'm realizing as I write this that my "process" reads a bit like irresponsibility and it probably is. But, it makes for a more interesting trip and promises an harmonious outcome.
Probably. . .

elopement

. . .and I imagined that two hours later, when the sun was finally tucked safely halfway 'round the world, in the streetlight lit darkness, an 18 year old girl named Julie would be whisper-shouting down to the dark street below, "Ramone, where's the freakin' ladder!!"

rook

Looking very much like the chess piece, this is the top of a tower that rises above the Baptist Church on the corner of Fleming and William Streets.
I couldn't escape the contrast between shadow and light nor the contrast between the defensive battlement attitude of the architecture and the welcoming joyful noise singing out
from downstairs.

overview

Standing on the top floor of Key West's tallest building, The La Concha Hotel (7 stories), I'm looking west toward the Gulf of Mexico (in the background).
In the foreground, bottom left, is the terra cotta tile of the hotel roof.
Below that, the Bougainvillea that lines much of that block of Duval Street and behind them, St. Paul's Episcopal. (St Paul's claim to fame in my life is the midnight mass on Christmas Eve; a beautiful service I haven't missed in years.)
Beyond the church, under all those trees, is a portion of the oldest residential section of the city, appropriately called Old Town.


click the cartoon to enlarge

look out any window

When I look past my computer and through the open window behind it. . .