you ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright

I got home on Monday from taking my dad skiing. His determination never ceases to amaze me! So much shit has happened to him, but he still keeps getting up and trying again. When I walked into his room to pick him up on Friday morning I said, “hey dad, what’s goin’ on?” And he looked up at me and said, “only good things.” Skiing next to him on Sunday was probably one of the best days of my life.

It takes four hours to drive to Monte Vista from Denver.

There and back is eight, plus there and back again is 16.

Eight I am alone and eight I am with my dad.

When I am alone I rock out Belle and Sebastian. Or I sing at the top of my lungs to Rilo Kiley. Sometimes I cry (like as sissy emo kid) to Bright Eyes. And on occasion I drink a lot of coffee and/or Red Bull and put on my old punk rock cds like Stretch Armstrong or Suicide Machines. I also tend to think too much about life, but mostly about what to write on this silly blog.
A couple years ago I made him a cd with close to fifty of his favorite songs from the Beatles, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and John Denver. When I’m with him, that’s what we listen to. Somehow the song about the day the music died made it on the cd. Neither of us know who sings the song, but every time it comes on he will tell me the widowed bride is Yuko Uno, and the hands being clenched in fists of rage was when the Hell’s Angles did security for the Rolling Stones and someone died. And we can both sing every single word.

He likes to point out good lyrics. Like Bruce’s Thunder Road, “you ain’t a beauty, but hey you’re all right.” We laugh at that one. When we’re driving in the mountains and the view is nice, he’ll look at me and quotes John Denver, “I love the life within me…I feel apart of everything I see.” And when the Beatles, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds starts to play, he looks at me and says “LUCCY!”
(because he knows its my nickname)