Christmas Morning -OR- Stepping Out...UP?

The best things happen while you're dancing bending an elbow with jaw-dropping talent?

So many etiquette issues to review. Be yourself? Well that's handy, cuz I suck at posing. Among a smallish circle of friends I'm known as Mr. Popularity. Over time I've become more discerning about where and when I call bullshit on bullshitters. A crowded bar in hostile territory no longer holds the attraction it once did. These days I'm unlikely to encounter, let alone engage and interact with the kind of unstable blowholes of my younger years. In fact, the only time this happens in the meat world anymore is in, and around, my little town and then only with people who have good memories and ability to hold a serious grudge years after I conceded victory to their glorious leader. For 10 years I tried to be a conduit for voices and ideas that were spoken only in whispers. Prefaced with the usual "Somebody oughta", I stepped up and posed their questions, ideas along with my own.

Small Town Charm. At the grocer, at the hardware store, the ice cream parlor, the local greasy spoon breakfast place or just on the streets. I'm still remembered. I guess that's not a terrible thing. A has-been? A lament? A regret? To some I'm a disappointment for ceding the field; for not fighting on. I was a reluctant champion of the people to begin with.

But I digress. I a few hours I will be trekking northward. Nor'eastward? to foment, muse and commiserate with kindred voices of left blogistan. Being not a namedropper, I will only say that a couple of them are wholly responsible for this place.

So much to do... Find my autograph book (do I have one?), trim up the beard, wash behind my ears, wipe the haze off the grouting project in LSW's bathroom, amuse the cats, remember how to get to the Purple Line (google?), practice not making eye contact with other El riders and pack my bag.

I know exactly how Truman felt in the hours before his first meeting with Churchill.
Onward and upward...