It’s been a HELL of a weekend! Visitors in and out our doors as my family came from GA!  They left Georgia on Friday Afternoon and 25 hours later, arrived home.  Josh is my 2nd oldest, with a beautiful wife and daughter (yeah I’m a gramma)! First thing she wanted to do, was paint….so I put the Big Papers in front of her and put on her favorite painting shirt, from the last time she was here….with the  big hand prints we covered it with, all purple, pink and red..her favorite colors..it seems! It’s wonderful to have them here and thankfully they’ll be here for 3 weeks, with their two Crazy dogs and all the love and sillyness that comes when family visits!  Today is the football game, so I’m sure they’ll be cheering on whoever is playing, Probably the Vikings, being we’re from MN…..but football is just a sport they have always shared with their dad, and getting ready for the game, is almost like a spiritual experience for them!

Meanwhile I’ll be upstairs in my studio, messing with some music, as later this afternoon I have a show to do, for the CD Release “Randal Prater (Linus Radford in SL) released his new album called “Second Tuesday Of Never” at www.randalprater.com and it features many of SL’s finest talent such as Cylindrian Rutabaga and JueL Resistance. Join us for the album release party at Doldrum!
12pm: Cylindrian Rutabaga
1pm: JueL Resistance
2pm: Linus Radford
3pm: DJ Hailey Sands (playing Randal’s full album)
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Some of you know, a bit of the slice of pie, I’ve been dealt, most of you don’t.  I’ve put off the finishing of “RoadMap” for just a bit, as life has thrown me down the stairs  for a bit of a tumble and DAMN that really pushed everything I wanted to accomplish, back a bit.  I will never say I’m cursed, but sometimes…I’d like to feel sorry for myself, but who has time for that!!!  Meanwhile My guitar has been kinda collecting dust, so has the canvas, and the brushes are dried out.  Having had a bit of a fever for the past few weeks, nothing serious, Fibromyalgia…a silent and invisible ghost, seems to have gripped me in it’s hands. Thought I had a flu, but I wasn’t sick. I just hurt like HELL.  This is often brought on by stress, and I think..WHAT STRESS??????? Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be Negative stress, it’s just a change in surroundings, excessive worry, trying too hard, pushing too hard, riding the whirlwind of random spins of bipolar-Mania, some pretty deep depressions, etc…. It’s not something I care to talk about with just anyone, there are a few…that have an idea of what this is all about.  Some of you deal with these things too, and it’s truly a hard struggle to get through, but it does pass. The fever broke last night, and I was ELATED at how good I suddenly felt.  Fibro can cause some major depression, one…because it HURTS to be touched, it hurts to touch anything also, my whole body feels like it’s on fire, yet I just can’t get warm enough. I couldn’t sleep, focus, or do anything that I wanted to do…just kind of lost interest.

But…I think I’m back on track again….and the strange thing is…I feel empty. Like I can’t create what I want to create. My hands feel the invisible, ghostly need to hold onto something and create something amazing…but I don’t know what it is. It has not presented itself, or maybe I’m looking too hard.  I was fortunate to be given a song, by the great Web of Life that falls from time to time, on my mind. It’s called “Hangin’ for the Ride’..it just might be the perfect closing song for RoadMap…Since the cd will be about 15 yrs worth of songwriting, stories and more.
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