Maybe I've just got the song wrong

A change is coming.

I can feel it.

Like an arthritic knee can forecast a coming storm long before the clouds appear on the horizon. The question is, is this a benevolent storm or a the kind that gets you to tied in knots you'd swear your testicles were on backwards?

I can't tell. But I'm looking forward to it. Chasing it even. Maybe I'm like those crazy fuckers that look for tornadoes to watch them, measure them. Tempt the fury. Tempt fate.

Is there such a thing as fate? I've always sort of thought there is, but I've never found a map to mine. I just sort of stumble into things. The grand plan never seems to work. Or maybe I can't see it for the seemingly randomness of the moment. The patterns only emerge with some time and distance and perspective.

I never had a plan to become a writer or an editor. I never planned to become a father (or perhaps failed to plan in that case). I never planned to move to California, or Palm Springs for that matter. I had never even been to Palm Springs before I came here to visit a friend who was trying to convince me to apply for a job. And it was hot as fuck the first time I came here in August 1999, the streets were all torn up in downtown Palm Springs. There were no outward signs this valley would worm its way into my soul and become my home.

No plan, just seizing an opportunity. What the fuck, I had nothing better to do than take that first job as a temporary reporter. Nothing else was on the agenda when an editing job opened up and I thought "I can do that." I had no better place to be (and no condoms) that Fourth of July I ended up in the bed of the woman who would become my daughter's mother. I had no reason to stay on the cold, damp Oregon Coast when I got a call from a paper in California about I job I had forgotten I had even applied for months before. I had no compelling reason to stay in the little farming town when a friend called from Palm Springs.

And I have no regrets about any of it. It has all shaped and changed and molded my life and made me who I am and radically altered the things and people and places who have become important in my life.

But I feel another life-altering change coming on the wind. I don't know what it is or why or how it will manifest itself. But I'm drawn to stand, chin into the gale and walk toward it. Whether I am seeking it or it is seeking me, I know not. But I crave it, with a hunger known only to those who have been starved of their addiction (which reminds me, my tobacco stash is dangerously thin).

I recently applied for a job some distance from here. I may, or may not, still be in the running. But just the process of applying has changed me. It's made me less complacent. Less willing to accept the unacceptable in my daily life. It's helped me to realize I'm no longer content to watch life pass by, I want to race it to the finish. Oh sure, I know I'll probably coast for some stretches along the way, but I'm peddling now. Feeling the burn. It's time for some new challenges, whether I change jobs or addresses or toothpaste matters less than the fact that things need to be shaken up a bit.

It reminds me of an episode of the short-lived ABC series "Sports Night" by writer/producer Aaron Sorkin. The series starred Felicity Huffman (now of "Desperate Housewives" fame. One of the characters, Dan, played by Josh Charles, has this feeling that something is about to happen. In his case, unlike mine, he senses something ominous. He shares his feeling with his co-sports anchor, Casey, played by Peter Krause, now on HBO's "Six Feet Under."

The exchange goes like this:

Dan: There's a strangeness about this day.

Dan: "Eli's coming."

Casey: "Eli?"

Dan: "From the Three Dog Night song.

Case: "Yes."

Dan: "Eli's something bad. A darkness."

Casey: "'Eli's coming, hide your heart girl.' Eli's an inveterate womanizer. I think you're getting the song wrong."

Dan: "I know I'm getting the song wrong, but when I first heard it, that's what I always thought it meant. Things stick with you that way."

-- From Sports Night, Season 1, Episode 19: "Eli's Coming"

Eli's coming, ladies and gentlemen. It's either going to be major crash, or maybe someone will get laid. I'm hoping it's me.

Getting laid that is.

Not the crashing.

That would be bad.

Change
Eli's Coming
Fate