Seven Year Itch—Longtime, No Blog—The Tough Love Edition

Okay! I admit it! I'm not a "blogger." I don't take my time to sit down and eloquently piece together my words, ideas, experiences, observations, or musings for the masses. I write songs sometimes. I like doing that when it hits me, but writing prose just leaves cold. It's as enjoyable to me as eating ice cream on a frigid day—no…no—it's more like hitting your thumb with the ball end of a ball-peen hammer. Yeah…it's far more like that. 

I make no apologies. I get it. I live on a boat. I am a musician, entertainer, singer-songwriter. I live an interesting life, and some folks want to read about that kind of crap. I mean, just today, I drove the boat from Port Washington, New York to Manasquan, New Jersey. We cruised through downtown New York via the East River, then thumped around in a thunderstorm that turned the ocean between the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge (and, yes, there are two "z"s in Verrazzano—the one-z spelling is incorrect. You could ask Giovanni Da Verrazzano how to spell his name correctly, and if he wasn't dead a long time ago, I'm sure he'd tell you) and Sandy Hook into a bubbling cauldron of "get me the eff off this boat before I hurl!" After we passed Sandy Hook, the ocean relaxed and gave us a nice, dependable swell until we arrived in Manasquan. To me, that's what I call Tuesday. Admit it. You wish you could do that. Sure, piloting a boat through a squall is stressful, if exhilarating, but it probably beats the crap out of what you did today.

You wish you could abandon the humdrum life that is so stereotypically American. The get up, drink coffee, shower, work, drink booze until you can't see straight, stagger to bed, do-it-all-over-again American life is not what any of us signed up for. I have always tried to live and operate outside the hamster wheel, but it really wasn't until my partner, Stacey, and I discovered boating that I really perfected the life. I should write a book about it, right? No! Screw off. You're lucky I'm writing this. I'm not here to document a well lived life for you. It's mine. Get your own! I'm telling you to get off the friggin' hamster wheel and do something weird. I'm not telling you to move onto a boat and take up guitar, songwriting, and marine repair (that's the less-discussed, less-romantic part of my life—don't hate me because I'm beautiful). Life is what you make of it, and routine, despite how addictively comfortable it can be, was never supposed to be the foundation upon which our lives should be built. Routine sucks rocks. Don't do it. Escape it every chance you have. That is all I have to offer you as any sort of advice. 

What I am doing works for me. There are ten-million reasons you shouldn't follow my path. Instead, follow the example. Find that thing you love to do, and find a way to make it part of your world on a daily basis. Nobody needs to live in a 2000 or 3000 or (dare I say) 4000 square-foot house to be happy, and the people who do either have to maintain all that space or pay someone to do it for them. Life is short. Live on the cheap, and never ever let Monday look like Tuesday, or Tuesday look like Wednesday, and so on. Change it up and make yourself happy. Drag your loved ones along for the ride and let them discover whatever it is that gladdens their hearts. 

I live on a boat. I play guitar and sing. I write songs. I travel. I never know what tomorrow will bring, and I'm always surprised by the day I just had. Do that. It's much better than therapy.