The last few days I’ve been having long sad moments of thinking This is NOT the life I want to be leading.

I don’t need television.  I don’t want to go to an office.  I hate the alarm clock.  I don’t want to have schedules for laundry and grocery shopping.  I don’t want to be responsible for the people I work with.  I don’t want to clean up after my boyfriend.  I don’t want to live 20 minutes from the subway.  I don’t want to have to come home to feed 2 guinea pigs when I will be in the city with my family.  I don’t want to be doing work on my first day of vacation.  I don’t want to work in technology.  I don’t want this life that I have spent 4 years building with someone else, who I love dearly, but who refuses even the smallest amount of change.

I want to sleep until I don’t need to anymore.  I want to come home whenever I want, to a house with no television running, and someone who wants to eat what I cook.  I want to spend weekends in museums, Mondays with strangers at dinner parties, afternoons in the gym or yoga class.  I want to be someone who can travel at a moment’s notice.

God, I shouldn’t have a mid life crisis at 30.  I’ve spent so much time trying to just keep my head above water, I never noticed what this lake looks like from above.  I miss the murky bottom, the light streaked middle, the gasping for air and going back down to the darkness where you’re free to play and dream and make a new you with every stroke.

I know this is common, this I-want-a-new-life-cause-this-one-bores-me ennui.  Does anyone ever make it out the other side?  Does anyone leave the life they’ve worked so hard for, and come out of it better off?

My trip yesterday to see my daughter was good. She seemed to like it and I think she likes Amber too. As planned we kept my mom and sis in the dark about being right there in their neck of the woods. I’ll see my mom Tuesday anyway, she coming up for my court appearance, I think my sis is still a wee bit fuming over the family fireworks last week though, oh well.

Speaking of fireworks, the trip went south as Amber and we headed back up north to Missouri. A stupid suggestion I made about a week and a half ago, involving her, me, and her friend Mary Elizabeth came back up. Amber thinks I have the hots for her friend, she’s cute but it’s the other way around. Mary and I had spent some time in conversations we shouldn’t have been in and I thought Amber would go for. I’m an idiot! And apparently still paying for it and probably will for a while I think.

I hate it when I arm a woman with something to resent and bring back up every time something triggers it, but it was my stupid fault, so I have to take it and all I can do is try to assure that I don’t have a thing for her best friend or any other woman and the she is all the woman I want and need. I didn’t say it like this, but sorry I’m a guy, and a recovering scoundrel, and I miss read what, I thought, would be a curious opportunity. I love Amber and will be faithful to her, something got in my head and I thought she like to try it. MORON!!!

Anyway, I’m going to call her this evening and see if I can cool down the hot water I jumped into. Apparently, she has kept the couldron simmering and it erupted into a boil again this morning.

After dinner and the movie in Fayetteville and taking Brit home last evening, we went back to Siloam, where I used to live years back and had a little get together with two old friends of mine. One of them, shortly after meeting Amber, allowed his tipsy ass to say, “wow, she’s almost short that little thing Tammy you used to run with, you really like them little ones don’t you.” That’s when the jealousy started, I think. I need to drill him in the privates next time I see him.

Back to my daughter. She turning into a very beautiful young girl/woman and she has a great since of humor and the sweetest voice, much like her mother’s voice. Her full blood boyfriend seems like a nice kid too, his hair is longer than mine. He seems to really like her and is surprisingly respectful for a teenager. I never thought I’d be judging boys like girl’s father’s used to judge me, but he seems like a good kid. I must be getting old, but I won’t admit it ’till I start to act or look it.

I used to be terrified to meet a girl’s parent’s as a teen. I had a prettyboy face with big hair halfway down my back and jeans so tight, if you looked, nothing was left to imagination (It was the late 80’s). I usually did okay though, must have been the practiced smile and catholic school boy reverence, that last part was an act. I did get chased with a broom once at 18 by this gals mother, though, when I brought her home drunk at 4:00 in the morning, but she didn’t  try stop us from dating a little more, just scared the piss out of me and the few more dates we had, she was always home on time and somewhat sober.

To end this long assed post, as usual, a tune. This time George Thorogood, As The Go Passing By. This is my favorite version of this blues classic. I play a similar version when I do my jazz.

“There is a sacredness in tears.  They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.  They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.  They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.”   –Washington Irving

Biochemist William Frey has spent 15 years studying tears and why we cry.  His team of scientists have found that, although tear production organs were once thought to be unimportant and no longer necessary for survival, tears actually have numerous critical functions.

Tears are an emotional response which only humans have, for only people are known to weep.  While all animals that live in air produce tears to lubricate their eyes, only human beings possess the extensive system that causes us to cry.

Tears are secreted by your lacrimals—tiny, sponge-like glands which rest above the eye against the eye socket. The average person blinks every two to ten seconds. With every blink, the eyelid carries this fluid over your eye’s surface.

One of the most obvious functions of tears is to lubricate your eyeball and eyelid, but they also prevent dehydration of your various mucous membranes, as anyone with ‘dry eye’ problems can attest to.  A severe lack of lubrication produces a condition requiring medication or therapy to save the victim’s eyesight.

Another important function of tears is that they bathe your eyes in lysozyme, one of the most effective antibacterial and antiviral agents known to man.  Amazingly, lysozyme inactivates 90 to 95 per cent of all bacteria in a mere five to 10 minutes. Without it,  eye infections would be much more common and serious.

One amazing discovery is that tear production may actually aid a person in dealing with emotional problems.  Scientific studies have found that after crying, most people do feel better,  and those that suppress their tears do feel worse.

Not unexpectedly, those who suffer from the inherited disease familial dysautonomia not only cannot cry tears, but also have a lesser ability to deal with stressful events in their lives.

In a recent study, tears caused by simple irritants were compared to those brought on by emotion.  Researchers found that stress-induced tears actually remove toxic substances from the body. Volunteers were led to cry first from watching sad movies, and then from freshly cut onions. The researchers found that the tears from the movies contained far more toxic biological byproducts. Weeping, they concluded, is an excretory process which removes toxic substances that normally build up during emotional stress.

The simple act of crying also reduces the body’s manganese level, a mineral which affects mood and is found in up to 30 times greater concentration in tears than in blood serum. They also found that emotional tears contain 24 per cent higher albumin protein concentration than tears caused by eye irritants.

The researchers concluded that chemicals built up by the body during stress were removed by tears, which actually lowered stress. These include the endorphin leucine-enkephalin, which helps to control pain, and prolactin, a hormone which regulates milk production in mammals.

They found that one of the most important of those compounds which removed tears was adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), one of the best indicators of stress.  Suppressing tears increases stress levels, and contributes to diseases aggravated by stress, such as high blood pressure, heart problems and peptic ulcers.

Ashley Montagu concluded that weeping contributes not only to the health of the individual, but also to the group’s sense of community because ‘it tends to deepen involvement in the welfare of others’. Tears are an extremely effective method of communication, and can elicit sympathy much faster than any other means. They effectively relate that you are sincere about a certain concern, and anxious to deal with the problem.

What can we learn from all this? That the seemingly simple and common response of producing tears is enormously complex and, indeed, is an integral and necessary part of being human.  Without tears, life would be drastically different for humans—in the short run enormously uncomfortable, and in the long run our eyesight could be jeopardized.

Those nosy people I call my family pushed it too far last night and I blew up on them. I spoiled Christmas early this year and let some dirty secrets out of the bag, oops. I tend to let things just get blurted out when provoked. Oh well, my secrets came out last year, now some payback saw the light, and I’m not sorry.

I went 11 years with virtually no contact with my parents or brother and sister, I’m not like them. A career cop, two female manipulators, and a rich ass banker. Power, control and the cash. And they think they can control me with guilt and their precious cash, but if you’ve read here much you might know I don’t give a shit about lots of money and only feel guilty when it comes to a small group of things in the romance department.

So I won’t be having Christmas with them this year. I’ll stay here and Amber and I will share it together. Which is best anyway.

On other fronts in my life, one of my non political friends is starting to open his eyes to socialism. I’ve only been working on him for 4 years now, but it took the threat of a lay off from his job to open his eyes and he’s starting to embrace the idea of revolution and the worker’s state.

Enough of that, a Christmas song for my family, (that’s sarcasm) Put up those horns! Grim Reaper, See You In Hell.

Again, the song reveals my age. But damn I still look good.

I knew this was going to happen.

Random Chicago scenes

It’s like an addict who finally goes clean and understands, reluctantly, he has to avoid the places where he used to use and stop hanging with the old drug buddies. Because once you let back in the familiarity, the comfort, of the old patterns…

You are doomed.

from our five years there

So for these past five months and 12 days (but who’s counting?), I studiously avoided all things Chicago. Shut off all the emails I regularly got about upcoming plays, music, events. Wiped my bookmarks for favorite Chicago sites off my computer. Tried not to think about what might be going on during the weekends, and ignore, as much as possible, that I was basically a prisoner in my home when Samantha took the car for an extended period.

A prisoner, you say? Oh, come on. More of the usual Burgan hyperbole. And you’re right. I could walk down to the corner bar, where the Bud flows freely from the one tap, and too many guys seem to spend too much time from about 1 pm on. Or I could stroll to the video store less than a mile away. You know, that famous purveyor of media, Red Box, where 250 titles await your perusal. Why would I think I was missing anything by not being in Chicago anymore?

Most at Millennium Park, for no real reason

Any notion that I had gotten over the Windy City was all-too-easily demolished this weekend, as I made my first trip back. I hated being there as a tourist (or to be kinder, a visitor), and not a resident. Although I immediately felt at ease at O’Hare, where one of the people movers was not running. Nothing’s changed! Later I rode and walked amidst the skyscrapers of the Loop and smiled. Until I remembered it was only a visit.

Though a fine visit it was. Great hospitality and conversation with some of my theater buddies – the folks I was just getting close to before we left. Meals at some of our favorite old haunts, including, of course, the Village Tap, our neighborhood hang-out. Vegan options and 24 brews on tap – and not one of them Bud. How would someone from West Haven stand it?

except I always had a good time there

But I am not from West Haven. I am merely occupying space there for some unknown length of time. Trying, still, to find the positives, as I’ve outlined here before at C?WC? Trying also to forget what I loved about Chicago in particular and city life in general. Of course there is New Haven just a stone’s throw away, and that’s just like Ch – ah, no, don’t even jest about that. And New York is not so far, everyone reminds me. No, not in miles, but in the time and money it takes to, say, go see a show at a black-box theater – it’s not quite like the last-minute decisions I could make in Chicago to see a play just a neighborhood away.

and there sure as hell isn't anything like it here

And odds are, I’m not going to run into anyone I know at that theoretical NYC black box. I have no contacts there, and building them from this distance, at a time when I wonder if I can even continue to sustain this dream of theatrical success – the odds are not good. But last night, going to see a production of one of my short plays (a total serendipitous event, that the show was running while I was in Chicago), I saw folks from the producing company I had worked with before. I went with the star of my solo show, and he unexpectedly knew someone in the show. I knew another actor, from my stint  helping out on The Real Thing right before I left. The theater community is large there, yet not so large that you can’t run into people you know, or people who know people, at almost any play you see. Not to mention my attending the Chicago Dramatists’ Saturday afternoon reading and seeing fellow playwrights I knew from my time there, including a very talented writer/performer/filmmaker who was in the class for learning to write a solo show.

(Boy, did deciding to take that class lead to lots of changes/opportunities! I had been debating between that class and another, and a friend with “intuitive” talents encouraged me to take the solo class. I knew in my gut that was the one I wanted, too. So maybe next time I ignore the gut and the friend? Nah, taking the class was for the good, despite the disappointments. And legal hassles…)

or like Navy Pier at night

The trip this weekend highlighted what I always knew these past 5 months and 12 days, but tried to bury: I miss Chicago, I miss the friends I met, I miss cultivating the fiction that I have a chance to do something with playwriting – still. The fiction that becomes a cruel torment in my isolated state in West Haven. Give it time, friends there and in Chicago tell me. I will. I have no choice. There is no going back to Chicago, except as a visitor.

There was something of any irony here, this reaction to returning to Chicago. It came just scant hours after this conversation: Of course I’ve adjusted to being back in CT (if not totally happy about West Haven). No, I don’t miss Chicago, primarily because I don’t let myself think about it. I accept being here. I am an adaptable person. I have adapted.

A lie? The kind of denial the addict struggles with when the time on the wagon is not so pleasant? I didn’t think so then. I meant it, in that moment. But then other moments came, when I was walking around the old neighborhood, seeing the familiar sites from the L, taking in the Loop skyline from the new rooftop bar of the Wit Hotel, watching talented actors and directors throw together a night of entertaining one-acts in just a week. And in those moments, the pre-trip assurances of my adaptability did not seem like a lie, exactly, but something that needed to be said, for my benefit and others’, to try to smooth the rough spots in the transition to life in CT.

So, now I am on the train back to CT from Grand Central. Chicago is…back where it belongs, geographically and in my psyche. Distant. Would it be too self-tortuous to already begin planning the next trip? Or should I go back on the wagon, cut off all the thoughts and emotions, and once again try to immerse myself in the positives of Connecticut?

Yes, and yes.

But when that next trip comes, as it will, another relapse of an addict who never really wanted to abandon his preferred drug, the immersion will seem false, as it did so many times this weekend.

I was ripped & shredded & torn
a post break-up scarecrow

my stuffing was strewn

I needed crazy glue

I needed to be consumed
by something other
than what was consuming
me

I found you

my new obsession was born
I fell in love with your innocence
the way you wore your hair
your smile, your curves
your child-like playfulness
I collected you with ferocity

studying every pose, every angle

every jingle-jangle
I needed to be close to you
I wanted to live through
the lens of you

I smattered my bathroom walls
with your sensuality

every 8×10 black & white photo

I could lay my hands on I nailed to the wall
even a leopard print
toilet seat

don’t laugh, this was a serious

girl crush

you carried me out of my
mid-life-crisis-fall-out- mush

or whatever that was

my crazy glue

my “Bettie Page stage.”

L. K. Thayer

All Rights Reserved

© 2009

When I was 25

When I was a young and brash 25 year old, I often dismissed people as ‘45 and going nowhere”.

I expect the young of today to be equally as intolerant. And I forgive them. Our twenties are heady time.  We achieve autonomy and we reassure ourselves that we are able to take our place in the adult world.

Now I am 45

I want to honor the promise of my 25 year old self.  I think

• We have a responsibility to the young to make opportunities for them and to allow them to make their mistakes but in non-career threatening ways.

• We have a responsibility to create institutions where they can progressively take on larger and larger projects.

• We have a responsibility to ensure that the young have access to information about what is worth doing and what is not. We should not allow them to spend time on speculative work that will be career-breaker and undermine their confidence for ever after.

• We have a responsibility to espouse a vision and work towards it systematically.

• We have a responsibility not to sulk. We are not 25 any more. We can not longer start projects with only the thought “I can, I can.”

It is our job now to bring together all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The people. The money. The processes. The customers. The parties. The comfort when things don’t go our way.

We are 45 now. The 25 year olds are right. We aren’t going anywhere. We are gathering together all the resources we need for larger works.

I shouldn’t have ignored my instincts; newly acquired face fluff of the designer kind is usually an indication of a woman in the picture. (She’s misguided on the face fluff issue as well as being in the way.)  Anyway I am not sure that the prospect of an occasional oasis with a new man is worth the agony of waiting for a reply. I feel sorry for the young ones who are doing this kind of thing regularly but the game isn’t any easier after more than twenty years on the bench. Bench not shelf, years spent making up my mind it was the wrong man and that I’ve blundered into the wrong life.

Meanwhile at the socialist republic of Mestweston Avenue, SuzyWoo, my comrade seeker after a life, continues to stack her house with lodgers up to the rafters. (Not literally, it’s an extended bungalow in deepest Dene and my friend roosts in the loft.)

Out in the garden the climate warrior has brought her rabble army back to the garden shed (with all mod cons) to recuperate after their punishing defeat on the Isle of Wight and to gather their strength for whatever their cause demands of them at the Copenhagen Summit. They have pitched an old army tent, roomy enough for the whole battalion, on the back lawn to dry and are using it as a break out room as they try to pluck victory from the blades of a wind turbine. They will probably settle for the publicity.

SuzyWoo would settle for the rent in advance. These lodgers stand between her, a sack of bills and a mad man for an ex-husband. And I mean mad man, all lower case, nothing to do with the glam TV show, unlike the men in Mad Men, the ex was a shit but not at all smooth.

So that’s two women and two men trying to get things sorted after twenty years, many of them horribilis. Any tips I can offer you from our experience to prevent you from making the same errors, I hear you ask? SuzyWoo and I compared notes:

• Our mother’s warned us: one suggested the driver take evasive action on the way to the wedding
• We both had flings with other people just before taking the plunge with the wrong man
• Follow your instincts

I’m getting travel flashbacks like Jenny Agutter in “Walkabout”. I keep looking up and finding I’m somewhere else.

I’m at a gig watching “The Pretty Things.” A band that’s been around since the ‘60s. When they appeared on TV, my uncle remarked, “They don’t look very bloody pretty to me.”

Suddenly its me and my Harley back on the Texas highway. The music suits my road trip.

Later that week I’m grabbing lunch on the run in a roadside lay by. Opposite a wood. I look out for bears as I get out my car to brush crumbs off my business suit. I wonder where the bear bins are to put my garbage? Then I remember I am not in Alaska…

© Copyright 2009
All Rights Reserved
Jules Aaron

Where were you the day Lehman’s crashed?

I had spent a long day sequestered in an office building in London. Coming out into the dark evening, I was surprised to see a serious story in the free newspapers handed out at the entrances to the Tubes.

The 158 year old bank, Lehmans had declared bankruptcy and 10 000 financiers, bankers, clerks and support workers who arrived at work on the prestigious Canary Wharf were told they must cease trading and clean out their desks.

Our response to abrupt crisis

Abruptly losing your job and your livelihood is not a disaster but it is certainly a crisis. Some of Lehman’s employees may have taken the first plane out to a sunny beach, but most of them would have sat around the next day wondering what to do. The day after would have been a day of rumination. What went wrong? Could it have been avoided? Who is to blame? And, ultimately, what should they do to retain the same income, status and meaning in life.

Career coaches and people in career crisis

Many career coaches will see erstwhile employees from Lehman’s and may have seen some already.

Proxy career coaches in the form of doctors, bank managers and employment agents will see them sooner. What is the best advice that we can give Lehman employees and all others whose way of life comes to an abrupt, surprising and juddering stop?

What it feels like to be in a career crisis

The first thing we need to remember is being laid off is a rude shock. Having had no preparation for the event,

• Ex-employees do not know what to do
• Ex-employees panic
• Ex-employees want it to be ‘all OK right now!’

Our task as career coach

Ex-employees may have no experience or training in damage control. They may be have no experience in managing their own emotions and attention. This is our task if we are to help them succeed. We must help them to

• Regain emotional equilibrium
• See the solution
• Regain control

What we will achieve as a career coach

We are not, though, going to make it “all OK right now”. Our clients will want us too.

A year ago when Lehman’s crashed, even the pundits thought we might spring back to normal like a new elastic band.  But, for most people, the early teens of the 21^st century will be a time of enormous transition. A country with a GDP of 1.4tr cannot dole out 1.0tr without having to make some adjustment.

Yet there is a flip side to a bad situation.  When your house has burnt down so to speak, there is little point in building one that is exactly like the one before. We build a better one.

Our challenge as a career coach

In the early stages, when our clients want everything to be OK, when they are in the first of the five stages of grief – denial – they will not want to work through the long hard slog of rebuilding.  They will want everything to be bounce back. We have to work with them even though they are in no mood to work.

Helping them find any foothold as they work through their grief is important. Listen to them. But also help them keep moving. They have a lot of rebuilding to do and every small step will be important when they emerge from the emotional turmoil further along the line.

The career coaches that we need

Coaches who can do more than say “aha” are needed now. We need coaches who can help people take baby steps while they are overcome with emotion.

6 questions I ask professional career coaches

It is amazing that this is not taught on work psychology degree programmes.  These are the first 6 questions that I ask professional career coaches.

• How do we work with people overcome by grief?
• What practical steps can any of us take when our career and life has fallen into an untidy heap?
• How long does it take to rebuild a career mid-stream?
• How soon can we introduce the idea of rebuilding a better career to a client overcome by grief?
• How many people really do rebuild a better career after such a disruption?
• What distinguishes those who begin that project from those who don’t?

Radical transformation and destabilization is not a pretty sight!  The chaos and aftermath of this destruction can impact our very ability to function in everyday life.  Destabilization is a radical form of transformation that cuts at the very thinking and feeling nature of our psyche.  It forces unconscious psycho/emotional residue of the past to surface in the present; not with any particular agenda, but as natural response to the capacity of awareness to simply allow things to be.  In the quiet, still space of awareness, everything is possible.

Destabilization demands cognitive congruence; the very thoughts and beliefs that form your most endearing perceptions, beliefs and philosophies; the ways of being; the very meaning and purpose you have given to your life must be tendered for re-evaluation and validity; in some cases they must fall away. 

Call it what you want: existential crises, dark night of the Soul, depression, or mid life crisis.  Labeling it does nothing to facilitate the experience of destabilization; wrapping it in some model of understanding will only temporarily provide relief and certainly won’t necessarily reveal any validity or affirmation to your process.   Allowing, noticing, resting in awareness of the process is your greatest ally; forget the mind and its need to understand; it’s an inherent part of the process, and as such, is part of the deconstruction.

Stabilization is the natural impulse of this “movement” of consciousness, realization of our inherent unity, a potential outcome.  If “you” go with the flow; if “you” allow the process to unfold, “you” might soften the blow of the blade, as it chops at “your” personal addictions and fixations; as “your” sacred cows line up, one by one, to become sacrificial offerings…

Vague enough to have no physical appearance

I don't know why I bother

Melty enough to be unable to move without making a mess

Stupid enough to believe the bullshit

We need a revolution

WE NEED TO REVOLVE

hang on that doesn’t make sense

Turn around, no hang on. Circle, circle. We need to circle, no, yeah, circle!

OMG Do people actually LOL? must kill…stop it all

ah fuck it…

this helps

and this is how I will feel later

Chapter Arts Centre in Canton may have undergone a dramatic facelift, but it is certainly not the kneejerk response to a mid-life crisis.  The 38-year-old building has just gone through a 16-month redevelopment costing almost £4 million, and the message is loud and clear: Chapter is 38 years young, rather than 38 years old.

“It’s just the beginning,” said front of house operations manager Abi Davies.  “It’s going to be a sustainable project now, which is fantastic.”  She is not alone in her enthusiasm.  The centre officially relaunched on November 24, but the new building had been open for a month by then after work was completed in mid-October.

The entrance to the terrace at the back of Chapter

In its first few weeks the centre welcomed more than 50,000 people through the doors and sold more than 5,000 meals in its redesigned cafe bar, which has almost doubled in size during the refurbishment.  Abi said: “We’ve certainly seen a dramatic increase in the number of users now that we’ve doubled the space.”

Part of the redesigned cafe bar area

The success of the cafe bar is integral to Chapter; the centre relies on earned income to account for between 75 and 80 per cent of its turnover because it is a not-for-profit organisation and a registered charity.

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Local councillor Cerys Furlong said the importance of Chapter, based in Market Road, could not be overstated.  She said: “The refurbishment of Chapter has been well worth the wait, and the investment will ensure that it remains an important centre for the arts in Cardiff – and Wales as a whole – as well as a major landmark in Canton, well into the future.

“Chapter provides jobs within our local community, supports local artists in Canton, and makes a massive contribution to the local economy.”

Revamped seating area outside the centre's two cinema screens

The redesign project came a cost of £3.8 million, which was raised through a number of grants and awards but also some smaller schemes run by Chapter’s own fundraising team within the community.

Centre users were able to buy a brick to be used in the building or adopt a builder working on the project, as well as having the opportunity to furnish their homes with an original cinema seat dating back from the 1930s.

The building's history as a former school is reflected in the new design

Abi put the “overwhelming” support of customers down to the communal feel of Chapter and the importance of preserving its originality.  “It is still Canton’s community space but it is a beautiful building, and there is nothing in Cardiff that matches what this place does; nothing brings together artists, community groups and people who just want a cup of tea in this way so it’s extremely unique,” she said.

The two biggest donors to the project were the Arts Council of Wales, who made an award of £1,750,000, and the Welsh Assembly Government, who put forward a total of £850,000 in a series of different grants and schemes.

Nick Capaldi, chief executive of the Arts Council of Wales, said: “This imaginative refurbishment will greatly enhance the experience of Chapter for all of its many users and Arts Council of Wales is delighted to have been able to support the venue with a Capital Lottery Award.” 

Outgoing First Minister Rhodri Morgan attended the relaunch and he described Chapter as “one of Cardiff’s gems on the arts scene” before recounting his involvement in decorating the building prior to its initial opening in 1971.  He said: “If there is a better municipal arts centre than Chapter anywhere in Europe, I would like to see it.”

School desks and old tiles add character to the expanded cafe bar

That sentiment would appear to be widely held, with The Guardian’s Elisabeth Mahoney citing Chapter as a reason to move to South Wales on her television and radio blog last month.  

Abi said the centre’s reputation as being part of Canton’s bohemian community was one of the driving forces behind the redesign.  She said: “That idea of people coming and being attracted to Cardiff or South Wales is really exciting; I think Canton and Chapter has always been a magnet for artistic, cultural types and if they’ve got an even more fabulous building to come to it’s great.”

The striking appearance of the building, created by architects Ash Sakula, begins even from outside where a 60-foot lightbox is visible above the main entrance.  Artists have the opportunity to show their work in the lightbox for six months at a time, and the first piece is a work by 35-year-old Welshman Bedwyr Williams featuring 40 flies across the building’s frontage.

The 60ft lightbox is a dramatic addition above the main entrance

Inside, the design is underpinned by nods to the 1970s origins of Chapter but also the building’s history as a former high school.  The cafe bar has desks and satchels dotted around, and the wallpaper is in places incandescently-coloured and patterned.

These subtle but clever acknowledgements of the history of Chapter have set it up for a long and successful future.  Abi said preserving Chapter’s heritage was critical in ensuring the centre did not lose its connection with visitors after the refurbishment.

Furniture and decorations were carefully chosen to ensure Chapter's past was reflected

She said: “A lot of people were worried when the project went underway and was designed that it would lose the character of Chapter, because it is an old school, so the architects made sure that they restored or kept features like the old school tiles and they’ve retained the large pillars and the open space.

“It’s really important that it kept its character, this building, because it’s been here for such a long time, and people come here who used to go to school here so it’s really nice to keep that element to it.”

The future of Chapter looks bright; 38 years after it first threw its doors open, things have only just begun.

To find out the answers to the questions above, click here.

That little redheaded Irish sprite of mine will be over here after she’s off work. I’ve got pork chops for us, but got hungry earlier so had to eat some soup loaded with Club crackers to hold me over. Of course it was accompanied by fermented hops and barley, plus I’ve got a bottle of Sangria for when she gets here. A little out of my taste, but she loves it so I’ll deal with the stomach ache.

Last night at her folks house was fun. Sean new I was F*-ed up and kept feeding me more scotch. Amber and I slept in her old room until about 2:00 in the morning when it was safe for her to drive. I owe Sean half of my CD collection from several lost games of pool, but he doesn’t like metal, so I doubt he’ll want to collect. I think he was just having fun whooping my ass at pool and making moot bets.

Trust me, if you’re a partier, hook up with a mate who’s entire family likes the whole inebriation thing. My only problem is, I’m starting to like Amber’s weed a little too much. I smoked it for a few years as a teen but ended up not liking it back then. Now many years later, I do like it and I have enough intoxicants in my system, so I have to start exerting some self control. Too bad she doesn’t have a line on some good shrooms. I don’t do any hard drugs like meth, never touched it and never will, same with heroin and crack. Me and cocaine don’t mix, the coke stole my paycheck the one weekend I tried it, so no more of that. So it’s just the pain pills, alcohol and seroquil. But I’m happy and I smile most of the time anymore, even when I’m not F*-ed up. Who ever coined the phrase “mid life crisis” was wrong. I’m having one and I’m having the best time of my life. It’s a 30 something liberation from bad decisions of the heart. I know I’ll make more, but I’m happy and I have a gorgeous size 2 woman who was in third grade catholic school in Missouri when I graduated my Catholic school in Denver. Even my pal with the ex stripper wife can’t keep his eyes to himself when she’s around, I must be doing something right.

By the way, there was a study on alcohol abuse and religion and we Catholics ranked number one, don’t blame me, it’s all on the old guy with the funny hat in Rome. Don’t get me wrong, I’m irreverant and a scoundrel, but I love “Heysus” and the church, I’m just a sarcastic sinner, Forgive me, but the pope is only a man and my great friend “Heysus” he didn’t wear a funny hat.

She’s here now, I took a little break to get the pork chops going and she’s watching them now, she respects my little online diary and doesn’t interfere if I’m putting my thoughts down. I love that little woman, the best woman I’ve ever known and if we can get past the land mines that have temporarily blown us apart in the past, I will be glad to have her as my lifelong one and only and if so, I would be a very lucky, lucky man.

I don’t want my ex wife, nor Caroline, nor any of the one nighters, nor that “ditsy” blond who I had one date with and she can’t get the message even though I told her plainly I’m back with my woman and I’m her man and no one elses. We have had our problems, but when it’s good, it’s like nothing else. She knows my soul and I embrace hers.

Now a flamenco/jazz tune. She loves to dance and I’ll be putting the CD in after dinner to see her body move and do my best to flow with her, she had years of lessons, I only have inner rhythm. I love my little 5 foot tall woman, but you’ll never see me try to do that Irish dancing she does. My body’s art is the Kung Fu. I’m limber and can easily do the splits and be back up in an eyes blink, but the whole Irish dance stuff, thats her bag not mine. And I can play the flamenco and jazz, but she knows from her heart how to move to it, so I just follow. But hey, I know my way around the mosh pit.

Now that  sexy tune by B-Tribe, enjoy,

I’m quite F*-ed up. Ive been drinking all day and eating the pills like candy and even smoked the rest of my Amber’s green stuff, But I can keep my head, I’m a pro by now at being fucked up and hiding it.

We have to go to her parents house for dinner tonight once she gets here. I like them both. Mary is one of the best women I’ve ever met and Sean is a fucking radical, similar to me. Us reds always find each other.

She’ll be here pretty soon so time for some music. First to get my North Florida, white trash roots out, Tuesday’s Gone.

Now, a little tune that always gets wiped out by me every time I post it, but not this time, Three Days Grace, Animal I Have Become. A perfect picture of the dark side of a Bi Polar manic phase, in which I live.

Now a tune for my ex wife Anji, I Don’t Care, by Apocalyptica

Did you know there’s a 20-year limit on relationships? Have you noticed that high school sweethearts usually break up when they hit that 20-year mark? Or that sometimes people who marry late in life find everlasting love? That’s because of love’s expiration date on relationships. So, you have to decide if you want to be with someone in your twenties until they hit their mid-life crisis, or would you rather bask in their golden years. It’s rare nowadays, to find couples whose relationships transcend a lifetime.

Relationships in our early years are fraught with Dateface. It’s not until our forties that we’re comfortable with pulling off the Dateface, which can lead to pain and strife for any relationship.

For more information, visit DateFaceOff.com

27 years on planet earth and no ones kicked this woman off yet, throwing my heels and purse behind me. That’s kind of an accomplishment yeah? I’ll go with yeah. “They” (those that are “they”) say 27 is a hard year. I spoke with one of “they” a 34-year-old dude who was in my evening religious studies class in college. He said, “27 is a hard one. You start evaluating what you thought your life would be like and what it is. More often than not people are disappointed with what it is.” Nineteen and naïve I asked, “Why?” He said, “Well you find that things you wanted to accomplish in life are a lot harder to accomplish than you thought and maybe even you’ve missed your boat to success.” My thoughts at 19? “Lose the windbreaker old man and I’ll buy you a shot with my fake ID…you need one.”

 But, in all honesty when I turned 27-yesterday morning I did wake up with an “itch”. A discontentment if you will. I would like to pawn it off straight to my father for repeatedly telling me over the past 4 months…”You gotta get pregnant HonestChitChat! Women who have children after 30 have a higher risk of developing ovarian cancer. I am worried about you getting cancer. (He lets out a dramatic sigh of dissaproval and scratches his head as if I have passed my itch to him… like this…cute huh? )I am worried about you getting cancer. Leave it to daddy to put, cancer, sex and mortality all in the same sentence. Then there’s that AMAZING children’s book I wrote that’s been rejected from 5 publishers….the writing career I’m sitting on….the charity that’s taking a gazillion years for me to start up with the articles of incorporation sitting in a lawyers office…the fact that I don’t have a “career” but starting today 4 part time jobs….and no home boy to say, “honey I’m home!” to. My itch is turning into a rash.

 Cause like what if there really is a bald spot on the back of my head that’s grossing out potential suitors, that no body is telling me about? What if my writing is just more Internet commotion adding to the loco motion? What if my inability to focus in an office environment of fluorescent lights and wear khaki pants and collared shirts 4 days a week keeps me in 4 part time jobs with no health insurance! OMG! I feel the need for an anti-biotic. What kind of freakin’ life is that right?…I guess it would be my 27 year old life and ya know, now that I think about it….. that ain’t so bad. I mean I’m not advocating no health insurance (BTW Obama baby…make it happen) But, I am saying there comes a point in all of our lives that we need to take full responsibility for our birds nest and the twigs that it is. (I’m still itchy!)

 When I was a little honestchitchat with pigtails and white pinafores I used to take loooooooooong drives all over the place with my mom and dad. One day we were driving in Downtown LA. (Where when I needed to go to the bathroom they would pull over, grab a newspaper to cover my caboose and tell me to go in the gutter of Sunset Boulevard, but that’s another story) I started getting nauseous from the up and down from the potholes in the street I asked my mom, “Why are they always fixing the streets in Newport Beach when they are already fixed and not fixing these streets? These streets need them more. My stomach hurts mom.” My mom laughed at my observation and looked at me in the rear view mirror and said, “Tax dollars cutie. The people in Newport make more money and are taxed more so they can put more money into their own city.” I replied, “They should share with LA!” Mom’s reply, “That’s not how it works.”  What I gather from that conversation is, my life, my surroundings are the result of how much time and work I put into my goals. No one else can change my life, but me. If I was to guess, I would say that the itch derives from the the thought, “Man I still have more work to do? When can I just move to Costa Rica, drink my pina colada, write for ½ the day and lay out for the rest?” Maybe the itch would have some reprieve if it got that super cool ointment called “Man I still have a lot of work to do and dude, I’m so excited to do it!” I will not focus on the destination; instead I will enjoy the journey.

I will not focus on the destination; instead I will enjoy the journey.

I will not focus on the destination; instead I will enjoy the journey.

I will not focus on the destination; instead I will enjoy the journey.

I will not focus on the destination; instead I will enjoy the journey.

After decades of selling the boy-toy of choice for straight men of a certain age (and income), how is Harley-Davidson going to rediscover itself? A road trip to India, apparently.

A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal story this week lays out the rationale — growing middle and upper classes, aspiration for classic American luxury brands. Apparently it took the Great Recession for Harley to figure out what the rest of the world has known about and been chasing for years — new money in BRIC.

When the “Easy Rider” image of Harley outsider rebel chic has been supplanted by the doughy, affluent sadness of “Wild Hogs,” something is terribly, terribly wrong.

As Rick Barrett recently noted in his Harley enthusiast blog for the JS:

Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycle sales are rumbling along in low gear as the riding season winds down across much of the country and consumers continue to be cautious in their spending.

From October through early November, sales of new Harleys were down 25% to 30% from a year ago, according to a motorcycle dealership survey released Monday by Robert W. Baird & Co.

Used bike sales fell just 7%, as they were less affected by the recession, the report notes.

Inventories of new Harleys increased even as the motorcycle company slashed production. The average U.S. Harley-Davidson dealership had 54 bikes in September, up from 38 a year earlier, the Baird report says.

“Most dealers are disappointed with low levels of marketing/advertising and a lack of Harley promotions,” Baird analyst Craig Kennison wrote in his analysis of the survey.

Still, the Baird report anticipates a turnaround for the company in 2011. Based on what? Harley’s aging demographic in its core U.S. market? Lower incomes and lower marginal propensity to consume? The Baird report apparently does not say. And we all know how accurate and reliable the analysis of sell-side investment firms has been over the past several years.