This is a poem I wrote about my love of stargazing out here in the country where we have a good view of the nighttime sky.

UNDER THE STARS

Through the darkness I walk, to the place on high,
to see the stars stretch across the sky

In the solitude of my thoughts
I am alone
I spread a blanket across the stones
Yet I look up like so many have looked up before
From cold Siberia to Tahitian shore

To see the stars play out their lives
across this black canvas of midnight sky

If only to know the countless dreams
that have been wished upon this starry scene

To see the galaxies spin away
is to bring me to the very day
that I was created from stardust
and you, a shooting star

A comet's glow
The nebula's faint cry
they weave their magic across the sky

Oh, starry night
I cast my dreams unto you
Then fall asleep in the glow
of a rising crescent moon....

"Under The Stars" Copyright: 2005; Scott Scarborough

For those of you who are regular readers you will recall the crazy neighbor buying a gorgeous yet kind of goofy white shepherd named "Morona" a few weeks back. The dog basically set up camp here at our house and refused to leave.... Well, I guess my neighbor grew tired of not having his new dog around his house so he bought a post and a chain for the dog. I felt so bad for the animal, because it would hear our voices and would just wail pitifully about being restrained on the chain.

Well, I was out of town for some time today and when I returned I was told by one of the kids that the poor puppy was found dead under the neighbor's porch today.

DAMMIT!

I was beginning to grow very fond of the puppy. I walked over to their house and asked what the hell happened and they were kind of disinterested in the whole conversation, so I just left, shaking my head.

How did this dog die?

No water maybe?

Secret thinks maybe a snakebite.

I feel so bad about that poor puppy.

We should have just bought it from them and gave it a loving home.

Sad..... just plain sad.

As a chronic insomniac I am often awake in the small hours of the morning, usually reading or surfing the www or just staring at the ceiling wondering why God didn't answer my pleas for sleep to inhabit my tired mind and body. I enjoy the quiet of the nights here though. It's a time when the cacophony of the house dies down and there is a stillness throughout the home that feeds my need for solitude and quiet. It's a time I can sit and create without feeling guilty that there might be something else I could be doing with Secret or the kids. An average night for me will run well after midnight and I will occasionally put on coffee and pull an allnighter just to prove to myself that I can still do it.

The best thing about the quiet is how it lets my thoughts gather themselves together in more cohesive patterns than when I am dealing with alot of distractions and noise. My alone time at night let's me daydream against a blank wall without fear of being caught in another world. I will sit and read and then realize I need another book out of our bedroom and I will tiptoe as quiet as a mouse through the maze of cables and cords and music equipment in the bedroom to fetch my prize. It's as if I am a ghost gliding up and down the halls, the only light being the little nightlight in the hall that casts a spectral glow across my bare feet on the plush carpet....... I would make a good ghost. I like to roam at night. I like to check and recheck doors and maybe even go outside to have a look around the yard at any late night vistors such as a very large rabbit that I only see in the predawn and of course the frenetic diving of the bats.

The predawn is also a time that I am likely to be visited by those ghosts that haunt my soul. Some of these ghosts I know quite well, have been visited by them for many years. Some of these ghosts are people I used to know and love. Some of these ghosts have my own face, but are cartoonishly contorted to show my various agonies such as self doubt or shame or even jealousy. My mind can be a frightening place after two in the morning. I am an overthinker by nature and I take that zeal for playing mind games with myself to the limit. It can get scary! It's an overactive imagination gone wild with no one to intervene to stop me from looking in the mirror in the half light and seeing a face I don't always recognize as the pleasant and good humored man of sunny afternoons and busy evenings.

"You look too healthy" a ghost will whisper into my ear with it's icy breath.

"What, do you want me to die?" I will say in my head to my own troubled spirit, looking at me from deep within the mirror.

"We don't want you to leave us!" the ghost will snap.

"I'm too tired to do this anymore. I have exorcised you. Now, be gone!"

....and so the conversations will go on in my head.

I will read my Bible and dream of a protecting angel coming to lay waste to these apparitions from my past, present and possible futures.....

Then I will either write on my PC notepad or just read until I become possibly groggy enough to pass into rest.

Nights are a time for introspection, of negotiating with personal demons and ghosts to let me live free and happy. It's a time to pray, to meditate, and to finally fall asleep, hopefully before the silky grey of dawn rises up behind the house and spills into the hollow, bringing word that the sun and it's wash of unbearable yellow is not far behind.

But as for now, the crystalline sprinkling of stars fills the sky and my ghosts are afloat about me. It's the "middle of the night" for a few more hours.....

Sleep well, loved ones.

Sleep well.

Well another weekend has come and gone.... We got a good soaking from some thunderstorms on Saturday and the temps and humidity have backed off, luring us outdoors to enjoy the cooler air, and to watch the kids draw on the driveway with their sidewalk paint.

Secret got a massage this morning from me since her back was kind of hurting, and we have been goofing around alot this weekend. My favorite thing to do is to poke and pinch and just be a general nuisance until I try to force her to say "King Randy" to get me to stop, but she wont have any of that. She will squirm and twirl and grab whatever tender spots she can on her tormentor, until I relent. It's a real beating, I tells ya!

We worked in the yard. We watched movies together. We discussed a wide range of topics from theology to sexual depravity and seemed to enjoy eachother's company after what has been a stressful summer. Even couples that are deeply in love can have some space grow between them when things are too stressful and frantic all the time.

I feel good about life tonight. I have been reeling under various pressures for a while, but it seems like the worst is over and things are being set into motion that will bring more happiness and peace into our lives and our home.

I feel happy this evening and I will thank God tonight as I go to sleep for all the wonderful blessings in my life...

A great weekend in the hollow.

Help Me.

I cannot stop looking at this picture of the world's ugliest dog.

Here He......Er...IT is!!



And they say there is no God?????

What?



It's the middle of the night and I am up looking at THIS garbage!
This is the worst insomnia EVER!