What Would Willie Do

You can't really live in Austin without allowing that Willie Nelson is the owner of a great deal of wisdom and life lessons. A guy named Gary Allan has recently made a buck or two off of said presumption. I'm mentioning here, not because I'm actually in Austin (I am not), but because sometimes you need to look to a sage or a power beyond yourself for insight.

I am miles from Texas and the closest thing I'm seen to Willie is a photo of the first Bush president hanging on the wall of a seafood restaurant the had an entire gift shop full of lobster stuff. Would you believe?

Anyway, family vacations are not my favorite times. I look for(search, beg, create through questionable means)the opportunity to spend quiet time on my own. I tend to believe that sharing a single bathroom, a single car, sharing a room, and having dinner together every night is more than enough togetherness for a family where all the kids are grown ups, even if they are not treated as such.

My parents took the opportunity (my first visit home in nearly a year) to independently discuss my character flaws and failures as a human being. I guess they felt my self esteem might be too high with all this unemployment and homelessness happening. They guessed it! I was feeling pretty proud of myself! If only I could have managed to throw in an unplanned pregnancy with a complete stranger!! That would have been the trifecta!!

On the up side, after explaining all this (the double teaming) to my sister over frozen hot chocolates (proof enough for me that a higher power must exist), she is cutting me some much needed slack.

As for Willie...

You know sometimes I wonder when I ain't gettin' nowhere
What would old Willie do when it all gets too much to bear
And I can see him on his lonely old tour bus
And he's got his problems just like any of us
Well he'd just take a deep breath and then he'd let it all go
And he'd take another deep breath and let it all go
And he'd take another deep breath...and he'd hold it
Ah and I bet he'd feel hungry in a way that seems strange
Yeah hungry for all the things that he just can't change
Like the time he passed out in is own bedroom
And his wife sewed him up in the sheets and beat him with a broom and he forgave her
And you think that's rough, well then the IRS came and they took away all of his stuff
They took his golf course and his recording studio, and he just went out and did another show
So when it's all coming down on you
You better ask yourself what would Willie do