Rockin' it alphabetically ...

... that's what my fam and I have been doing lately, rockin' my iPod shuffle alphabetically, and it's awesome. It takes about four or five days to get through all 309 songs, all 16.8 hours, but it's something challenging and fun that Natasha and I can get really into. We start off usually some early morning listening to the last song on my iPod ... Wyclef Jean doing a kick ass job rap-singing "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. From there, we set it on alphabetical and let the iPod reset itself to the first song, "Baudelaire" by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead who have the first major collection of four or more songs and the last major one until you get down to the Beatles.

This morning, however, I am rockin' it alphabetically in the kitchen while making pancakes for my daughter Emerald while my other daughter Isabela sleeps in my bed with my wife Natasha. The song that's currently playing is "Crowning of a Heart" and it's the perfect match to my mood, wired and tired and lazy and happy and sad and frightened and excited and nervous and horny and hungry and proud, all rolled up in a little ball of sunday morning. Now it's "Summer of '91" which I believe is about how your memories of the past aren't correct, that the past was never as happy as you remember it to be. That's something I personally need to keep reminding myself.

How did my life change so fast? How, in three short years, did I go from drunk little depression machine wasting away at the dirt bar to happily married with two kids? I have no idea how it happened but it did and I look at the pictures on my laptop now and it's like I'm having an out of body experience wondering how I got into those photos. I have no idea how it happened that I would find a woman and make her my wife. But I'm glad it happened. More than glad. Eternally grateful, actually, that a woman, ANY woman, would find me so less annoying that they wouldn't mind spending the rest of their lives with me.

AFI is next, followed by the Alice in Chains song from "Clerks." I'm not a major fan of AFI. In fact, I don't even think I'd classify myself as a fan. But this album and this music is the music that would serenade Natasha and myself when we first met, staying up until two or three in the morning just sitting in her car and listening to AFI and Bill Hicks and Tenacious D. Just sitting and talking and confessing and unknowingly forming a love that would last forever (and doing a little flip flip hoopety hop, but that's a secret ...) So because of that AFI has a coveted few spots on my playlist. It brings me back to spring oh-three doing bad things in the parking lot of work. And falling in love.

Emerald is sitting across from me on the breakfast table. She is eating the pancakes I made her. I know how to make pancakes. In fact, while I was making them Emerald told me that I made the best pancakes in the world. I feel a strange surge of pride from that. My sleeping schedule has been thrown out of whack. Again. I'm going to sleep between one and three am and waking up between eight and nine every morning. The morning parts, however, I wouldn't trade for the world. Emerald wakes me up every morning and I make her breakfast and watch cartoons with her and play with her. It's great, spending these mornings with Emerald and spending these evenings with Natasha..

I feel like the luckiest man in the world. It's awesome.