There is no way to know what our scorecard is going to say at the end of our round, when all of the minutes of regulation have drained from the clock. There will certainly be a lot of red pencil marking all of our mistakes. We've always braced ourselves with the knowledge that we're mostly not great at this, but that no one is, really. We deal with long days, and with our apostrophes, with those we think we can count on and love, with those who count on us and with all of the many feelings that come into the storyline in a way that's always a bit of a fumble. We do let our skin and our needy heart get the better of us too often. We hand over the wheel and when we wind up hydroplaning or worse yet, in the ditch, we know where the blame belongs. Without even a drop in our systems, we're driving these vessels drunk all the damned time.
Denver's Esme Patterson has written a gorgeous new batch of songs that encourages all of us -- but most especially ladies -- to flush the silly, contrived notions of love and men right out of their systems. "That man ain't worth the time he would take," she sings, insisting that chasing one of those stupid creatures is a folly. You need one of those sneaky snakes like you need a flood, or a house fire. There's just going to be a lot of cleanup to take care of when all is said and done, after all of the spinning's stopped and you're able to bring it back to some kind of tranquility. You should do what you can to limit the red pencil's strokes.