S.O.S. (Save Our Summer), or, I dream of Joe Brainard.

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Beau Adams in 4-D

This is the year that nearly everyone I knew when I was fifteen will turn forty. I turned forty last week. To be truthful, forty is just as arbitrary as any other number, but it seems like a person should have something to say about it, so here goes:

I spent the first thirty years of my life trying to do what adults told me would make me happy, and I've spent the last ten years trying to unravel that. But you can't skip past the first part of that development. You can't kick down a door you've never seen.

God is real and so is Science. They're actually both the same thing: Human Beings struggling to make sense out of a world that scares them nearly to death everyday.

If you don't think Science is real, then you split an atom using only the Bible and prayer. If you don't think God is real, then explain Leon Russell.

My job as a human changes all the time. My job right now is to create an environment where my family can feel safe, secure and confident. What they do in that environment is their job.

If you want to change your perspective you should move to a part of the world where you've never been. If you want to change every single thing about the way you view the world and watch all of your most precious previously held beliefs evaporate, you should stay put and have a child.

I think the best thing I can do as a parent is say "Yes" a lot more than I say "No." This is not easy for me.

I think we should be more openly emotional. You can either show your emotions or you can bottle them up, but they're not going to stay in there forever. They will show up with a vengeance.

When I look back on my life, I have gotten almost everything out of it that I dreamed about when I was a child, but none of it came about the way I envisioned and most of it took a lot longer than I expected.

Writing is how I make sense of the world. When I didn't write I was as lost as I have ever been.

Everyone's doing their best, even if their best really sucks.

Everyone should be in therapy all of the time.

I attract a lot more attention from being quiet than I ever did by being loud.

I'm not great at being a friend, but I'm working on it.

People are a lot more interesting once they've had the stuffing knocked out of them a few times; Then you can see what they're made of.

On my best day, I'm as good as Fitzgerald, Maugham or Vonnegut. On my worst I'm as good as an Econ Major in Freshman Comp. I don't let either one get to me too much.

It's really hard not to buy into what people think you are when they think you have talent.

If you can be your authentic self for more than ten minutes a day, you're beating most of the human race.

I used to think that the answer was moving to the mountains. Now I know the answer is acting the way I acted when I was in their shadows.

If I don't laugh and cry (sometimes from laughter) during a day, it kind of seems like a waste.

Sometimes you have to wait for the ones you love to come around - believe me, they're doing the same for you.

Success is my son running toward me, arms spread wide and smiling, as I walk home from work.

It's still amazing to me that human beings can do things like play the piano, dance or paint.

Too much of writing is verbal gymnastics. Showing off isn't the point, the story is where it's at.

The economy is only as good or bad as you think it is. I've been rich during the worst of economic times and dirt poor when it seemed like everyone was making money. It had a lot more to do with where my head was at than it did with anything that was happening on the stock exchange floor.

Sometimes you need help. It might be a pill, or a friend, or a well constructed piece of music, but you need it.

I often feel pessimistic about human beings in specific but optimistic about them in general.

Most of the time I find that a cold beer and a friend is the best that it gets.

Spending money on experiences is a much easier decision for me than spending money on things.

I am fortunate to have so many brilliant women in my life. For a variety of reasons, women are really where it's at.

Okies are tough sons-a-bitches. There is little that is easy about living here, yet for the most part, people are pleasant to one another.  That's what makes Oklahomans so beautiful.

I don't know if men and women were really meant to live together for an extended amount of time, but I admire the fact that we keep trying.

For the most part, the people in my life have been very forgiving of my insanity. I often feel like I have used up a good deal of the grace afforded me.

We really treat women, LGBT's, minorities, children, the disabled, the mentally challenged and the elderly poorly in this country. I hate this about us. I know it could be worse and in other countries it is, but it could be better too.

The sweetest word to my ear is, "Dad."

"This is Water" is one of the most transformative speeches I have ever heard.

Riding is better than driving and walking is better than both.

Confrontation is still one of the most frightening concepts to me.

I don't think there's much qualitative difference between painting, writing a poem or cooking a dinner for people you love.

To be sure, I love the people in my life more than they will ever know and more than I will ever be able to communicate to them.

When I was thirty I had a lot of time and very few interesting people to spend it with. Now that I am forty, the opposite is true.

Every human being is a walking contradiction. The trick isn't to suppress the parts you don't like about yourself, but to embrace them.

There's always enough to go around.

I can't wait to read these years from now and see how wrong I was.

- Beau at Forty