Dude, Where's the Lime Blossom Tisane?

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it. - Vladimir Nabokov

It started with a post today on Feministe -- a blog I read fairly frequently (if not everyday). It was Mikey's post on madeleines. Starbucks' madeleines in cello-wrap, or shrink-wrap, or whatever one calls it, complete with pictures and a link to a very interesting Slate article on Proust's Belle Epoque madeleines and one man's attempt to reverse-engineer the recipe based upon hints in the famous madeleine-tea-Aunt Leonie's lime blossom tisane-Combray passage in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time (1).

This lead to some comments about the awfulness of Starbucks' pastries, and the awfulness of their coffee, and their mega-chain evilness (but still how it was oddly comforting to find this mega-chain when out of one's element). Even though I could have put in some digs about how I believe Starbucks is the Wal-Mart of coffee houses (2), my first thought was that I should go home and bake some madeleines. My second thought was I should then blog about it. One of the commentors mentioned that she had seen the madeleine-tea-memory reference many, many times, but only knew of one instance where madeleine was a recurring blog tag to mean "memories" (3). I strongly feel that madeleines require greater blog presence -- of any sort.

I actually own a madeleine pan. I bought it for myself after I first began reading Proust. I've made them only once before, but tonight I'll give it another go.

I'll take pictures, don't fret.

*******
(1) It is NOT translated to Remembrance of Things Past. That title was foisted on Proust's work when it was translated into English. That's actually a phrase that appears in Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 30.

(2) Sorry, but I live in Ann Arbor and frequent an independent coffee house where the owner knows me by sight and name as well as that I want a skim Abianno latte (no foam) every blessed workday morning, the only variation being whether said latte is a "double" or a "triple." None of this "venti" or "grande" B.S. If I ever utter the words "White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino," shoot me, because it won't be me but some pod-spawned alien.

(3) Upon a cursory review of the tagged posts, it looks to me like it means "digressions" or "opening up very large cans of worms," but that's only a cursory review. My reading list has just gotten longer. /sigh

Finally, Irises

I hate flowers. I paint them because they're cheaper than models, and they don't move.
-- Georgia O'Keefe

Considering the Vocabulary of Pain

I have been living with chronic pain for many years. I sit and try to calculate how many years it's been -- 17? 18? Less than half my life, but not by much. I've been searching for that H.L. Mencken quote for some time now. I can't recall it exactly, but it's along the lines of "pain doesn't ennoble a person; for the majority of men, pain makes one petty and mean." It was one of those quotes I should have written down at the time but never got around to and now I can't find it for the life of me. Bloody hell.

So I go looking, and I find all sorts of interesting quotes concerning pain, some of which I'm certain are written by people whose experience with physical pain is limited to a hangnail, splinter, or stubbed toe.

This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and ... if I think of human beings I’ve known and of my own life, such as it is, I can’t recall any case of pain which didn’t, on the whole, enrich life. --Malcolm Muggeridge

Should I even stoop to comment on the utter vacuity of this statement? Yeah, Malcolm, your own life -- such as it is. I take it you didn't get out much. I've been popping Vicodin like Tic-Tacs in order to enrich my life. Care if I slap you into the middle of next week?

Pain hardens, and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforters say, and suffering does not ennoble, though it may occasionally lend a certain rigid dignity of manner to the suffering frame. --Antonia S. Byatt

Rigid dignity? I take it Antonia never spent an evening biting into a pillow, trying not to scream, drenched in sweat and crying from exhaustion. "Dignity" is hardly the word I would have used to describe my suffering frame at that point. I do have to agree with "pain hardens," though. I am definitely much harder -- intolerant, cynical, bitter, judgmental. "Harder" does not necessarily equal "better."

Herein lies the problem of attempting to communicate or define the nature of a subjective experience. My experience of pain is unique to myself, as your experience is to you, as these writers' experiences are to them.

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can. --Victor Hugo

I reserve the right to mock these writers, despite that. Anyone who has been dealing with pain for years has a duty to mock them, as far as I'm concerned. Enriched life. Dignity. Meh.

Your Silence Will Not Protect You

I don't know if you've seen this little black button on other blogs today. If you click on it, it will take you to a site that tells you that we're supposed to not post on our blogs today in order to (a) support the 30+ people who died at Virginia Tech two weeks ago and/or (b) support, and I quote, "all the victims of our world."

Yeah, there's nothing quite like equating silence with victimhood to give me the warm fuzzies, let me tell you.

So, for all the battered, raped, sexually-trafficked and genitally-mutilated women in the world, let's be silent.

For all the children who go to bed hungry, let's be silent.

For all prisoners of conscience, let's be silent.

For all refugees displaced by armed conflict, let's be silent.

For all victims of torture, let's be silent.

For all the people in the United States who have to decide between paying for health care vs. paying for food, rent, or utilities, let's be silent.

For all of our dead, maimed and traumatized soldiers in Iraq, let's be silent.

For all the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, let's be silent.

For all the Iraqi and Afghani civilians murdered by our "collateral damage," let's be silent.

For all the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered people who must live in silence or face ostracism (or worse), let's be silent.

Silent my lily-white ass. Since I titled this post with a quote from Audre Lorde, I'll end it with one from her as well.

"Silence has never brought us anything of worth."

~

Don't Wake Me With So Much

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I`m awake, you know?
-- Ernest Hemingway

This was one of those Quotes of the Day that appear on the blog's sidebar. I'm not a huge Ernest Hemingway fan(1), but this one was worth keeping. It's not that I necessarily perceive my life as "falling apart," but that sleep is, what? Valued. Desired. Elusive.

I'm an insomniac. Well, part of it is insomnia and part of it is that I just prefer being awake in the small, liminal hours of the early morning. 3:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m. (2) I find it exquisitely restful to be awake at those hours. Nothing is moving. I can hear the highway in the distance. The birds haven't started their songs, and the air smells so different -- cleaner, rarefied.

Then there are the nights when I don't have the luxury of those hours. Nights prior to a working day, when I have to force myself into a noisy, diurnal schedule like everyone else. Bland days. Days I can't count as my own. The nights preceding those days are a struggle. Not all the time, not every night, but all too often I'll lay in bed and I'll still be awake at 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m., and it most definitely NOT exquisite nor restful and I begin to resent the waking world and how much time it takes away from me.

That's where the insomnia part comes in (you were wondering if I would every wander back to that topic, weren't you?).

One of my ways of helping myself fall asleep is to imagine myself elsewhere -- an Elsewhere where my time is my own to spend. My current Elsewhere is a bedroom in a cool, stone tower on a mountainside. It's wintertime. I imagine myself hearing the wind outside and the crackle and pop of a fireplace, and I tell myself that there are no clients or phones or schedules or lists of things to do tomorrow.

Then I sleep.

******
(1) I count Proust and Borges as my favorite authors. Compared to Proust's Byzantine prose and Borges' labyrinths, Hemingway is much too terse.

(2) Not getting up in the early morning, but staying awake to get there; they're completely different psychological states.

The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and (Wo)Men

I thought it was "best laid plans," but a search on a quotations site says it's "schemes."(1) Who am I to argue? In any event, this blog post is about knitted cat toys -- not Robert Burns' quotes.

Since I have a LOT of that Noro Big Kureyon 20 from My First Sweater remaining, I was thinking it would be an excellent color for a catnip mouse. I recalled seeing a catnip mouse pattern on the Wendy Knits web site, as well as in her book that I bought for myself after the Lenten Book Fast. (2) There were two patterns: one for a plain ol' garter stitch mouse, and one that had a cable in it. The Excruciatingly Easy Garter Stitch Catnip Mouse vs. The Sophisticated Cabled Catnip Mouse for the Debonair Cat-about-Town. Her words -- not mine.

I knew the garter stitch one would bore me to absolute tears, and I thought the more complicated one was worth a try because I could play around with knitting cables and not worry too much about how they looked. This would be for my cats, after all. If catnip is involved, they tend to be uncritical.

My first attempt was not pretty. The picture is in black and white because it shows the stitch pattern -- or utter lack of a stitch pattern -- better than in color. I remember reading that it was supposed to be a cable surrounded by two panels of seed stitch. Um, that ain't it. You can see some stockinette stitch in the upper right hand corner, and Lord only knows what's going on with that cable. It's been broken in two. [Yeah, yeah, I know it's a bad picture. Trust me. It doesn't show any more detail in the color versions.]

I went back to the web site to look at some of the photos other knitters had posted, and I found this one:

That is not seed stitch. That is so not seed stitch I could just spit. Looks like stockinette to me. Stockinette. Boring. Easy. No thought involved. If someone would have posted that it's two panels of stockinette (instead of two panels of seed stitch), I would have saved some time and aggravation -- not that I get very aggravated with the knitting. Much. I know I'm a beginner and that I learn from making mistakes, etc., etc. /sigh

I'm thinking that I should save my first attempt at making cables for posterity. Years from now I will look back at it and laugh. I hope. I had better be laughing.


************
(1)

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

(The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
oft go awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!)"

--Robert Burns

For some reason, I'm remembering that the first two lines of this poem appeared in one of our grade school reading books, but it was the version with the Scottish vernacular. I can't recall anything about the story, but I think a mouse was quoting. Or a cat. 'Tis a puzzlement.

(2) I give up buying books for Lent every year. I've been doing that for a while, so it's become less of a deprivation over time. This year I gave up books and yarn.

~

Digressions, Leaps and Tangents; How My Mind Works (if One Would Call it “Working”); and More Footnotes. Forth Eorlingas!

So, reading Crazy Aunt Purl's post about books, and children's books, and thinking about how many of us who commented had strong emotional bonds to our books (whether in our childhood or now), sorta/kinda led me to this very long and strange digression.

My childhood book was Johnny Go Round. Gramma Fran would read it to my twin brother and me several times a day. I think we liked it because (1) it had a cat in it, and (2) there was a brother/sister pair that looked like they were twins, too. I never know what happened to our original copy. Mom mentioned several years ago that she couldn't locate it, even though she thought she had saved it somewhere. So, Johnny Go Round vanished.

A few years back, I was talking to one of my co-workers about childhood books, and mentioned Johnny. She had asked if I had ever searched for it online. I had, but my searches weren't fruitful. A few minutes after I returned to my desk, she had sent me an email with a link to a used book seller in Pennsylvania, saying “Is this it?” It was. I called the bookseller immediately and had it sent to me at the office. When I opened up the package and saw that oh-so-familiar cover, I just wept.

And now on to the digressions. Going back to read further comments on her blog post, I discovered a few Lovecraft related ones, and sent an email to one of the commenters about the H.P. Lovecraft Fan Club and the walking tour of Providence they do on his birthday, which ends in a reading at his grave site (click here, too). I have wanted to do this for years (and I didn't even know there was such a club or an event). I must go. I see myself in the Providence graveyard, reading The Cats of Ulthar and getting choked up.(1)

Thinking of Lovecraft led to thinking of Lord Dunsany, and thinking that I needed to find that quote about throwing things of value out of a burning house. Reading the last paragraph of the quote led to thinking I should type up the entire thing; so here it is:

Preface to the Last Book of Wonder

Ebrington Barracks
August 16, 1916

I do not know where I may be when this preface is read. As I write it in August 1916, I am at Ebrington Barracks, Londonderry, recovering from a slight wound. But it does not greatly matter where I am; my dreams are here amongst the following pages; and writing in a day when life is cheap, dreams seem to me all the dearer, the only things that survive.

Just now the civilization of Europe seems almost to have ceased, and nothing seems to grow in her torn fields but death, yet this is only for a while and dreams will come back again and bloom as of old, all the more radiantly for this terrible ploughing, as the flowers will bloom again where the trenches are and the primroses shelter in shell-holes for many seasons, when weeping Liberty has come home to Flanders.(3)

To some of you in America this may seem an unnecessary and wasteful quarrel, as other people's quarrels often are; but it comes to this that though we are all killed there will be songs again, but if we were to submit and so survive there could be neither songs nor dreams, nor any joyous free things any more.

And do not regret the lives that are wasted among us, or the work that the dead would have done, for war is no accident that man's care could have averted, but it is as natural, though not as regular, as the tides; as well regret the things that the tide has washed away, which destroys and cleanses and crumbles, and sparest the minutest shells.

And now I will write nothing further about our war, but offer you these books of dreams from Europe as one throws things of value, if only to oneself, at the last moment out of a burning house.

Which leads to a digression on the “necessity” of war which Dunsany seems to imply.

This current war in the Middle East is far from necessary. American soldiers are dying for no good reason whatsoever. George Bush is a lying sack of excrement and a murderer. But I can't follow this digression, since it makes me far too angry. Far too angry.

* * * * *

(1) Why this emotional outpouring? It happens to me all too often; I cry at the drop of a hat it seems. A recent case in point – watching the Lord of the Rings movies. I cry when the beacons of Gondor are lit. I cry when the Rohirrim arrive at Minas Tirith (2)(4). There is something that resonates with me – a courage I can not even hope to achieve myself, though I wish it.

(2) Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now, ride to Gondor!

Yeah, I've got The Return of the King at my desk as I type this. Forth Eorlingas!

(3) When I looked up the entire text of the poem, “In Flanders Fields,” I was sorely disappointed by the last stanza. When I first heard the first stanza recited, in some movie, as an anti-war sentiment, it was moving; but if you read the entire poem, it's a rationalization for further bloodshed.

(4) Even my footnotes have footnotes. Woot!

More Quotes, and Knitting, and Knitting Quotes

I've been in a "knitting mood" recently. I'm certain the return to freezing temperatures and snow flurries has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this "knitting mood." Nah. Note to the Powers That Be: Huh-LO. It's APRIL down here and it's really about time this foolish snowing business ended for the year.

So, knitting. I'm working on a funnel neck sweater(from this book) in Noro Big Kureyon Color 20 (discontinued). I have one sleeve and one back/front panel finished, and am feverishly working on Sleeve Number Two. As much as I love the colorway (cream, taupe, sienna, brown, grey, black), I'm already thinking about doing another sweater in a solid color (matching yarn colors when I have to start a new skein is, frankly, a bitch).

And so, whilst perusing my knitting books looking for a sweater pattern, I stumble across all the quotes that just tickled me from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears.

Emergency knobs for double-pointed needles may be made from tightly wound rubber bands, or from those rubber needle guards which are never to be found when wanted. Dorothy Case links her needle guards with wool; then they can both get lost together.

***

A #6 aluminum needle has been known to furnish an excellent emergency shearpin for an outboard motor. It once saved us seven miles of paddling. Then I had to spend hours re-pointing the needle on rocks, having nobly, but foolishly, offered the business end instead of the knob end for sacrifice.

***

Really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage.

***

There is no right way to knit; there is no wrong way to knit. The way to knit is the way that suits you, and the way that suits the wool and the pattern and the shape that you are currently working on. Show me any "mistake" and I will show you that it is only a misplaced pattern or an inappropriate technique. There are patterns that include dropped stitches and twisted stitches. There are projects which should be as tight as you can possibly knit; there are others where you have to relax to the point of lethargy in order to make them loose enough. I've not yet found a pattern which includes a split stitch; this is the only real mistake I know.

Elizabeth Zimmerman died before I knew that she once was one of the doyennes of the knitting world. A shame it took me so long to discover her; I truly like her style.

Taking the Big Dirt Nap, and Penguins

When you find yourself looking at your books on death and dying, and:

decide that it's time to divide them into three categories (general, forensics [anthropological and psychological], and those relating to prisons and the death penalty);

realize that forensics should be divided further between physical forensics and psychological forensics -- e.g. rates of decomposition vs. profiling unsubs -- and should you shelf them that way?

realize that "general" includes everything from societal attitudes towards dying to end-of-life care to early 19th century resurrectionists;

and further realize that you should include Lynch's book Bodies at Motion and at Rest: Essays;

and that you knew who Lynch is;

and that you didn't have enough room on one shelf for all the death books;

and that the graphic/comic The Big Book of Death was one selected to be shelved flat on top of the others, together with The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers;

It gives one pause. I paused for five full minutes staring blankly at the bookshelf.

I've decided that there's no way I can deal with all my non-fiction in one day.

I've decided that curling up with The Worst Journey in the World or Scott's Last Expedition -- The Journals and a pint of Ben & Jerry's sounds mighty good right now.

I've decided I should post that quote from Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the one that ends his book:

And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man you will do nothing: If you are fearful, you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, "What is the use?" For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: That is worth a great deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.

Pain We Obey

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey. -Marcel Proust

I've been dealing with chronic pain from endometriosis for 15+ years. A little more than that, maybe. I can't say that my pain is my constant companion. It comes and goes. Today is one of those "comes" days. I carry tension in my jaw, clench my hands so tightly my fingernails leave dents in my palms. No great insights today, folks; just thought I would share my favorite Proust quote. Even in agony I can be pretentious. It's a gift.

Molly Ivins

I just heard that Molly Ivins passed away (62, breast cancer). I know y'all know Molly, the woman who concocted Dubya's nickname "The Shrub." I'm sure she and Ann Richards are having a good talk right about now.

I found this in a tribute to Molly. I think this is how I want to remember her:

For a woman who made a profession of offering her opinion to others, Molly was remarkably humble. She was known for hosting unforgettable parties at her Austin home, which would feature rollicking political discussions, and impromptu poetry recitals and satirical songs. At one such event, I noticed her dining table was littered with various awards and distinguished speaker plaques, put to use as trivets for steaming plates of tamales, chili and fajita meat. When I called this to her attention, Molly matter-of-factly replied, "Well, what else am I going to do with 'em?"

From Anthony Zurcher's "Molly Ivins Tribute"

Comforts on a Monday

A long day. A long week. It's time to get back in the habit of five-day work weeks. So, after a long, cold, wintery day of clients, I get a hot bath with eucalyptus oil (I feel a cold coming on) and The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft. I know I have another copy lurking around the house somewhere; I just couldn't find it when I needed to reread "At the Mountain of Madness," so I bought another copy. Sue me.

Anyhow, hot baths, Lovecraft, and a lovely quiet evening ahead of me, and I stumble across this:

There is a party game at which we are asked, "If David Letterman had a vanity license plate, what would it say?" "If Betty Boop were real, what would she eat?" "If H.P. Lovecraft were a comic book, which would it be?" The last is the only one I can answer, but I do know that. H.P. Lovecraft would be The Sandman. "Comic book" is, of course, a poor description of The Sandman, and "graphic novel" isn't much closer; which fits perfectly, because none of the labels pinned on Lovecraft -- I mean the labels meant to pigeonhole his magnificent stories -- describe him very well. He was certainly not a pulp writer, merely one whose works appeared in a pulp magazine. Nor was he a horror writer, though there are horrors to be found in his stories now and then, especially if one does not look for them. Rather he was a tall and lonely man with many friends, whose soul dwelt in a haunted place beyond the world, a man who walked by night and always walked alone: a lord of dreams. A song of Lovecraft's time says that dreams come true in Blue Hawaii, but those are daydreams and too often they don't. C.S. Lewis has a bit in which people visit a region where dreams (real dreams like Lovecraft's and ours) actually do come true; and those people return white and shaken. They were lucky, I think -- very lucky to return at all through the gates of horn and ivory, the gates that are opened, sometimes, by the silver key.

What do you think, Mr. Carter?

-- Gene Wolfe

Anyone who knows me and my "comic book" reading habits will understand why I smile at this.

I Just Love Quoting People

I don't think I'm entertaining enough on my own, so I like to use other peoples' words -- a lot. I found the following in the latest issue of The Sun Magazine (January 2007):

Why do you only hear bad news about LSD? It's always the same story about some idiot who thought he could fly, so he jumped out a fifty-story window. Why don't we ever hear this news story? "Today a young man took LSD and realized that ego is an illusion and that we are all part of the universe experiencing itself subjectively; that death is just another journey; and love is the only reality. And now, here's sports." -- Bill Hicks

I have absolutely fallen in love with The Sun, and will probably keep a subscription for as long as I live, or as long as it lives (I certainly hope it outlives me). Their "Readers Write" feature has an upcoming topic -- "Airports" -- that I want to write about, mainly my recurring dream/nightmare of trying to catch a plane and never making it, or getting caught up in absurd delays. I don't know of anyone else who has recurring airport dreams.


Oh, and as long as I'm here, rambling aimlessly, let's have a gratuitous cat picture. Sorry it's so blurry. A Certain Someone was sitting on my dominant hand. He really isn't that fat; he's just sort of in Amoeba-Cat mode where he splooches out all over whatever horizontal surface upon which he, um, splooches. Note that HE is the one with the expression of long-suffering tolerance. "(Sigh) When will the Stupid Human Girl pay attention to my Glorious Cat-ness? Hey, I'm being CUTE here, Human!"

I (heart) Archie McPhee

I've shown you the 17-inch rubber vulture (Edgar), but I now have over 2 feet of disturbingly realistic foam rubber rodent! His name (currently -- it might change in the future) is Charles Dexter Rat (from HPL's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward). He's atop the computer case at the moment.

We got a whole bunch of Archie McPhee toys today, and the rat was just one of the goodies. Another was the Oscar Wilde Action Figure (chipmunk sold separately -- at Target):

Lots of excellent Wilde quotes on the back of the package:

I'm not young enough to know everything.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

I do believe that Oscar needs to come out of the package and be photographed in various action shots with my Sigmund Freud action figure, and perhaps the glow-in-the-dark, squeaky octopus.

And some people fritter their lives away watching television.

Well, Duh... and Another Cat Picture

You Belong in Paris

You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris. You're the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.

What European City Do You Belong In?

I need to get back to Europe. About every four to five years I begin to get underwhelmed with this so-called American culture.(1) Mini-malls, 238 channels of cable television, Starbucks (the Walmart of Coffee Houses), Fox News, u.s.w. The Husband and I are planning a trip to the British Isles this fall (we got our passport pictures taken today), but I could seriously handle another jaunt in the City of Lights. /sigh.

In any event, the main purpose of this blog entry was not to have me sigh over baguettes and Le Tour Eiffel, but to post a Cat Picture. A Cat Picture of a DIFFERENT CAT. So, I present in all his glory, Mr. Gregor KafkaCat:


Gregor's Nicknames:
1. Mr. G
2. Mr. Squeakypants
3. Daichi Neko (big number one cat)
4. Boogercookie (This is relatively new, and has a rather lengthy explanation behind it that I'm not even going to begin to attempt)
5. Mama's Boy

**************************
(1) I feel another Gandhi quote coming on:

Interviewer to M. Gandhi: What's your opinion of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

My Resolution is 1280 x 960, Thank You; and Thinking About Dead Dictators

Happy New Year.

First things first.

Well, it's been a while now since the Iraqis hanged Saddam Hussein. One day? Two? In any event, I've been avoiding the coverage of it, and the photos on Yahoo's Most Popular, u.s.w.(1), but it's hard NOT to see something about it on the Internet news.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Hussein was evil and guilty of atrocious war crimes, but the idea of celebrating the execution of a man nauseates me. In my mind, given Saddam's megalomania, it would have been a far worse punishment to keep him alive for the rest of his natural life, in an environment that kept him from the public eye -- in an environment guaranteed to keep him out of sight and as obscure and voiceless as possible -- than it would be to kill him outright.

But people don't think about these things. Most people have the moral development of your average three-year-old playing in the sandbox -- "Well, Timmy hit me so I get to hit him back. That's only fair."

I'm tempted to quote Gandhi, but I'm sure I'm mis-quote. It's something along the lines of "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

So, for all of you people of arrested moral development celebrating the killing of a man, let it be known that I'm of the firm opinion that you not only do you have an IQ that hovers around the same digits as room temperature (Fahrenheit or Celsius, your choice), you're about as emotionally and intellectually advanced as your average slime mold. I've known plates deeper than you.


* * * * * * * * * * *
(1) u.s.w. Und so weiter. It's et cetera in German. I get tired of typing etc. all the time.

* * * * * * * * * * *

To hell with the real world. Let's have a cute cat picture. Love you, Tom.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

I have a very non-drama-filled life. In fact, it could accurately be described as "boring." Now, while I do suffer from insomnia, chronic pain, and depression, I really don't have any crises going on and I'm able to handle what life throws at me with considerable aplomb (What an awesome word -- "aplomb." I'm going to type it a few more times because it's such a cool word. Aplomb, aplomb, aplomb). Big worries in my life right now include Christmas cards, visible skin tags, cats that have started peeing on the basement floor, and more projects involving yarn than I can possibly complete in a reasonable period of time (and yet, I still buy more yarn; what's up with that?).

I simply don't have the energy to live my life as if it was a made-for-TV movie (and if I did, I would ask that I be played by Susan Sarandon or Nicole Kidman, thank you, even though Nicole is much taller -- and Susan a tad bit older -- than I am in Real Life).

Today involves the following: Buying a Christmas tree; cleaning the living room in the preparation of the arrival of said Christmas tree; finding my Christmas decorations in the basement; and eating The Husband's meatloaf. Yesterday was knitting, the Moscow Cats Theater, and coney dogs (with mustard).



I love my life. No crises.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Typing stuff for the sake of typing stuff (I tend to do this a lot):

On Reading Lord Dunsany's Book of Wonder
by H.P. Lovecraft

The hours of night unheeded fly,
And in the grate the embers fade;
Vast shadows one by one pass by
In silent daemon calvacade.

But still the magic volume holds
The raptur'd eye in realms apart,
And fulgent sorcery enfolds
The willing mind and eager heart.

The lonely room no more is there --
For to the sight in pomp appear
Temples and cities pois'd in air
And blazing glories -- sphere on sphere.