Beauty

Two things are bad for the heart -- running up stairs and running down people.

~ Bernard Baruch

- - - - -

This place was abandoned. The wood was in rough shape, the stairs only sort of led somewhere, but not really. There was an old barrel and holes in the foundation and the side of the building where wood and brick had fallen away.

Even so, flowers grew by these steps. I thought that was beautiful. Sort of this message that beauty is everywhere - even in some of the most sad and neglected spaces. It reminded me that there is beauty also in even some of the most sad and neglected of people.

It wasn't nearly as poignantly beautiful when I picked the flowers to take home with me, though.

Owl

An owl is traditionally a symbol of wisdom, so we are neither doves nor hawks, 

but owls, and we are vigilant when others are resting.

~ Urjit Patel

- - - - -

This owl was a prize at some carnival or fair I went to. Or maybe it was just for sale. I like owls, but I still had to wonder, "Who would choose this prize?"

If it were me, I wouldn't. I'd choose a Nobel Prize. Or a Pulitzer.

Mystery

Every life is a mystery. There is nobody whose life is normal and boring.

~ Frank McCourt

- - - - - 

My favorite Nancy Drew book was always The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion. I honestly can't remember why. That is a mystery to me. I should re-read it. Would it be less mysterious? Probably not. Likely it would be a new kind of mystery to me. 

That's kind of what my life is. I stumble from wanting to learn about something that confuses me to learning about other things that confuse me. I don't mind. The questions are always more interesting than the answers, anyway.

Leslie

Happiness is a dry martini and a good woman... or a bad woman.

~ George Burns

- - - - -

Sometimes you learn about a person and realize that they are the person you are supposed to be with even though there were things you didn't know. It's like the universe hands you a big plate of spaghetti, but instead of spaghetti is has a bunch of realization on it instead.

The other day I was talking to Leslie about the presidents. I told her that I was listening to the Presidential podcast and I had gotten to the Millard Fillmore episode and I thought to myself, "I can always remember Millard Fillmore because he looks just like Alec Baldwin." Then about seven minutes later they said on the podcast, "Millard Fillmore resembles Alec Baldwin - you can look him up if you want to confirm that for yourself."

Leslie said, "What is that podcast? I'd love that. I used to have a book of all the presidents - I mean, up through Nixon. I loved that book."

What are the chances?

Flower

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

~ Anatole France

- - - - -

I was driving one weekend and I came upon a field that was filled with these flowers. It was so beautiful. I thought how those flowers grew in the wild. No one grew them. Each one was a self-rising flower.

Tree

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- - - - -

If it is ever green, it must be coniferous. Like a pine. Or an evergreen. Oh - look at that!

Also, I might have guessed the golden tree of life was golden. I guess I'm lacking perspicacitree.

Ha. Ha.

(see what I did?)

Flight

Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.

~ Victor Hugo

- - - - -

I love this photo. I had taken a photo of the bird earlier and I drove down the road. I turned around and drove back later and the bird was still there. Just as I took the photo, the bird took off. I got this photo.

It was the photo I had planned on. It wasn't the photo I expected. It was a surprise. It was better than what I thought I wanted.

I love it when things work out that way.

For me it's not so much about the unexpected, but about - I read this somewhere - the misexpected. It's like being wrong, but you get a prize for being wrong. Who doesn't love that?

Road

New roads; new ruts.

~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

- - - - -

So, this post was going to be about the skid marks in the photo above, but instead I looked up Gilbert K. Chesterton, so this post is about how much the young Gilbert K. Chesterton looks like Jesse Eisenberg.

River

No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning.

~ Proverb

- - - - -

Rivers and babies. Same thing. Rivers. And. Babies.

Susan

The taste for quotations (and the juxtapositions of incongruous quotations) is a Surrealist taste.

~ Susan Sontag

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

~ Walter Benjamin

Though the collecting of quotations could be considered as merely ironic mimetism.

~ Susan Sontag

Today is my friend Susan's birthday. I like her. She is kind and smart and generous and an all-round good person. 

(pause)

Which is better than a "partial round good person."

Pepper

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?

~ Henry David Thoreau

- - - - -

I'm glad I'm not named "Pepper." 

No offense to peppers or vegetables, but I don't want to be named after any vegetables or fruits or legumes or anything.

Okay, maybe "Rutabaga Boettcher" is a little catchy. 

Looking

We find things where we look for them.

~ Robert Brault

- - - - -

Last night I was being a little noisy. I was in the office at home and Leslie was in one of her satellite offices. She shares the office with me and she has an office at the kitchen table. She has another office at the dining room table. Occasionally she has an office in her library chair, and at least a few times she has had an office on our living room couch.

Anyway, I was glad she didn't come in and ask what I was doing. I didn't want to have to say, "I'm looking for my Carl Kasell air freshener." 

But that is in fact what I was doing.

Present

One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.

~ Stephen Covey

- - - - -

I once heard someone say that you have to beware of the people who talk poorly about others to you because they are talking poorly about you to others. Now that I think about it, I think two things:

1. That is probably true.
2. I think maybe it was Stephen Covey who said that to me since it's pretty close to what he said in that other quote.

Teaching

The secret to education lies in respecting the pupil.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

- - - - -

I think we are all teachers in almost every moment. I love to see the things that Leslie's grandchildren teach her. Like physics, thermodynamics, and aerospace engineering.

You thought I was going to say some crap like, "It's so beautiful how they teach her patience and how to see the world a new way," right?

No. 

History

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.

~ Abraham Lincoln

- - - - -

Leslie just asked me if I wanted to go see "Our American Cousin" at the theater. She said she got us balcony seats.

I said no because I know history.

(pause) 

Two follow up points:

1. It is possible that I made up the first part of this post.
2. Yes, I know we didn't get the Statue of Liberty until President Lincoln was dead. But I didn't have President Lincoln finger puppet.

(pause)

Dammit, but LESLIE has a President Lincoln finger puppet.

This post could have been better. I'll give you that.

Night

What hath night to do with sleep?

~ John Milton

- - - - -

Um... night is when most people go to sleep, John Milton. 

Sheesh.

Bouquets

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

~ Henri Matisse

- - - - - 

I've never been one to really want bouquets of flowers. I like them and all, but if I had the choice, I'd rather have a bouquet of balloons. Hot air balloons.

Caterpillar

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.

~ Richard Bach

- - - - -

Most quotes about caterpillars are not about caterpillars. They are about butterflies. As if being a caterpillar was not enough in and of itself.

I would argue it is fine to be a caterpillar. I'm more of a dogerpillar person than a caterpillar person, but if you are a caterpillar enjoy being that and don't worry about becoming a butterfly. 

Doughnuts

Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.

~ Haruki Murakami

- - - - -

This place is called Holy Doughnut. Kirk took me there when I visited him in Maine last summer. I have been trying to decide if I can get back to see him and his family this summer. I have a lot going on. But when I think about all of them and how much I miss them and how much I enjoyed spending time with them, I think I will probably go back. And by "them" I mean these doughnuts.

Duplicity

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.

~ Charles Caleb Colton

- - - - -

I think if fewer of us focused on being duplicitous and more of us focused on being don'tplicitous, the world would be awesome because an apostrophe in the middle of a word looks really cool.

Integrity

Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do.

~ Don Galer

- - - - -

Integrity is also a father NOT telling his daughter there is a baby kitten for her in a little basket when that is not the case. Or telling her there is a baby bunny for her in a little basket. Or that the basket is full of candy when that isn't true.

I could go on and on, but I think I will stop.

Also, I should add that David had integrity and didn't do those things. He told her the basket was full of invisible candy.

(pause)

That is a lie. I sometimes lack integrity.

Reflection

Never let your morals get in the way of doing what's right.

~ Isaac Asimov

- - - - -

It is okay to let your spatiotemporals get in the way of doing what's right. Or doing anything at all. Those things have both space and time qualities!

Also in trying to figure out what spatiotemporal is, I was directed to a geostatistics textbook. It's okay to let that get in your way too because I don't really understand what that is. If I'm going to let it get in my way, I need to be okay with you letting it get in your way, too.

Write

Write with the door closed.

Rewrite with the door open.

~ Stephen King

- - - - -

There are lots of things you should do with the door closed. I won't get into the details. I bet if you use your skills, you can figure a lot of them out on your own.

However, there is that one thing you keep doing with the door open and you need to quit it. Start closing the door.

You know what I'm talking about.

Knock it off.

Store

I went to a general store, but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.

~ Steven Wright

- - - - -

Overheard in the grocery store...

"All three of my roommates have symptoms of the same disease."

"I need straws"
"We have straws in the drawer at home."
"I used the good ones already. Some were bad."

Cashier to bagger, "Sorry you're hung over, honey. You may never be able to drink rum again. When I first started drinking, I got sick on gin and now I still can't stand it - forty years later."

On this same trip, I also saw a toddler chewing on the outside of a spaghetti squash and two abandoned shopping carts.

The world is pretty interesting if you pay attention. Paying attention is usually more interesting than grocery shopping for me.

Toadstools

Does it follow that because there are poisonous toadstools which resemble mushrooms, both are dangerous?

~ Marianne Moore

- - - - -

No.

Knowing

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; 

and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

- - - - -

So we never really know what is going on in someone else's life. Even if they tell us, there are things that go unsaid. Even if we see things unfold, we don't know how others are making meaning of events. Even if we eavesdrop, we don't know how what is said affects other people. Even if we watch people in secret when they don't know we're there, we don't know what is happening because we're too worried about getting caught.

Learning

Wherever there are beginners and experts, old and young, there is some kind of learning going on, some kind of teaching. We are all pupils and we are all teachers. 

~ Gilbert Highet

- - - - -

I think maybe the best teachers were not the best students. I do think that they may have been the best learners, though. Learning isn't always measured well in terms of how we assess students. However, those measures are pretty good at determining conformity and the ability to memorize stuff. 

That's not learning, though.

Snack

Danger is the snack food of a true sleuth.

~ Mac Barnett

- - - - - 

Leaves are the snack food of a true sloth.

Basket

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

~ Mary Oliver

- - - - -

I suppose the kinds of baskets we put our lives into are probably connected to the kinds of lives we live. Some people put their lives in laundry baskets, others in picnic baskets, still other in basketball baskets.

I guess Jesus probably put his in an Easter basket.