Jeep

Jeep is America's only real sports car.

~ Enzio Ferrari

- - - - -

Creativity is about coming up with ideas, and innovation is about making them happen. Some people are good at one, and some people are good at the other. I am probably more of a creative than an innovative person. But as for those people who are both -- look out! They are unstoppable.

And as for the people who steal other people's creative ideas or innovations -- look out! That's annoying. And may also be criminal.

Finally, as for people who steal someone's Jeep and then cover it in moss thinking they won't get caught - look out! Unless you don't own a Jeep, then you're good.

Mysterious

To feel envy is human, to savor schadenfreude is diabolic.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

- - - - -

Schadenfreude is one of my favorite words. In this particular photo it appears that Aurora is taking some evil joy at the pain of others. In this case the "others" are GoGo and Ezra. But what is the pain? We may never know.

Aurora isn't really like that, though. Images can be misleading.

And mysterious. For example, in the photo above - whose arm is whose??

Lemon

It's not what happens to you, but how you handle it. 

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. 

If the lemons are rotten, take out the seeds 

and plant them in order to grow more lemons.

~ Louise Hay

- - - - -

If life gives you frosted lemons, make frosted lemon Cheerios because those things are delicious.

Goodness

Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people. 

~ Roy T. Bennett

- - - - -

I have a friend from high school. Well more than one, but I'm just talking about one specific person here. We weren't very close when we were in school, but we have connected on social media. 

Anyway she is one of the nicest people (at least on social media) that I know. She puts out positive vibes and goodness into the world. She is always posting positive thoughts and highlights from her day based on beautiful things that she takes the time to notice and appreciate and share with others.

We are a lot alike because I notice and comment on things, too. I'm not always as nice, but sometimes I try to be. And sometimes I don't try to be.

Anyway, I hope what I share brings people a little bit of laughter. But what she shares brings me a lot of gratitude. I'm so glad there are some kind people in the world to balance out the ones who are less kind. 

Kind people are my kind of people. 

And maybe I can try a little harder to be their kind of people, too.

(pause)

Maybe not, though. I'm pretty busy.

Spelling

Of course words are magic.

That's why they call it "spelling."

~ Brian Holguin

- - - - -

"bullahit"

Phone: "No replacements found"

Me: Really, text spellcheck? REALLY?!

Walking

It's always felt curative, walking the dogs... I've felt many a problem solved in the quiet, steady transmissions through a leash. if having a child is like watching your heart walk around outside your body, then walking a dog is like walking your heart. In walking dogs, my heart endures. There is the satisfaction of offering them something so pleasurable to them, but it's also being witness to it, observing them from the inside out like a field scientist making a rapt note of how a dog transcribes a road.

~ Chloe Shaw

- - - - -

It doesn't matter if we are walking the dogs or if the dogs are walking us. The point is spending time together. Unless you're doing the yo-yo trick "walking the dog" in which case, that's cool. I could never do that trick.

 

Beaver

For criminey sakes!

(or something along those lines)

~ Sally Deters

- - - - -

Beaver loved to shag... hahahaha hee hee ha hahaha

I know it's juvenile, but so what? You can handle it. As the wise philosopher Sally K. Deters used to say, "Get over it." It should be noted she never said it about this post exactly, but I think she probably would if she found out you were making fun of me being juvenile.

(pause)

Or maybe she would tell me to grow up. 

(pause)

Or both. Actually, I'm confident it would be both.

House

The past never leaves us; there's always atmosphere to consider; you can wound air as cleanly as you can would flesh. I this way the Dream House was a haunted house. You were the sudden, inadvertent occupant of a place where bad things had happened.

~ Carmen Maria Machado

- - - - -

Based on my research (i.e., what I read on etymonline), "haunt" comes from the Old French hanter "to frequent, visit regularly; have to do with, be familiar with; indulge in, cultivate. Apparently there is a secondary meaning from both Middle English and Old French that meant "to have sexual intercourse with."

(pause)

I hope I'm not ever haunted by a Middle English or Old French ghost. 
 

Thinking

Think higher, feel deeper.

~ Elie Wiesel

- - - - -

I like it when people let their minds wander and think their thoughts. I like it when they think things in. new ways. I like it when they ask questions. Pondering and pontificating are good things, I think.

However, when the person wrote, "Which came first, the cucumber or the pickle," well... That is someone who doesn't know how to make pickles. I guess it's good that they are trying to learn. But if they are trying to be funny or clever, I think they did not do those things. 

Also, for the record, Leslie once rescued a jar of pickles out of the bay where Lily is sitting in this picture. 

Steering

[W]asn't that what education was all about anyway? To rescue us from our natural inclinations and to steer us in the ways of the best that had been thought and discovered and created over the long course of civilization?

~ Elizabeth McCracken

- - - - -

It doesn't seem clear what education is about at all. Is it about job training? Life skills? Is it about cultivating citizens and building a better society? Is it about loosing creativity or replication of past behavior? Often I worry that the purpose of education is simply to get people to conform. Certainly not to transform.

Like when I took an American literature course and I thought the instructor wanted us to connect ideas and think creatively about the impact of the work. No. He wanted us to repeat back to him what he said. I did that after the first exam. 

(pause)

I bet he also wanted us to give him feedback on the course evaluations about what a great teacher he was.

(pause)

At that point, I chose to no longer conform.

Students

You never stop learning. If you have a teacher, you never stop being a student.

~ Elisabeth Rohm

- - - - -

Once upon a time I posted something about how good a job being a faculty member is - especially the part about students. Someone then posted a comment about how they didn't like their students and about seven people chimed in. 

I told Leslie later that when people do that, to me it's like seven or eight people knocking on your door and then coming into your living room to have a gripe session when you yourself are focusing on being positive. I deleted the string of comments.

Students are awesome. With only about eight exceptions. You know who you are.

Concern

More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for others' well-being is a source of happiness.

~ Dalai Lama

- - - - -

I hate it when people tell me, "This doesn't concern you." I mean, they don't know what my concerns are! Plus I thought it would be helpful for me to tell them what I would do in their situation since I couldn't help but overhear them talking at Panera.

Solitude

Law school is a test -- not a test of strength, creativity, or intelligence, but one of endurance. A law student's greatest nemesis is not mastering legal concepts, but enduring the hours of solitude, which endless studying requires.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

- - - - -

I think that "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" would be a good case study in law school. 

Sleep

Let her sleep for when she wakes, she will shake the world.

~ Napoleon Bonaparte

- - - - -

How I Woke Up This Morning

Me: (Leslie touches my arm) AAAAAAAHHHHH!

Leslie: I thought you had something early today.

Me: I do.

Leslie: What time?

Me: 8:15.

Leslie: It's eight o'clock.

Me: AAAAAAHHHHHH!

Leslie: I can take Lily to school.

Me: Thank you. I had a dream we were in Branson. You didn't want to buy anything.

Leslie: Why were we in Branson?

Me: I don't know. It was SO crowded! We were in line for a restaurant -- no. No, it was a DINNER BUS.

Leslie: Like we would go on a dinner bus.

Me: I know. And I kept seeing people from my childhood church.

Leslie: That's weird.

Me: I know. It was nice to see Brian Banwart and his mom, though.
 

No.

Nobody,

Nobody can be sure they're always right.

The ones who are fullest of themselves that way

Are the emptiest vessels.

~ Seamus Heaney

- - - - -

If you post that it is "leeches and cream" season in the south and someone responds with "No." Then you do your artistic magic and prove that yes, indeed it IS leeches and cream season in the south.

Doing

Most people don't do what we tell them to, they do what we let them get away with.

~ Fredrik Backman

- - - - -

And some people do what we don't want to let them do. Those people are called children or assholes. It depends on how old they are.

Education

(Photo by Kirk Boettcher)

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

~ Dorothy Parker

- - - - -

Zak: Is that Aunt Shel?

Kirk: Yep. She does a podcast about school stuff.

Zak: I didn't think she did school stuff.

Kirk: Yep. She does.

Zak: But she's so OLD.

Kirk: She teaches school.

Zak: Oh. Okay.

Empties

We become aware of the void as we fill it.

~ Antonio Porchia

- - - - -

You cannot fill a void by screaming into it. You can, however, fill your mind and the ears of those around you. Maybe then you don't notice the void as much. 

Overstimulated

I believe it may be a symptom of nervous exhaustion, neurasthenia, what some are calling "Americanitis" - an increasingly common condition... Think of your body as a machine, Mrs. Jones. it has a finite amount of nervous energy which it replenishes through rest, recreation, and fellowship. Working too hard for too long in too stressful of an environment overtaxes the body's nervous system. Body pain, dyspepsia, morbid fears, and fatigue can result. As well as acute episodes which resemble heart attack or stroke, but are not dangerous. Nerve attacks... I've seen the affliction in one in 30 of my patients. We believe rapid modernization is exacerbating the condition here in America. Our bodies are simply not designed for such overstimulation. It's plaguing men and women of station and standing. Generals, surgeons, executive officers. Overworked.

~ Taylor Brown, Rednecks

- - - - -

I read this in a novel the other day. The scene was from a conversation about the health and well-being of Mary G. Harris Jones - known as "Mother Jones" around the turn of the last century. That means this was hypothetically said about 100 years ago.

We have always been working too hard for too long in too stressful an environment. 

We oughta quit that.
 

Love

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get--only with what you are expecting to give--which is everything.

~ Katharine Hepburn

- - - - -

It makes me really happy when I heart someone's post on Facebook and it makes the most responses shift from thumbs up to hearts. I feel like I've shifted the balance in a really great way.

(pause)

Because, ultimately, it's all about me.

Research

Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.

~ Marston Bates

- - - - -

I think when we use social media as a source of research, we have to be careful. People post things they want us to see and read. These things are not always true. Plus, we also bring our own lenses to the posts. We may make meaning of them in ways that may or may not be accurate. 

For example, I once wrote to a friend of mine after doing online research about someone, "I thought she met some country singer I didn't recognize, but turns out it was a guy she works with who was holding a guitar." 

Truth is elusive.

Stories

There's no rush to write something sad.

~ Jami Attenberg

- - - - -

Would it be sad for a boy to be changed into a cat? 

(pause)

That would depend on the boy.

(pause)

And the cat.

 

Drive

I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.

~ Rosalia De Castro

- - - - -

Not too long ago, I was dreading a trip I had to go to Chicago. I don't like cities that much, though I do love driving. However, I was excited when I got to Ohio and then Indiana and then Illinois. 

Somehow I forgot that I had to drive across the Midwest to get to Chicago.

It's not for everyone, but seeing the landscape around you brings me a sense of calm, peace and security. You have time to hide from things on the horizon moving toward you. Tornadoes, robots, alien spacecraft. And that's what I'm always trying to be on the lookout for, I guess.

 

Nose

Instinct is the nose of the mind.

~ Delphine de Girardin

- - - - -

I have a weird sense of smell. Sometimes it is very strong. Other times things get stuck in it. Like if I'm around an everything bagel, I'm going to have that smell in my nose for a while.

(pause)

And I do not care for everything bagels.

 

Children

(photo from Buzzed Viking website)

In America, a parent puts food in front of a child and says, "Eat it. It's good for you." In Europe, the parent says, "Eat it. It's good!"

~ John Levee

- - - - -

I don't know who came up with this menu, but I am very fond of them.

 

Wishes

My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.

~ Claude Monet

- - - - -

My life priorities have changed as I've gotten older. I keep seeing versions of a quote that I know to be true for me moving forward. If you are important to and good to me, I wish you to be close and constant. If you are not good for me, I am letting go and wishing you down a well.

(pause)

Or maybe it's "wishing you well."

Whatever.

 

Viking

Be your friend's true friend.

Return gift for gift.

Repay laughter with laughter again

but betrayal with treachery.

~ The Havamal

- - - - -

I am a good friend. I have been betrayed a few times, but that is okay because I am good at treachery and need some legitimate reasons to engage in it from time to time.

(pause)

Beware false friends.

Be happy true friends.

(pause)

Not that I'm the boss of you.

 

Celebrate

To be an artist is to believe in life.

~ Henry Moore

- - - - -

If my name was Arturo, I'd like for my neighbors to call me "Local Art" or "Public Art" but not so much "Nude Art" (or FArt).

 

Fire

Game, set, match equals tennis. Set, match, run equals arson.

~ Demitri Martin

- - - - -

When the police officer brought my brother to our door, we weren't sure what to expect. "He was lighting matches down at the park," the officer said.

My mom pretended to be angry with my brother until the police officer left. She looked at my brother, then turned and walked away. I overheard her say, "Well, that's better than in the basement."

Touch

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

- - - - -

Today is Ezra's birthday. He is seven. He is pretty chill (pardon the pun with the image of "Don't Break the Ice" in the photo above). He looks for good things and - at least around me - doesn't complain too much.

I hope you have a great birthday, Ezra. If not, it's probably because you were negative. That is going to be easier and easier as you get older. But don't do that. Be cool. Be calm. Seek joy.

And if you seek Almond Joy, let me know. I love those things.

 

Wisdom

One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

~ Sophocles

Trees, though they are cut and loped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again.

~ Pericles

I will always be in your way.

~ Obstacles