Beer

A little bit of beer is divine medicine.

~ Paracelsus

- - - - -

This fall we did a number of drives. Leslie had a broken ankle. Instead of thinking that the injury was something that happened TO her, we worked together to figure out how maybe it could happen FOR her (and us). I had been wanting to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway for years - pretty much since I moved here. So we did some drives on that, we drove the Cherohala Skyway, we did some other drives in the area where we live. 

I planned our routes and some stops along the way. We took Lily and found places she could go with us. There were a lot of breweries with space that welcomed dogs. So we went to some of those. Lily likes beer (though we don't give it to her, she sometimes has swiped some), but that wasn't the point. The point was for us to get out and enjoy the fall while Leslie healed, to get Lily out and get her socialized and used to going places and used to being around people, and to get me out and get me socialized and used to going places and used to being around people.

We were successful in two of those three goals.

 

DOG!

Did you know that there are over 300 words for love in canine?

~ Gabriel Zevin

- - - - -

Lily enjoys going to breweries.

And everywhere else.
 

Zak

School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.

~ Lon Watters

- - - - -

This is my nephew Zak. He is one of my favorite people in the world. He is in school now. His parents told him when he brought home some good reports from school, he could get something special.

When Zak showed me what he got, I asked, "Zak, do you know what irony is?"

Bunnies

It's the Easter Bunny. It's another lie and I don't understand why we had to invent this character.

~ Todd Rundgren

- - - - -

And what I do not understand is why so many people think the Easter Bunny is a boy. Girls are the ones who carry the eggs. 

Books

All information belongs to everybody all the time.

~ Maya Angelou

- - - - -

Library cards are like tickets to teach us about sharing or permission slips to steal something for a little bit. 

Happy National Library Day.

Eggs

The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.

~ Zora Neale Hurston

- - - - - 

Don't put all your eggs in one plastic grocery bag in the garage.

~ Michelle Lea Boettcher

Wash

You might not ever get rich

But let me tell ya it's better than diggin' a ditch

~ Rose Royce

- - - - -

Leslie was headed out of town on a trip. I told her I would vacuum the car for her. As I was headed out she said, "Did you want the Windex?"

I guess she wanted me to do more than just vacuum the car.

Cup

The usefulness of a cup is its emptiness.

~ Bruce Lee

- - - - -

Some people ask if the cup is half empty or half full. I look at that cup and am annoyed with those people. Why can't they pick up their trash?

Eyes

We eat with our eyes first.

~ Apicius

- - - - -

Wait. The others were edible?
 

Reading

There are some themes, some subjects too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.

~ Philip Pullman

- - - - -

Children are wise and then they grow up and chase things and get distracted from the wisdom, then they get older and chase the wisdom they already had when they were children.

People are probably pretty tired after all that chasing. They should relax and read a book.

Outreach

 No.

(Yes, I know I didn't include a quote. It would have broken up the flow of the post. However, if you must have a quote, here is one: "I love my rejection slips. They show me I try." ~ Sylvia Plath)

Idea

When I'm not writing I feel an awareness that something's missing. If I go a long time, it becomes worse. I become depressed. There's something vital that's not happening. A certain slow damage starts to occur. I can coast along awhile without it, but then my limbs go numb. Something bad is happening to me, and I know it. The longer I wait, the harder it is to start again.

When I'm writing, especially if it's going well, I'm living in two different dimensions: this life I'm living now, which I enjoy very much, and this completely other world I'm inhabiting that no one else knows about.

~ Jennifer Egan

- - - - - 

Somewhere in the very back of our minds, we all inhabit a world no one else knows about. Except that I have this lingering fear that everyone else in the world is mindreader except me. If so, you might want to stay out of the very back part of my mind, everyone. 

Trust me.

Place

If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.

~ Leonard Cohen

- - - - -

Places matter. I remember going to a conference when I was in graduate school. There was a presentation on "sense of place." I still have the handout from that session. And then I remember reading an article in The Oxford American - "The Gathering Place" by John T. Edge. It was published in 2003, and I still have the copy of the article I tore out of the magazine even though I got rid of the rest of the magazine years ago.

That article made me want to be a writer again. And the writer part is only part of it. That article made me want to be a better listener. A better watcher. To pay attention more.

Place definitely matters. Maybe as much as who we are around, where we are matters. Where we are, in part, determines who we are around, doesn't it? Like if you're at an ice cream stand you are likely going to be around people a lot different than if you are at a cemetery. In one place you're around warm people, but you are eating something cold. In the other place you're around cold people, but eating something warm. Well, at least you are if you are alone in the cemetery eating a hot chicken sandwich. 

Popcorn

Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.

~ Fulton J. Sheen

- - - - -

All this sign makes me think about is that there are probably spiders in the popcorn.

 

Wings

 We have to be continually jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

~ Kurt Vonnegut

- - - - -

Sometimes they say that you have to let go of the heavy weights that bog you down in order to fly higher. I say it's a nice moment if you get to drop those heavy weights on the ones who attached them to you to begin with. 

Karma and stuff.

Road

"Read attentively," [Marcus Aurelius] said. Read deeply. Read repeatedly. Aim for quality, not quantity. That's what it means to be well read. The test then is not whether you've read a lot... but what you have read a lot.

~ The Daily Stoic

- - - - -

It is more important to be well read than to be widely read. 

Also this is about "read" not "road".

There's a joke in there about being well "rode" too, but this isn't that kind of a blog.

William

I must tell you friendly in your ear, sell when you can, you are not for all markets.

~ William Shakespeare

- - - - -

Wow do I know some people like this. Like me. Unlike me some of you all don't realize you aren't for all markets and, well... you're not. 

Gifts

Be a good steward of your gifts.

~ Jane Kenyon

- - - - -

I still don't know what the gift was. I hope they respond soon.

 

Generations

A storyteller has a different agenda from the emperor. [And yet] there's a limit to what storytelling can achieve. We're not saying that a poet can stop a battalion with a couple of lines of his poetry. But there are other forms of power. The storyteller appeals to the mind, and appeals ultimately to generations and generations, and generations.

~ Chinua Achebe

- - - - -

An emperor is different from a storyteller also because they can nationalize publishing houses and the press to publish their stories. Most storytellers can't do that. Unless they are emperor storytellers... but no one is telling that story now are they?!

Dog

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

~ Colette

- - - - -

Me: Knock Knock

Lily: (sighs)

Me: KNOCK KNOCK

Lily: Who's there?

Me: Pooch

Lily: Pooch who?

Me: Oh no! Do you have a cold?!

Road

 There is no one way to anything.

~ Ibo Proverb

- - - - -

And yet each time we go to anything, we only take one way.

Lonely

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off  from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps no one has ever been. It is a lonely place, even a little frightening.

~ Rachel Carson

- - - - - -

I have rarely felt lonely. I don't think I feel lonely when I write. I might feel alone or isolated, but those are different to me. 

I'm more likely to feel frustrated - at least if the writing isn't going well. Or euphoric - at least if the writing is going well.

Of course I don't have anyone to share that with when I'm writing. 

I just had an idea for a series of books. They are about a park ranger named Lee. Lee works in isolation most of the time and maybe talks to trees or animals. I don't have the details figured out yet. Just the title of the first book. The Lone Lee Ranger.

(pause)

I don't know that I'll find a publisher for that series.

Happy

What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come. Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought, some torment us before they ought, and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.

~ Seneca

- - - - -

Why is it called a crisis instead of a cribro?

Tinmen

Every human person is inevitably involved with two worlds: the world they carry within them and the world that is out there. All thinking, all writing, all action, all creation, and all destruction is about that bridge between the two worlds.

~ John O'Donahue

- - - - - 

If you carry with you the heart of a tin man and then you dress in a tin man costume for the world that is out there, then have you bridged those two worlds? Given the context is that bridge a rainbow bridge? Given that reference, are you a dog? Given you are a dog dressed as a tin man, is it you who bridged those worlds or the person who put the tin man costume on you?

Life is way complicated.

Different

Life would be dull indeed without experimenters and courageous breakers-with-tradition.

~ Marie Bullock

- - - - -

I hope that there is - somewhere in this store - a sign that says, "Same Stuff." I didn't see it or you know I'd blog about it.

Dreamers

A dreamer can believe that the solution lies in curtailing the progress of civilization in some way or other. The main task in the coming era is something else: a radical renewal of our sense of responsibility. Our conscience must catch up to our reason, otherwise we are lost.

~ Vaclav Havel

- - - - -

I have to admit that I don't think I dream about civilization very often. I don't think Lily does either. I think Lily dreams about eating a lot. Of course she could be dreaming about eating civilization. Or maybe a model of civilization constructed out of beef jerky.

 

Humans

Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished.

~ Daniel Gilbert

- - - - -

I like these humans. I like the work they are doing. I like the mistakes they make. Not all of them. Not the mistakes that inconvenience me. The rest are okay, though.

As I will write in my novel or autobiography, "She loved them very much, sushi wrote about it in her blog."

Reading

If novelists know anything it's that individual citizens are internally plural: they have within them the full range of behavioral possibilities. ~ Zadie Smith

- - - - -

When something dramatic happens - especially if it is in a book or a movie or on TV - some people will say, "If that happened to me, I would just..." Then they provide some list of responses and ways that they would defend themselves or resolve the issue or whatever.

But you know what? I think until you are actually attacked my demons living in the earth around your home, you don't really know what you will actually do.

(pause)

I hope to never ever know what I will in that situation. 

(pause)

You know what I would do if that happened to me? I would move.

Path

In the phrase ["to find myself'] lurks the idea that the self is a pre-existing entity, a self like a Platonic idea existing in a mystic realm beyond time and change. No, rather an object like a nugget of gold in the placer pan, the Easter egg under the bush at an Easter-egg hunt, a four-leaf clover to promise miraculous luck. Here is the essence of passivity, one's quintessential luck. And the essence of absurdity, too, for the self is never to be found, but must be created, not the happy accident of passivity, but the product of a thousand actions, large and small, conscious or unconscious, performed not "away from it all," but in the face of "it all," for better or for worse, in work and leisure rather than in free time.

~ Robert Penn Warren

- - - - -

We often see both "finding yourself" and "losing yourself" as positive. They're opposites, though, right?

Friends

A brother may not be a friend, but a friend will always be a brother.

~ Benjamin Franklin

- - - - -

A puzzle for you:

One of these is Benjamin Franklin.

One is Thomas Jefferson.

Q: Who is their mutual acquaintance?

A: Jerry. Ben & Jerry and Tom & Jerry.

Living

The only way to learn is to live.

~ Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

- - - - -

I'm not sure I agree with this quote. I think you can learn a lot as you die. The challenge is there isn't really an opportunity to apply that kind of learning.

Messages

The underlying message of the Neighborhood is that if somebody cares about you, it's possible that you'll care about others. 'You are special and so is your neighbor' - that part is essential: that you're not the only special person in the world.

~ Fred Rogers

- - - - - 

But... I'm the most special-est person of the special people - right, Mr. Rogers?

(pause)

RIGHT?

(pause)

RIGHT, MR. ROGERS??!!!

Attention

Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.

~ Susan Sontag

- - - - -

Especially pay attention to the world if you are driving or crossing the street in front of this vehicle.

(pause)

Or if you are walking across a parking lot with this vehicle, pay attention to that, too. You might want to take a photo of it.

Unreadable

 The unread is always better than the unreadable.

~ Oscar Wilde

- - - - -

I was driving by a billboard and I saw something that at first I thought said, "Doom scroll." Upon further review it actually said, "Drum roll." We see what we expect to see, I think.

Also, I should probably keep my eyes on the road.

Green

In every wood and every spring there is a different green.

~ J. R. R. Tolkein

- - - - -

Also in every cheese... if you leave the cheese alone for long enough.

Love

We learn our own minds by finding out what we love.

~ Maria Popova

- - - - -

I think maybe the first emotion a kid learns in love. 

No. Hungry. I think the first emotion a kid learns is hungry.

Moving

No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new.

~ Rachel Carson

- - - - -

I have found that to be true. I like to write, but writing begets writing. I think the reason the quote goes with the photo I chose for this entry is because every little kid is busy writing their own life story. They can't sit still. 

Also, sometimes they keep moving because they don't walk very well yet and they have to keep taking steps or they'll fall down.

That's kind of like my writing, too, now that I think of it.

Noise

Sound signifies event. A noise means something is happening... Speech, the most specifically human sound, and the most significant kind of sound, is never just scenery, it's always event.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

- - - - -

I disconcur with this sign. I don't know that a specific type of wagon makes the most noise, but I know it is not an empty wagon. Maybe really ALL kinds of wagons (except empty ones) make the most noise. Examples include: station wagons, chuck wagons, band wagons, Radio Flyer wagons, covered wagons...

Which is the noisiest? It's hard to say. Could be a Radio Flyer with a group of children screaming as they careen down a hill. Could be the wayback of a station wagon packed with children as the car careens down a hill. Could be a covered wagon full of children careening down a hill. 

Regardless, I think the noisiest wagon is one that involves both children and careening. And probably hills.

Touch

A person's identity is like ap pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch is just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.

~ Amin Maalouf

- - - - -

My whole identity was touched by this sign. Because it's creepy. My whole person reacted. 

It's creepy.

Antique

An antique is anything old with class.

~ John Bartlett

- - - - -

Is something an antique if it is labeled on the original packaging as an antique?

(pause)

I am so unfamiliar with the history of ornament hangers... it isn't even funny.

Brains

Shaped like a little loaf of French country bread, our brain is a crowded chemistry lab, bustling with nonstop neural conversations. 

~ Diane Ackerman

- - - - -

"SITAR" Michelle?! "SITAR" was seriously the first word that came to mind?!!!

Sheesh.

 

Leaving

Goodbyes make you think. They make you realize what you've had, what you've lost, and what you've taken for granted.

~ Ritu Ghatourey

- - - - -

Lily thinks that every time Leslie leaves in the car that she is going on some sort of adventure or hike or to the dog park or to do something fun. The truth is most of the time when Leslie leaves without Lily, Leslie is going to do errands or chores. She's going to the store or the post office or something like that. Or maybe she is going to campus for a work thing. 

Or to the dog park. Leslie loves to go there and play with all the dogs while Lily is at home.

Music

I prefer to remake flops. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" was a remake of a flop. "The Quiet American" is a remake of a flop."

~ Michael Caine

- - - - -

 

Last night we finished watching the remake of West Side Story. It was not good. Anita was good. Nothing else was good. Some of the singing was good, but the remake was not good. I did like one part though. It was this part:

Someone in the movie: Chino's got a gun!

Me: That's an Aerosmith song.

Communication

In human conversation, in live, actual communication between or among human beings, everything "transmitted" -- everything said -- is shaped as it is spoken by actual or anticipated response.

~ Ursula K. LeGuin

- - - - -

Communication today is difficult. For example, above you see what Siri came up with when trying to understand me talking to Lily.

Miracles

Miracles are not a contradiction to nature. They are only a contradiction to what we know of nature.

~ St. Augustine

- - - - - -

I see miracles all the time. Like this pen not quite falling through the gap in the boards on the porch. "That's so small. It's not much of a miracle," you say? 

Well, I say that if you don't pay attention for small miracles you will miss a lot of miracles. And that is true not only of small miracles, but probably true for medium and large miracles, too. And I also say, "Shut up. You're stupid."

Dog

One dog barks at something. The rest bark at him.

~ Chinese Proverb

- - - - -

 Lily barks. She barks at people who walk by the house. She barks when we get a package delivered. She barks if there is a chair in the yard someplace where it doesn't belong. She barks if Tippy tells her something is happening and they should bark at it.

One night she was barking. I told Leslie our neighbors had come home and walked into their house. 

Leslie: Well, that solves the mystery of the barking dog.

Me: There are a lot of episodes in that series. 

Food

It's not the hard way. It's the right way.

~ Chef Dylan Jones

- - - - -

I like watching shows about food. I used to like highly competitive shows about food where I could cheer for some people and against others. I don't like those as much any more. They're scripted and not really about cooking or the importance of food.

Now I like shows that are about the role of food in culture. I like learning things about places in the world where I will likely never go. I like hearing people talk about the importance of food and history and family and all of those things.

One thing I didn't realize until recently is that Chef Michael Simon is is the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.

Self

This is the entire essence of life: Who are you? What are you?

~ Leo Tolstoy

- - - - - 

 

There are some people who seem to always have someone around to take their photo. They post those photos on social media. Sometimes they are celebrities and sometimes they are just people. Their photos aren't selfies. I don't know how the do that. Also, I wouldn't mind taking some people's pictures for a while. Not forever, though. I imagine we'll get on each other nerves after a while. And by that I mean that the person I would be taking photos of would get on my nerves. 

Not Zak, though. He's cool. 

Bridge

No one can build the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

- - - - -

Well, you and your dog.
 

Headless

There are more things... likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

~ Seneca

- - - - -

With that outfit, you know this was a clown. If the scariest part of a clown is the head, then is a headless clown less scary than a clown with a head? Yes, if it's a wooden cutout. NO if it is a human being.