Doll

Of with their heads!

~ Lewis Carroll

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I just had an idea. If you took a bunch of doll heads and attached them to a piece of wood as wide as your bed and mounted it at the head of your bed, you'd have a literal HEADboard.

Also, I would never, ever, ever come visit you.

Sunset

The best things in life are free. The second best things in are very, very expensive.

~ Coco Chanel

- - - - -

The third best things in life are pretty expensive too, but sometimes you can find them on sale.

Watches

By the 1930s, wristwatches were the norm and the pocket watch was an anachronism. Time itself had become a human appendage.

~ Derek Thompson

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When I first saw this, I thought it said, "Smokey says please do not play with watches." I thought, "Don't play with watches??" Then I thought, "Is the punctuation right on that sign?" And then I thought, "I'm cold. I should start a playful fire."

Games

Life is more fun if you play games.

~ Roald Dahl

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I like games. Beyond Balderdash is my all time favorite of all time. I love it.

I also like Words with Friends. 

I would probably like less a game called "Swords with Friends."

Singing

Birds will always sing a song for those that they love.

~ Anthony T. Hicks

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The other day I was in my office at work. Two students walked by - maybe 20 minutes apart. Each of them was singing, "Stacey's mom has got it going on..." I have to think that a teacher must have used it in class. That song is from 2003. The students were maybe 4 or 5 then. 

If it was just a coincidence, that is very strange.

And if it was a message from the university, what does it mean?

HA!  I meant to type "message from the universe" but I typed "university."

(pause)

Wait. Now what do you suppose THAT means?

Everything is a mystery. Especially if you don't really try very hard to figure things out.

Looking

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.

~ J. R. R. Tolkein

- - - - 

You know that saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth? Well, that is only one in a series of sayings. Others include:

Don't look a gift dog in the eye.
Don't look a gift fish in the ear.
Don't look a gift chicken in the anus.

Sure, these sayings are less well-known, yet they each carry their own important message.

Jump

Those who don't jump will never fly.

~ Leena Ahmad Almashat

- - - - -

Why is it a "trampoline" and not a "jumpoline"?

Laughter

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.

~ Audrey Hepburn

- - - - -

Leslie: (talking, talking, talking... laughing, laughing, laughing)

Me: . . .

Leslie: You didn't get it. I made a joke.

Me: I understood the words that you said.

Leslie: (stops laughing). You're so un-sense-of-humory! (starts laughing again).

Me: . . .  Yep. . . .  That's me.

Leslie: (still laughing) I'm funny!!

Ready

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

~ Emily Dickinson

- - - - -

LOOK OUT, FUTURE!! HERE WE COME!!!! 

(pause)

I mean, we're mostly going to just stay in the current moment and wait for you to get here, but you know what I mean.

Postcard

The world before us is a postcard, and I imagine the story we are writing on it.

~ Mary E. Pearson

- - - - -

My brother is a playwright. I am an academic writer. We both write about the stories around us. We both thrive on creativity. We share our work with each other. We offer feedback. We accept feedback. We both have fire alarm pull stations by our desks for those moments when we are writing and we find that we are just ON FIRE with our writing.

(pause)

Most of that is true.

Sit

All men's [people's] miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

~ Blaise Pascal

- - - - -

I think it's good to sit and reflect at this time of the year. Or, yes, you can stand. Okay, or lie down. 

I don't know why you're being so difficult. You get the point. 

Sheesh.

Hospitality

Planning a dinner party in a way that you're actually capable of getting it done without panicking is important. It's bad hospitality for the host to be freaked out.

~ Ted Allen

- - - - -

I just learned when you put quotes around a word or phrase they could be SCARE quotes. I was not scared of the image above until I read that. Now I'm scared of the quotes and all the foods pictured on this box. 

Wait.

I was a "little scared" of most of those foods before.

Kirk

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

~ Maya Angelou

- - - - -

Today is my brother Kirk's birthday. I agree that our siblingness has required work. Particularly on his part since I use words like "siblingness."

He is one of the greatest people I know.

Mandonna

Children always understand. They have open minds. They have built in shit detectors.

~ Madonna

- - - - -

I call this photo "Mandonna with Child." I thought that was a little more clever than, "My Brother Staring Off in the Distance While Holding his Son Who is Laughing and Wearing a Green Dinosaur Shirt."

But what do I know. No one pays me to name things.

(pause)

I wish they would, though.

Tree

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

- - - - -

Today isn't every tree a Christmas tree?

Decorating

It's not what's under the Christmas tree that matters, but who's around it.

~ Charlie Brown

- - - - -

I agree, Charlie Brown. I think you can have gifts or not. You can decorate or not. And if you do decorate, it doesn't matter how you decorate. It's about the people you get to spend time with.

I think this message is emphasized in a quote from my own family. Here is that quote --

Erik's Kid: (not sure which one it was) Wait - that's not an ornament!  That's a tag from a sweatshirt!!

Nick's

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.

~ Nick Carraway 

(The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

- - - - -

Did you know that Santa... St. Nick... Saint Nicholas - who was Greek - was also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker?

He was.

I bet if he was alive today he'd be surprised at how much people use his image all over the place and how people dress up like he probably never dressed up, but then pretend to be him.

I also read that Martin Luther tried to replace Santa Claus with Baby Jesus as the bearer of gifts. In German - "Christkindl." Later that got transformed into Kris Kringle - another name for Santa Claus. 

Now that I think about it, I be the Christ Child is pretty surprised at how much people use His image all over the place, too. I don't think He is all that much into self-promotion. Of course, I'm just speculating. I wasn't around then. I don't know for sure.

Except that I do know pretty much for sure. 

On a very loosely related note, I think that in the off-season Santa would make a great bar owner / bartender. 

Holiday

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

- - - - -

Don't literally write it on your heart. That will make it not a best day of the year.

Priorities

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- - - - -

At this time of year we might all be well-served to take a moment and reflect on our priorities. Rather than things, who are the people we want in our lives? Whom do we value in our lives? Have we told them that? As evidenced in this photo and blog and a lot of my random posts, Leslie really matters to me.

Apparently Leslie's phone really matters to her.

Winter

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

~ Pietro Aretino

- - - - -

You have to watch your step when it's icy out.  You could slip and fall.  You could break something like a hip or your leg or your collarbone.  Or you could crack the ice and fall through into the freezing waters below.

Also, don't walk on ice that is over water.

Also, if it's so cold that the breeze is frozen - don't fall on that either. If you do, you might break wind.