smack! ding! clack!

"Micro-waltes": what does it tell you about your life when you find expressions like that rolling right out as happy little boxcars in your train of thought?

corundum-like conundrum

So here is the conundrum: I want my life to be simple and peaceful. But when my life is simple, I get lazy and get nothing done. Which makes me crazy. When my life is busy and complicated and makes me crazy, I get things done.

So crazy, apparently, is unavoidable.

Unless of course, you have the magic [read: discipline] of still getting things done when you actually have lots of time to do them in.

These things are not a mystery to my mind, but they evidently really really are to my soul.

raindust

... is the name of my new blog about my adventures in Nizwa, Oman. Please have a look!

so

sometimes mary oliver comes into my head
her voice is so clear,
it's easy to talk like her

and say hellow to crow
hi to sparrow
sit beside that chattering river
and smile at the moon
be thankful for the wind
and the crunchy green
and the soggy brown
and all the ancient heft of stone
worn smooth by water-time
plunge your hands into clean sand
wet your head
in that pond
trust the hungry creatures
and the certainty of heart
in all that rough tangle
frogspawn and pond scum
bubbles from the thick dark muck
that is death and life at once
yes
to walk with a barefoot heart
through fields and forests
loving the sun and the shade
and the softness of the here and now.

back

light
nice fine clarity in summerday wind

an air clean enough to dry the lips

and open:

a decision made.

releaf

so: kindle.
paper books are, finally,
going to be like vinyl
is to
digital music files

tasty old things
held in the hand
loved in the library

perhaps more precious now,
organic,
archival,
must-gathering creatures
closer to stone and baked clay
in surviving sun, soak, and seasons

needing only eyes and mind,
taught mind
to quicken them

still
kept and cared for
never ever quite forgotten

and always
waiting

for us.

grew up in the eighties, and so did my brain, evidently

Odd that Belinda Carlisle on an endlessly repeating loop of one song (guess which!) seems to be what best helps me churn through the work I have to do.

subjunctive

somewhere between it being so,	(indicative)
and saying something to make it so,	(imperative)
is entertaining the notion that it could be so.	(subjunctive)

Reflects the tripartite experience of the world as it is, the actions we use to change it, and the thoughts that dream the possible worlds.


Or: the outside world, interfaced through our actions, to our minds.


In a world of received perception and directed action, the subjunctive, being as murky as the mind, is the easiest to miss.

coin chess

Just popped into my head this morning: how to use basic U.S. coins as chess pieces.

First: white/black distinguished by heads/tails. Or vice versa.

Then: pawns are pennies.

Then: quarter = rook, nickel = knight, dime = bishop. Bigger on the margins, smaller as you go in.

Then: dime on quarter = queen (because she moves like rook + bishop), nickel on quarter = king (because a king's motion is constrained somewhat like a knight's).

No doubt someone's already come up with this sort of thing before, but, hey: independent lines of convergent evolution just make it all that much cooler.

splomp

Latest entry in the diary of accidental food: oily millet mush-blob. The less said the better. Tasty, though.