Today I told my local friend L. that I was going to take “hermit time” from November 1 through the end of the year and that for those two months I was making no commitments of any sort except those required to earn a living. That includes not making commitments for holiday plans with friends, though I might be up for something spontaneous. “You’re being so selfish!” she said. “Your friends love you and want to be with you.” “You’re punishing me!” she said. Considering that I was, at that moment, taking six hours of my day to drive her…
Category: Mind and Spirit
Spirituality, moods, feelings, and thinking free to live free.
From MJR comes today’s biggest grin: An elderly woman got the last word after locking a police officer in her basement, and later suing the police. Venus Green, who was 87 when she was handcuffed, roughed up and injured by police, will receive $95,000 as part of a settlement with Baltimore City. The city chose to settle the case instead of taking a chance in front of a jury. “We thought we would have a difficult time in front of a city jury, or any jury,” Baltimore City solicitor George Nilson said. Green was so put out by what police…
Vladka Peltel’s latest post, “Sukkot, Ushpizin, and the duty to protect,” has already raised a small controversy over at The Zelman Partisans. Oh, and to my Jewish friends now celebrating Sukkot: Chag Sameach! Judiasm seems to have some awfully grim holidays, but Sukkot seems like one of the fun ones.
Or is it hermitude? I don’t know. But in any case, I haven’t forgotten my intention to commence a period of deeper hermitness.
The world has been too much with me, late and soon. That whole JPFO business was hard and bitter. The aftermath’s been no picnic, either. Even though you and some renewed work for the Backwoods Home print ‘zine have risen to help me through the money part of that, the emotional part is just … whammo.
But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to forge a plan. You can probably help. You always do.
Going underground and keeping silent for 43 years after committing an illegal act of principle. This is a story of the “left.” But also the story of a bold & fascinating person and a creative life.
15 ways to live deliberately. (ADDED: point 7 sucks!) Your nose knows when death is near. It’s Hong Kong, not the U.S. of A., but it’s a typical example of Authoritah makes bad situations worse. How to worry less. The real problem with millennials. It may be that they’re just recognizing reality. 🙂 The rudest space cloud in the known universe. 🙂
Thoreau famously went to Walden Pond to “live deliberately.” We know what that meant to him. What would living deliberately mean to you?
Security Theater of the Absurd: petitioners want to have CopBlock declared a terrorist group. Why “everybody” is moving to Texas. The reasons given are as facile as the assumption in the title, so apply grains of salt. But other state governments could learn some lessons from Texas — not that they would. So, John Tamny, how do you propose to make that last paragraph of yours a reality? In falling empires, and overripe civilizations everything becomes political. Who (or what) killed adulthood? This article is mostly by and for young women, but the phenomenon it describes is too real for…
I woke at 4:00 the last two mornings with the words “Meglin Kiddies, Meglin Kiddies, Meglin Kiddies” repeating in my sleepy brain.
The thought is urgent enough to end my night, feeling there’s something I must do or some revelation I’m about to have. But nothing ever forms beyond those words. What’s so urgent, I don’t get to find out.
The Meglin Kiddies, as almost nobody knows, were a singing, dancing, acting Hollywood troupe from whence sprung the likes of Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland.
I’d have never heard of them except that when I was a very young woman I knew a much older man who claimed to have been one of them.
Ya know, takes a lot longer to come up with a links dump of good, useful stuff than collect a bunch of interesting nooz. But we try, we try. Free will. Not just an illusion any more. You already knew that, didn’t you? “Sit less, live longer.” And it’s not even about exercise, just about not sitting. The countries with the highest levels of well-being. Why Richard Branson is giving employees the freedom to take unlimited leave. I owe someone a hat tip for this, but pardon me I’ve lost track of whom. How not to be ignorant about the…