I woke up yesterday morning at 3:00 bathed in sweat, a headache playing in minor key at the back of my neck. But worse than the headache or the drenched nightshirt was the sense of obligation that crushed me from the moment I got conscious. The sweat dried. The headache quickly faded. But the feeling of unmeetable obligations oppressed me for hours and left me tired all day. I get this way once in a while, even though I realize that by the usual measures my life contains fewer obligations than most — no heavy-duty job, no kids, no doddering…
Category: Mind and Spirit
Spirituality, moods, feelings, and thinking free to live free.
I wasn’t going to mark today. The tragedy for the 3,000 and their families and friends is beyond unspeakable. But we have to speak of it — ceaselessly — because the horror was delivered with such drama. And with such convenience for those who crave to rule. We don’t hold week-long “all mourning all the time” media events for the 100,000 who die in the U.S. each year from the effects of prescription drugs. Or the tens of thousands killed in pointless political wars. Why are we supposed to believe that those are lesser tragedies? Did those victims somehow suffer…
Every couple of weeks, all this summer, my post office box has been graced — and the postal clerks and I entertained — by a wild array of packages. The boxes, sent by ST, a reader and frequent commentor on the blog, are so weirdly charming on the outside I’ve sometimes hesitated to open them. But when I do, they turn out to be just as weird — and entertaining — inside. I mean the insides of the boxes themselves, which are sometimes even more decorated than the exteriors. Oh yeah. And they contain … well, just what you might…
This isn’t a post about art. But it begins with bad art because that’s what I produced today. To wit: I labored on it all afternoon. I thought about what I wanted to do for days before that. And it sucks. Don’t tell me otherwise. I’m posting it because it’s bad. Because all my life I’ve felt that if I do bad work (especially bad artwork), I’m a bad person — a valueless person that others will simply laugh at. And I need to get over that. So posting a crappy piece of art is therapy for me. But this…
An alien-abduction lamp. From dollar-store materials. Is that cool, or what? I found it (and directions for making it) here. And I found that in an article about “dollar-store culture”. Egads. Only the New York Times could discover that it’s trendy to be poor. This is not the only cool homemade lamp I’ve seen lately. I’ll soon be blogging about one I received. Very creative …
One of my old, old articles that still draws occasional questions is one I wrote back in the golden (so it now seems) pre-Patriot Act days — an article about working without a social security number. The questions always carry a tone of desperation. They’re from people trying to do the right thing for themselves and their families and feeling increasingly pressured. I have no good answers. So many doors have closed in the last 10 years. Here’s the latest such letter. My response, such as it is, is below. If you have anything better, fire away in the comments…
Lately there’ve been a lot of articles like this one compiling various polls that show that Americans are fed up, ticked off, and righteously furious. You know the sort I mean: “A new Rasmussen survey has found that 85 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress ‘are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people’”; “A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll discovered that 73 percent of the American people believe that the nation is ‘on the wrong track’”; “A recent poll taken by Rasmussen found that 68 percent of Americans believe that we are actually in a…
First, to assist with your Monday morning work avoidance: Jake MacGregor posted three new chapters last week, beginning with Chapter 25 in which Our Intrepid Hero … dons a dress and discovers why it really isn’t his style. “The Five Stages of Awakening.” Dog helps rape victims in court and provokes controversy. This is most absolutely definitely not safe for work. And Felonious Munk’s grasp of economics might not rise to Misean levels. Still. a pretty good rant. States rights isn’t only a “right-wing” position. More in the common-ground department. Blueberry season! It feels as if summer has barely begun.…
… Americans received word that the Japanese had surrendered. I don’t usually mark government anniversaries, especially military ones. But I received an email from a friend, a Marine whose family has been through multi-generational hell serving a country that … well, I’ll just let him tell it in his own words, without editing or embellishment. The man he honors is known as “LD, Jr.” some of you knew my Grandfather, most of you did not he was a ‘card’ – a little stumped up man of 5’4″ smoking his pipe he drove too fast, too close to people’s bumpers (maybe…
Had a little excitement around Ye Olde Town the other day. When I arrived at the post office, a cop car with lights flashing sat in a nearby bank parking lot. No, not a bank robbery. As I headed up the steps to the P.O., a woman just ahead turned and in a most accusatory way demanded, “Did you leave a little boy in your car?” What? Do I look like somebody who totes toddlers around? Me and this silver hair? “Um … no. Why?” “Well,” she said with a glint that you really had to see to understand, “somebody…