I want a walk and a bouquet of flowers.
My Sweetie
That is her reason for today. It is a great reason to be alive and out and everything.
Musing
60 Years
Accounting for now having lived that long, what have you done consistently, say six days a week, for your life? Herb Caen did that. He was a newspaper columnist for 6o years. He did miss four years. Had to go off to a four-year stint in WWII. But six days a week since 1938 … it boggles the mind. He was great to read. Well duh, I came to him after 40 years of experience.
What have you done that consistently? Maybe this is a hint about how to get great at what you do. Every day. A “little bit”. Everyday. Well, take a day off each week.
Cultivate Your Happiness
Is it good in the world? Perhaps we live in the best of all possible worlds. Well, maybe not this year. But let us say you are an optimist. Actually, I am. Well until now. But either way, there is a lot to hope and fear of what is going on in the world. Perhaps you need a point of view from someone else. Perhaps you should read Candide. Or if you are not familiar with it, watch this:
No matter what, you are responsible for your own happiness.
What I Keep
What I wrote for One Typed Page.
2020-09-20 Portland, Oregon Hermes 3000
If you feel carefully, you can detect the perforations of where the paper was ripped from its neighbors and the side stuff with the holes for tractor feeds. How old did the paper need to be for that? When was the last time I had tractor feed paper? In the 1990s? Why did I keep this paper? Why did I buy paper and not use this paper?
It is not the only thing I have here at home from a long time ago. And I mean things that are part of the making stuff group. I have some pencils, 4H, such as those from 1982 or so. 4H is a grading spec. This is a hard pencil for light lines, usually used in sketching and stuff like that. I have some tubes of paint. Oil paints in 200ml tubes. Cad Red Deep, Prussian Blue, Cad Yellow Pale, Phthalo Blue, and Alizeran Crimson. All in boxes, ready to go. There are other bits and pieces from my past, all ready to use. I like things like this, things that stay ready to use. You cannot do that with foodstuffs. Foodstuffs rot. It takes a different kind of liking to like that kind of thing.
I have words too. Words like those that you read here. They never rot. You can use words over and over.
I hope to use words well. Here is a sample, not from me.
Sometimes as an antidote
~ Rebecca Elson
To fear of death,
I eat the stars.
Those are the opening words to ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH
by Rebecca Elson. What words those are! Someday!
— MichaelRpdx :: h3k
Wanting Sun, Wanting Rain
A friend said, “I miss the sun.” In our days of smog, fed by the fires, the sun is notably absent. As the Air Now site, run by the EPA, you can find out about the air quality throughout the nation. Right now it shows:
That is an improvement for this week. They report, “People with heart or lung disease, older adults, children and teens: Avoid physical activities outdoors.” I have three conditions. I am not going out of doors at all.
While she misses the sun, I miss days of rain. Would it be nice to have our lack of visibility, with everything hidden in rain?