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 |   Thoughts destined to be washed away by the tides of life. |
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I've been studying my cover photo for a while now, and it seems to me that it is more than just a photo of what is there that can be seen, more than just three white rocks stacked on a beach. It contains an important question about the future, about what happens long after the photographer has gone. What will happen to our pile of stones when the tide comes in? Will it topple or has the architect built this structure at a safe distance? I don't know what will happen to these words that I stack here on the sand. They may prove safely distant, or they may be swallowed up by a rush of self-doubt. They may be here for a season. They may lose their balance and be scattered by the shoreline, or be hidden away under shifting sands. Perhaps someday, the tides of life will reclaim them. Or maybe that's just a bunch of poetic, romantic nonsense. After all, this is just a blog. |
| I have been trying to think of a blog update for two days now, and I still haven't got it quite right. I don't want to let it go to three days, because that will trigger the system email: "[Reminder] Update your blog". I don't want to see that. Although, sometimes it's the ony email that I get and I feel ignored without it. Still, I am working at coming up with a new blog post. I will let you know when it's ready. Till then, I won't post anything. I don't want to bother to blog when I really have nothing to say. That would be boring. Of course, the longer it takes me to think up a blog update, the more my ideas start to go out of date and then I have to start all over again. So, I don't have a blog idea yet. However, with all this planning, it will probably end up being succinct and pithy, not one of these blog posts that ramble on and on and just use a lot of words to convey absolutely nothing at all. I hate that. I won't even read those kinds of posts. Ugh! Have you ever noticed though, that when you have nothing to say, that your blog is the perfect place to say it? I mean, blogs don't have a character restriction, or at least I never reached it if they do. I think that a word limit might be a good idea, though. It would keep people from writing these long, boring blog updates that don't really update you on anything. Anyway, back to thinking. I need to update my blog soon, but it probably won't be today. I don't have anything to say today.} |
| I watched a few seasons of The Walking Dead (gave up about the time they killed off Glenn) but the zombie apocalypse is not what they think it is. For one thing, it's already here and it fits in the palm of your hand. It's not the fact that most people own phones that cost more than my first television set (and all the ones since), it's that the phones own us. Our phones are our connection to the world and often the only connection we have with other people. And if a phone is lost, some people are like crack addicts looking for a fix. They will do anything and everything to get that new phone before *gasp* someone texts them or snapchats at them and they *gasp* miss it. It's like Tom Macdonald said: "they gave us tiny screens we think we're free 'cause we can't see the cage." |
| Mark Twain once said: "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect". Sometimes, just the fact that the majority approve of you is evidence that you've failed to think for yourself. There was a time when the majority thought that the hairstyles of the 80s were cool, just remember that... |
I was telling one of the twenty-somethings that he ought not to leave his car parked on the street for a week while he travels out-of-state because, if it snows, it's an automatic parking ban and they can tow your car. "It's April," he laughed. "It's not going to snow anymore!" "Never say that," I replied. "Nature can't resist a challenge." This morning Facebook presented me with a memory post from 13 years ago about an April Fool's Day snowstorm. I remember it well. Coincidence? Maybe, but a little further down the feed was this alert from a local news station: NOR'EASTER... Long duration nor'easter Wednesday-Thursday will bring significant snow... I don't know how people can live here their whole lives and not know how this works. SMH |
| The test of a great coffee is whether or not it creates a euphoria and deep yearning in you when you first open the container and the aroma of those lovely ground beans reaches your nose. A coffee that doesn't have an emotional impact the moment you smell it, can never satisfy your taste buds once it has been brewed. It may deliver caffeine, it may be fine if you adulterate it with cream and sugar, but a truly great coffee will smell so enticing, that you crave it rich, strong, hot and black in your cup. |
| I just read that the average household wastes more than 10,000 gallons of water each year and throws out 1/3 of the food they buy. The average American also creates 4.3 pounds of trash per day - that's 3/4 of a ton per year! I think we all know what the solution is. It's time to get rid of the average people. |
Some days I question my sanity. It hasn't answered in a long time. |
| I used to believe that the internet was the safest place to be, that virtual friends are best. It can be as anonymous as you desire, hiding under pseudonyms and behind avatars. Or if you prefer, you can let it all hang out and chronicle every moment of your life on Instagram and Twitter, gathering followers, stalkers and admirers. But even when you think it´s safe, you can be reminded that we´re all human, even the digital people are just human when you strip away their virtual selves. A couple of years ago, I was watching a cooking video on YouTube. There was a recommendation to make this other YouTuber's pie crust. So I sought out the video and watched it. The woman in the video had some solid tips on pastry and I definitely use her method now. But when I returned to her channel to subscribe to her videos, I discovered she had passed away. She had passed before I saw the first video. And her husband who had taste-tested her tomato pie was dead, too, having predeceased her by several months. I had met, grown to like and lost these people all at once. I still watched her videos, learning from her and about her. Her life had meaning to many, and now it had meaning to me. I don't make pie anymore, and I don't think I will watch those videos again, but I won't forget her. Then, just yesterday, I discovered a crafting YouTuber who demonstrated her patterns for crocheted items. Young, blonde, pretty and perky, she seemed to break the stereotype of crocheters being old women with nothing better to do with their time once the cats were all fed. I liked her approach to patterns and tutorials and subscribed right away. The first video I saw pop up was her memorial service. She died in January of a rare form of cancer at the age of 36. I can't explain how this news hit me. To see someone full of life one minute, then to find that one day not too long ago, without any warning, she was handed a death sentence. To see how cancer just steals lives.... I think it was the sudden nature of her death, at least, it was sudden to me. For one minute she was smiling and chatting happily - the picture of health - and the next she was dead. I have changed my mind about the internet. The deaths of virtual people have too profound an effect on me. The feeling of helplessness is even greater due to the utter remoteness of these strangers. The connection to them isn't real, and I cannot even grieve a loss that isn't really mine. Virtual people often disappear suddenly without explanation. Virtual friendships are broken every day with nothing more than a change of user name. The internet is crowded with humanity and yet, so empty. |
| I dreamed about blogging last night. Lately, I have been dreaming a lot about blogging. Last night, I dreamed that I had an old blog that I transferred here to WDC. It was a recipe blog, but every entry was preceded by a long whine of my general dissatisfaction with life. They were good recipes, but I feel like I might have used them only to draw an audience. The recipes were just there to lure people to my complaint blog. Or, I might have been feeling guilty about having abandoned this blog for five months. Nah. I probably just want to complain. |
| I've recently developed an addiction. I've become addicted to this minty chocolate tea. It's an herbal tea. I am not sure how they make something that tastes so good out of plant-type things, but it's delicious and minty and a bit chocolate-y and it makes a nice snack or dessert. It has no calories or sugar in it, so it seems harmless enough. But it's not. Not only does it taste far too nice, everyone else in the world has developed an addiction for it, too. Therefore, it is almost always sold out. I have left cheeky comments on the company's Facebook page about their inability to stock this tea and how disappointed I am. I have mocked them and taunted them. That's what addiction will lead to. It can turn you into an internet troll. And still no tea. So, I have had to improvise. I have discovered that peppermint tea pairs well with almost every other flavor of herbal tea, and especially lemon. What is a carnivore doing drinking a tincture of stewed plant leaves? Well, it's a way of eating, not a religion. Also, I hope that the bits of plants that disagree with me are the chewy parts and that steeping them in hot water doesn't affect me the same way. So far, so good. So peppermint tea is a go for now. When the other tea is back in stock, I'll order some under an assumed name. |
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Not quite what I meant. "Pufts" was a sidelong reference to the famous dog show, Crufts