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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. |
| The Media Prompt this week is a video of the song Jumpsuit by Twenty One Pilots. Prior to this, I have only one brief experience of this band and their musical offerings. Since it is the only story I have about Twenty One Pilots, it's the one I will write for my blog post. Warning: In the beginning, it won't seem like the story is about Twenty One Pilots, but it is. Hang in there. It started with The Mandolorian, the latest entry in the Star Wars saga. I had not watched this show as I didn't even have Disney as a streaming service. So, I was completely unaware that The Mandolorian had become a sensation, as big as any Star Wars character had ever been in popularity. So big, that his fan base was eclipsed by only one other Star Wars character - his unnamed sidekick, called "Baby Yoda" by fans of the show. I first saw Baby Yoda when my daughter texted me a photo of him and asked me to crochet a Baby Yoda for her. I said that I would, little knowing that crocheted Baby Yodas were all the rage and it was almost impossible to find any yarn in a sort of mossy green color since all the crafters making yodas had cleared the shelves. Eventually, I found a source and got to work. A woman who works with my son's girlfriend saw photos of my Baby Yoda and wanted to buy two of them. So, I made another two yoda dolls. She loved them and asked if I could make a Ned for her daughter. I confess, that I had no idea what a "Ned" was. Aside from being Ned, it had no meaning for me. It was then I was directed to a video of the song "Chlorine" by Twenty One Pilots. Ah ha! Now there seems to be some point to this rambling story, you might say. But you'd be wrong. The only point is that Ned and his song are my frame of reference on this band. And from what I've seen and heard, I feel like the songwriter is not very happy. In the song "Chlorine", the singer ends up sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool (with Ned) looking rather depressed. Chlorine may cleanse the water, but in a larger concentration is poisonous. One wonders what Chlorine represents in the song, cleansing or poison? He sings "sippin' on straight Chlorine" and says he's running for his life. In the song, Jumpsuit, he's standing on a car that's on fire and being chased by a figure who may represent Death. Death appears to catch up to him, but only smears dark ashy fingerprints on his neck. It seems significant that the coat that the singer puts on has high-visibility stripes and looks like a fireman's jacket. At the end of the song, the car is burnt but the fire is out and the jacketed singer, safe in his coat but carrying the marks of fire on him, walks away from the charred chassis. The singer has survived the fire, and Death was not able to take him. Yeah, I think that the songwriter for this band thinks about death a lot. Or maybe I have it all wrong. Watch both these videos and see what I mean. Or tell me I am full of hooey. |
| It's snowing. The air is filled with delicate white flakes. It's a winter wonderland. Again. Enough, already. I've seen all the breathtaking beauty of winter landscapes that nature can throw at me. Give me March with its mud and its soggy, yellow grass. March when the crocuses poke their heads out in inappropriate places they were never planted. Enough of the delicate white-laced arms of trees raised in reverence towards the sky. Enough, do you hear me? Enough. |
| I don't usually blog on the weekend, but I knew that I missed Friday and that broke my blogging streak. I thought a quick update this morning would make up for that, and then I discovered that I had missed Thursday, too. Well, it's not tragic. It's not a job and I won't be fired for not showing up. No one is eagerly awaiting each day's installment and so there is no one to disappoint. I did feel quite accomplished in having blogged so many days in a row and this is my most prolific blogging period since I started the blog. I have to be proud of myself for the small things, mainly because I never do big things. I'm trying a version of "bulletproof" coffee this morning. I don't have any MCT oil (I don't even know what MCT stands for), no ghee, or any of those powders and creamers that the YouTube vloggers put in their morning brew. Just a pat of organic butter and a little cream. But this is a very different experience for me and I am not sure you can appreciate how brave an act it was to inject my coffee with contaminants. I have been drinking my coffee black for almost 30 years. I learned to drink it black to avoid the disappointment of being out of milk or cream, as so often happened in the office. But once my taste buds became accustomed to that bitter, deep, dark and robust flavor of the unadulterated bean, I realized that coffee needs no embellishment. It's perfect just as it comes, hot and steaming from the coffee maker into my cup. As for the experiment, however, I think it works. That is, my cup of coffee was somewhat filling and satisfied that morning desire for something to go with my coffee. The headache I woke up with is gone, but any old coffee will cure a headache. I didn't hate the coffee, but I did add a bit of Stevia to make it palatable. It's a fad. But everything since hunter/gatherers has been a fad, really. Humans like change and challenges. We get tired of the same old roasted mastodon and push the limits of our ingenuity and our biology's ability to withstand imposed hardships and indulgences. Some fads, like lead makeup, were doomed to failure and others like going over Niagara in a barrel tend to weed out the more foolish among us. Humans who aren't involved constantly in a battle to survive get up to a lot of foolish things and put them on YouTube or Tik Tok or even blog about them. As fads go, bulletproof coffee is okay. Whether or not it rocks my morning remains to be seen.  |
| Here I am, blogging at night again. I am yawning and I don't think this is going to go well. I would give my eye teeth for a cup of coffee. Except, I don't know which teeth are the eye teeth. As far as I know, none of my teeth ever had eyes. Now, I don't remember all my baby teeth, maybe some of them had eyes. But, my mother would never have let me drink coffee when I was a baby so it wouldn't have done me any good to even have eye teeth. I didn't get anything done today. I fielded a million phone calls, sometimes two at a time. Of all the people in the world, I am the least likely to be of use in a crisis, the least equipped to solve anyone's problems, the least qualified to give advice. None of that keeps people from calling me for help, solutions and advice. I think I have identified the two main causes for this: 1.) I pick up the phone when it rings; and 2.) I don't hang up in time. It's been a day of recalling life as it was, missing people who are no longer with us, and wishing for the simplicity of the past (as I remember it and not as it actually happened). Nostalgia mixed with distraction is not a good formula for ambitious accomplishment. I didn't even answer the QOTD and I had such a good answer. I would answer it now, but I am yawning with such intensity that I sprained my face. This is really a cheat, writing these blog posts about nothing. But it still counts, haha! I do like having completed at least this task every day. |
| I am supposed to blog in the morning, but this has been an unusual day. A number of things required attention and a few merited intervention. But I didn't want to break my blogging streak. It brings up an interesting choice. Blogging at the end of the day would allow me to relay all the exciting events of the day but I might be too tired to do so. And what if the events of the day were too personal, too embarrassing, or just too boring to write about? I'm not really good at the daily diary kind of thing. I don't find my life interesting, why would anyone else? It's easier to blog in the morning. It's easier to let ideas move my fingers over the keyboard when I am still in that morning haze, when I am just awake and fresh from dreams full of the deep, philosophical thoughts birthed in them, stirring and refining them in a steaming cup of black coffee. I wish I had a cup of coffee right now. I will have to settle for prepping the coffee maker with the water and coffee for tomorrow morning's brew. I look forward to bedtime because it's closer to my next cup of coffee. I can't wait to wake up and have my first cup of the day. |
| It's Monday, my back to blogging day. It's also our trash collection day. Trash day is a day of great joy, a day when we are relieved of those things which we have discarded,those things we need to rid ourselves of so that we can travel on into a bright, clean future and those smelly half-eaten containers of food from the fridge that have grown fur. Such freedom. I also knew immediately upon seeing the calendar that it is George Washington's birthday (and not because the calendar told me so). I attribute my instant recognition of the date's significance to a very good primary education, wanting to thank especially my second grade teacher who instilled so much important information into so many tiny heads through the years. History, penmanship and long division, we got it all. It occurs to me that it is amazing to be remembered. Most of us only exist for as long as there are people alive who remember us. In most cases, we are forgotten within three generations. But command the army that wins a revolution and change history and you are never forgotten, even if no one really knows much about you other than your name. Mrs. Mahoney! That was the name of my second grade teacher... I think. It might have been Maloney. She is someone I would wish to thank for the incredible things she taught me, the solid foundation she laid. Many other teachers were great disappointments, but Mrs. Mahoney played the piano! Memory is a funny thing. Trash day - forget about some things and remember others day. Choose what to keep and what to discard day. Time to sift memories and let nostalgia bring back those that are warm to live in, throw out the memories of pain and disappointment. It's trash day, time to shake out the dust. |
| I was dismayed to see the snow flying outside my window this morning, but I quickly repented of that when I realized how lucky I am to be in a heated house with electricity, water and food (and, most especially, coffee) while people are dying in Texas due to the unusual winter weather. Snow as late as April (and every ten years or so, May) is not unusual for us, and so we are better equipped for the weather. Snow flurries in February ought not to make me so desperate for Spring. I think I am just desperate to save money on the heating bills and that's simply ingrained from childhood. It's Friday and this is the last day of the week that I must blog to keep my commitment to myself. I hope this weekend, I can follow my plan of using weekends to review and enter contests. I still have a few odds and ends to wrap up by day's end, then I can move forward to the weekend. I don't know if I can sustain this level of personal accountability but it seems to be working right now. I had chocolate avocado pudding for breakfast, and there's nothing to complain about there.  |
| In my social media platforms, there are several places where I belong to various craft groups. One of the knitting groups has a resident "expert". She has no official title in the group, she's not a founder or anything. But she likes to let everyone know that she's a master knitter and if anyone posts a question, she is quick to point out what they have done wrong and how they might fix it. Sometimes this is helpful advice and earns her much praise and admiration. But she often instructs without being asked and honestly, I rarely see any projects she has been knitting. Also, in a group where many are beginners, it isn't nice to critique someone's first projects from the point of view of the seasoned knitter. Sometimes, all anyone needs is kindness and encouragement. The lesson in the finer points can come later. Also, sometimes I don't really care if I cut corners or if I wing it and create something that is different. I know there are others who feel the same way. In these cases, I am just sharing, not looking for professional critiques. I wonder why no one wants to just have fun and a little community? I guess being the unofficial expert gives this person a great deal of personal satisfaction, perhaps it makes her feel needed and special. And if I ask a question, I am grateful for an answer from someone with knowledge. But if I don't ask, maybe I just want to say "look at what I did!" and leave it at that. I am glad I am not an expert at anything. I think hobbies are more enjoyable if you don't get too anal about them. |
| I am still on my first cup of coffee. There is, in the small oven, something that might be a keto bagel. We'll see. Just wanted something different today and I had the dough already made and refrigerated . I don't know how long it takes to bake, so I will have to keep checking it and hope some ideas pop into my head that are worthy of writing down in my blog entry. Blogs are not Facebook, after all, and are meant to contain more than just a chronicle of one's daily attempts at cookery. Perhaps there is some excuse in that I am forcing myself to write in my blog every day as a kind of exercise. Or punishment. Or torture. All the same thing, really. This is my second week of keeping the commitment to blog. I haven't written down the other commitments which make them harder to track or to be held accountable for. But I did hope to write more poetry, do a few contests, etc., and I am just not managing it. I think that I expect more inspiration but sometimes that is what the poet must provide and it can only be found within, not in the prompt or the photo. Wow, that's depressing. I wonder if I am that empty right now? |
| Although the wintry mix of sleet and snow falling this morning batters my window with every gust of wind that interrupts its otherwise ground-ward travel plans, I definitely hear the first sounds of approaching spring. Birdsong. And the songs I hear are those of returning species. I don't notice when they've gone away but I definitely notice when they return. The cat notices, too. It gives her something interesting to watch at the window after a long , boring winter of mostly white landscapes and few woodland creatures to observe except for the odd squirrel or a few, squawking crows. She's mad about crows. I have never been so keen on spring before as I am this year. Generally, I prefer winter snow to spring showers, slush to mud, bare trees to leaves. Perhaps it is age, perhaps it is my dismay upon seeing the heating bill, but this year I am not unhappy to see winter off. Grey skies notwithstanding, the birds are returning to prepare for spring. I am going to hope they know something I don't, because all I see from here is winter. |
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Not quite what I meant. "Pufts" was a sidelong reference to the famous dog show, Crufts