Lent

I always give things up for Lent.  Always tried to be creative.  Last year - the year before? - I gave up the Internet.  Made for a less interesting 40 days, and it didn't do the things I thought it would, like impel me to spend more time with books and music.  Or one year, alcohol.  Which didn't make my life much less interesting, but it made me less interesting - or so I was told.

This year, I'm giving up giving up things for Lent.  I'm continuing to indulge in the usual give-up candidates, and with each one thinking, is this really a vice, or is it a virtue... Because someone (with a lot more piety than I have) once told me:  you don't give up the bad things for Lent, you give up the good ones.  Otherwise it isn't sacrifice, it's self-improvement.

Back

Gone away too long.  But I had thinking to do.

Starting back, with the General Confession, an old version.

My mother loved this, especially the "left undone" part. I was happy to be a miserable offender.

Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep.
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
We have offended against thy holy laws.
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults.
Restore thou them that are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord.
And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name.
Amen.

All Twitter These Days

At the right.

When you are thinking in aphorisms it's a better setting.

And Fixer is getting fixed.  Will stay quiet until I figure out how to escape the corners into which I paint myself.

Rain

For some reason the media emphasis has been on the heat - well, there is a reason, the heat is unprecedented - but what has really been so relentless is the lack of rain.  Cracks appear in the ground, whole trees die.

So when the rain came we went out and danced in it.  Now the tree frogs and cicadas are in full serenade.

Chemistry

Over 100F for many days, no rain, no relief in sight.  As to plant life, and we have lots of it, you get to the point where you risk boiling instead of watering. 

What I Mean By That Is

... Strays is going to be more and more like Twitter.  In fact I may migrate to Twitter.  Until I do, aphorisms.  You know, like "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."  (Boy, that one has always seemed like voodoo.  Wear this apple around your neck and mwambajamba no more doctors!)

But where I'm really going to try to apply myself is in Fixer.  Link on the right.  It's going to start trite and derivative.  So let's watch and see if I can find a voice.

Fore

There may be another way to propel this forward.

What impels the words is a desire to share ideas, plus a desire to write, plus a desire to exhibit.  As to the last - otherwise why put it out on the Internet, where it lasts forever, is completely corruptible, and is likely to bring back nothing good.

So you could close it down, call it a day.  Or you could carry on, but try to make it more regular, more urgent, less introspective, less idiosyncrantic, less boring.

Or (and there are lots of other or's out there), you can reframe things as fiction and narrative.

And you can drop the second person when you really mean the first.

Thwack.