Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
Ok, this is ridiculous. My dad is insisting that melted cheese is worse for your arteries than the same cheese, eaten at room temperature. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. He says because he's seen the way it sticks to a plate when it congeals means it's doing the same on the inside. I tell him, whether the fat has been exuded and is floating on top of the melty goodness, or whether it's still in the block, it all gets broken down to identically oozy chyme in your guts before any part of it makes its way into your bloodstream. Am I right? Of course I am. Can I find any corroborating evidence on the web? Of course I can't, because it's TOO ABSURD TO DISPROVE. And so he doesn't believe me. Argh! {bangs head on keyboard}
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(4)
03:32:51 PM,Monday 22 March 2004
Am I choosing to walk way across town to get my paycheck and then halfway across in another direction to the bank because:
1) It's a lovely day, I need the exercise, I've got nothing else in particular to do, and walking makes me happy?
or
2) I'm a lazy bastard who hates driving and really really doesn't feel like putting gas in the car even though it has to be done sometime before work tomorrow night and wants to put it off as much as possible?
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(1)
02:54:00 PM,Monday 22 March 2004
When I listen to music, sometimes the most exquisite parts are the softest. But when they come on, I always reach for the volume knob and crank 'em. I distort the dynamic structure of the piece so that I can hear my favorite bit more intensely. It's the same with pictures. A perfectly framed picture, taking up just the right amount of space, from just the right perspective... most pictures, fine, I'll let 'em be how they're intended. But if one of them strikes me hard enough, I can't; I have to zoom it and zoom it so that it's just a mash of pixels. Or, if it's not digital, snatch off my glasses and press it to my nose. I don't know what to do with delicacies. I'm too hungry. I don't think I do this with animate objects. Or, at least, I'm not so self-indulgent as I am with dumb things. Yeah, I pluck up my cat when he's sleeping and cart him around the room, but if he wriggles annoyedly enough, I let him go. And people are something else again. Of course, it's even more tempting with them sometimes, to try to spy into parts you have no right to. But it's also harder to do. It's got more consequences. It's much more important to resist. And, so far, I have. But there's a difference between keeping your hand in your pocket 'cause the sign says "Don't Touch" and learning to love a flower in its bed even more than in your buttonhole.
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02:48:08 PM,Monday 22 March 2004
I can't believe how much of this I've just completely forgotten. I really was able to follow it, even grok it, once upon a time. But now it's just vague glimmerings. Grr. It was a great feeling, too, when I could look at that gibberish and actually picture the fields and proportions in my head, however fuzzily. I need some kind of Johnny-Lab refresher course. Or I could just re-read my old lab manuals, I guess. But that ain't half as fun.
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(3)
01:47:46 PM,Monday 22 March 2004
Dirty Dirty Mr. Twain!
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(6)
02:25:32 AM,Monday 22 March 2004
Wow. How lame is this? It's hard enough to get any solid sense out of the stuff when you're doing it four hours a week with twenty minds in concert -- you think some arrogant schmuck with a degree is gonna do you any good spouting off about how Being and Non-Being apply to your petty personal problems? Bluk.
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(3)
01:21:30 AM,Monday 22 March 2004
What I'm missing worst about my childhood this week: documents. Man, what happened to all of 'em?
The map of Castle Prawn in Dusk (living room rug)
The map of enemy encampments in Quazrl (front yard)
The 100-button Swiss Army Calculator from Blue Sky Grey Sky
The rules (rules?) for Merchants and Cobblers
The merit badge system of the Lobster-Porcupine Youth
The K.G.B. Laboratory files
The stick-figure torture chambers
The GLON plans
The first and middle names of all my fingers and toes
The table of ranks and armaments for my whole pack of playing cards
Also the story of the Klopstockian Nose Fly and the Purple Petunia code. We made up so many games, and drew up so many intricate charts and lists and diagrams, and now they're all gone, every one of 'em. I don't know where. Just happens, I guess. I mean, I was really unhappy when all my childhood books were stolen, but I could probably find replacements for most of those if I wanted to badly enough. But none of these. They're gone.
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(1)
07:21:04 PM,Sunday 21 March 2004
Nekkid calisthenics in the sunshine out on the terrace.
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01:44:41 PM,Sunday 21 March 2004
Racism bred of self-interest is vile. Racism bred of ignorance is all but inescapable, and it's no good to condemn a person for it. The two can look a lot alike, but it's dangerous and unjust to confuse them. Of course, it should be corrected whenever it appears, but it's as bad to hold yourself above some categorical "racist" who's only guilty of having difficulty translating a foreign experience into a familiar one as it is to refuse to acknowledge that such a thing can be done at all. I think it's good faith and an open mind that makes the difference. But it's never easy.
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(3)
03:19:15 AM,Sunday 21 March 2004
I'm happy and sleepy and full of fishsticks, spinach, samosa potatoes, mushroom risotto, crab, grape soda, and birthday cake. I got a beautiful bearded dragon kite, but it was missing a Y-connector, so they had to take it back. We've been talking about virtue and happiness and the soul. And life and luck and toil and wisdom. Plenty complications riddling everything, but love is what it comes down to, or, at least, whatever else there is is nothing without it. No surprise -- still, it's something else again to feel it palpably surrounding you from your birth on through to the present and every moment to come, and I realize over and over again how lucky I am.
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02:02:46 AM,Sunday 21 March 2004
Just had the official videotaped "what to do if we lose our minds, get sick, or die" conversation with the parents and the brothers. It went well.
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06:55:23 PM,Saturday 20 March 2004
Ah, sweet Listerine of Fife, at last I've downed you...
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12:25:53 AM,Saturday 20 March 2004
Roman Poetry Recited!
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(2)
03:59:34 PM,Friday 19 March 2004
Email down again. Grrr.
Is it possible to tell, on hearing a mass or other sacred work, whether the singer has religious faith (as opposed to, or in addition to, artistic ecstasy) in his subject?
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(5)
11:33:53 AM,Friday 19 March 2004
She's mad, I tell you! Mad!
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(2)
04:03:16 PM,Thursday 18 March 2004
"And you're weak and you're harmless
and you're sleeping in your harness
and the wind going wild in the trees,
and it ain't exactly prison
but you'll never be forgiven
for whatever you've done with the keys."
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(3)
03:51:04 PM,Thursday 18 March 2004
No words now. Silence for a while. To let the echoes carry.
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11:45:04 PM,Wednesday 17 March 2004
For my birthday, I have gotten:
Words.
A medication administration assistance practicum recertification.
Money and cards. (The White Rabbit and a Dragonfly)
My last issue of Opera News.
A wise and beautiful book that I have just read. "The Boy Who Stared Everyone Down" is the wisest story, but I don't know which is the most beautiful.
A flower with the thorns taken off and the petals close together.
A book that I haven't read but want to like mad after reading the back, and will, when I work tonight.
A map to pore over and mark up with grease pencil.
A portrait.
A bacchanal.
Rubus Idaeus, reproduced by gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
A timeline of Leonardo. (Who is the Yarn Winder?)
And tonight I will get:
Three Big Macs, Large Fries, and a McWhatsit... the candy milkshake thing.
A conversation.
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(18)
05:27:45 PM,Wednesday 17 March 2004
Irish herpetology is a fairly simple subject. Maybe you should take it up._
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(4)
04:42:55 PM,Wednesday 17 March 2004