My thoughts exactly.

Black Friday

I think it's terribly interesting that all day yesterday we were told to be thankful for what we had, realize our abundance and count our many blessings.

And all day today we're told that we really don't have any where near enough, certainly not our fair share, especially if we want to please others, so, by god, get out there and get MORE.

sigh

Thanksgiving

Since I've been grown and married, we've always used the Catholic grace:

Bless us, o Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord, amen.

When I was a kid, though, Thanksgiving and Easter were always at my Grandmother Bach's house, and she spoke, along with English, pretty good German. A good Lutheran, grace was always said before meals, and always this one:

Komm, Herr Jesus, sei Du unser Gast
und segne, was Du uns bescheret hast.

I was in high school before I learned what it meant. I still say it, in German, at Thanksgiving and Easter. Thanks, Nana.

Other holidays were spent with the Kerbaugh grandparents and relatives. Presbyterian and High Episcopal, they got right to the point:

Bless this food to our use and us to thy service, keeping us ever mindful of the needs of others. Amen.

If I feel formal, that's what I say. More often, though, I just say "Thank you, Mother, thank you. For everything. I am so blessed." Because that's pretty much how I feel.

I was going to do some big Thanksgiving post about what I'm thankful for (the hardships from which we learn, and hot water. Especially, hot water.) I found this, though, in Susan Wittig Albert's newsletter, and she says it perfectly:

Give thanks for material and spiritual blessings and for the challenges that teach us who we are and what we're made of. Spend time in the holiday kitchen. Love the kids, your partner, your parents, your neighbors (on this small planet, we're all neighbors). Share.

Aha! Here I thought it was *my* fault!

Will ye go, lassie, go?

Not sure why that's always the song that I hum (like a camel) when things get really bad. Maybe it's just in my key. More likely it's that the version I know best is the Fred Neill one, and his voice is always a comfort. 'Ev'.

So, let's see where we are... everyone (except me) is sick, and John, a.k.a. Spleen Boy, possibly seriously. We have pretty much no money and, with half a foot of (unexpected) snow outside, no work likely for me. Everything needs tires and the electric bill came in a gray envelope (blue=normal, white=not so good, gray=give us the money dammit.)

Did I mention that I almost burned the house down? Just finished sweeping up the shattered light bulb and vacuuming the soot off the bed. And after I just changed the sheets and vacuumed the room yesterday. Insult to injury. Yeah.

No wonder I'm singing about pulling wild mountain thyme. Wish it grew up here on the hill.

Day 5 without water.

You have to read that aloud, in the tone used to read the journals of the arctic explorers, to get the full effect.

Actually, it's not quite that bad. Cold water we have plenty of - it's the hot variety that's missing, meaning no restorative bowl of water to sit in for hours on end, recuperating from the woes of the world. Something is wrong with the hot water heater, and John has been trying to fix it, on and off, since early in the week. For a little while we had no water at all, making plenty of the cold variety seem such a luxury that I've quit complaining and/or beseeching the gods.

All the clothing and dishes are dirty, as are the humans (well, this one, anyway, although I do sponge off using a big basin of water heated on the stove. The others take *shudder* cold showers.)

I was all set to go get a room or two at the Lincklaen House and order up turkey club sandwiches and a bottle of Alsacian rose, but I realized that the bill for that would be about the same as for a new water heater, so I've taken to my bed for the duration.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll shovel a path through the kitchen, heat my big basin of water and start washing my way through the dishes. I suppose the clothing could be washed on cold. (I suppose I could as well, although it's not too bloody likely.) I could get a fire going in the woodstove and the fireplace and make something warm to eat. But for now, I'm staying in bed, drinking room temperature beverages (read: chilled) and reading, drawing warmth out of the cat instead of the inverse.

Things are nippy up here on the hill.

It begins.

It's that lake effect stuff that looks like picked apart styrofoam coffee cups. It's snowing here, up on the hill. *sigh*

Confusion...epitaph

I always liked King Crimson, although I did (and still do) find their lyrics a little pretentious - except for confusion being one's epitaph. That, I can relate to. Oh yes indeed.

Musically, I preferred (and still do) 21st Century Schizoid Man. Ah, those days of wildly misspent youth.

Anyway, today's puzzle is this: everything that can go wrong either has done or is in the process of doing so. So why am I not concerned? I can't decide if it's some new spiritual maturity or if I've simply slipped a very vital cog. Hope the former, fear the latter.

As the Pennsylvania Dutch (who weren't, of course, Dutch at all, but German - they were called "Dutch" as a perversion of the German word for "German": Deutsch) back home would say:

Yah well.

First Frost

Yes, folks. The grass is all silvery. I think I'll go outside and take some pictures of my world. If I can figure out how, I'll post them.

Bootstraps

bootstrap |ˈboōtˌstrap| noun 1 a loop at the back of a boot, used to pull it on. • [usu. as adj. ] the technique of starting with existing resources to create something more complex and effective : her willingness to work night and day in a tiny basement office was evidence of her trademark bootstrap.

"The origin of this descriptive phrase isn't known. It refers of course to boots and their straps (laces) and to the imagined feat of a lifting oneself off the ground by pulling on one's bootstraps. This impossible task is supposed to exemplify the achievement in getting out of a difficult situation by one's own efforts.

It was known by the early 20th century. James Joyce alluded to it in Ulysses, 1922:

'There were others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps.'"

We'll ignore, for now, the meaning of inputting simple code into a computer in order to get it to self-load more complex code. I doubt if anyone does that anymore anyway.

So, starting with existing resources, eh? What if all your effing resources are already used up?? Huh?? What THEN?

Simmer down, there.

So many things are unravelling simultaneously, we are deep into the land of Not Funny. As I reviewed them in my mind, they all at first seemed (1) financial in nature (rugby dues, bankruptcy guy payment, phone turned off, insurances seriously screwed up [homeowners' cancelled, auto cancelled despite being paid through next December and all in the hands of someone named Alvarez...], other forms of Stuff due immediately if not sooner) but upon reflection, there are so many, many more.

There's the (2) house, which is in worse shape than the one that Dr Phil spent an hour tsk-tsking over.

There's (3) my body, gaining fat cells and losing brain cells like nobody's business.

Speaking of (4) business, I don't have much these days. That's typical for this time of year, certainly - everyone is sick of his garden and not about to put more money into upkeep. It'll pick up again in a couple weeks, and I do have a major job pending. Still, at the moment, thins are a little dicey.

(5) Family members, too...my mother, my husband, my daughter, all have their health challenges.

I have to stop hiding from this. One can only take so many baths (especially when one has (6) impressive amounts of poison ivy plaguing one's person), and even I can't sleep continuously - although I'd like to try. "Just keep sleeping...sleeping...sleeping."

And always lurking around the corner, the old demon (7) Black Dog. Winston Churchill used to build things out of bricks when things got bad for him. Maybe I ought to try that...maybe stone,though.

And let's not forget (8) the bees that live behind the chimney. How could I forget, with that constant infernal buzzing sound?!? Slowly I turn...

So I guess what I need here is a plan. A plan to use existing resources to make something more effective (please, not more complex.)

That's what I'll be working on in the next few days, up here on the Hill.

Alas, no.

It apparently is not done. At least not correctly, as when I try to log in, it says I don't exist - ven though I get greeted by name.

Ah well. Perhaps it's a sign from the gods.

Maybe I ought to find another way to spend my time, up here on the hill.

It is done.

I am now a myspace-ette, URL of myspace.com/mumisananarchist, assuming sign-up worked properly.

Now if I only had friends. I don't have any actual friends, (no, that's not fair - I do have two in the flesh and one in cyberland ) so I guess I shouldn't be all shocked that I can't get the whole myspace friends deal. I'm just feelin' sorry for myself. I'll shut up and go to bed now.

Decisions, decisions!

How annoying. I do like my blogspot, here, but for some reason have decided that I must also have a myspace. I know, moms with a myspace are creepy. But I want one anyway! I just can't decide on a URL. I'm leaning towards myspace.com/mumisananarchist but feel, for good or ill, that I must run it by my daughter first.

"Creepy", huh? I'll show ya creepy! (Wait, maybe that proves it...)

Try.

I've been thinking about trying. Not trying anything in particular, just trying, as a concept. And I think it's not all it's cracked up to be.

"There is no try. Only do or not do."

I was so sure it was Lao Tzu, or maybe the Buddha. But no. My favorite Sweet Potato Queen informed me that it was, in fact, Yoda. So much for that college minor in philosophy.

But the little dude was right. "Try" doesn't exist - the only thing that's real is the result, is whether or not one performs whatever task. No one bases their activities on your "try" - they need to know if you do or don't do the thing. And generally speaking, they'd be happier if you were up front with them.

You'll "try" to be there by noon - no, that's not okay. That means you'll show up if it's convenient for you, doesn't put you out too much, and you don't run into traffic. Can you be there by noon? Good. Then make it happen. Not sure, or don't think you can? Fine. How about 12:15, then, or 12:30? The point is to decide, commit, and make it happen.

"Try" gives us an automatic out, an opportunity to cop out on whatever we were doing or offering to do. "Try" means that we have real doubt as to whether or not we'll be willing or able to pull off whatever it is, from losing weight to showing up on time to meeting financial goals. It gives us built in weasel room, and I think that makes us sloppy about commitment. We need to define what it is that we're willing to do, then commit to doing that, and follow through with integrity. Not willing to do the task at all? No problem - be honest with yourself and with others and say that.

"Try" can also take away from us the satisfaction of having completed something - if you don't define what it is you're going to do, how do you know if you've done it? "I'll try to get as much done as I can". What does that mean? Bupkis. Everything's in there, from doing absolutely nothing (say it again) to completing the work. How much better it would be to say you'd work for an hour or a page or a room or whatever, then simply do that much. Then, when you've finished the amount to which you committed , you know that you've met your goal honestly and honorably. If you want to do another hour or room or page, then you can reset the intention and new goal.

Maybe it comes down to a combination of "know thyself" and basic integrity. In each situation, we need to figure out how much, if any, we want to commit to, which means that we know we have the time, willingness and ability to perform the task. Then, state what we want to commit to, which includes "nothing" if time, ability or willingness are lacking, and follow through (that's the integrity part.)

"I'm gonna lose thirty pounds this month!" Come on, you know that's not going to happen. And "lose as much as possible" is a cop out. Decide. Ten? Good. You know you can do it. Commit to it. Then follow through. Lose the ten. You're good to your word. "I'm gonna exercise every day!" Oh sure. Just like the last ten times you said that. How about three times a week? If that feels okay, commit to it, then do it. "I won't go to bed til it's done!" then you sneak off and sack out. No honesty or integrity there. Figure out how much you can and will do, name it, do it.

You can be wrong, if it's an honest mistake - an emergency or a genuine misassessment of a situation or of your own abilities. It happens, and that's one of the ways we learn about ourselves. One caveat: don't intentionally lowball yourself, committing to an absurdly small amount in order to succeed easily. Your integrity knows when it's being undermined.

So here's the challenge: eliminate the word "try" from your speech for a week or even just a day. (Did you just say "Okay, I'll try"? I did, when I first thought about this.) I've been working at this on and off for a week now, and it's made a genuine difference. I now think before I speak (what a concept, huh?), then assess the situation, make a determination, commit to it, and follow through, whether I feel like it or not. It's been a real lesson, in many ways, but absolutely worth the time and effort.

If you want, let me know how it works for you. Maybe we can start something.

Oh, my. Crow on the menu again?

In re: Sactuary, emc2 (sorry, I don't know how to make the 2 a superscript), Max and Jennifer and the whole energy pattern/frequency adjustment/bad frequency elimination deal. If you don't know what I'm talking about, my unfortunate rant is the April 24th entry, below.

I may have spoken too soon. (Gee, like that's never happened before, right?)

John sent off his money along with his photo, and a local (within 200 miles, which is local around these parts) representative called him to answer questions and generally act as go-between. She said he'd be "on the tray" - which our over-taxed brains have begun referring to as "sleeping with the dishes" - in a few days and feeling the effects anywhere from immediately to within a few weeks.

Immediately it is. Not better, at first, but a weird constellation of effects including odd skin sensations, leg restlessness, "spaciness" and other ill-defined mental states. Then, other things began happening. He woke up yesterday morning and noticed that the nasty toenail infection he's had forever (and not been able to treat because of his liver issues) is gone. And his hands: the last year or so he's had real trouble with the ...I don't know what it's called - that big area of the hand right below the thumb, over to mid-palm. It's been very swollen and painful - the doctors said it's a combination of carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and general overuse. The swelling is gone. The pain is gone. The mobility and dexterity have returned. And it's just the first week.

It'll be really damned interesting to see what happens. Back pain. Liver. Who knows what else. Am I converted? Not.....necessarily. Not yet, anyway. But I do apologize for that quick judgment, that eye roll, that immediate cynicism that precludes this sort of experience.

So read the book. (Katrina - I ordered one for you - it's coming.) See what you think. I'll keep you posted.

A couple other notes:

On my unfortunate tendency to a life capsulized by the phrase "You can't make me!", it was recently pointed out to me that it's at least partly genetic. My ancestors weren't just Scottish, they were Highlanders. Island Highlanders, to be exact, and "you can't make me!" is their birthright and motto, right after "vincere vel mori" ("conquer or die.") Those same guys who painted themselves blue and spent the long Highland winters figuring out how to pick off the Vikings. Bonnie Prince Charlie. Sheep and rocks and truly bad weather. Fierce individuals for whom cooperation is largely associated with weakness. Yep, those are my people. Slainte.

On my recent lack of availability and communication, I offer the following as partial explanation (as distinct from excuse, for which there is none.) Between April 19th and now, I have driven far enough to be across the country and halfway back - four round trips to Geneseo, a trip to see my mother in Philadelhia, a concert in NJ, and a conference in Toronto (a Landmark Forum - we'll cover that another day, because there is Just So Much to talk about with that one.) I'm exhausted - beyond exhausted, really - and have been put through several emotional ringers, topped off with an immediate full body plunge into twelve-hour work days, May being the gardener's equivalent of Fashion Week. I think of you, I do, and I'll be back, sane and whole, god/dess willing, in reasonably short order. All we have to get through first is the Mother's Day Plant Sale, the Herb and Flower Festival, and a few hundred gardens and plantings and clean-ups and designs and ... somebody better do a general clean-up on the house or there won't be any sanctuary at day's end.

Which brings us back to Sanctuary. Maybe, if I order the Family Plan, it can cure me of my lack of energy, perpetual low-grade sinus infection, inner ear dizziness thing and sore feet. Stay tuned.

And more energies.

Been listening to our buddy Wayne Dyer on the CD player during the long and frequent drive to Geneseo and back. He talked about an energy healing method I'd never heard of (and I'm pretty well versed in all things fringe and woo-woo), so I ducked into the bookstore in Geneseo to hunt up the reference:
http://www.amazon.com/Sanctuary-Path-Consciousness-Stephen-Lewis/dp/1561708453

Despite much help from a bookstore guy who looked like he'd spent too many hours in the hallucinogenic plants section, no book was forthcoming. Not wanting to have to cope once again with the inexorable slowness of the accursed Media Mail, I popped into a Barnes and Noble on the way home and paid full price *shudder* for a copy. John read it in one sitting and is all set to have an energy frequency adjustment or whatever the hell it's called.

Okay, maybe it's my Scots blood, but I have a little trouble with just sending a check (and a not insignificant one at that) and waiting for someone, somewhere to heal me using cosmic rays. So what if it is endorsed by not only Wayne but a slew of 1980's B list actresses? I'd be a lot more enthusiastic if I could go to Arizona or California or wherever-the-hell and meet this "Max" person, see his magnificent machine, talk to "Jennifer". I wanna believe, really I do - I'm clapping like crazy here - but I have the same problem, essentially, that I had with Redfield (Redfern? Redsomething...) and the Celestine books: retreaded philosophy being passed off as discovery in a penny-dreadful novel. Tossing in occasional Einstein and Plato quotes doesn't elevate the material so much as convince us that the author has a Bartlett's nearby and isn't sure that his audience would recognize other names. Calling it a "religion" sounds to me like a simple tax dodge. As I said, maybe I'm just a cynical Scot.

But I do believe in the ability of the mind to heal, and even if it can all be written off as coincidence (which I don't believe in, incidentally), placebo effect or some other more esoteric cause, bottom line is whether or not the patient is better in his own eyes. So if your back is so bad that you can't get out of bed for more than a few hours at a time, or your liver is compromised and western medicine can't offer you more than a 5% chance of remission after 18 months of torment, maybe you go for it. Maybe, for whatever reason, you feel better. That's all that matters.

So I'll keep clapping just as hard and as fast as I can.

Energies

Ah, the things we learn. Things that absolutely cannot possibly work, yet...do.

To wit: being able to discern the desirability of a given substance by pressing it into one's solar plexus while someone presses down on one's extended arm. If the arm is more easily pressed, the food, drink, drug or what-have-you is a poor choice for the individual; if the arm seems to grow stronger, then the individual will benefit from the substance.

I have not yet read the studies, so I withhold judgment until I've seen some of the experimental details, but David Hawkins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_R._Hawkins
appears to have done quite a few interesting pieces of research. I've got his book, Power vs. Force, coming from the library

And I've done the testing myself, on family members, and had them do the same to me. Fascinating stuff. Of course, it cannot possibly work, yet it does. Go on, try it - you know you want to: Stand with your left arm out and have your partner put his/her left hand on your right shoulder and try to push your arm down using the index and middle fingers of his/her right hand. The strength with which you can resist this pressing supposedly is an indicator of your general energetic health. (http://www.innersource.net - we love Donna Eden. Thanks, Katrina.) Now you hold the substance in question in your right hand, pressing it firmly into your solar plexus. Arm stronger = good for you, arm weaker = bad for you. We've even done rough double blind testing, and still the results come back: aspartame is really bad for everyone, sugar is bad for my husband (mr. pre-diabetes) but not so bad for me, various vitamins are better or worse for different family members. Those are the ones that get me - different results for different folks.

Can't you just hear Horatio muttering something about this being wondrous strange?

My next odd-but-true is a well-documented phenomenon in persons suffering from multiple personality disorder (itself, in my book, an odd-but-true.) It seems that one personality can be diabetic -or allergic, whatever - and another personality can be not so afflicted. Same body, different energies.

Next week sometime, assuming it Does Not Snow Any More - we got another 18" of the sloppy wet white stuff - I'll be getting back to work. Before I do, though, I'm going to a therapist (hold your applause, please) to be regressed through my past lives. This is another thing that cannot possibly work, yet appears to, and from my standpoint, whether or not something is "true" or understandable from a certain perspective is not nearly as important as whether or not its practice helps the individual.

Strange doin's on Jackass Hill.


Horatio: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Waiora and the weather

Today Wintry Mix Hi 42°F

Tonight Rain/Snow Likely Lo 32°F

Friday Rain/Snow Likely Hi 39°F

Friday Night Chance Snow Lo 28°F

Saturday Chance Rain/Snow Hi 43°F

Saturday Night Rain/Snow Likely Lo 29°F

Sunday Rain/Snow Likely Hi 40°F

Sunday Night Snow/Rain Likely Lo 29°F

Monday Snow/Rain

It just Really. Never. Ends.

Okay, so it seems that life as A Professional Gardener is sort of on hold. That's okay. I go back and forth in my estimation of my occupation. On good days, I'm doing what I love, beautifying the world for others, living in nature and helping all green growing things along, organically even. On bad days, I'm spending my dwindling days tugging the errand blade of grass from an area no one sees anyway, or shoveliing rocks. Usually, it's somewhere in between: I am doing what I love, which just happens to be tugging out errant blades and digging in the dirt.

There are other things that I want to pursue, however. I do want to write another book, dammit. I do want to draw more than I've been, and work on my colors. I've pretty much given up watercolors, incidentally - to work in watercolor, you have to be decisive, and I'm not, or at least not sufficiently, so I'm back to oil. If only for the smell. Linseed oil smells like....happiness.

We all know I want to fix up my house. We also know not to hold our collective breath; if we didn't, we asphixiated long ago.

One other thing I want to pursue. Waiora makes health products, and I've been using them for some time and been impressed with both the products and the company. http://my.waiora.com/home.php?255701 Yeah, it's a network marketing thing, although I didn't get into it for that - it sort of evolved after experience with the products and wanting to tell others about them. I'm not a bandwagon kind of gal, but someone I know personally has gone from working five days a week at an opthalmologist to working one day a week plus doing the Waiora thing, and that sounds good to me. It's not in my long range plan for my life, but I need to make more money and I'm trying really hard to learn to be open to anything instead of only what I think is appropriate or part of The Plan. So I'm willing to give it a shot, and to do that I have to sink a little time into it. And from the weather above, it looks like time is just what I've got along about now.

Pareidolia

Remember that woman who had a cheese sandwich with the face of the Virgin Mary on it? Seeing the face of anyone, mortal or immortal, in a thing such as a cloud, a sandwich or a water tower is called pareidolia - betcha didn't know there was a name for that sort of thing. (I'm sure there's a name for someone who pays $28K on ebay for said sandwich, too....such buyers being born every minute.)

There are names, words for just about anything - the trick is looking something up when you don't know what it call it. The only daily arrival I allow in my email box is about words, and if you aren't familiar with it, you're missing out on something cool and worthwhile: http:wordsmith.org

I'm getting ready to paint my bedroom, and while it'll be nice to have something clean and pretty and from this century (I currently sleep in a room with 1940's cowboy-and-Indian wallpaper), I'll miss my own form of pareidolia - making faces, characters and shapes out of the ripped off areas of wallpaper, plaster patches, and the old water stains on the ceiling. I have, among others, a big fish, a camel who's thinking a thought (when he acquired two more thought balloons it was time to repair the roof) and Mike Doonesbury in profile. Yes, I'll miss these guys.

I once grew an eggplant that looked like Richard Nixon. If I can find the pictures of it, I'll post one. Meanwhile, I'll sand plaster and work on refining my vision of the farm, watching the snowfall...here on Jackass Hill.

Jackass legend

This Afternoon Heavy Snow Hi 27°F

Tonight Snow Likely Lo 18°F

Friday Snow Likely Hi 31°F

Friday Night Chance Snow Lo 18°F

Saturday Chance Snow Hi 33°F

Saturday Night Chance Snow Lo 20°F

Sunday Chance Snow Hi 37°F

Sunday Night Chance Snow Lo 23°F

Monday Chance Snow Hi 37°F

I guess we won't be having Easter egg hunts outdoors this year. This is ridiculous even for this part of the country. And up here on Jackass Hill, it'll likely be a few degrees colder yet.

No one knows for sure how Jackass Hill got its name, but it appears just that way on the maps from around 1850, so it's not a recent development. I believe it was a past town historian who offered the following local legend:

It seems there was a farmer at the top of the Hill who raised mules for a living. A traveling preacher came up the hill one evening in his horse-drawn buggy, and the mules made such a ruckus that the horse spooked, overturning the buggy and updumping the preacher and all his belongings. The preacher, beyond angry as he gathered himself and his gear from the dirt road, shouted, "If Our Lord rode into town on one of those creatures, it's no wonder they crucified Him!"

Happy Easter.

Entropy, fiddle-de-dee.

My thermometer lied.

I woke at my usual 6:30ish (when it was light out only two weeks ago, but now that the Oh So Wise Ones have laid the curse of the Saved Daylight upon us, it is once again like the bottom of the proverbial well.) Went downstairs, navigating the cat-icade that keeps the downstairs cats down and the upstairs cats up, made coffee, fed the four-leggers, and checked the thermometer that tells what the temperature is outside. It's made to be in a car or truck, so the little sensing pad is on the end of a long string, with the digital readout bar at the other end. I glanced at it - it was foggy out, but when there's snow on the ground that can be good or bad - then did a double take - 61 degrees!!

I did a little springtime jig and put on some Crocs to go get the newspaper - no coat needed when it's 61 degrees! Danced out the door, thought, "Boy, it's nippy for 61", and promptly went butt over teakettle when I stepped on the ice-covered flagstone.

I limped down the drive and back, came in and checked the temperature on the NOAA - 31! Limped out to the kitchen (had to get the coffee anyway) and checked the thermometer again: yep, 61. The little lying bastard.

So I was already feeling sorry for myself, allowing me to segue into today's topic: Accomplishing Nothing. Meeting No Goals. Perhaps we should just refer to it as Entropy.

Yeah, yeah. I know about dS = δQ / T, where δQ is the amount of heat absorbed in an isothermal and reversible process in which the system goes from one state to another, and T is the absolute temperature at which the process is yakkity yakkity (thanks, Annie) ho hum. I'm talking about personal entropy here, and you know it, so shelve the thermodynamics crap.

Let's just define Personal Entropy to mean progression from a more ordered to a less ordered state. (There's something about the Heat Death of the Universe here...it's right on the tip of my brain...) Hell, I can see it everywhere in my immediate environment - cat boxes need cleaning, as do human bathrooms, no clean clothing really, no clean dishes - hey, there's always paper! - but the dishes don't matter since no one has food shopped in a while. Have I started that diet and/or exercise program I was talking about a few days ago? Um, that would be no. Not so much as a toe-touch. Paint a room? Pfft.

I did get some diet- and exercise-related stuff from the library. I dug out the faux finish books and tentatively chose a couple color schemes - and I want to paint a trompe l'oeil mural on the big staircase. I made a shopping list, even, before I discovered I was Without Merit or Hope due to my lack of doing.

Oddly, though, I don't feel like all is lost. I feel more, maybe, like the green shoots outside under the snow. It's all there, just waiting for the time to be right, for the waiting to be filled, and when it is, boy, I'll just leap into action. Just leap...yeah...right there...leaping.

In the meantime, though, there's still frozen stuff falling from the sky, and besides, who am I to argue with thermodynamic laws? I'll rinse out a mug, make some tea, and watch the fifth replaying of Mean Girls.

Fiddle-de-dee (say it with me, Scarlett.) I'll think about it tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.

Interesting couple of days.

Because of a casual remark concerning long-lost friends, I've spent quite a bit of time ferreting out a couple of folks I haven't seen or heard from in 25 or 30 years. As it turns out, they've turned out rather well. Both have PhDs in their chosen (and beloved) fields, both now have professorships, both have published, toured, etc. Granted, I have no idea about more subtle achievements such as family or that vague marker, happiness. Also granted, neither were exactly the Wild Child that I probably was, but they did manage to make something of their lives, something special, noteworthy; something to make a person proud of his accomplishments.

So now the logical next question: what exactly have I made of my life? Despite the "...gotta wear shades" early promise, I have no doctorate, no book, no professorship - no achievements of any kind, really. Yes, I do have two daughters of whom I am immensely proud, a marriage of twenty years and counting, a 200 year old house in the middle of a couple hundred acres of beautiful country, and countless other blessings, but that's not the issue here.

Maybe it's part apples and oranges, part rationalization, but while it may look like I've got bupkis to show for my half century here, I don't really feel like that's the story. I'd at least like to believe that if money and professional accomplishment had meant that much to me, I would have achieved a fair portion of each. (Hell, I'd at least have married money, even if I didn't make my own.) I took the road that led in, into places that were messy and dark and frightening, and I've managed to clean it up quite a bit. I've thought through some things that most folks aren't about to bother with, and arrived at conclusions that are pretty much my own. I'm comfortable with myself and my place and my life, and look forward to the second half of it.

I received a pair of books for my birthday: Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton's Little John? Music's Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths and Rumors Revealed, by Gavin Edwards, and What the Bleep Do We Know?, by William Arntz et al. Both are wonderful ways to spend a few hours, and it pleased me to realize that I was equally at home in either world - sex drugs and rock n roll vs cosmology and quantum theory. Twenty five years ago I was cocktail party conversant in either world; now I'm truly at home there and, more to the point, can be myself in either place and crowd. That's gotta be worth a graduate degree in something or other.


Today is the equinox and I feel big changes on the horizon. Balances shifting in more ways than one.

Starting tomorrow, I will be fierce.

My apologies, Gentle Reader.

"Silly." What an incredibly poor choice of words! Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

I have to learn that this blog thing is different than sitting on the three-legged stool in the studio mumbling to myself - I always know what I mean, but here I have to be more clear, explain myself, even to myself, more carefully, more precisely. ( Thus, I suspect, my dear friend's comment that, " it really is a nice clarifier for me and I get great input from others." I need all the clarification I can get. I suppose the input-from-others part largely remains to be seen, but we're off to a good start.)

I probably should have said something more along the lines of "dangerous", "reckless", "frightening"; tossing one's innermost thoughts, fears and plans out there for the entire cyber-world to see and conceivably criticize, virtually (hah!) begging for blows. Private, shy, even cowardly is normally my first response, so this is a completely new venture for me. Yes, I've written lots of stuff that's gotten more air time than I'm sure it deserves, but this is different. I've always held either the instructor's or the critic's pen, but not this time.

I've said that I wanted to be a "real" writer, to learn to put myself out there. I wanted, I said, to learn. So it seems I've had my first lesson.

My New Year only started yesterday - I had no idea we'd be off and running so soon!

Now if it would Just. Stop. Snowing.

New Year

It's my birthday! I'm making lots of changes this year, and anyone who is interested is invited to follow along. I'll be posting when it occurs to me, and I can't make promises about content. You're welcome to make comments, but please don't be too harsh - I'm perfectly capable of self-criticism, and if your remark is too unprintable it'll just get, well, unprinted. This is mostly just for fun, although if we learn something along the way, that'll be okay, too.

I live on Jackass Hill (hence the blog's name) and am a professional gardener. We also do organic farming - mostly field crops at the moment, but I want to expand into medicinals and magickals, flowers and food crops, selling the excess at the Farmer's Market or at a stand in front of the house. The house next door, which we bought at tax auction, is falling down, but if I can, I'd like to save and repair it and call it The Hermitage (we called the previous tenant The Hermit.) I'm not sure what comes after that- maybe a store of some kind.

I'm surprised that I'm starting a blog - I always thought it was silly, putting oneself out there for the world to see (and take pot shots.) I have this new Mac, though, you see....

So, for this, my *clears throat self-consciously* 52nd year, some ideas:

• getting the house clean and organized and ridding ourselves of The Excess Stuff
• getting control of the up-again, down-again weight thing
• learning astrology, cards and runes well enough that I can read without having books at hand
• a regular meditation practice
• and last, or perhaps it should be first, asking more of myself - being firm enough with myself that I get up and do what I have to do rather than staying seated and fussing because not enough is tackled, let alone completed.

On that note, it begins! Welcome aboard!