Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

Yesterday was pretty good, too. Sunny, not too sticky, and Holly did well at swimming lessons. We also spent 90 minutes in the pool in the afternoon. And picked tomatoes and green beans! Today will be some errands, some baking, and probably more pool time. Why not squeeze as much summer out of each day as we can?  Tomorrow is Meg's birthday, and she's working away until Monday. Holly and I have plans to make something for her as a gift. That'll be tomorrow's plan. And I will push grocery-getting to Saturday (time to get back on track), and I will work on my manuscript as much as possible.  Ah, the manuscript. I got a small inkling of what might be a much better organizational principle for the book, and I sorted out poems that didn't fit that narrative yesterday. I'm itching to get back to it again, but Holly has limited patience for me doing solo, quiet work. What is the controlling idea? Hint: I ordered an hourglass. Not only will it tie in with the arc of the...

Yesterday turned out quite lovely. I got chores and calls done early, and Meg, Holly, and I spent a really nice day mostly outside on the deck. Holly was in the pool for three hours (with a few snack breaks, of course). And then Meg and I went to see Rent at Weathervane in Whitefield-- what a show. It was fast, complicated, and truly a tour de force. A lot to think about, a lot to unpack.  We've both seen the show before, so it was an interesting conversation afterward on the way home to talk about what thread of the narrative that the director chose to highlight. The show debuted in 1993, and since then, some of the issues that are present in the play have waxed and waned a bit in the public eye. My take-away from this production was a focus on the marginalization of those who are homeless, and a bit of how true art is being forced to the side by "cyber creations." Of course, the omnipresent problems of drug use, AIDS/HIV, and the persecution of those in the queer commu...

 ..."and summer's lease hath all too short a date." --Sonnet 18, Shakespeare I have not accomplished much of my personal wish list this summer. I'll admit it, I've spent more time online than I ought to have, which is not only a bad use of time, but bad in general for my mental health. I've been on childcare duty since school let out, and to be honest, I get tired. Very tired. And the "free time" I've had has been spent catching up on house chores and errands, for the most part.  That all said, I have read a little. Written very little. Not nearly what I had hoped, but some. And I did start shifting poems around for a manuscript. It's nowhere near where I wanted it to be, but it's in process. But I have not even killed the weeds in the flagstones. I have not done much in the way of weeding at all. I'm just watching every day slip through my fingers, and the regrets are starting to hum in the back of my head.  Too late, too late, they...

Monday, and it's raining. Quite warm, too, and soggy. I'm not sure what today holds; we are supposed to go to swim lessons, but I wonder if maybe Holly would rather just lounge around and then do a fun art project. I hope so, honestly. We'll see. I don't have a huge to-do list, which is good, since I busted out a whole lot of stuff on Saturday. Yesterday was busy, too, so a day to kind of cruise would be super. I spent about 7 hours on Saturday building my Google Classrooms for the fall semester. They are not fully done, but what is left to do is minor. I won't add due dates until I get my plan book going. Supplemental materials will be added along the way. But the semester, for both classes, is laid out, topic by topic, week by week. Yes, I'll have to fill in some details about the assignments in some cases, but that's all in the syllabi. Honestly, I could just have them look at that, but you know kids. Sigh. If they aren't told, have it written on the ...

I find it interesting that the gospel reading this weekend is about the breaking of the loaves and fishes to feed the multitudes (Mt 14:13-21). The OT reading from Isaiah (55: 1-3), too, mentions bread: "You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat" and "Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy?" It is also the old Celtic-Christian feast of Lammas, which is also centered on bread. The word lammas comes from OE, translated as "loaf-mass" and the feast day is usually celebrated on or about August 1st. The loaf referenced directly connects to the Eucharist, and the festival is intended to bless the First Fruits, the early harvest, and a loaf of bread signifies all the blessings we receive through hard work and faith. In some communities, a loaf of bread is brought to the church to be blessed.  Bread is central to human existence; every culture has some form of bread. The basic elements of water, wheat, salt, and ...

Y'know, I just cannot believe that I have something new to worry about. Freakin' Elon Musk's stupid rocket dreams have now threatened the whole world: he has an out of control rocket about to smash into the moon at full tilt.  What the ever loving hell.  Knocking the moon around could cause serious, global-devastation kind of repercussions. He is a mess, he is dragging us all into an abyss that we can't get out of.  And speaking of an abyss, or at least an abysmal failure of epic proportions: AI. Two companies have models that have gone rogue and have hacked into other companies' systems. Have we not learned one damned thing from decades of science fiction? Putting our lives, the life of the very planet, into the data stream of a soulless machine-entity is just plain stupidly dangerous.  That tracks: we are back to billionaires (trillionaires) not giving one rat's rectum whether we survive, as long as they think they can cash in on our despair. When they've ...