Visit the kelpforest....

You don't strive for happiness, silly one. One does not attain bliss, or enlightenment, or godhood. You simply step into it, as a river. You simply become aware of it, like suddenly becoming aware of the tongue in your mouth. Hi. I've been here all along. Let's go lick something.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/02/26/notes022610.DTL#ixzz0hGE5XKAv

- from Oh we are cynical, oh we are hopeful

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Interesting. The Chronicle stuck that "read more" link in there all by itself. I was going to link back to the article too, guys, really I was. *licks*

I get an email newsletter from a business IT website; most of its articles are way over my head as they're geared toward network managers of big companies - however, I keep it because every week they send me, along with the links to articles, something funny, usually a video, a quote, and a little this "day in history" blurb.
The quote this morning made me snigger for a couple of minutes:

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."

- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld magazine

What can I say, I'm a bit sleep-deprived lately.

Quote for the day:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams

This is getting dangerously appropos....

At my SF/Fantasy book group last night:

Angus: (Coming back from the kid's section during a pause in the conversation, walking halfway around the circle of folding chairs till he was opposite me and announcing rather loudly) "They didn't have ANYTHING I liked; but I have these. Mom, where are you?"

This caused everyone to crack up - he had observed where I sat before going, but apparently walked around the group most of the way before he bothered to look up. He forgets sometimes that he needs to listen to see if other people are talking before he just announces whatever's on his mind, and he needs to lower the volume a bit. However, I am glad he's venturing off to do things on his own, although if he wants to do it himself it's much easier. He still gets a little freaked when I need to leave him for a minute, as in a half an hour later, when I needed to use the restroom and asked him to stay and read for a few minutes where he was (even though Gareth was there too).

Anyway, his latest book to peruse everytime we visit the bookstore is the D&D Monster Manual, and since one of the other members was an old school D&D player, he kept bringing it over to him to ask questions about various monsters. I don't think Aaron minded, but I always worry he's bugging people. At the same time, I've never liked the adage about children being seen and not heard, and I don't like just squelching him.

Meanwhile, Gareth was paging through a copy of Weird California (a book I'd like to pick up sometime, but it's an expensive coffee table book - and I don't have a coffee table I'd like to put it on at this point). Instead of just blurting things out, every so often I would feel an soft but insistent poke in the back because he wanted to show me something. And of course, he wanted to show the group the pictures of the Fry's Electronics store in Burbank, since we had been talking about cephalopods and the store has a theme of 50's/60's SciFi movies. He asked me later when he could actually join the group, and I told him as soon as he was up to reading the sort of book we pick out every month. He reads juvenile chapter books now; at present he's reading a book about the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII.

The book for January was Making Money by Terry Pratchett (a Discworld book), which I am only starting, having only been able to pick it up on Saturday. February's will be The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, and for March, Nova Swing by M. John Harrison (although I may have to read Light first), all of which look interesting.

Before deciding on the March book, Deb turned aside to me and said, "You know, I'm finding I like my science fiction to be more homey; all these galaxy expansive stories make me tired."

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we have left behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." - Anatole France

Found, of all places, heading up a chapter of a fanfic. Fits, lately.

Putting a new notepad in my meeting folder and came across these from several months ago...


On writing...

'The secret to clarity is to use short simple sentences in contiguous, descriptive juxtaposition."

o__O
(Not sure; the speaker may have been quoting someone well known.)


On medication...

"Forgive me, I'm full of cold medicine, so if I don't make any sense, at least I have an excuse."

"So you take it all the time, then?"

^__^

The Tick: Great...Not only are my arms committing crimes, but they're stealing girl stuff!

(after the evil Venus and Milo cause his upper appendages to drop off)

A tea-bag package is the last place I would expect to see a Clive Barker quote. It's apt, I suppose. On the back of my Trader Joe's Sencha Green Tea packet:

"...She had that brand of pragmatism that would find her the first brewing tea after Armageddon."

- Clive Barker, Weaveworld

Quite a good book, and the tea's ok, too (I am trying to drink at least one cup of green tea a day, lately). Someone at Trader Joe's is a horror/fantasy fan... :)

From today's The Writer's Almanac:

What's in My Journal
by William Stafford,
from Crossing Unmarked Snow © University of Michigan Press.

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

Well, I dunno if mine's that interesting...

( What did I do? )

( Reading... )

P. told us at lunch that his wife had attached a sign to their fridge door reading:

"Women are not allowed to belch, fart or snore; therefore, they must bitch or they'll explode."

While I giggled my head off over this, it occurred to me later that whoever came up with this has never spent much time around a pregnant woman, where you're likely to get all four at once. Well, maybe not snoring - that'll be five minutes later....

Or me, for that matter. My eructations would vie with the most obnoxious teenage boy's - I just can't do them on command.