Category Archives: deep thoughts

seen

A bumper sticker in the parking lot of my optometrist’s office:

“Nobody’s Imperfect”

Coming soon: photos of the new glasses that I was picking up at said office….

perfection?

This afternoon E asked me if I’ve ever had a perfectly wonderful day or a completely awful day. I suppose I’ve had my even share of each, just like everyone else living on this planet. I said in reply:

“Just about every day is perfectly wonderful to me.” And I meant it.

As I sit at my computer tonite feeling droswy, but not yet quite willing to call it a day, I can look back at all that this day has brought: a relaxing morning after the kids left for summer school where I got much accomplished around the house and had some QT with Ellycat, my delight at the kiddoes’ return from school at lunchtime, my appointment with the optomotrist where I chose some pretty funky new glasses, two hours of swimming laps while the kids were in swim practice and remembering the strength of my former swim-team self, a simple dinner with the whole family, a quick jaunt to the garden to water and to visit with friends, a few hours after the kids were in bed to unwind with a recently arrived netflick, a drowsy John waiting for me to retire to bed with him.

Hmmmm….perfectly perfect, in my opinion. 🙂

suitcase


Imagine an attic of an old mental asylum, filled with the trunks and suitcases of the now-deceased patients. Then imagine that the suitcases are found and the contents are documented to tell the stories of their former owners. Amazing stuff.
My favorite story is Madeline’s.

epitaph

Seen on a headstone at the Siloam Methodist Church Cemetery, somewhere on the rural roads of North Carolina:
Written under the husband’s name, “Her Hero”
Under the wife’s name, “His Habit.”

you know you’re getting old when…

You’re teaching class, standing up in front of 60 undergrads, and about ten minutes afterwards realize that your fly was down the whole time. And after the realization you’re not even embarrassed.
But I am pretty glad that today’s the last day of classes. If one is going to teach with one’s zipper unzipped, the final day of the quarter is a good time to do it.

behind the smile


This link will take you to a Japanese site where scientists have attempted to recreate the voice of La Giocondo and her master. Worth listening to, just for the cadence of the the Italian language.

Note: you’ll need to use Internet Explorer to view the site. If you don’t read Japanese, just click on the buttons beneath the images to hear the speech

hide n seek


I’ve had several dreams this past week about hidden secrets.

In last night’s dream I was in China where I was taking covert pictures of government doings with a super-small spy camera (about the size of a pen cap). I realized that I was going to be called in and searched and I was desperate to find a place to hide the camera. I had watched my spy companions be tortuted and killed, and I knew I would suffer the same fate if they found my pictures. I wanted to find an item that I could attach the camera to where it would blend in. My last thought before I woke up was that I should clip it to my robotic knee. But I wasn’t sure that they would let me keep my leg–would part of my torture involve stripping me of my mobility?

Oddly enough, I wasn’t really scared about my personal safety–I was only concerned about keeping the photos safe.

I’m a voyeur

So I’ve always been fascinated with the way people decorate their personal spaces–not the fake sort of decorating a la Martha Stewart in rooms that are museums rather than living spaces–but the real rooms where people hang out.

When I was in China I often craned my neck around corners to get a glimpse inside the small spaces that held so much life. Here’s a website of 100×100–one hundred 100 square foot abodes in China captured on film. The results are amusing, at times sobering. Perhaps you will, like me, ponder these photos and marvel and the beauty and humility of ‘living small.’

Thanks to wen for this link. A favorite image is below, simply because of the McD’s wrappers hung as crown molding on the far wall….

an xray blanket on my chest…


From Jen’s powerful post about her bout with depression.

“all i knew is that i was crying….alot…for no apparent reason.
i was exhausted but i couldnt sleep. i couldnt eat. i was losing interest in everything. i was moody and couldnt think clearly and tried to find any reason to explain away the feelings i was experiencing. loud noises sent me through the roof and crowds made me want to scream.i didnt want to kill myself, but i wasnt going to be disappointed if the moon happened to fall out of the sky and land directly on my head. i felt like i wanted to crawl out of my skin. but mostly, it was the heaviness ~ as if someone had dropped one of those x-ray blankets the size of a house upon my chest.”