Today is trash day. I rolled the barrels out to the street. When I came home from my walk the green recycle bin had been emptied but the regular household trash bin hadn't and things looked wrong. I realized I was looking at a weeks worth of coffee filters and vegetable scraps. The white plastic trash bag was gone. The guy who mines the recycle bins for redeemable bottles and cans must've taken it. He needed a plastic bag to put them in.
Thursday, March 31, 2022
This is not just about making arrests
“This is not just about making arrests and police proactivity,” he said of the place network strategy. “It’s about lighting, streets, traffic, parks and [recreation], schools, the city attorney’s office and holding landlords accountable — I mean, you name it. It’s a holistic approach about truly trying to invest in that neighborhood and take care of a problem.”
I don’t think of work as evolving.
I don’t think of work as evolving. I think of writers as sitting down and starting from scratch every time—at least that is how it is for me.
LORRIE MOORE
Work every day
Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The work of bringing benefit to beings
The work of bringing benefit to beings Will not, then, make me proud and self-admiring. The happiness of others is itself my satisfaction; I do not expect another recompense.
― Śāntideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva
Ancestry
When I was younger I'd visit my grandma Sophie on Brighton beach.
She lived right across the street from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn NY.
Every day after their swim the old Jewish ladies would gather on the boardwalk to chat.
I noticed their flowered bathing suits, thin beach robes, strong tan legs,
and flat asses.
They all had enormous bosoms.
It was as if their tushies had vanished
and moved to their chests.
And now here I am.
So go ahead, surround yourself
“So go ahead, surround yourself with like-minded people for comfort and support, but don't forget to honor those who push your buttons just as much if not more, for they're the ones who provide the opportunity to grow and mature beyond having buttons that can be pushed.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
The sentiment behind the golden rule
“The sentiment behind the golden rule is great (treating others the way we wish to be treated ourselves). But nowadays we don’t even treat ourselves very well! We knowingly consume things that are bad for us, continue working at jobs we hate, and don’t spend half as much time relaxing as we do stressing. Come to think of it, we ARE treating others the way we treat ourselves: poorly! We feed our children junk food, opt for cheap instead of quality even when it matters, rarely give anyone our undivided attention, and demand a lot more from others than what is reasonable or even possible. Let’s try something new: let’s treat everybody as if we just found out they’re about to die. Why? Because it seems that’s the ONLY time we slow down enough to get a new perspective on life—either then or when we have a near-death experience ourselves. Be gentle, patient, kind and understanding. We’re all headed in the same direction, so let’s start treating each other better along the way!”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
Our beliefs are merely stories
“Our beliefs are merely stories in our minds that we ourselves wrote long ago. Knowing that, don’t you feel empowered to rewrite them if they no longer serve you?”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
If there is a remedy
“If there is a remedy, then what is the use of frustration? If there is no remedy, then what is the use of frustration?”
― Śāntideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva: A Translation of the Bodhicharyavatara
Where would I find
“Where would I find enough leather
To cover the entire surface of the earth?
But with leather soles beneath my feet,
It’s as if the whole world has been covered.”
― Shantideva
All the happiness in the world
All the happiness in the world stems from wanting others to be happy, and all the suffering in the world stems from wanting the self to be happy.
—Shantideva
I am another you
“I am another you, and you are another me. And the journey continues. Namaste.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
Never underestimate the healing power of love
“Never underestimate the healing power of love. It is just as important for our survival as the food we eat, yet it’s free and available in unlimited supply. Love is the strongest medicine.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
We don’t just eat with our mouths
“We don’t just eat with our mouths; we eat with our eyes and ears too. So if we watch or listen to poisonous negativity, violence, gossip, and pretty much anything that is not conducive to our growth or maturity as adults, then it’s no different than eating only refined sugars, fried foods and saturated fats; we’re bound to get sick. That sickness, however, takes the form of fear, paranoia, anxiety, greed, insecurity, a lack of trust in our fellow brothers and sisters, and discontentment with life altogether.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
Instead of spending so much time thinking
“Instead of spending so much time thinking about what’s missing from your life, remind yourself (if only for twenty minutes a day), of everything you already have: from a comfortable bed to sleep on, to a roof over your head, to clean air, drinking water, food, clothes, friends, functioning lungs, and a beating heart.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
You don’t have to agree
You don’t have to agree with, only learn to peacefully live with, other people’s freedom of choice. This includes (but is not limited to) political views, religious beliefs, dietary restrictions, matters of the heart, career paths, and mental afflictions. Our opinions and beliefs tend to change depending on time, place, and circumstance. And since we all experience life differently, there are multiple theories on what’s best, what’s moral, what’s right, and what’s wrong. It is important to remember that other people’s perspective on reality is as valid as your own.
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
By being so focused
“By being so focused on how things “could be,” we are under-appreciating how great things already are.”
“You never know when a random act of kindness could literally save a person’s life.”― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
You can’t calm the storm
You can’t calm the storm… so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.
―Timber Hawkeye
“Treat every living being, including yourself, with kindness, and the world will immediately be a better place.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp“Wouldn’t it be great to stop, if only for a minute on a regular basis, and reflect on how wonderful everything is?”“Carlos Castaneda said, “We can make ourselves miserable, or we can make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
― Timber Hawkeye, Buddhist Boot Camp
My work is emotionally autobiographical
My work is emotionally autobiographical. It has no relationship to the actual events of my life, but it reflects the emotional currents of my life. I try to work every day because you have no refuge but writing. When you’re going through a period of unhappiness, a broken love affair, the death of someone you love, or some other disorder in your life, then you have no refuge but writing.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself and listen to it.
RICHARD BRAUTIGAN
Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.
1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.
― Richard Brautigan, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster
I realized
“I realized that if I was going to assume the responsibility of writing about my home, I needed narrative ruthlessness. I couldn't dull the edges and fall in love with my characters and spare them. Life does not spare us.”
― Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
It’s like a snake
“It’s like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.”
― Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing
I think my love for books sprang from my need
I think my love for books sprang from my need to escape the world I was born into, to slide into another where words were straightforward and honest, where there was clearly delineated good and evil, where I found girls who were strong and smart and creative and foolish enough to fight dragons, to run away from home to live in museums, to become child spies, to make new friends and build secret gardens.
― Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped
Magic Sauce: a Salad Dressing
whisk or puree in blender. It will emulsify and thicken.
olive oil,
red wine vinegar,
prepared mustard,
honey,
Adobo,
optional (fresh) garlic,
a scoop of cooked beans or tofu.
the beans provide some thickener and middle to the sharp flavors.
Whisk or puree in blender. It will thicken.
Pour on salads, steamed veggies or rice and beans, pasta, or chicken or anything. Keep refrigerated.
Sooo good!
Sample Small Vinaigrette
1 Tbs. vinegar
1 Tbs. mustard
3 Tbs. olive oil
¼ tsp. salt, optional
Whisk together vinegar and mustard in bowl. Whisk in oil until dressing is emulsified and smooth. Season with salt, if using.
Introversion is a personality type
Introversion is a personality type characterized by traits such as reserve, passivity, thoughtfulness, and a preference to keep emotional states private.
Introverts are most comfortable interacting in small groups and with one-on-one relationships, and are energized by spending time alone.
Extroversion is a personality type characterized by traits such as sociability, assertiveness, and cheerfulness. Extroverts seek out novelty and excitement, and enjoy being the center of attention
The concept of introversion/extroversion was introduced in 1910 by Carl Gustav Jung, existing as part of a continuum with each personality type at separate ends of the scale.
Signs you might be an introvert:
- You have a small group of close friends.
- Thoughtful
- Energized by being alone
- Enjoy solitude
- Tends to keep emotions private
- Quiet and reserved in large groups or around unfamiliar people
- Feel drained by people, and need privacy
- Process their thoughts in their head rather than talk them out
- More sociable and gregarious around people they know well
- Learns well through observation
Signs You Might Be an Extrovert
- Enjoying social settings
- Seek attention
- Energized by being with others
- Are friends with many people
- Sociable
- Outgoing
- Enjoy group work
- Prefer talking over writing
Eat Less
Eat less. To maintain your current weight — let alone lose excess pounds — you might need about 200 fewer calories a day during your 50s than you did during your 30s and 40s.
To reduce calories without skimping on nutrition, pay attention to what you're eating and drinking. Choose more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, particularly those that are less processed and contain more fiber.
In general, a plant-based diet is healthier than other options. Legumes, nuts, soy, fish and low-fat dairy products are good choices. Meat, such as red meat, or chicken, should be eaten in limited quantities. Replace butter, stick margarine and shortening with oils, such as olive or vegetable oil.
The truth is, I started writing because I stopped smoking
The truth is, I started writing because I stopped smoking and I had to do something. By which I mean that I had to find some serviceable, day-to-day way to make some sense of the big swamp that sloshes around in my head—the swamp that sloshes around in each head from birth.
I suppose you could say that’s the basic task of being alive—mapping the stuff inside your head, which itself I suppose is a constantly changing representation of you plus the whole rest of the world, and of how those things fit together.
DEBORAH EISENBERG
When I’ve finished writing
When I’ve finished writing something, I seem to have dispatched whatever the stimulus was, and I’ve forgotten it utterly—it’s no longer available to me and it’s no longer of interest to me.
DEBORAH EISENBERG
Fantasy
I'd like to become a comic book character. I'd stand in the parking lot wearing black cowboy boots, black leotard with red tights, a black cape and a machine gun draped over my shoulder. I'd blow out the tires of the drug dealers and their customers and tow them away until they got the message.
We're fascinated
“We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
― Ram Dass
It is important
“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
― Ram Dass
“The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.”
― Ram Dass
“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.”
― Ram Dass
Dream
I dreamed that it was Billy O's birthday and we were giving him gifts. There was a
big fancy block of cheese from the middle east and it had cranberries in
it. I had a taste and it was amazing.
I sent this dream to Billy O this morning and he wrote back saying "It's my birthday on Friday!"
Sometimes when the seasons are changing I have psychic moments like this.
Life is a series
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
― Lao Tzu
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
It was one of those humid days
It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
One of the great mysteries
“One of the great mysteries of writing fiction, and one of the greatest pleasures, is the discovery of a voice that opens up a channel to impersonal, but specific, knowledge.”
Jeffrey Eugenides
At the time I begin writing a novel
At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about. ELMORE LEONARD
When an idea comes
When an idea comes, spend silent time with it. Remember Keats's idea of Negative Capability and Kipling's advice to "drift, wait and obey." Along with your gathering of hard data, allow yourself also to dream your idea into being.
ROSE TREMAIN
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
might be a poem
Yesterday as I walked my dog past the post office I saw a woman sitting in her car with the window down.
It was 18 degrees and windy.
She had a scar on her left cheek and she was talking on the phone.
As I walked by I smelled perfume and stale cigarette smoke.
The scent tenements have in summer when smokers have lived there for years.
I smiled because the scent snapped me out of wherever I was in my thoughts
and brought me right here.
The voice in my head said
This is life baby, don't you love it. This is why it's good to get out and walk.
I wrote about myself
I wrote about myself so I wouldn't become paralyzed by rumination—so I could stop thinking about what had happened and be done with it.
More than that, I wrote so I could say I was truly paying attention. Experience in itself wasn't enough. The diary was my defense against waking up at the end of my life and realizing I'd missed it.
― Sarah Manguso
In my experience nursing is waiting
In my experience nursing is waiting. The mother becomes the background against which the baby lives, becomes time. I used to exist against the continuity of time. Then I became the baby's continuity, a background of ongoing time for him to live against. I was the warmth and milk that was always there for him, the agent of comfort that was always there for him.
My body, my life, became the landscape of my son's life. I am no longer merely a thing living in the world; I am a world.― Sarah Manguso, The Two Kinds of Decay
The fastest way to revise
The fastest way to revise a piece of work is to send it, late at night, to someone whose opinion you fear. Then rewrite it, praying you'll finish in time to send a new version by morning.
― Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments: Essays
The trouble with letting people see you
The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn't that they'll remember, it's that you'll remember.
― Sarah Manguso
Today was very full, but the problem isn't today
Today was very full, but the problem isn't today. It's tomorrow. I'd be able to recover from today if it weren't for tomorrow. There should be extra days, buffer days, between real days.
― Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
To write a diary
“To write a diary is to make a series of choices about what to omit, what to forget. A memorable sandwich, an unmemorable flight of stairs. A memorable bit of conversation surrounded by chatter that no one records.”
― Sarah Manguso
You write something and there’s no reality to it. You can’t inject it with any kind of reality. You have to be patient and keep going, and then, one day, you can feel something signaling to you from the innermost recesses. Like a little person trapped under the rubble of an earthquake. And very, very, very slowly you find your way toward the little bit of living impulse.
Deborah Eisenberg
Monday, March 28, 2022
Last summer I started a regular thing
Last summer I started a regular thing I called the reading nap. I didn't nap at all but I read in the tranquil zone during the afternoon. Try it. Make a special time and place for reading. It's a gift to yourself.
Write what you want.
Write what you want. People rarely recognize themselves on the page. And if they do, they’re often flattered that a writer has paid attention.
FRANCINE PROSE
Polar Bear Wear
29° F and 28 mph gusts today. The windchill is 18°F. I have been teased about the way I dress for the weather but it works. Let go of glamour and dress in layers. Thermals on top and bottom, jeans, 4 sweatshirts and 2 vests, one of which is heavy lined canvas, fleece hat + the 4 sweatshirt hoods over my hat, fleece neck warmer + gloves+ red lipstick. ROMEO-pup wore his coat too.
Cheap liquor
Cheap liquor is a magic potion that can turn you into a puppet cowboy before it kills you.
― Patton Oswalt, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
When you’re an artist
When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand.
AMANDA PALMER
Start Writing
Start writing. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but START WRITING. There is NO SUCH THING as “too late” in the arts. Trust me. START.
PATTON OSWALT
The Hard Necessity
“The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.”
― Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on the Make
Nelson Algren
“...he said, with sort of a little derisive smile, "How can you walk down the street with all this stuff going on inside you?" I said, "I don't know how you can walk down the street with nothing going on inside you.”
― Nelson Algren
There's people in hell
There's people in hell who want ice water.
― Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm
a true book
“A book, a true book, is the writer's confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings.”
― Nelson Algren, Entrapment and Other Writings
People ask me
"People ask me why I don't write about nature or the suburbs. If a writer could write the truth about one Chicago street, that would be a good life's work."― Nelson Algren
“You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”
― Nelson Algren, Nonconformity: Writing on Writing“Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.”
― Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on the Make
Dream
We lived on neighboring estates.
You made a path of pecans
they were still in the shell, a dotted line
for the ducks or the dogs, connecting us
You said, Come for tea, if not for dinner
You told me to color his cape
which meant bring my husband in a good mood.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
The thief has a cat
The thief has a cat, my husband said.
I see him in the window, it's orange.
We saw the thief checking his mail out front wearing the famous red hoodie. The one he wore climbing the fire escape trying to open J's window. J was at work but now he knows his downstairs neighbor tried to break in. And the police know too.
Just another day in the neighborhood.
Bryan Miller memoir, Dining in the Dark
I grew up carrying a large, mysterious, emotional hole after the death of my father when I was three. It is evident that very young children comprehend absence but not death. The moment I held my son, the hole was filled. This sounds fabricated, but it is true.
As Winston Churchill is reported to have said: “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” At the same time, be kind to yourself. Take breaks. Divide your day into segments, tackling small, manageable tasks. Move—running, walking. Keep track of your moods.
In a sense, depression is like the mafia. It makes threats and tries to convince you that you are incapable of accomplishing the smallest of tasks. For example, it spooked me into believing that I couldn’t write, when, in fact, I could. It might not have been Pulitzer Prize quality, and it might have taken two days of pacing around the house. Face down the mob boss!
Bryan Miller was hailed as the “most powerful restaurant critic in America” while writing for the New York Times from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. In his memoir, Dining in the Dark, he describes walking away from the high-profile job after years of wrestling with the “black bear” of his bipolar II depression, the drifting years that followed, and how he finally found solid ground—and stability.Depressed people dread socializing. source
Stories have to be told
“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Learning how to be a good reader
Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer.
ZADIE SMITH
If we can't take care of each other
“If we can't take care of each other now, when the world is going to shit, how are we ever going to make it?”
― Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story
Do not throw away your heart.
Do not throw away your heart. Keep your heart. Your heart is all that matters ... Throw away your ancestors! ... Throw away your shyness and the anger that lies just a few inches beneath ... Accept the truth! And if there is more than one truth, then learn to do the difficult work -- learn to choose. You are good enough, you are HUMAN ENOUGH, to choose!
― Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story
Reading is Entering
“Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.”
― Gary Shteyngart
Don't be pretentious
“Don't be pretentious” is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem — just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words — words are your friends.
GARY SHTEYNGART
Refilling your well
“Refilling your well.” It is tempting to keep pushing and grinding away at an idea or a concept because we think we should. True, we have deadlines and bosses who may not care that we’re “just not feeling it” one afternoon. We are problem-solvers, after all, and not pure artists. However, pushing and forcing doesn’t always work. Our brains need time to process our problem away from the problem itself. I think this time to refill and recharge is crucial to maintaining stamina as a designer. Plus, research backs this up. Stanford researchers found that walking, indoors or outdoors, boosted creative inspiration. source
The idea doesn’t have to be big
The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.
HUGH MacLEOD
Writing about my dark thoughts
Writing about my dark thoughts didn’t make me sad. I think it kept me alive. No matter how bad a day might be, it would wind up a good one if I could turn out a poem. I knew that as soon as Daddy came home, we’d snuggle together in his overstuffed armchair and I’d read it out loud to him while he blew thoughtful smoke rings. Nothing could touch me in that chair; it felt like the safest place in the world.
Words have always kept me safe. It doesn’t matter if I’m reading someone else’s or scratching out my own. Words reach inside me, take hold of my thoughts, and focus them into some semblance of clarity. Otherwise, I’d be wandering through the universe untethered, full of inchoate fears and nameless dread. Words give my shambolic mind structure, and without structure, I’d be lost.
I suppose it’s not surprising that I became a lawyer—a profession that relies so heavily on rules and writing skills. In retrospect, it was a train wreck of a decision, but I stuck it out for almost two decades as an entertainment litigator, representing clients like Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones and major motion picture studios.
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Pico Iyer
Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.
— Pico Iyer
Lent
A woman I used to know once said LENT is receive-mode. Which makes sense going with the theory that these are universal mood cycles.
I dropped an egg on the floor and scooped it with my hands into the
frying pan and cooked it with the perfect egg and ate them both with
kidney beans and leftover carrots potato broccoli.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
― Marcus Aurelius“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”
― Marcus Aurelius“Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune," but "To bear this worthily is good fortune.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Dream
I dreamed Oprah Winfrey was here with a group of neighborhood kids and a local man who was their leader. They were all out back in the parking lot. I ran inside to get ice water for Oprah and got hung up trying to decide which jar to put it in. I completely forgot Margo was coming to pick me up out front an hour ago.
Friday, March 25, 2022
I don’t have a style, but the books do.
I don’t have a style, but the books do. Each demands its own method of presentation, and I like that.
E.L. Doctorow
The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience
There’s a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once. The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; and it’s well to remember that the serious fiction writer always writes about the whole world, no matter how limited his particular scene. For him, the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima affects life on the Oconee River, and there’s not anything he can do about it…. People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience.
FLANNERY O’CONNOR
Lawrence Scahill
When the Recycle Bug Bites
© Lawrence Scahill, 2022
I ran into Jeremiah in the wilderness, this is what he said. I think he was kidding.LSWhen the recycle bug bites you, you may never be the same.
Forget about how, forget about blame.
Because
When that little biddy bug bites in the middle of the night,
It’s gonna be different come morning light.
So
Flatten cardboard, crush tin cans, recycle and restore.
Let warm winds push old habits out the door.
Because
Dear friends the news is out, this biddy bug is all over town
What goes around, bet a buck will come around
So
When the recycle bug bites you, might as well change your name.
From now on, nothing’s gonna be the same.
Untitled
I work from home so naturally I went bananas when an impromptu motorcycle shop opened in a rented garage under my window.
After weeks of noise for six hours a day I contacted our city zoning officer and filed an official complaint.
The zoning officer sent the police Captain to investigate.
The motorcycle guy denied everything even though there he was working on a few motorcycles.
Then things got quiet for two weeks and I was so relieved and grateful.
I thanked the zoning officer and captain profusely for giving me back my home and work sanctuary.
Then one day it started up again
and then again and again.
I went bananas.
So even when the guy shut down for the day and stayed away for days I stayed angry. So angry I could still hear the motorcycles when he wasn't here
because I was still mad
even in silence
I had no silence
So now who was torturing me? I asked myself
and laughed and laughed.
“The next message you need is always right where you are.”
―Ram Dass
Because you are alive
“Because you are alive, everything is possible.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.
― Thich Nhat Hanh
People usually consider
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
Letting Go Gives us Freedom
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.
When another person makes you suffer
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
To be beautiful means to be yourself.
“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
Art never responds to the wish
“Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Collected Works: Wise Blood / A Good Man is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear it Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays and Letters
“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”― Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
“Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
― Ram Dass“The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.”
― Ram Dass“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.”
― Ram Dass
Ghost of Cabbage Bread
I saved my pressure cooker steaming water from cooking carrot, cabbage and potato and used it in the sourdough multigrain (rye wheat corn oat sourdough). The toast has a magical vegetable essence like the ghost of cabbage. It's delicious.
Thursday, March 24, 2022
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses
Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.
― Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
“...things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
A novel, in its truest form, is a questioning of what it means to be human, of what a life is. But what makes it different from, say, a work of philosophical inquiry is, among other things, the way it uses (or misuses, or differently uses) language and, second, the particular sense of discomfiture it can provide. Not that a novel needs to disturb or dismay or unsettle in order to mesmerize or provoke, but it does, or should, force us to reconsider, to rethink. The fiction writer’s bravery, then, is her dedication to never second-guessing the reader, even at the risk of her own book’s likability; the reader’s bravery is allowing himself to trust the writer, to surrender himself to the world she has created.
HANYA YANAGIHARA
Gogol said that the last line of every story was: “And nothing would ever be the same again.” Nothing in life ever really begins in one single place, and nothing ever truly ends. But stories have at least to pretend to finish. Don’t tie it up too neatly. Don’t try too much. Often the story can end several paragraphs before, so find the place to use your red pencil. Print out several versions of the last sentence and sit with them. Read each version over and over. Go with the one that you feel to be true and a little bit mysterious. Don’t tack on the story’s meaning. Don’t moralize at the end. Don’t preach that final hallelujah. Have faith that your reader has already gone with you on a long journey. They know where they have been. They know what they have learned. They know already that life is dark. You don’t have to flood it with last-minute light.
COLUM McCANN
Maxine Hong Kingston
When someone I love dies, I do want to go with them and I have to work against that. And one way is to say OK, I am going to make a list of reasons to stay. Then I wrote about seven reasons and when I read it later I thought it looked like a to-do list and then it came to me: as long as you have a to-do list you have to keep living.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Lazy Ass Lasagna
I made a very simple LAZY ASS LASAGNA. I used no boil lasagna noodles and layered them with homemade tomato sauce and topped it with PEPPER JACK CHEESE. So simple so good. Not heavy!
Preheat oven to 425
and spray veg oil on square or oblong Pyrex dish.
we used BARILLA NO BOIL LASAGNA SHEETS (they are paper thin)
Layer sauce, lasagna sheet, sauce, lasagna sheet and top with sauce+thin slices of pepper jack cheese.
bake for 25 minutes.
Make sure your sauce is not too thick, and noodles are made wet by the sauce.
The moisture is needed to cook the noodles.
My home made sauce had olives mushrooms in it.
SO FAST SIMPLE AND DELICIOUS!
We steamed broccoli and carrots and yellow potatoes to go with it. A salad would be perfect too.
Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance.
― Marcel Proust
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by evil or commonplace that prevailed round them. They represent a struggle and a victory.”
― Marcel Proust
There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them, those we spent with a favorite book.
― Marcel Proust, Days of Reading
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ― Marcel Proust
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
― Marcel Proust“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.”
― Marcel Proust, Swann's WaySoyons reconnaissants envers les personnes qui nous rendent heureux ;ce sont les charmants jardiniers qui font fleurir nos âmes.-Marcel Proust Le véritable voyage de découverte ne consiste pas
à chercher de nouveaux paysages,mais à avoir de nouveaux yeux.-Marcel Proust Essayez toujours de garder un coin de ciel au-dessus de votre vie.-Marcel Proust, La manière de Swann
Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.
― Marcel Proust, Time Regained
Finally you get to the age when a book’s power to make you think becomes the first thing you notice about it.
― Clive James, Latest Readings
When I first read The Rebel, this splendid line came leaping from the page like a dolphin from a wave. I memorized it instantly, and from then on Camus was my man. I wanted to write like that, in a prose that sang like poetry. I wanted to look like him. I wanted to wear a Bogart-style trench coat with the collar turned up, have an untipped Gauloise dangling from my lower lip, and die romantically in a car crash.
― Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts
Being book crazy is an aspect of love
“We are often told that the next generation of literati won't have private libraries: everything will be in the computer. It's a rational solution, but that's probably what's wrong with it. Being book crazy is an aspect of love, and therefore scarcely rational at all.”
― Clive James, Latest Readings
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
With characterization, you have to let go. You’ve got to release yourself from your grandiose intentions, your ambitions, your ideas about humanity, literature, and philosophy by focusing on the being-another-person aspect of it—which, by the way, is freeing, delightful, and one of the few real joys of writing. Stop worrying about writing a great novel—just become another human being.
ETHAN CANIN
The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.
JULIA CAMERON
Bad Apples
by Gina Cohen
A few bad apples she said. You know those bad apples that spoil everything. They spoil the bag, the pie, the applesauce.If they are people, they too spoil everything. The friendships, the quiet of a warm evening breeze, the good neighbors, the neighborhood.Thankfully most apples, like people, are good. But it's scary how bad apples hide in plain sight among all the good ones.Our eyes, ears and nose must always be awake and aware of the bad ones so that that the good ones are protected, safe; good to eat or be around. Crisp and sweet. Like the night air. Warm and breezy with sweet smells of night blooming jasmine. Or cool and full of stars. Like the most beautiful winter night. Like the crispest apple in the bag. Cozy and comfortable no matter the season.Staying safe from bad apples that can change anything in a heartbeat is like being a cop on the beat. Always watchful. Baton swinging in the night like a pastry chef wielding a rolling pin. Looking to pull those bad apples before they spoil everything.
Monday, March 21, 2022
A guy in a glow-green sweatshirt drove up in a huge pick up truck with a Bouncy House company logo on the door.
He honked.
His passenger got out and shouted up towards a top floor window while dancing around the parking lot with his hands held out.
A bearded scruffy guy with oily black hair poked his head out of the top tenement window.
He shouted, and tossed something small to the dancer.
The dancer picked it up off the ground and ran over and handed it to the truck driver seated at the wheel.
Then the dancer went upstairs for a few minutes and came back and they drove off.
Take your time but don’t dawdle. You have to get comfortable with experimenting and getting it wrong and also staring at the computer screen with nothing to type. All this discomfort and doubt and frustration in the beginning is just what you have to go through to get to the place where something begins to take shape. Sometimes this period can last a long time. Sometimes not. Either way, it’s just as necessary as the days where you feel like you’re transcribing something that already exists and your fingers can’t move fast enough to put down the words that flow so easily (these days are fun and worth waiting for).
BILL CLEGG