“…to defend and conserve oneself as a human being in the fullest, truest sense, one must defend and conserve many others and much else. What would be the hope of being personally whole in a dis-membered society, or personally healthy in a land scalped, scraped, eroded, and poisoned, or personally free in a land entirely controlled by the government, or personally enlightened in an age illuminated only by TV?” — Wendell Berry

and, one of my late father’s favorite songs:

“…once my heart was filled with the love of a girl/
I held her close, but she faded in the night/
Like a poem I meant to write/
And the leaves that are green turn to brown…”

Everybody out there, i hope you have a great weekend.

xo

wm

“The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.” — Ross Macdonald, novelist (1915-1983)

“Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.”

–James Wright

“Why worry when you can obsess?”

and

“The hardest year of marriage is the one you’re currently in.”

Have truer words ever been spoken?

Also, homework should be outlawed.

buh-bye.

— wm

“So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.” — John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

“The day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed will set off a revolution.”

— Paul Cezanne

(Anne T. i love you.)

— wm

“That is another question not to be asked.”

— Falstaff

“These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.” — Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

— Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

“It’s one of life’s lessons: I’ve learned how to be generous, because I’ve allowed myself to receive.”

— my girl Suzanne

And now, for a little light reading:

On the coffeetable:

You know what all this learning hurts? My brain. Seriously, why was I thinking graduate school was a good idea? And not some correspondence-course grad school, either, oh no. It has recently come to my attention that you can get a master’s degree by just sending away for one by mail. (Or e-mail.) But no, I had to sign up for “rigorous program.”

Intellectual discipline is so over-rated.

Also, this week’s episode of “Glee,” the one with Kurt’s dad?, made me cry my head off, especially when Mercedes sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and when Finn did “Losing My Religion.” So what did I have to go and do? Yeah, that’s right. We went to my daughter’s band thing last night (really fun), then when we got home, Steve made us grilled cheese sandwiches and I made the mistake of drinking two glasses of wine and watching “Glee” again. I was a hot mess after all that was over. Damn “Glee.”

Now, I work out and study.

xo

me