Rich's Weblog
As for the Republicans
As for the Republicans — how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical American heritage) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.
- HP Lovecraft, 1936
For Father’s Day
Erin, being the awesome wife she is, got me this stuff for Father’s Day:
- Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed I can’t help but get excited about food science.
- Cook’s Bible Lots of recipes and tips and tricks.
- The Big Book of Baking I’m not too into baking, but I think this book is going to help change that.
Listening to
Listening to Leatherface reminds me of watching the movie Bronson. This song in particular, Sound Bites, makes me want to drive fast, windows open and singing along.
This is the guilt end of the wedge, an average grey story
Of the revolutionary who was boring too.
This is the spilt milk stain of a wretch, an average cold walk home.
Avoiding the sunspots, soundbites like snowstorms.
Today makes me wonder…
Today makes me wonder whether things happen for an ultimate reason, or if the world is chaos.
A defaced entry in Wikipedia proved that it is both. The bolded phrase was edited out immediately after I took this screen shot. I can not find a record of it being edited in or out.
I love you all so so much.
Dear Sage
Dear Sage,
Happy Birthday, my little daughter. Today you would have been one. This past year without you has been so difficult. Your Momma and I miss you very much. Our time spent together was much too short.
My favorite memory of you, out of the few I have, was the first time I held you. As frightened as I was, as upset as I was, I was the happiest father in the world holding you that night. Sitting in the rocking chair at the NICU, being able to hold you to my chest and I even got to fall asleep with you in my arms for a little while. You were so tiny and beautiful. I miss you so much.
I have your photos on my desk. I look at them every day and think about you. I hope that wherever you are, you are happy and doing whatever it is that you need to do.
I am grateful for out short time together. I am grateful for being able to hold you. I am grateful that you were and always will be my daughter.
Love,
Daddy.
“Time is separate from memory, muttered Mahnmut […]
but is memory ever separate from time?”
- Ilium, Dan Simmons
We travelled over open grasslands
We travelled over open grasslands. Lush, verdant, stretching to the horizon. We walked alongside a stream. It’s clear water shallow, flowing strongly, grasses growing and waving in the bed. The sky above us was crystalline blue, clouds scudding quickly towards our destination. After a time, we arrived at the lake. Our quiet happy banter turned to yells and cries of joy as women and children dove into the water of the lake.
I hung back, not from hesitation, but from desire to observe the scene. Serenity filled me the way water permeates a sponge.
I dove into the lake and woke from my dream thinking, “If this is death, I am not afraid”.
Hello and Welcome
We’ll see how this whole blogging thing works out. I’ve been an expat of the blogosphere for quite a few years. Now may be a good time to start writing again. We shall see.
