Grey Matter

Cold

I thought I was getting a cold last night. I started sneezing at about 6:30 for no readily apparent reason. Later last night my nose was starting to get a bit dribbly. As I climbed into bed, blowing my nose as quietly as possible, I resigned myself to waking in the morning with a congested head.
It didn't happen. I'm feeling normal. Maybe I had a touch of hay fever last night.

Randomness

(from various unknown sources)

I've heard it said that your worst day when you're alive is better than your best day when you're dead. Personally, I think that's just a bunch of crap that dead people say.

I've been a teacher for many years, and some of my non-teacher friends used to say I see the world through rose-colored glasses. I correct them and tell them that I see it through a rose-colored rifle scope. Now they don't seem to bug me about it anymore.

Maybe someone can explain to me why anyone would ever hold a poetry festival somewhere other than Nantucket.

You know your girlfriend's upset with you when you wake up in the morning and watch traffic whiz by on either side of the bed.

Time

What shape is time? (an enigmatic and ultimately unanswerable question from EK's dining room)

Time is the contortion traversed by a dying blowfly
whose wings buzz the rhythm of my days,
whose eyes chase a kaleidoscope of floor-tiles --
endless tessellations spiraling tighter until
impact.
Time is never enough.

Virgil Who?

I noted last month that there was a short story competition being conducted by my local library. I dusted off The Power and printed it ready to submit. I printed the entry form to include as a cover sheet. As I was filling in the form a thought struck me. Do I sign the declaration of authorship with my real name or my pseudonym? I haven't practised signing my pseudonym - I've only ever typed it. When the form asks for name and address, do I put my real name or my pseudonym? If I should happen to win, they will want to publish the story on the library website complete with the author's name.
I rang the number quoted for competition enquiries to ask for clarification. The thought of any writer not wanting to publish under his/her own name seemed completely foreign to the competition organiser. She took at least a minute to grasp that I was serious about wanting to enter a story under a pseudonym. Maybe it's just me. Maybe pseudonyms are pretentious masks reserved for famous authors. I still don't think it was an unreasonable question to ask. I'll just have to make a special note on the form and hope I'm not bucking their system too much.

Murphy

There are two computers. Each has a monitor. One of them is about two years old and still had a bright sharp picture. The other - old and cheap and fuzzy. Guess which one died this morning.

Have you seen: The Furry Pillow ?

New Toy

I gained a new talisman today. It is small enough to fit within the palm of my hand and it glows with a blue light. As I move my fingers over the small protuberances on its surface I see tiny black runes change on its face. It is truly a thing of marvel.
It is a Tune Stone - forged in a mighty silicon foundry. Some call it "The Player of MP3", but it is more than that. It can remember the runes written in other stones. When I insert it into a slot in my standing stone, it transforms itself into a removable disc. With simple incantations I command the Tune Stone to learn the runes from my standing stone, or teach my standing stone the runes stored on the Tune Stone.
This wondrous artefact shall be my new means of transferring arcane lore between home and work. Begone foul floppies! Out, damned CD burner! Avaunt ye vulture-watched company web-connection! I am the master of the Tune Stone and it sings to me as I walk the ever receding Paths of Treadmill.

Little Bits

Today is just little bits of lots of things. Discussing, managing, fixing, reading, planning, eating, writing, farewelling, solving, resolving, more eating, exercising, browsing, chatting... After having a busy day, I can look back and ask "where did the day go?"
What have I got to say for what I have achieved? What is there to talk about? An interesting person would find something small yet quirky in one of the day's obscure moments, then reflect on the microcosm of human experience revealed in it. The boring analyst simply writes about that approach in an abstract sense, realising that his readers will recognise the meta-journaling process that is happening as they read. Some will see this mind game as very Virge. Some will say it's a cheap blog filler. Some may even see hints of self-doubt creeping out of the sub-text and into the subject matter as the process itself becomes its own subject matter. They are all correct (except for those who already got bored or confused and gave up before reaching this point - those people are losers - aren't you glad you're not one of them).

Randomness

Whenever I am tempted to say "nobody could be that stupid", I force myself to think again.

Model Citizens

Nothing much happened at work today.
Move along please. Move along.

A work colleague drew my attention to the animaniacs "I am the very model of a cartoon individual". One of the most filked songs ever in the history of filking is Gilbert & Sullivan's "I am the very model of a modern major-general" from The Pirates of Penzance.
See here for one list. Don't read them all at once. They are better sampled at intervals otherwise the rhythm gets too hypnotic.

Pants

There is a lot to be said for silliness - most of it pretty silly. Today's journal entry doesn't pretend to be anything other than completely silly. The subject is "pants". You have been warned.

Pantomime (Pants Ex Machina)

Folks, spare a thought for vain, young Lance,
(with teenage dreams of wild romance)
as he invests in underpants
to buoy his frail ego.

He eye's shop mannequins askance,
and wonders if penile implants
could boost his trousers' occupants
and stud-status bestow.

Those y-fronts smack of tight finance --
of childhood spent with grim, cheap aunts.
They'd surely stymie his advance
on love's presidio.

The tight butt-hugging jockette pants
in titillating circumstance
could bode a stressful comeuppance,
constraining his blood flow.

The silken boxers draw his glance.
He wonders if he'll take the chance
that cute, pink panthers may enhance
his luckless libido.

Observing the superior stance
and mirthful smirks of assistants
who guard the changing-room entrance,
a fitting he'll forego.

Once home he dons his new-bought pants
and, for the mirror, twirls a dance.
But, *gasp* what's that? A huge expanse
of butt-crack left on show!

He rips them off. He yells. He rants.
He huffs and puffs and snorts and pants,
grabs bag and docket...
then recants --
no one need ever know.

He locks the door, then Lance decants
the mystic blood. He murmurs chants
to his fell lord -- the one who grants
him favours here below.

Now we his viewers, rapt in trance,
look on his rite as from a pantheon
of gods whose supplicants
like ants run to and fro.

We hear his prayer. The change is slow.
The silk pink panthers start to glow.
Lance, trembling, tugs them on...
but whoa!
They won't come off again. Oh no!
His voice is strange; he's grown a mo --
we've turned him into Jacques Clouseau!

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