Despair is knocking

In the cold blackness of your silence
i wonder if at last i've found
Another who agrees with 

my opinion of myself?
It's been so very long
since i have lain curled here
where hope and healing dare not tread
and no One comes to redeem
an undeserving worm.

i hope that you're just busy
but if my recent words
and abusive distant past
have driven you away
i understand completely

and am so very sorry
that i have hurt you, too.

Number silliness

I'm a geek. I freely admit it. So, with that out of the way: this is the second possible time in a row that I've seen my pageview count when it was a palindrome. 43334 this time, 43234 the last time; this happens once every hundred (or so) views now, but I don't usually see it.

BTW: it would seem more appropriate if the word for the concept of a palindrome were itself a palindrome.

Somebody is reading me *really* late . . .

. . . , if they're in my time zone, at least. Hi there!

I seem to have gotten too busy to write.

Weird dream

Funny thing. Last night I dreamed that someone I've always wished would regularly read these thoughts I express was actually asking me about something I posted here. I was pleasantly surprised, and glad to answer her questions.

Now, if only that would happen with her in real life.

You could argue that she shouldn't have to, and I wouldn't put up too much disagreement.

Crystal clarity long gone

I woke up this morning with a clear vision of what I wanted to post about my current circumstances, determined to take my first opportunity to capture and share those incisive thoughts.

Here is my first opportunity.

What thoughts?

Blog neglect, again

My lack of logging in all weekend was not due to a dearth of things to share or to reflect on, but because of a very busy weekend. But I now have a vegetable garden again after taking last year off, plus read some more of my book, spent several hours hanging out with my honey, gifted my bride for Mother's Day, rode my bike 32 miles, comforted my sweetie as well as I could on a death that hit really close to home, provided nice guitar-only accompaniment for a responsorial psalm I hadn't listened to before Saturday, cooked a nice dinner, and had a wonderful time with our in-town daughters and grandchildren.

I lift up my eyes to the hills

Though I'm not sharing the details of it, this is a specific, practical observation, not a general one: I am making a decision, right now, between what I should do and what I want to do in this next half hour. And just having this place to write about it is helping me to make the decision that is better for me, and I think that would be true even were I not to publish this post.

Maybe it's the sugar crash and lack of sleep . . .

I know the link between Christmas and St. Stephen's day, and I know I should be able to celebrate the latter more ebulliently. Yet I inevitably find myself a little disappointed in today's reflection, even though Stephen's martyrdom is the very sort of victory which the Babe was born to win for us.

And I also know this says more about my own lack of spiritual maturity than of anything lacking in the Church's calendar during the Christmas season.

No Advent post this morning . . .

. . . but that's okay. I spent the time praying instead of writing. The St. Augustine reading was worth spending some more time unpacking, but first things first. I'm pretty tired tonight, so we'll see whether there ends up being any time for writing tomorrow . . .

25,000 hits

I tend to believe the majority of them aren't real, but still, that's a lot of page views.

:)

I'm so glad you're reading me again. It means a lot to me.

Internal monologue

"Hmm.  I'm feeling kinda hungry . . .   "

About 15 seconds pass

"  . . . Wow. In fact, I'm feeling really hungry already . . . It isn't anywhere near lunch time yet . . . Oh, yeah: I haven't eaten my yogurt yet.  Duh.  No wonder!"

Number synchronicity

I just noticed that I've had 22,486 page views. The last knowledge base item I worked on was answer 68422.

Fearing no thing

Distance separates us, but love unites us, and death itself cannot divide us.  - St. John Chrysostom

The second reading from today's Office of Readings is a reminder that I have nothing about which to be anxious. When I experience anxiety, it is usually because I have fixed my eyes upon the wrong thing, letting the tasks before me or the circumstances of my life fill my vision rather than the God of my life. 

Particularly, I have known separation, in various ways throughout my life, from those I hold dearest, and it is good that I am reminded of the Spirit who unites us in one Body. This is a special gift at a time when I have lately been reminded so powerfully of both those who have been dear to me and those who have been, well, more of a challenge. Just when I found myself lamenting my loss and reconnecting with hurts I have received, I am reminded of God's ever-present, loving care and providence. I am filled with an awareness of the treasure God is and the treasures he has poured into my life, and with gratitude for the many vessels through whom he has poured abundant love into my life. 

I need fear no lack. My life will always be full of love, and whenever I am not sufficient for a task set before me, God's grace will be sufficient to fill my shortcoming.

Funny thing: I started this post to observe that I had nothing to write about after 8 posts in the last two days, but as soon as I took a few minutes to pray and reflect I found something of value that I really needed to reinforce here.

How, umm . . . particular I am

Yes, that's the word: particular. I couldn't possibly mean that increasingly popular adjective that pertains to the "posterior opening of the alimentary canal," which is of course also found in the last four letters of its definition.

There's a puzzle that I do almost every day because it only takes about a minute. The objective is to find four words in a 6x6 letter grid that wind through the grid from each edge to the opposite edge. Acceptable solutions are often not unique; there can be more than one way to wind through the puzzle to make the same word. However, I have found that, when this is the case, there has always been one solution that doesn't reuse any letter in the grid twice. The same letter might occupy adjacent or diagonal spots in the grid that will both allow the formation of a given answer, but one of those spots will be needed for another answer in another direction, for which the other will not work. The puzzle doesn't require that grid letters be used only once, or award extra points for finding the solution that doesn't reuse any of them, but it just seems to me that the best solution is the one that doesn't use any grid letter more than once. Sometimes there are multiple words that could use alternate paths through the grid . . .

Oh, I've spent too much time on this.  Okay.  Okay.

Anal.

Why AP writers don't give their names

Nor editors, for that matter:

Doubront lasted just 3 2/3 innings, giving up seven hits and four runs, snapping Boston's streak of a starter allowing three runs or fewer at 11 games. It matched the longest by the team since 1988. The previous best was 12 in 1915. - "Associated Press"

Now, I certainly make mistakes in writing, but I'm not being published on websites and newspapers throughout the country, and this one is a doozy. My limited readership is sure to spot all the flaws without any help from me, but it's my rant, so here I go.

• If the "previous best" was 12, it's still the "current best," not the "previous best." 
• If this "current best" happened in 1915, and hasn't happened since, then this matched the longest by the team since 1915, not merely since 1988. 
• Speaking of which, did this streak match the team's best since 1988, or more likely, was this one their best such since 1988? (and . . . )
• Is the writer suggesting that the last such streak of 11 games happen in 1988?

Seriously, uncredited writer: find a job you're qualified to do.

A break from blogging dreams

I'm not posting details of last night's dreams, but at least they weren't anything terribly disturbing.

A cabin and priorities

We were at my wife's cousin's place in Kentucky. They were lamenting that they could neither make any changes to their grounds nor sell the place, because the water runs off of it to the north until it reaches Turkey, which is insistent that nothing interfere with the water supply. We hiked along in the woods until we came to their new cabin getaway, of which they had (in the dream) previously shown us pictures. It was rustic and small, wide enough for a double- and a twin-sized bed with a few feet of space in between them. The view there was lovely, though.

In my next dream, I was overdue to call and schedule my next appointment. (In reality, this might be rooted in being due for my next guitar lesson.)  When I called, it was actually to schedule an appointment with my overseeing therapy team, but there was another specialist with whom I'd been working in the interim, but slowly, at my own pace (when I got around to it, like I've been practicing my guitar lesson, in reality, come to think of it). The overseeing therapy team was insistent that it was well past time for me to have completed this phase of my program, and if I couldn't make it the priority it was supposed to be, I could expect to suffer the consequences of my decision.



I was told long ago (am talking decades here) that to start remembering more dreams, start recording them upon waking. This seems to be my experience of late. I am remembering many more dreams since I started including them in my blog. However, I'm not sure that I see much benefit in this activity, which I seem to have made into a routine despite never really intending to do so.  I may keep doing this for a little while longer, but now with an eye toward deciding whether I should just stop.

Numbers

My blog hit count is now one number higher than my zip code when I was growing up . . .