TUESDAY BOOK

Grace and Grit – Ken Wilber

A friend of mine whose daughter is a survivor attended yesterday’s breast cancer Race for the Cure here in PDX and reported a turnout of at least 37,000. Hopefully, this will contribute to the eventual demise of this lethal disease.
After the initial diagnosis, surgery, and therapy, Treya entered a period of intense meditation. Ken Wilber has this to say about meditation:
…I would like to emphasize that meditation itself is, and always has been, a spiritual practice. Meditation, whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, or Muslim, was invented as a way for the soul to venture inward, there ultimately to find a supreme identity with Godhead. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within”–and meditation, from the very beginning, has been the royal road to that Kingdom. Whatever else it does, and it does many beneficial things, meditation is first and foremost a search for the God within.

I would say that meditation is spiritual, but not religious. Spiritual has to do with actual experience, not mere beliefs; with God as the Ground of Being, not a cosmic Daddy figure; with awakening to one’s true Self, not praying for one’s little self; with the disciplining of awareness, not preachy and churchy moralisms about drinking and smoking and sexing; with Spirit found in everyone’s Heart, not anything done in this or that church. Mathatma Gandhi is spiritual; Oral Roberts is religious. Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Albert Schweitzer, Emerson and Thoreau, Saint Teresa of Avila, Dame Julian of Norwich, William James–spiritual. Billy Graham, Archibishop Sheen, Robert Schuller, Pat Robertson, Cardinal O’Connor–religious.

Meditation, then is not so much a part of this or that particular religion, but rather part of the universal spiritual culture of all humankind–an effort to bring awareness to bear on all aspects of life. It is, in other words, part of what has been called the perennial philosophy.
More on the perennial philosophy next week.

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Deep Thought: The big, huge meteor headed toward the Earth. Could nothing stop it? Maybe Bob could. He was suddenly on top of the meteor-through some kind of space warp or something. “Go, Bob, go!” yelled one of the generals. “Give me that!” said the big-guy general as he took the microphone away. “Listen, Bob,” he said. “You’ve got to steer that meteor away from Earth.” “Yes, but how?” thought Bob. Then he got an idea. Right next to him there was a steering wheel sticking out of the meteor.
Today I am grateful for:Being a good listener since practically everyone I know is a good speaker – ad infinitum
Guess the Movie: “And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.’ And he says, ‘Oh uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.’ So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.” Answer: Caddyshack, 1980
Polls Today – Kerry 211/Bush 327. Tidbit from the Electoral Vote Predictor (see sidebar): Some voters have a choice where to register. When George Bush picked Dick Cheney as his running mate in 2000, there was the minor matter that Cheney’ presence on the ticket might cause Bush to lose Texas’ 32 votes in the electoral college and hence the election. Seems the constitution says electors can’t vote for both a president and a vice president from their own state. In the spring of 2000, both Bush and Cheney were living in Texas and registered to vote in Texas. Cheney finessed the problem by changing his voter registration to Wyoming, where he had a summer home. This act could be considered creative voter registration because by no stretch of the imagination did Dick Cheney suddenly become a resident of Wyoming. He continued to live in Texas where he was running Halliburton, the oil services company that continued to pay him a salary even while he was vice president of the United States. The latter job doesn’t pay very well–only $202,900 per year–so a bit on the side is always helpful. That Halliburton received a $7 billion no-bid contract to help rebuild Iraq’s oil industry is mere coincidence.
End of Day – 8:33 pm
+ = Sun came out again today and I got my lawn mowed.
- = Slipped on wet grass and fell down while mowing my lawn. Lawn mowing days may be coming to an end.

PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ME OUT
A Sunday series A-Z (see sidebar)

Buddha

After sifting through thoughts of Bach, the Beatles, Jeff Bezos, and Alec Baldwin, I looked up at my old battered copy of Siddhartha (by Hermann Hesse) sitting on the shelf above me and made the decision to go with the man of peace. I don’t listen to Bach or the Beatles much anymore (though I once did and still adore them), who doesn’t use Amazon.com in their daily lives? and although he seems to have an anger management problem, I always enjoy A. Baldwin’s wicked sense of humor and political savvy. But nothing has affected me as deeply as discovering there is a particular spiritual mindset that is so clearly about nonviolence and simplicity. Buddha (“the awakened”) was the title given to Siddhartha Guatama, the son of a Nepalese rajah. According to tradition, Guatama left a life of luxury at age 30 and devoted himself to years of contemplation and self-denial, finally reaching enlightenment while sitting beneath a tree. Henceforth known as Buddha, he spent his life teaching disciples about his beliefs (embodied in the Four Noble Truths) and the goal of achieving the enlightened state of Nirvana. The Four Noble Truths are
1. Life includes suffering.
2. The cause of suffering is craving.
3. Suffering stops with the cessation of craving.
4. There is a path to the cessation of craving called the Noble Eightfold Path.
I’ve been checking out this path ever since. I’m a fool for lists and plans. But I have to get a gut feeling about them. I don’t call myself a Buddhist (or anything else for that matter in terms of religion), but the story of Siddhartha is one of the few I’ve kept close at hand all these years.

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Deep Thought: As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
Today I am grateful for: Replaceable batteries in watches
Guess the Movie: “Sometimes, now and then, couldn’t we just talk?”
“I tell you what. You talk. I’ll listen.” Answer: Oh God, 1977
Polls Today – Kerry 207/Bush 331 Mason-Dixon has surveyed six swing states: Arizona, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and West Virginia, and Bush is ahead in all of them. And unlike some of the other pollsters who work for one side or the other, Mason-Dixon, at least claims to be neutral. Noteworthy today is that even New Hampshire has switched to Bush, bringing his score in the electoral college to 331, its highest level since May 24. But it is important to note that many states are still very close and could change quickly.
End of Day: 8:09 pm
+ = Saw the movie Garden State. Delightful. Bright new talent in the lead actor who I believe also wrote the very smart script.
- = Front yard starting to look trashy because my mower’s in the shop and it’s been raining besides.

SATURDAY POEM I ADMIRE

Bush Vets

After World War II
some Japanese soldiers
remained hiding in the jungles,
in underground tunnels,
subsisting on roots and rats.
   lost warriors
curiosities to us Westerners:
but now, 30 years
since Nam we have
   lost warriors
of our own:  BUSH VETS,
like endangered Owls,
spotted now and again
in Hawaii or the Northwest,
clambering through the underbrush,
scrambling from sight,
solitary figures,
stooped, shaggy-haired, foraging
for food; packing .45s
and combat knives, waiting,
patiently waiting,
for the war to begin again.

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I stumbled on a site called Poets Against the War and was just stunned to find this wonderful poet whom I’ve never read. Let his bio speak for itself:
Michael Estabrook
55 years old

A medievalist at heart (and by training), disappointed (though reconciled) with the modern world, particularly with the materialism and mercantilism bludgeoning life, smashing our brains into the ground, our hearts into dust. I’m still hoping to find a true and meaningful “cause” in life, other than scratching out my pale poetic murmurings like trying to write in hardened concrete. But I need to find my “cause” pretty soon before I turn to dust myself. You can read more of his poems here.
Deep Thought: I’m telling you, just attach a big parachute to the plane itself! Is anyone listening to me?!
Today I am grateful for: Sugarfree coughdrops
Guess the Movie: “She’s my daughter! She’s my sister! She’s my daughter! My sister, my daughter. She’s my sister and my daughter!” Answer: Chinatown, 1974. Winner thenarrator
Polls today Kerry 211/Bush 327. Follow-up on cell phone issue (see yesterday’s blog): “Now getting back to Breslin’s column, in theory he is right that pollsters will miss people who have only a cell phone, but of the 169 million cell phones, most have a land line as well. It is estimated that 5% of the population is cell only. And most of these don’t live in battleground states. And then an effect occurs only if cell-only users differ from land line users in their political preference. Thus the error introduced by missing the cell-only customers is probably smaller than the error introduced by missing the overseas voters. But it is there and in a close election, it could matter. Here is Zogby’s response to Breslin’s column. Robert Landauer wrote a good piece on the accuracy of polling is his Aug. 31 column. Worth a look.”
End of Day 8:41 pm
+ = Really nice day with my grandkids. Bought them school sweatshirts. Watched Freaky Friday. Helped my grandson with writing a paper for school.
- = Xanga just crashed when I tried to post this. We’ll see if it does it again.

FridayFiver
1. What are you looking forward to this fall?
Getting back in the darkroom. First I have to scope out this place in town that has one and practice using it, then start getting plans together to build one in my garage.
2. What do you regret in the past year?
The actual act of regretting is such a huge waste of time. Now learning – that’s another thing. I learned that I can begin to write again at my age, after years of languishing.
3. Who was your favorite teacher?
There is not a single teacher from school days who really stands out like some people talk about having one. Maybe I’m just too far away from those times. My teachers have mostly been writers and filmmakers. The best teacher of all, if one is willing to pay attention, is Life.
4. What was your favorite subject?
Languages. I learned to love words early and eventually studied Latin, Russian, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, and Hebrew, going back to college after years away to major in French.
5. I’ve handed you $500 that you must spend new clothing for the fall. Tell us how you’d spend it. I’d rather not spend it on clothes, as I shop for secondhand clothes pretty much exclusively and have all I need. But if I HAD to: Excellent winter shoes and boots. All new lingerie. Do prescription sunglasses count? A smashing full-length coat.
Deep Thought: Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don’t know what your rights are, or who the person is you’re talking to. Then, on the way out, slam the door.
Today I am grateful for: Disk First Aid
Guess the Movie: “You be careful out among them English.” Answer: Witness, 1985. Winner laurieglynn
BLOGGING FORWARD TO: Candle Ends who is watching the world closely and forming canny opinions.
Polls today: Kerry 211/Bush 307. Maine has changed to Kerry and Colorado has changed to Bush. Jimmy Breslin of Newsday had a column yesterday that claims that pollsters do not call the 168 million cell phones in the country. Since many younger voters do not have a land line and just a cell phone, they will be hugely underrepresented in all the telephone polls. Since younger voters lean more towards the Democrats than the average voter, the polls may be greatly underestimating Kerry’s strength.
End of Day – 8:28 pm
+ = Chapter 7 in the can. Editing begun. Coming soon.
- = Summer is over in PDX.

Way to Go

As I was writing Chapter 7 of my story, I had to get some details about the Yugoslavian freighter trip in 1964, and in doing so discovered that I was only one of many young bohemian types to travel this way. See the smattering below and enjoy. Here is a little excerpt from my own letters:
1/25/64 Dear Mother, Today is our first day at sea. The freighter is a big one but it’s really rocking. The sea is choppy. F had a few moments of seasickness today but I am fine. I keep pretending that I am a sailor who has been homesick for the sea and is finally on it again and so happy that the boat is rocking just like he remembered. The boat is very comfortable, though Yugoslavian cuisine seems to be too similar to Russian cuisine. F shares a cabin with a very nice boy from Thailand and the lady in my cabin is going for a vacation on a Greek island. She is from Chicago. The crew don’t speak English very well but are very polite and good-natured. We will stop for a day in Casablanca it seems, before we reach Tangiers. But it will be a miracle if we don’t die of boredom first. You practically have to lie in your bed all day, because the minute you stand up you fall on your head……..1/27/64 Dear Daddy, It is our third day at sea. The weather is bright and sunny and the water is very calm. We had a storm the first night which rocked the boat and made a shambles of all the furniture but since then everything has quieted down. The Yugoslavian crew are wonderful people, very calm and friendly. They speak hardly any English. For example, the waiter who comes to call you to meals always says Good Morning in a very pleased voice no matter what time of day it is. We have explored the boat from one end to the other. There are no restrictions. This morning I went way to the bottom of the ship and clambered around and the crew smiled and made no sign that I should stay away from anything. We spend most of our time way on the back deck sitting in the sun and dangling our feet off the end of the boat about 12 feet above the water. Bless their hearts, my parents saved every letter I ever wrote and had no clue of the more adventurous details of my journey.
Other Sailors:
Mohamed Zakariya, Islamic calligrapher
Morty Breier, E-zine editor
Barry Boudreaux, aka Swami Anand Buddha
Carl Grzybowski, Systems architect
and my personal favorite
Jack Kerouac
Deep Thought: If you’re a circus clown, and you have a dog that you use in your act, I don’t think it’s a good idea to also dress the dog up like a clown, because people see that and they think, “Forgive me, but that’s just too much.”
Today I am grateful for: Life jackets
Guess the Movie: “You better bury Ned right. You better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores, or I’ll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.” Answer: Unforgiven, 1992. Winner: IronFlameRider
Polls Today: Kerry 223/Bush 311
End of Day: 8:30 pm
+ = Fixed my bathroom sink with Drano Max Gel. Whew.
- = Have to replace the damn black printer cartridge again.

Vanity Fair

Bet you don’t recognize Graydon Carter, the man in the photo, about whom I know nothing except he edits the only magazine to which I have subscribed for years – Vanity Fair. Now at first glance, because there is always a photo of someone gorgeous on the cover (this month Jude Law) you would think this is a rag for the smarmy rich, and by golly it does include articles that would please them like photospreads of architecturally dazzling homes of the wealthy and famous or yearly countdowns of corporate moguls like this month’s New Establishment 2004. And it does have appeal to the young and hoping to become rock stars group with its issues full of Annie Leibowitz photos of everyone hot in music and film. It has a lovely snobby gossip column by Dominick Dunne so we may hear the latest smut about elegant crime (like the Martha Stewart trial). It usually has some kind of unsolved crime story with a glamorous victim or villain. This month it has, for example, “New Questions about Princess Diana’s Death.” For Playboys it has “Gisele Naked and on the Beach,” about Leonardo DiCaprio’s model girlfriend. For culture mavens, it has a lovely article on Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin his collaborator and one on painter Caio Fonseca. And of course stuck in between all this, are plenty of expensive ads for clothes and jewels and cosmetics and accessories you cannot afford. It also has that nice hefty weight when you pick it up, like you really bought something worth the money (and if you subscribe you get a very lovely discount). But forget all that – the reason I love it most is that it draws all these readers in for the above reasons and then lays out one of the most astute liberal agendas you’d find anywhere in the print media. The line-up this month: The Path to Florida (what really happened in the 2000 election and what’s going down right now); Fran Lebowitz on Church and State; James Wolcott on Donald Rumsfeld (Rummy on the Rocks); Michael Wolff on What If Bush Wins?; and the requisite feisty editorial by Graydon Carter called Big Job Losses in the Bush League. And now I think I should get my subscription free, don’t you? Going happily back to reading now….
Deep Thought: As the snow started to fall, he tugged his coat tighter around himself. Too tight, as it turned out. “This is the fourth coat crushing this year,” said the police sergeant as he outlined the body with a special pencil that writes on snow.
Today I am grateful for: Bill me later subscriptions
Guess the Movie: “I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.” (voice-over) Answer: The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
Winner: thenarrator
End of Day – 8:36 pm
+ = Taking a vacation day tomorrow.
- = I think it’s fall now.

Moment of Zen

I was watching Larry King interview Bill Maher yesterday when they showed a wonderful clip of Maher and Michael Moore on their knees on either side of Ralph Nader begging him to withdraw from the race. Maher confessed to being bamboozled as to just why Nader forges ahead. Anybody out there have a really good explanation? In the meantime, here’s the latest Nader news:
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s name can appear on Florida ballots for the election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida’s elections chief told officials on Monday in a move that could help President Bush in the key swing state.
The Florida Democratic Party reacted with outrage, calling the move “blatant partisan maneuvering” by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s younger brother, and vowed to fight it. LINK
The Electoral Vote Predictor now has the spread as: Kerry 269/Bush 233. Here’s what he has to say this morning: Not much to report. The only state poll is Maine, but it is interesting. Kerry and Bush are tied at 43% each. This result is bad news for Kerry, who expected to win Maine easily, as Gore did in 2000. Maine is one of the two states that does not use a winner-take-all system for allocating its votes in the electoral college (Nebraska is the other one). The winner of each of the two congressional districts gets one, and the statewide winner gets the other two. The poll did not break down the results by CD.

Also noteworthy in Maine is that 43% of the voters say Bush deserves another term while 55% say it is time for someone new. This finding suggests that a lot of people there dislike Bush but are not sure Kerry is the answer. Finally, although the people of Maine are not so hot on George Bush, they definitely like bear-baiting. The referendum on banning it is losing 52% to 35%. I think bears should be allowed to vote on that one.

Zogby did a survey among rural voters. The good news for Bush is that he is ahead 52% to 37% in this demographic group. The bad news is that in 2000 he led 59% to 37% at this point. Jobs, terrorism, Iraq, health care, and education are the top issues down on the farm. Not surprisingly, those rural voters who see jobs as the most important issue prefer Kerry and those who see terrorism as the key issue prefer Bush.

I have it on good authority that overseas voters are registering in huge numbers this time, maybe double or triple 2000. I was told that the number of people who showed up at the Democratic party caucus in England earlier this year was 10 times what it was in 2000, ditto in other countries. Americans overseas vote in the state they last lived in, even if that was decades ago. There are about 7 million overseas Americans and probably about 5 million are over 18. In Florida, it was the overseas absentee ballots that swung the election. I believe that something like 8% are military, but the rest are students, teachers, artists, government workers, business executives, spouses of foreign nationals, missionaries, retirees, and more. What is significant here is that these people represent a lot of votes and are not included in any of the polls. Nobody knows if they are largely Democrats or Republicans, but their votes could be one of the big surprises of this election. if anyone has any actual data (as opposed to speculation) on this group, I’d be interested.

Deep Thought: Whenever someone asks me to define love, I usually think for a minute, then I spin around and pin the guy’s arm behind his back. Now who’s asking the questions?
Today I am grateful for: Vanity Fair magazine editorials
Guess the Movie: “I have to warn you. I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.”
“Okay. We’ll have to base it on sex, then.”
“Whatever you say, ma’am.” Answer: Speed, 1994
Winner – lostyetlooking
End of Day: 8:57 pm
+ = Mailed a great Bionicle set to my godson in Colorado today for his birthday.
- = Some cats have food addiction as bad as people.

MONDAY BOOK

Grace and Grit – by Ken Wilber (cont.)

I will be returning to this book each week until I’ve made my way through, because while I’m reading other things currently, this book is not just for pleasure. It’s not just a sad story or a love story. It’s a story about what two highly intelligent and spiritually motivated people did when faced with a limited lifetime for one of them. When I left off last week, Treya Wilber had been diagnosed with breast cancer just as they had met and married. Soon after this, she had to abort a pregnancy because it threatened her recuperation from surgery and radiation, and a year into their marriage they moved to Lake Tahoe. There Treya wrote this in her journal:
Why in the past have I wanted to travel so much? Why do I feel so constrained when I can’t just pick up and go? I twist in this new form, resist, feel confined. I squirm, wonder if ths is after all, really just another search for inner God displaced and sought “out there”? If I let myself live more freely within myself, a whole being, on my side, in support of myself completely, perhaps the foreign land will emerge within myself, strange sights and smells and thoughts swirling inside, pulling me into another land that begs to be experienced and felt and shared with others and shaped and molded in some way that satisfies that deep need – an African bazaar within my belly, incense-soaked Indian temple festooned with monkeys in my chest, high white Himalayan expanses with endless sky in my head, limbos dancing to balmy Jamaican breezes, the Louvre, the Sorbonne, washed down with a cafe au lait. This planet, our home, a tiny land in my heart.
The chapter that begins with this paragraph is called A Universe Within. In this last part of my own life, it is where I spend most of my time – traveling within. Lately, writing about the mileage of my youth I see how logical it is that outer travel be done then when you have the muscles and the lungpower. Considering the movement by foot, bus, train, ship, and plane then, I wonder if I have the fortitude to travel as far and with as much exhilaration on this dive into my own deepest soul. I’m determined that no matter what I find there, I can recognize it, respect it, forgive it, and even improve on it. Here I go. And here is a poem about it.

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Deep Thought: If you lose your job, your marriage and your mind all in one week, try to lose your mind first, because then the other stuff won’t matter that much.
Today I am grateful for: Being younger than some
Guess the Movie: “We all go a little mad sometimes.” Answer: Psycho, 1960
Winner: thenarrator
End of Day – 8:38 pm
+ = Discovered Jack Kerouac took the same voyage I did on a Yugoslavian freighter out of New York to Africa, just 7 years earlier and landing in Tangiers instead of Casablanca.
- = Tried to unplug my bathroom sink and succeeded in completely stopping the drain. I need a plumber’s wrench.

PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ME OUT
(Beginning a new A-Z series)

Muhammad Ali
Lance Armstrong

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never been a sports maven. Oh there was a time when I’d follow a team or stick with a tournament or do an Olympics watch from beginning to end, but those days are gone and now I just dip in – 10 minutes of Andy Roddick here, 5 minutes of marathon there. So I didn’t choose these two champions of their sport for that reason. I’m not sure if the dedication, agility, intelligence, and competitiveness required for them to excel in boxing and bicycle racing contributed to what interests me or not. I suspect it did. The bottom line for me is that when Ali became a practicing Muslim in 1964, he was willing to take the 3-1/2-year ban from boxing at a peak moment in his career in order to resist the Vietnam draft. This man whose in-your-face personality danced him to the top in the brutal boxing ring drew the line at war. Despite Parkinson’s disease, he continues to travel for causes today and is one of the most beloved figures of sport on the planet. As for Armstrong, I’d be only slightly more likely to watch a bicycle race than I would a boxing match and I’m amused to see that he’s become attached to a rock star after leaving his marriage of however many years; however, in this case the fascination for me is that at only 26 he beat advanced cancer, and as if that wasn’t enough won his first Tour de France two years afterwards. Five Tours later, at 32 his mantra is “Don’t make any long-term plans.” He too spends time giving back with his cancer foundation. For me, it isn’t their sport that defines these two men – it’s character. When they made up their minds, you just didn’t want to mess with them. They opted to win and to live. Armstrong has said, “Dying and losing, it’s the same thing.”

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Deep Thought: Kids don’t need expensive new toys to have fun. A lot of times we would have just as much fun getting in my dad’s car and letting off the emergency brake and just seeing where the car would go before it stopped.
Today I am grateful for: Only 7 days to a week
Guess the Movie: “Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it. You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go!” Answer: On Golden Pond, 1981
End of Day: 8:50 pm
+ = Finally actually writing Chapter 7 of my story after weeks of research.
- = Cheek hurting again tonight. More ibuprophen.

SATUDAY POEM I ADMIRE

To Make a Prairie

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886

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If you grew up in my generation and were assigned any poets to read in high school, you wouldn’t have missed E.D. Voted by Fate to be Most Unlikely to Become Famous, she was a virtual hermit all her life, lived and died in Amherst, Mass. at only 56. She wrote in the same years as Walt Whitman and I’ve often thought what a story it would have made if that lusty yowling supermale had busted into her garden and swept her off her feet. She never read his poems because they were rumored to be disgraceful. In spite of hiding out all her life, she wrote constantly, was passionate about the few people she did allow in, was never published in her lifetime, and became one of America’s most distinguished poets after her death. Guess that should remind every writer not to write for the glory of it.

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Re the anniversary of 9/11, I would just like to say that although I was just as horrified as anyone else by this disaster and spent at least a year of serious PTSD around it, I believe the tension it came out of and served to continue will never abate until we learn exactly what those individuals who carried it out were about. Until we stop making sweeping generalizations about terrorists and waving flags and making each other even more rabid with fear, we will never find the way through the chaos to understanding and peace.
Deep Thought: One good thing about hell, at least, is you can probably pee wherever you want to.
Today I am grateful for: Paper
Guess the Movie: “And one day, not long from now, my looks will go. They will discover I can’t act, and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for awhile.” Answer: Notting Hill, 1999
Winner: strawberry14
BLOGGING FORWARD TO: coopster911 who is taking us back to high school with the voice of a young poet.
End of Day – 9:26 pm
+ = Cheek much better tonight.
- = Memories of 9/11.