6:59

My eyes pop open at 6:59. That's eight hours of sleep, with only a couple of bathroom runs. And that's with the cats inside, not a peep from them. Within the minute, Pop's country & western music comes on, which keeps me from dawdling in bed.

Oh, yeah, it rained pretty good overnight, and still seems drizzly this morning. We're not going dry yet. The cats have been doing so well; I hate it that they should be further pressed. This isn't February drizzle; it's February deluge!

January 30, 1991

I have had to carry over my Nostalgia Weekend into Monday, since I had to leave off yesterday while I was still in the middle of my first entry of the day. Apparently just doing one old entry per day is too much. I am very into going at a leisurely pace, on all things, not just on working on the Old Journal.

*******

I am spending approximately three-quarters of every day sleeping, watching bad television, and poorly using my imagination. This early post-student experience affirms that I face an objective upper-limit on the amount of energy I can use constructively. During my last semester, I recorded the time I spent constructively, and was surprised to learn that I seemed unable to spend, on average, much more than a couple of hours per day constructively. I’m still hoping that it’s not purely physical, that I can do much more.

==============

February 13, 2012

Only three-quarters of the day wasted? I think I was being easy on myself. Two to three hours of gainful employment still sounds about right, by which we mean serious reading and writing, of course. The funny thing about the Internet is that I no longer mind it, as it makes ‘wasting time’ so much more absorbing in itself, all this contact with the world at large, from the high-brow to the wildly pornographic, and with live discussion and debate with real, flesh and blood people, albeit mediated through a screen and a keyboard. It still isn’t real life, but we are a lot better than where we were twenty years ago. It is just that when the day is done and the year has turned over again, you are left with that empty feeling, like when you masturbate: you haven't really done anything with anyone.

Krugman on Severe Conservativism

Paul Krugman has some fun with Republican nuttiness, teeing off of Mitt Romney's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which Mitt tries to buff up his conservative street cred with the GOP base. Krugman seems to be a little optimistic in thinking that the Republicans may overcome their American-Jesusism and Ayn Randism someday in the years to come. I doubt it myself. This may just be how a great republic falls.

( The Column )

pained meows

Such pained meows issuing from the kitchen. It's Coco. Apparently, it kills her to see those fat birds wading in the pond out back. Ever since the sun came out this afternoon, the cats have been more persnickety.

What Jesus Meant

I have been in the mood to tackle Christianity again. Maybe it is the recent community debates. However, I don’t feel like going back to the Bible for my book-blogging, the ultimate source, so to speak. Too deep and dry for me at this time. I am going to start on Garry Wills’s “What Jesus Meant”, a fun, slim volume that even the only somewhat interested might appreciate.

Wills is a student of Greek, and so he gives his own translations of the New Testament, and he has some interesting opening remarks to make on this point.

_ _ _

There is a general conservatism in translations, bowing to expectations created by past versions, going back to those with “thees” and “thous” and reverential archaisms. That is why, whenever a new version comes out, it is almost always called undignified. It has departed from the “real” Bible, the King James version. Well, new translations have to be undignified if they are to reproduce the effects of the original. This does not mean that the gospel language lacks force. But it is a rough-hewn majesty, an almost brutal linguistic earthiness. I have tried to capture some of that impact in my translations. They go with the image I have of Jesus himself, a lower-class man speaking the everyday language of his workingmen followers.

-- Gary Wills, “What Jesus Meant”

( Read more... )

Like Dandelion Dreams

I came across this sweet Valentine-ish poem some months ago, but it was without attribution and I failed to link it. But it feels good tonight. It feels to me like an involved long-distance e-flirtation that was not meant to be.

_ _ _

Perhaps we could always pretend that this is ours,
that I'm not tired and you're not away.
Perhaps our souls would merge together
through our tangled heart strings. Do you know
that I had a dream about you?
I dreamed you pressed your ear to my chest
and tried to listen to the faint throbbing, "like
raindrops on the glass windows," you said.
And I never wanted to open my eyes.

-- Anonymous