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When you over pound "strong image" the reader goes numb, just as your tongue does when faced with an overspiced stew.
--Barb Jernigan, 26 Sep 1993
Just because you're keeping an encyclopedic glossary on the side, doesn't mean what's writ there is etched on the harddisk.
--Barb Jernigan, 19 Nov 1993
Lessee, there's a (no doubt apocryphal) tale about James Joyce: He was sitting brooding into his cups in a Paris bistro. "Jaimie," a friend asked, "what's the matter?" "Oh, it's horrible, horrible. I wrote five words today." "But, Jaimie! That's more than you've written all MONTH! What's the problem? You should be happy!" "But I don't know what order they go in!"
--Contributed by Barb Jernigan
We forget how debilitating ignorance can be -- but luckily it's greatly curable.
--Barb Jernigan, 13 Feb 1995
It's the ol' sewage equation: Add an ounce of wine to a gallon of sewage and you still have sewage. Add an ounce of sewage to a gallon of wine and you still have sewage.
--Contributed by Barb Jernigan
Well, what's life if it isn't threatening to swamp the boat, eh?
--Barb Jernigan, 05 May 1995
I think revenge is a dish best served buttered on this night....
--Barb Jernigan
(Say? Why I don't I just not say anything? -Michael Nellis)
Because we're writers. Silence isn't in our make-up.
--Barb Jernigan, 18 Feb 1994
So sorry, my brain melted yesterday and hasn't had time to regenerate.
--Barb Jernigan, 16 Aug 1995
Slow down and taste the cinnamon rolls.
--Barb Jernigan
The only thing better than a thigh in the hand is a breast in the mouth.
[This reminds me of the take-out chicken place in Monterey, CA whose motto was: {above} The city fathers didn't like it much . . .]
--posted by Russ Jernigan, 10 May 1997
You can put a lad to bed, but you can't make him nap.
--Barb Jernigan
It's terrible when the little grey cells step out...
--Barb Jernigan
Never let mere facts get in the way of a good story!
--Barb Jernigan
* Life is a moving target.
* Life: the only game where the object is to learn the rules.
--Barb Jernigan
What good is a mind if you can't change it?
--Barb Jernigan
I always like the morning well aired before I get up
--Barb Jernigan
The rain insane falls mainly on the brain....
--Barb Jernigan
Morel dillema -- when you run out of mushrooms.
--Barb Jernigan
Dave & Becky Borg: There Goes an Assimilation!
--Barb Jernigan
This is a three pot morning, Watson.
--Barb Jernigan [filling cup]
muppets are my favorite weirdos
--Barb Jernigan
[and I mutter I haven't lead an interesting life. sigh. probably wouldn't be happy if I was hung with a new rope!]
--Barb Jernigan, 27 Dec 1993
Oh well. I can tell my grandchildren: There was a time Miracle Worker was my job description. But miracles wear one out -- even though one appears to be getting better at them.
--Barb Jernigan, October 1996
CYNIC: If wishes were horses we'd be neck deep in manure
OPTIMIST: But think of the fertilizer potential!
--Barb Jernigan, July 1998
Obviously we're a bunch of oddballs ... "Castaways from the shores of Mundane Life" (though, as I age, I begin to suspect we're not the wee minority we'd like to advertise ourselves -- the event horizon of the lunatic fringe being rather wider than, at first, suspected)
--Barb Jernigan, 07 Apr 1999
A place and time and mood best not revisited. Except in the secret code of a good friend's one-liners. Right, Laurie?
--Barb Jernigan, 22 April 1999
(Barb, you're thinking too much, go refill your coffee before the rest of what passes for your thought processes drool out)
--Barb Jernigan, 07 May 1999
"no, no! ignorance is rarely fun--but innocence, now that's TRUE bliss"
--Barb Jernigan, 22 May 1999
You'll look back on this as character-building fodder. Meanwhile... ARGHH!!!!
--Barb Jernigan, 02 Aug 1999
[T]hat's the nature of technology... quirky enough to keep us from getting entirely too cocky...
--Barb Jernigan, 12 Aug 1999
[F]urrowed brow, that's where you plant seeds of thought, eh?
--Barb Jernigan, 09 Aug 1999
Patient means "no whining."
--Reid Jernigan, 6 yrs old
You either develop a thick skin or commit suicide. (When it's praise, of course, they're right. When it's not, clearly they slept through the show... ho ho ho)
(and no one EVER loves a critic -- especially when they're right)
--Barb Jernigan, 16 Sep 1999
Rusty, I hope that you know that that book is crap. However, it is well written crap . . .
--Miss Wilson (an elementary school teacher), quoted by Russ Jernigan, 14 Sep 1999
There's gratuitous and then there's extraneous
--Russ Jernigan
That's why you should never wonder at dawn. Wondering is star stuff. Dawn is coffee and lists and doubts (which I do MY best to proceed in spite of: Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose what we might gain, by fearing to attempt (badly quoted, but here I am in a sea pocked with cardboard shoals -- "live lightly" describes someone diametrically opposed, I fear)
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Nov 1999
[Quoted badly because she was moving yet again and her books were still packed in boxes, of
course. --MN]
I know, I know, you are in the QUAGMIRE that makes a Pliocene Tar Pit look like a bubble bath....
--Barb Jernigan, 30 Nov 1999
You can teach a man -- but you can' teach him much. You can teach a woman -- and she WILL learn . . . then do what she wants anyway.
--Russ Jernigan, 1999
Well, keeping the mind young is 90% of the battle, imho. Gives one resilience against the aches and pains of outrageous fortune. To whit: my mum-in-law, who has given in (for years) to her ailments, is 72 going on 90, whilst MY mum of the same bottling, who fought nigh debilitating pain all her life with the ferocity of a Stubborn Swede, is, in some ways, younger than I am. She tires quicker these days, but one can't keep mortality at bay for ever.
--Barb Jernigan, 10 Dec 1999
After all, I've been working on this rewrite for, well, eight years? Real Life keeps cutting in the dance.
But the Piper does a really neat tune, so I'll pay without TOO many sighs (a few grumbles over smashed toes, bruised ribs, and twisted ankles....)
--Barb Jernigan, 14 Dec 1999
I'm too, um, expansive, to be a Barbara (though I play one at tax time)
Rip the poor name at the seams, I do. . . .
But "Barb" -- the sharp thing on a hook and certain fence wires, a pithy comment (not that I'm ever "short winded")(often).... it works. It's Me. "Barb" is like a mask. It's mine, but it doesn't fit as the skin fits.
--Barb Jernigan, 15 Dec 1999
OTOH, I had my own lessons there -- should have taken a page from King Lear: don't stick around after you abdicate.
--Barb Jernigan, 20 Dec 1999
This is the source of my pet writing phrase: "Why don't I take up something EASY, like bomb disposal?"
--Barb Jernigan, 04 Jan 2000
There's two sides to every sword, of course....
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Jan 2000
If you follow the urgings of every monkey on your back, you'll sound like a troop of baboons....
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Jan 2000
Now there's a sentence that glistens like a pommeless sword.
--Barb Jernigan, 09 Jan 2000
To induce order sometimes you have to create chaos.
--Russ Jernigan, 1999
Very odd species we are (great WRITING fodder, eh?)
--Barb Jernigan, 11 Jan 2000
Amazing legume, the human bean.
--Barb Jernigan, 16 Jan 2000
There's no single nut & bolt combination. Which, when you're starting out, might cause you to wail: "But I want a sure-fire recipe!" Later you realize, a single recipe means we're all eating the exact same cake.
--Barb Jernigan, 02 April 2000
Places of legend keep turning up. Now, does this mean the B-I-B-L-E and other Holy books should be taken literally? I don't personally believe so. But my heresies run deep. Still, the embellishments of legend hang on a skeleton of possible fact.
--Barb Jernigan, 07 April 2000
Assumption is the mother of all <>ups. Certainty is an illusion.
--Barb Jernigan, 07 April 2000
That's the thing about humans & history. You've got data to fit any theory..... Unifying it is another matter.
--Barb Jernigan, 07 April 2000
A little email, a little coffee.... and then I should really do something tangible with the day. (oh =GASP=)
--Barb Jernigan, 25 Apr 2000
. . . there's a couple examples (not mine) I could give you for fertilizer.
--Barb Jernigan, 28 Apr 2000
[N]ever rains but it monsoons...
--Barb Jernigan, 26 Apr 2000
Wondering is good -- it keeps you from getting too complacent about your ruts. Conclusions, on the other hand, are rather diceyer
--Barb Jernigan, 02 Jun 2000
[...] I can't see myself limiting myself to one thing or another -- which is, of course, my problem. Attempting to progress on 20 fronts simultaneously looks a LOT like standing still.
--Barb Jernigan, 24 Jun 2000
(yeah, this support rope is kinda a bungee cable, but it will keep you from crashing)
--Barb Jernigan, 18 Aug 2000
All I know, and this from my own experience, I have to push myself off and out...... then have the damned Norskeness to MAKE myself make it work.
There is no one so cruel to myself as me.... (and this is probably not a good way to cope -- indeed is not -- but one has do what works) but I have found I must FORCE myself (even in the face of events) to think UP, not down.
Like climbing a mountain -- if you focus on the struggle of it, the struggle is magnified. One must FORCE the thoughts away from that, yea, even drag them kicking and screaming. One must nail their feet to go the distance, when every impulse is to bail (and yet know, there are times, walking away is the necessary course) ((nope, haven't figured that one out yet, so stick in until I'm past sure))
No, I haven't walked in YOUR shoes. I've walked in my own. And continue to. And, yes, there are times it seems it would be so much easier to give in. Thank Wotan for the Norske streak that doesn't forget how to laugh in the face of the Arctic wind (e'en while the rest of my shrieks, what the &*(&)^!!!! are you DOING???????).
--Barb Jernigan, 10 Sep 2000
Can't speak for Elvis, but there comes a time to weep for the past and start putting together IMPROVEMENTS for the future. It's not the best of carrots to move the mule, but....
--Barb Jernigan, 25 Oct 2000
But people get caught up in their style du jour or what have you, and, yes, colorful metaphor can be sacrificed on the altar of some snowballing pomposity.
I guess it's like Prohibition -- to prevent a section (but not a majority) of the population from overimbibing, everyone must teetotal. People get religious about the damndest things.
--Barb Jernigan, 28 Oct 2000
(this is, of course, all in my (not so) humble opinion -- but then, I've got a license to pedant somewhere around here)
--Barb Jernigan, 15 Nov 2000
There are more thorns than blossoms on a rose-bush ... To see one completely over the other, either way, leads to trouble.
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Feb 2001
As a wise friend, who walked a path that would crumble most of us to dust, once said: "Life is hard enough without suffering from it, too"
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Feb 2001
Been there, done that, had keyboard imprints on the ol' forehead.
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Jun2, 2001
go forth and grammarfy!!!
--Barb Jernigan, 10 Jun 2001
Change is all around us (in fits and starts, of course) marvellous things in material science, for example... the challenge to overcome the limits of lightspeed in a semi-conductor is going to spin off marvels and while the internet is a great time waster, it will be looked back on as something that changed society (every discovery casts shadows) but since we're up to our comprehension in pap and pseudo wonders, we can't spot the nuggets for the dross. Which is true of any age -- Tessla died a pauper; but we depend on alternating current every day.
Sure, LOTS more chaff than wheat -- that's always been true.
--Barb Jernigan, 01 Jul 2001
Agility and quick thinking count for a lot (having friends with rescue equipment of sorts counts, too).
--Barb Jernigan, 30 July 2001
Hindsight is nowhere near 20-20, but it does have more data.
--Barb Jernigan
Change always holds opportunity. It also holds disaster. So does merging into traffic.
--Barb Jernigan, 22 Sep 2001
I don't suggest living your life like a game of "Red Rover".
--Barb Jernigan
I am NOT touchin' that with a ten light-year metaphor.
--Barb Jernigan, 05 Jan 2002
"It is honorable to admit error" . . . especially someone else's
--Russ Jernigan
But then, bits of the brain are still being bludgeoned into realizing the body isn't 23 any more. [Physics of mass and gravity doth conspire against illusions in that regard.]
--Barb Jernigan, 05 Nov 2001
Yeah. I think of all the idyllic moments in my own childhood (of course, living them, they don't seem so cool) and think I really should make an effort to collect them into something coherent. Well, I think of a LOT of things.
--Barb Jernigan, 09 Dec 2001
Ah! Humanity. And then the nimnuls go into politics. *sigh*
--Barb Jernigan, 26 Jan 2002
This is why "bomb disposal" sometimes seems like a wiser career choice than writing
--Barb Jernigan, 23 Mar 2002
No, occasionally dogs will come when called, and can be cowed. My life just gives me the ol' razzberry (or the finger'd salute). Even my cats are better behaved.
--Barb Jernigan, 21 May 2002
I'm sure I can manage that. With enough swear words, I can do anything.
--Barb Jernigan, May 2002
What doesn't kill you makes your stronger, as you grasp it by it's skanky throat and SQUEEZE.
--Barb Jernigan
I SEE them there, like shadows of fish, flashing in the depths, but they ignore the lure and dive away.....
--Barb Jernigan, 30 Aug 2002
A day without making someone's life more surreal is a day wasted.
--Russ Jernigan, Aug 2002
Sad fact is, some can be led to water, but once there the only thing you can do is drown 'em....
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Sep 2002
The next step, Paduan (sic), is NOT to press the "Send" key after evoking the Expletive of Doom....
--Barb Jernigan, 06 Sep 2002
[W]ell, you need a pinch collar, too and a rolled up newspaper
(I'd suggest rolling it around a lead pipe, but he still wouldn't get the message)
--Barb Jernigan, 07 Sep 2002
When I gave up management of the Art Production Department (it was either that or the sanitorium for a long heavily medicated stay), I found that I had "problems" with the relinquishing of the territory. Yes, that was handled really badly by the company, but it was stupid of me to be protective over a cactus patch I didn't want anyway. But, dammit, it was MY cactus patch, fertilized with my own blood.
--Barb Jernigan, 09 Sep 2002
I still have the iciest of ICU memories -- and know them to be mine. But then, I spent a week there not dying....
--Barb Jernigan, 09 Sep 2002
Frankly, I think this spate of corporate malfeasance more than eclipses what the terrorists did on 9-11. Don't get me wrong, the events of 9-11 were horrific, but they pale, imho, they PALE.
But then, I know too many grannies what DEPENDED on those dividend checks, not even touching on those who were laid off, who lost their entire pension plan, etc....
In some ways, it's even worse than the terrorists -- at least they're killing (ostensibly) for an ideology. These orifices are just greedy amoral bastards. hhhhhssssssssssssssssssssssssstttt, feh, and fooey
--Barb Jernigan, 09 Sep 2002
There are assholes in EVERY group. And, even if they're the minority (and they are) if that makes us all assholes, we are a sorry species indeed, and a waste of Nature's effort.
No one here has denied, as a country, the US has made some MOTHER OF ALL COCK-UP errors (and continues to, I'm sure). And some of us will spend the rest of our lives apologizing for them, as well as weeping as innocents reap the "Blow Back." But, otoh, the other side of the scale more than balances, too. Welcome to the human race.
--Barb Jernigan, 16 Sep 2002
[A]mazing how one leaves foot prints, though, in places they never knew they visited.
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Sep 2002
I'm not saying the US isn't an ignorant monolith, often. I'm not saying we don't frequently do the wrong thing, or often move in self-serving ways.
But then, that seems to be Human -- when the Palistinians can cheer bombing bistros and shopping malls and school busses, but the Israelis are worse than Satan when civilians are casualties of a sorte [sic] against a military target. It's always "them" that are the sinners and "us" the sinned against.
Bah.
If you want clean right and wrong and goodness and evil, choose another planet. You're not getting it here. But it really, really, really pisses me off when it is implied or outrightly said that the US does not have a global conscience, that it doesn't give back.
--Barb Jernigan, 13 Sep 2002
(the pinball bumpers in the decision tree of life)
--Barb Jernigan, 12 Dec 2002
I try to believe six impossible things before breakfast.... all usually items on my to do list.
--Barb Jernigan, circa Jan 2003
I'm one of the "organic" writers -- sure, I've learned the value of outlining the essays, but fiction wanders where it wilt.
--Barb Jernigan, 13 Jan 2003
Heart on the summit, eyes on where to put the next step. . . .
Don't forget to enjoy the journey.
--Barb Jernigan, 5 Feb 2003
The nice thing about having many pleasures is it's easy to be pleased.
--Barb Jernigan, 07 Mar 2003
Writing, as you know, is NOT an affliction for the thin-skinned. When you accept the laurels from the Muses, you also must also, perforce, accept the consequences -- even though some of them are patently wrong headed, if not damn silly.
But that's true of any occupation, whut-whut?
--Barb Jernigan, 04 Apr 2003
But your READER has to believe it. Writing is persuasion. In fiction it's persuading the reader to come along for the tale -- either to while away a few hours or to sneak in some more lasting relationship bits. So you must PERSUADE the reader to believe your characters are acting "realistically" (within the context of the novel). Now some just do NOT get it, and there's no point trying to help them unless you like hard cases. With others, if you deem them worth it, you must sort out WHY
they're not getting it.
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Apr 2003
Remember, as the writer you've got ALL the backstory (well, ok, a hellofalot more) than the reader. Sometimes we THINK something's in there that we've left out, and we've over sold some other piece. But if I find myself having to justify (to the reader) why I took a given approach, odds are something's not clicked. My lovely device, so well plotted out in my head, isn't carrying its own weight. Sometimes the fix is a minor tweak up front, sometimes it's major, sometimes it means abandoning the project... .
Nature of the biz, I fear. Which is hard on both sheet rock and foreheads....
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Apr 2003
Responding sensibly to critique -- or even the vague "I don't get this" -- from a reader is, perhaps, THE hardest thing as a writer. Our egos become super-charged landmines: we respond with everything from denial to becoming a feather for every wind that blows (sometimes within hours of each other).
Tuning the "internal shit detector" is an ongoing business.
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Apr 2003
Yes, well, we all have "practical" friends and relatives. They mean well, but they clearly don't "get" it. Smile sweetly and tell the ego to go back to what it was doing, nothing to concern it here.
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Apr 2003
Fine, there are moments of utter misery in any creative line. The hyper rainbow in here =tapping head= is EVER so much better than ANY of the bits that fade to grey on the "page." But when the misery exclipses (sic) the joy of the endeavor, it's time to rethink. Maybe simply settle for writing just for yourself for a while. Quit worrying about the market and Write. If the bits prove saleable, it's that side of ice cream with the hot pecan pie. But the PIE is the point.
If you're going to focus on the prize of being marketable, however, you'll have to adapt the pie recipe to what folks are buying (and that's a moving target). And if that activity brings you nothing but pain, then perhaps.... =shrug= There's no point resenting the fact that people seem to prefer "something else." It just is.
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Apr 2003
We must make peace with our karma... and apparently that does not involve hitting it with heavy objects.
--Barb Jernigan
I thought the natural state of the armadillo is dead on the side of the road.
--Russ Jernigan Oct 2002
I'm in the loop... just enough to hang myself!
--Barb Jernigan
If the early bird gets the worm, what does the late bird get? The lazy cat.
--Reid Jernigan
You set yourself up for disappointment the moment you say, "I'd be happy if only I had ________." [Books] of course, being the notable exception.
--Barb Jernigan (paraphrasing Hillary B. Price, "Rhymes with Orange")
The lamb shall lay down with the lion -- after making sure there's no mint jelly.
--Russ Jernigan
I didn't lose my mind -- I sold it on eBay.
--Reid Jernigan, 11 Nov 2003
"Weight Training?" Frankly, m'dear, my weight is all TOO well trained…
--Barb Jernigan
With enough swear words, I can do anything.
--Barb Jernigan
It's a pity when your conscience trips up a good revenge. . . .
--Barb Jernigan, 20 Apr 2004
You can do something about something, you can't do anything about nothing.
--Russ Jernigan
The problem with a pithy generality -- it's shot full of holes.
--Barb Jernigan
How often is "I can't" REALLY "I don't wanna!" Nothing wrong with "I don't wanna," under some circumstances. As long as it's treated with appropriate skepticism and not allowed to put on the "I can't" charade....
--Barb Jernigan, 18 Jun 2004
You have to show a sense of proportion. It may be larger than life, but a sense of proportion, nonetheless.
--Russ Jernigan
No, I don't think sticking pins into my check book, or shaking a chicken over my credit cards is gonna help me.
--Barb Jernigan, 30 Aug 2004, in reply to a flip comment about "voodoo economics"
there's a quote I'm not finding, but says in gist:
I CAN'T promise you
Blue Sky without Rain
Roses without Thorns
Tires without Flats
Joy without Mourns
But I CAN promise
Vistas to take your breath away
Jetsam from a beach
A cup of jo', a glass of tea...
A friend's hand within reach.
((hell, ain't it GREAT to be a writer? Can't remember the quote?!? Well, make one of your own!!!))
--Barb Jernigan, 03 Sep 2004
To be specific or not to be specific, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to be truthful or to obufuscate with unmitigated piffle?
--Russ Jernigan
Beating a dead horse may be satifying but it doesn't get you a ride.
--Russ Jernigan
It's an ugly thing, even now, when a train of thought is derailed.
--Barb Jernigan, 26 Jan 2004
The song of the creator bird goes "tweak tweak tweak!
--Barb Jernigan
The experienced lawyer realizes that even the greenest pastures are dotted with hidden cow pies; and if you don't watch every step.... the dogs end up following you all the way home.
--Russ Jernigan, 29 Apr 2005
Don't buy into the notion that God is only a Trauma Center.
--Barb Jernigan, 29 Jan 2006
Nearly everyone in life has a passion. It may be simple, or something very complicated, doesn't matter. As long as you have a passion and you are happy with it, you may live wonderfully. My passion, theater, helped me change from a depressed child, to a happy teen. I was failing school and had no friends for about a year and a half, until I saw the play Once Upon a Mattress playing at The Palace Theater in Georgetown. The Director gave a speech before the play and talked about auditions for The Music Man. I thought about it, but I didn't think I could do it. Then I saw a few of my friends, actually on the stage, performing! It was right there where my life changed for the better, for I auditioned for The Music Man, and made it. Since then I have lived my life by rules similar to the rules of theater; here is my credo.
"You must get on the stage before you start performing." You must get involved in the world to live a better life.
"Never break character." You always be yourself, no one else.
"Never turn your back on the audience." Don't be afraid of others, be social.
"Don't upstage others." Don't try to ruin others, they deserve to live a wonderful life, too.
"Everyone has their place in a show." We have to work together to make this world function, do your share of work, or more.
Those are the rules I have lived by since I started doing theater, and so far they've worked great for me. And may work for others, too.
--Reid Jernigan, A Credo to Theater, circa Aug 2006
Just because the sane(r) are too busy trying to make ends meet doesn't mean they aren't a force to be reckoned with.
--Barb Jernigan, 03 Dec 2007
But when you make me/us feel guilty for every thing we do, we'll spite you, because we've still got that petulant three-year-old haunting our psyches.
--Barb Jernigan, 03 Dec 2007
(Return to Quotations Files Index)
Still, one shudders to contemplate an entire civilization's culture being in the hands of those whose *only* criterion is the profit motive. Look at (don't watch!) TV. . .
--Curtis Johnson, 14 Nov 1997
Thumbing through the cliches and threadworn proverbs of others languages is a fine way to awaken one's self to the possibilities of making one's own language vivid. After all, a cliche is basically a bright new penny of thought worn dull through over-use.
--Curtis Johnson, 27 Nov 1997
You gotta love hate mail. So far I've received it only in echoes. (I must be loosing (sic) my touch--it's been a couple of years since a Foaming True Believer has called me Satan.)
--Curtis Johnson, 21 Aug 1998
[The use of "loose" in lieu of "lose" is deliberate, as chastising semiliterates for use of that common misusage was one of the topics under discussion in that thread. --MN]
Supply and demand economics. I've seen the occasional editor and publisher that was frank enough to state that the reason they did not up pay rates over *decades* was that they didn't need to, they had no problem attracting writers. Pay rates at the major sf magazines are only one area in which pay rates have remained stagnant for *decades*.
[...]
The people who put [out] the magazine still get paid enough to scrape together some kind of living; the people who retype the words for the magazine likewise; it is the people make the magazine possible that starve.
--Curtis Johnson, 21 Aug 1998
Sheer sloppiness. You should hear some of the young ones whine in debate echoes when told that they should take half a care to look literate.
--Curtis Johnson, 21 Aug 1998
Even someone who's finished the first draft of a mediocre novel has performed a notable feat of, well, administration.
--Curtis Johnson, 28 Aug 1999
A couple of months ago I heard a survey that showed that 80% or so of the adult US population thinks they could write a book. Consider the figures for people who have read a book within the past few years, that would mean a considerable portion of those wouldn't even be reading the book as they wrote it. . .
--Curtis Johnson, 09 Dec 2002
(Return to Quotations Files Index)
(You know, I don't know that I'd recognize a "gruntle" if I saw one.)
They're the happier cousin of the Dis-gruntle. They have poofier tufts on their ears, and lighter shading. Sometimes there's cross-breeding between the gruntle and the disgruntle which leads to a disgruntle which is passive aggressive -- a sneaky disgruntle intead of the more obvious kind. Disgruntles tend to die young, though some have lived for decades, while gruntles lives longer and have a higher birth rate, so all in all there are more gruntles than disgruntles -- they can be hard to
spot though, due to their camoflage (lovely tans, taupes and delicate rose-ish sort of blue) and the sheer *presence* of their disgruntle cousins. Still, if you have the pleasure of running into a gruntle, you tend to come away feeling much better than before, since they too rub off on those around them. It's a fairy dust sort of thing.
--Kathy Wilson
I'd like to say my brain is just occupied thinking deep and important things, but I fear it's thinking nothing at all and spends much time in powersave mode.
--Kathy Wilson
...if someone is suffering it pretty much doesn't matter what's *causing* the suffering . . . the suffering itself is the point.
--Kathy Wilson
I sort of think that all weights are weights and the determining factor is how able one is to bear up under it. One thing I know ... you can have the cosmos on a string and everything dancing along with you, and yet it won't work. But it seems simplicity is not the primary goal of existence. <ponder> Or maybe it is, and we're just not aware of all the behind-the-scenes manipulations.
--Kathy Wilson
Good things will come... (providing you're handy with a pickax, shovel, blasting gear, earth movers, don't mind sweating and blisters, able to withstand lengthy periods of frustration, anxiety, exhaustion, have nearly boundless reserves of faith and determination, and don't drop over dead when things "suddenly" become clear and The Plan is revealed for the Good Thing it is... effortlessly... my point here being what you already know.... things will work out one way or another, likely won't be
what you were expecting, and most of it will come through your own effort to make it Good -- thanks to the spark from The Great Whomever that enables you to do these things and make it through.)
--Kathy Wilson
Oh man....I think I've slipped into phase 7 of insanity.
--Kathy Wilson
I find I can hit the flow more often when I don't stop to analyze something, and just go on feeling. "Don't think, feel" might sum it up. If I can't write poetry, then I know something is messed up somewhere, because poetry is the floodgate for whatever I think or feel.
--Kathy Wilson, 07 Jul 1993
Laughing always improves my state of mind. If I can laugh at something, then it's not the snake pit in hell I feared it might be.
--Kathy Wilson, 19 Jul 1993
Who was it that said the world is _____ (fill in blank) for a person who thinks, but a tragedy for a person who feels? Being writers, and more specifically poets, that puts us firmly in the latter part of that sentiment. Some days we get the bear, but some days the bear gets us. It's always worth the hunt though, and catatonia is not something I want. I have to admit to withdrawing from things for a while to even myself out, but not so far that I might miss something.
Life is an incredible thing.
--Kathy Wilson, 19 Jul 1993
Kathy Wilson's Guide to Calorie Counting: Food has no calories if it meets any of the following:
1) Someone else made it
2) It's a gift
3) it's eaten in a church, or otherwise connected to a church event
4) it's eaten on your birthday
5) someone else pays for it
6) it tastes bad
7) it's eaten on a holiday or vacation
8) eaten in a very expensive restaurant
9) eaten on a date
10) eaten in front of the television when you don't have a date
11) it's eaten in the Tavern
--Kathy Wilson, 11 Aug 1993
No day can start well if it starts before noon. If, however, it starts at 11pm the night before, then it can be a great day! (because: It's OVER by noon!)
--Kathy Wilson, 28 Sep 1993
I can't remember most rules of grammar, but I remember reading that the Smithsonian supposedly has Napoleon's penis -- a fact which means considerably less than the rules of grammar to me, but which I will die being unable to forget. Sigh.
--Kathy Wilson
Or, actually, it *is* a language problem. I speak human, and they're into mole vomitese or something. . . .
--Kathy Wilson
. . . sometimes it's all I can do not to go in with a high-powered rifle and solve the problem once and for all. But, then, I sit back and sigh, because I know it would just be a waste of some good bullets.
--Kathy Wilson, 23 Feb 1994
Screw politically correct. Politically correct won't keep voices out of your head at night.
--Kathy Wilson, 28 Nov 1995
There are poems of course where meaning is rather apparent. There are times when you may have text stating from the author what that poem meant at the time it was written. If a "test" called for you to parrot the poet's own words regarding their piece, then of course those are the words you should use. But if you see the poem your own way, reflected through your own life, then darn near any evaluation of a poem's meaning must be "correct." Poetry is living and breathing. It's meaning largely
fluid in time and space.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 22 Feb 1996
I was more inclined to tear him to literal pieces and stuff whatever was left of him down his own throat. I have so far restrained myself, because after all I never should have answered him to begin with. You may do with him as you please. Just don't dump the carcase [sic] anywhere near my iceberg.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 07 May 1996
You've always been a touch schizophrenic. I like that in a person.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 10 Mar 1995
Aside from his completely boorish behavior, he shows a stunning inability to follow simple conversation, and has the reading comprehension level of an eggplant. Being an ass doesn't disqualify him from being a good writer, but the other two do.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 02 Oct 1996
Ah well, name calling it may be, but since it's all true, I think that removes the stigma.
--Kestrel T'Rael, 03 Oct 1996
I felt like removing his intestines through his tear ducts, but that would have required touching him. When I was working 3rd shift, I'd get off work when the sun was rising and very bright. My immediate thought was always "Would someone turn that damned thing OFF!?" I'm definitely from the cavern dwelling side of the family tree. ... Call me insane one more time and I'll eat your other eye. [--Kestrel T'Rael]
Flirt. [--Fang-Face DreamWeaver]
I have to do something with my spare time. Geez...
I just wanted to bitch about something. I wasn't looking for an answer...
But, to address the ending: I know the computer is here to stay. Please note I use one. Nothing spoils a good grump more than tossing reason at it. I hate to be a party pooper here, because I do completely agree with researching your subject and building as complete a world as you can. But, this is something that can't be researched. It's implausible no matter what you come up with to "explain" it. That's why it's called "fantasy" and not "fact." It's treknobabble. Grr. Generalities have always annoyed me intensely. I wanted to throw up, but my intestines were blocking the way... Colorado Springs has 5 Christian radio stations that I know of -- for a city of 400 thousand people.
It's getting to the point that I may have to go out drinking, smoking, fornicating, cussing and dissing God myself because no one else is doing it. Plumbing doesn't impart personality traits. Write a character well, and it won't matter what characteristics you've given it, be they male or female. To further perpetuate the "generality" that all women enjoy shopping, clothes, makeup, dancing and boys/men is the politically correct line because it's what people expect to see -- it's what they've always seen. It's the societal accepted norm. It's also untrue. *Some* women like those things, some men like those things. If you were to write about a female named Kestrel and describe her as liking shopping, make-up, shoes, fashion, dancing, men -- you'd have a cardboard image of her. With the
exception of men, I don't like that stuff and never have. If you were to write a male character named Stephane who liked sports, cars, beer and hanging out with the guys, you'd have a cardboard image of him. He doesn't like that stuff and never has.
My original statement still holds. People are people no matter what sex they are, and some of them will fit a pre conceived pattern, and some won't. That's reality. I, for one, am sick to death of reading about female characters who like all the "traditional" "feminine" things you mentioned. None of my female friends growing up or *now* fit that mold.
Give people what they expect to see, and you're doing them, and the art, a dis-service. Make what you give them reflective of truth, and you're free to do anything you want -- because anything and everything exists in the world of gender. Writing people as they are, and not as they're seen, gives you the latitude to focus purely on the character, and not on a pre-selected list of characteristics that you must follow. It's that "however" that illustrates my point. There really is no "however" to this. If survival of the species is still as overwhelming an attribute as it is for other species, then females *and* males shoulder the burden of making sure the species continues. Abusing one's mate to the point that she leaves, dies, becomes incapacitated in some way -- is detrimental to survival no matter what sex you are. Men are not excused because they are men. It takes a lot for someone to go forward with what's happening though. Telling another person about abuse issues -- whether spousal or other -- feels very similar to drowning, or suffocating. You're screaming for air, but the body is trapped within itself. The primal need for survival is sometimes overcome by a deeper command to say nothing. To hide it away, deny it, lie about it, and cover it up at all costs. Hopefully the need for air wins out, but sometimes it doesn't. Physical contact these days is just about the only unmitigated pleasure I have. Everything else costs. Forget my neighbor's ass, I'm coveting their computers! Before 14 layers of differing protection were to be dropped (even for a man I know very well and trust) I insisted on a clean bill of health for every damned thing under the sun -- because some of those things kill.
I told him: "Exchanging the medical paperwork is the foreplay of the 90's" I meant it to be funny, and he laughed, but it's also sadly close to the truth. I have no idea if you're serious with this or not, and I mean no offense at all, but I laughed so hard I nearly had a meatball go up my nose. I woulda offered to shred his guts with my talons, but something tells me he's rotten on the inside, and that sort of stink is hell to get out of your feathers. Just because some of my particular wounds won't completely heal, doesn't mean yours won't. What happened to me happened when I was a child. I had a child's understanding (or misunderstanding) of things, and a child's ability to cope. How I coped happened to be the wrong way. Learning the right way helped an enormous amount, but it hasn't made the wound go away. But neither is it a sharp stabbing never-ending pain. If time does anything, perhaps it takes the edge off of things like that.
I like people, I just like them better when they're somewhere else. My mind is a very large-holed Swiss cheese these days. I'm lucky to remember to keep breathing every few minutes. Nature, red in tooth and claw, and all that being what it is, you should be thanking me for what little restraint I've shown -- getting the blood off the floor would be a pain, not to mention getting his stink out of my feathers. Schools are not, in my experience, designed to cope with individuals. They're designed to process masses. Whenever they're confronted with someone not like the rest, they inevitably deal with it the wrong way. I once had a long conversation with a Rabbi. I didn't know he was a Rabbi at the time; I didn't even know he was Jewish, but I felt so much better after talking to him. It's only my opinion and observation, but people who live closely to the central core of their faith -- and that central core is the same in *all* the major religions -- carry God with them. It doesn't matter if they're Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, Baptist or Cabbage Brothers -- they all have that same quiet, strong, and *right*
feel to them. And you can get a better grasp on your own version of God from talking to anyone like that, than you can often get from someone who loudly professes to be ______, and throws God up on you every time they open their mouth. If you want to find God somewhere, go where it's quiet. Talk to someone who's quiet. The loud ones never seem to get it right. I think it's probably the *meaningless* dullness you have to watch out for. Middle of the road dullness has its uses as well. I think "The Accidental Tourist" had a lot of middle of the road dullness in it -- but it was a quirky MOtR dullness. "Fried Green Tomatoes" featured ordinary people, in ordinary settings, and did a wonderful job of it. "Smallness" isn't a problem -- it can often be more absorbing than "greatness", but if it's meaningless, then smallness *or* greatness can't do much to
pull it out of the dumper. Ain't nothing fun in losing it completely either. A temper tantrum now and then is cool -- but the loss of grip on all aspects of being that I've been through a couple of times is a vastly different animal. One that I hope to God I never meet again. Hanging on to self-control with all talons and beak no matter the stress, is prefered to the pressures and emotional distress losing it to that sort of animal entails for me. Kestrel "Currently Safely Sane. Updates As Conditions Warrant" Koala Personals:
"For sale. 150# anvil. Approximate weight of a husband, but useful. It never talks back, stays where you put it, and you can hit it with anything you like with total impunity. Will take best offer." You know, you're *just* twisted enough to be a truly wonderful person. My budget these days is trash. I couldn't buy it if it was free. And then I'm going to have a long bath, and a post Save-The World screw with my First Minister. Heart attack waiting to happen, but nothing good in life is free... Everybody is strange. Some of us are proud of it. Getting bad government on the first election might be an accident, but re-electing it is fulfillment of desire. My life is nothing but rampaging weirdness. I'm only up for challenges when I know there's ground beneath me. Dangling over bottomless pits is not my idea of a good time -- no matter what the scenery is like. As I keep saying (and have mentioned to my co-workers) "Not having killed you all by now should go down on my review as an example of being a team player" Umm, ok... I admit that I'm generalizing, stereotyping, and categorizing, but...well... recent years have been frustrating.
No offense was meant...
Nothing was meant to be taken personally, I didn't mean anything negative about women, or even mean to imply that women are not normal, that all men are, or even that these men are... for all I know they could be goat suckers after work. No malignment of anyone living or dead, male or female, or whatever "normal" and "abnormal" are should be taken seriously.
For the record, I'm highly in favor of men, women, children, all the species that make up the planet (with the exception of the 6-legged ones, and even they're ok as long as I never see them, feel, taste, hear or smell them) and other planets that may have such things (as long as they don't try to eat me).
Sorry. ... always seems to start out with noble intentions, and before you know it it turns into the ogre under the bridge... who isn't exactly an evil ogre, just "misunderstood" but when he's crunching on YOUR bones, it's hard to tell the difference... I like Celine sometimes, but I think she needs to do a bit more growing up talent-wise, or she needs a producer who will tell her to come down out of the rafters and off the curtains. Not everything has to be belted out as though she was trying to expel her tonsils. Having the power of a freight train is great when you need to move a mountain, but sometimes you just want to sweep a little dust from the front steps. It was only 40 something last night, raining for hours and hours, still cold and cloudy now... a perfectly beautiful kestrelly sort of day :) Almost makes up for having to work all night on one damned problem after another... I believe I woke up just in time to check mail and get a nap... The highways of life are full of flat squirrels who couldn't make up their minds. Late Friday and today I finally managed to solve a couple critical issues that have been going on for days/weeks, and clear up some other niggling problems... so come Monday, we'll only have 3 major fires (in a developers court) and about 8 smoldering ones (that I can't do a thing about on a weekend). You know when you're in trouble when you figure where you are by the number of things burning.
Isn't that supposed to be how you recognize Hell? None of us know what we don't know. All we can do is what we can...and hope the rest works out. And if we do at least a fraction as well as we wish we could, then I'm sure there's grace in there for the rest of it. We are fallible, fragile and less than children to something much much bigger than we are. I don't hold spilling the milk against a 4yr old, and I pretty sure the great Is won't hold other relative failings against me. But I'm never *totally* sure... and that can be galling
Society of Whimpish Non-Bug-Eating Critters! Motto: We're not Picky, we're Discerning <superior sniff> I know... I always start out with grand plans, and then things dwindle down from the Grand Canyon with the wild rushing river to a wading pool and garden hose. It's a shame stupidity isn't yet a felony. Well, ok, I'll try to relent here and say that I've done some damned stupid things in my time too... but not so stupid that I endanger others! At least I keep my inner idiot to myself... One thing I know... you can have the cosmos on a string and everything dancing along with you, and yet it won't work. and on top of all the things I ranted about, but which I have (mercifully) spared you... there's an enormous "Death Cloud" from Asia on the move... I'm just hoping it gets here soon. I need a cold compress, some alcohol, some sleep, and a spell alone with dark visions of sweet justice. No moss growing in Lisa's head, no sir! (YAY Lisa!!) ... truth be told, I'm sitting on the sidelines in my head eating popcorn as I watch him get slammed. And it's really good popcorn... Had any other place on earth suffered the sudden loss of 3000 ppl in a terrorist attack this country would have been the very first to offer assistance. Teams of search dogs and rescue workers would have been on the first available flight into the country. Red Cross would have started organizing to assist workers/ppl just as they did here. Money would have started flowing to that country to assist victims *just as it always does* for disasters of every other stripe. Condemnation would have
been immediate, sincere, and backed with action.
But terrorist acts don't usually kill thousands at a time. It's one or two, or a dozen, and in many countries it's too sadly common. No matter how much indignation and sympathy a person has, the taps become weary of running all the time. The mind grows tired of focusing on the problem. The heart, perhaps in an evolutionary safety measure, simply can't continue to completely feel each instance.... but I *guarantee* that there are US groups/ppl who send aid of all sorts -- physical, emotional,
financial. I guarantee it. In every area of the world where there are those who need help of any kind at all -- there are Americans there helping. Perhaps it's not the National Charter (our governmental foreign policy sucks goats), but I believe completely that it is the National Character. Americans help. We help because when we have needed help -- others helped us. We help because we came from all those places -- we *are* all those places. Our loyalties are national, but our genetics and
memory and perhaps heart are global -- individually and en masse, Americans act in the rest of the world in ways ultimately far more intimate and lasting than those of official governmental policy. I have problems with our government, but I have no problem with our ppl. We are a generous, caring nation. I do not know why our government doesn't always reflect this, but our ppl do. The Holocaust was something else entirely -- but you're right, our Government didn't do much of anything to stop it until it suited their plans to do so -- but the *people* of this country *did* do something. Fed, clothed, sheltered the victims still living. There's a larger Jewish population in the United States than the entire rest of the world combined. They were brought here by the boatload, by airplane, by the good graces of *people* who cared. Maybe 6 million weren't saved.... and that
will be a st ain on humanity until we are no more. But you can't deny light just because darkness exists. There's enough depravity to go around, and no one gets out of their fair share of the blame/guilt, but damnation, man -- if that's where you stop and close your eyes, then what hope is there for anyone? ACT on what you care about! If homelessness is it -- join up with Habitat for Humanity. If starvation is it, start working at a food bank. If the slaughter of innocents is it -- then get out
there and help fund the removal of landmines. There are too many things to do -- with ppl doing ALL of them -- but there's always room for more, and the work is never done. We, and I mean that in the global sense, could use an extra set of hands. POINT. CLICK. IGNORE.
(sigh)
I visited my parents when they were living outside D.C, and in the course of things did the usual tourist visits to D.C. points of interest. I loved the Smithsonian museums, the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall area, the Capitol -- the Library of Congress was like literary sex. I had lunch in the Senate dining room -- next to Senators and other law-makers, I stood silently in front of the Vietnam Memorial (one of, if not the most, moving memorials I've ever seen). I've seen the Declaration of
Independence, the Bill of Rights, and a host of other wonderful and marvelous things. But one of the most amazing exhibits I saw was a room full of letters from your average citizens to various Presidents from Washington on. The ppl writing those letters were talking about their own "small" concerns, or writing to praise a President, chastise one, ask for some small token of governmental largesse -- a million different reasons for writing. The one thing they all had in common, is that they
honestly thought that their communications made a difference, or would achieve some result. Almost all of them were written as though the writer knew the person they were writing to, as though the President was a member of the family. You could tell they all thought they'd receive an answer of some sort -- either through direct commmunication back (and there were many Presidents who did indeed write back) or governmental/Presidential acts on their issue.
While I've never corresponded with a government official that way, nor ever expected to receive a response, directly or circuitously, I did at least think someone somewhere was reading it, and if I presented it with enough passion and conviction, perhaps that person would forward it up the food chain of such things, and it might conceivably fall under the eye of someone who might give a damn.
Now I don't even have that.
Secret courts have granted the government far-reaching rights to wiretap, other secret courts have decided that "material witness" warrants can keep someone in jail without charges against them, can deny them rights to legal representation, can deny releasing their names or even admitting they're being held -- and the excuse that it's being done to non-citizens, or to terrorist suspects, or not on American soil is complete bullshit -- government officials are actually talking about a new
agency dedicated to domestic spying all the while other agents are checking voter registration rolls, driver's license lists for possible terrorist connections, but NOT checking the lists of registered gun owners, in fact being flatly told NOT to check those lists. And let's not forget TIPS which would have turned other citizens, in the course of their jobs, into spies with free access to your homes and a direct line to the FBI.
And ppl wonder why conspiracy buffs exist, or why ppl think they're being watched constantly, or spied on, or followed. Used to be if someone was like that, most ppl would have regarded them as mentally ill. Now they're probably right.
Iraq accepts the latest resolution, inspectors are in-country, and yet the headlines are still that we're preparing for war. The US gets attacked by terrorists -- most hailing from Saudi Arabia, funded by a Saudi (no matter how out of favor in Saudi Arabia he is) and by Saudi money, and we attack Afghanistan while we invite the Saudi Prince (or one of them) to stay at the ranch. Libya has entered into an asylum deal with Saddam... how much you want to bet our next war is on Libya? The
depressing list goe s on and on and on...
And now we can't even write to protest it.
Welcome to the Land of the Free. Mornings should be as silent as the grave, as dark as possible, and with as little human interaction as can be managed. Frankly, Hummers put on sale as consumer vehicles is obscene. There's absolutely no reason or purpose for it other than to have the biggest (ugliest, imo) chunk of metal on the road. There ought to be an enormous Ego Tax on them I'm going to rant here... and I don't care [if] I'm foaming at the mouth
Ok, the thing will never get passed -- I believe that. If it did the Supreme Court would quickly thrust a stake in its heart -- even given the current court's ideology. AND I firmly agree protestors who violate public safety/access/health laws (or even common sense) should be given a swift kick to the rear. (for hurting the cause if nothing else) BUT... *this* is filth! It's crass, gross attempts to further restrict the right to free-speech which has come under such attack over the whole
terrorism/Iraq question. *Terrorism* charges for blocking a street or a business!? Is EVERYONE in this damned country losing their capacity for rational thought!?!?!?!
The ppl who put this thing forward should be lined up and beaten with baseball bats. Bastards. They can make all the damned laws they want to keep businesses and streets etc clear and I'll support that, but to call those who do it terrorists is flat out bullshit, and designed to do nothing but prohibit the right to protest. But completely aside from Oregon laws -- FEDERAL law has clearly stated what form of protest is allowed, and where -- and blocking streets, businesses, emergency services
etc isn't allowed! How ironic is it that the land of freedom of thought and speech (and so much else) is actively discouraging such while the rest of the world (which we have long looked down upon for not being as "enlightened" as we are) is acting out the very freedoms increasingly under fire here? Bastards... bastards! Ashcroft and his ilk are plainly not interested in freedom of speech, freedom of religion or any other freedom we currently enjoy, because they haven't been able to set "proper" channels for it. We're only free to think what they think, believe what they believe, and if we're outside that channel then we need to be shut up, pushed out, called terrorists... whatever it takes. That there are still more of us than of them is but a small, rapidly chilling comfort. Given enough leeway, too much
silence, too much apathy, too little *vigilence*, they will breed faster than we do, and those freedoms will not just slip away, they will be yanked out from under us. I hate blocking off the whole world except those I already have an address for, but if you had the spam load I do you'd probably do the same... (since hunting the spammers down and exterminating them for being the slimy little assbugs they are still hasn't gained approval.) [T]he Patriot Act is an obscene stain upon the Constitution -- along with so much else the Administration has been perpetrating. And they want "Patriot 2" now, with further infringements. Might as well dress them all in brown shirts and black boots and start building camps in the heartland...
"When they came for the trade unionists and socialists, I said nothing because I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the homosexuals and the gypsies, I said nothing because I was neither. When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not a Jew. When they came for the Catholics, I said nothing because I was not a Catholic. And when they came for me, there was nobody to say anything for me." - Rev. Martin Niemoller
What absolutely floors me is that the administration is getting away with it -- at least half of my moronic countrymen are swallowing this crap, and appear perfectly happy to do so. They don't see the way they Admin changes their justifications for what they're doing at the drop of a hat, how they're stripping away our liberties and throwing them away like snotty kleenexes, how they're pushing a right-wing, Religious Right, intolerant worldview right down our throats. They're barely better
than the Taliban, yet saying so gets you shot down as unpatriotic! Speaking up gets you added to "watch" lists... peace activists targetted for "special scrutiny" at airports etc.... all while they're lining their pockets and gifting themselves and their cronies with unsustainable tax breaks etc etc. Jobs disappearing like with the watery mirage, unemployment rising, deficits rising, economy in the fucking toilet... and yet they keep on smiling and baaaaing on their way to the slaughterhouse.
The Dalai Lama said in an interview once that he's glad ppl are finding their way on the Buddhist path, and doesn't wish to discourage that -- but that some of the beauty in a religion comes from the traditions of the ppl it was born to.
In any case -- I was raised Christian, I've investigated, participated in a great deal of other stuff, but I returned to Christianity and that's what I identify myself as -- but with an inner understanding that my road is really not much different than the many sterling ppl I met in those other traditions. There are other sheep, other Shepherds, and how That Above chooses to communicate with them is really not up to me. We're not Picky, we're Discerning. Free will is the most powerful Weapon of Mass Destruction we have. Sorry to hear you're having problems though -- try not to strangle them. You'd only feel better for a little while then the whole trial thing would blow up and it's really just not worth the effort at that point. I'm all for testing, and making the beef (or any other food) industry safer, but I've already started hearing about how little Johnny's cafeteria is cancelling burger day for fear the kids will all start drooling and lurching into walls - though how they'll identify this from normal juvenile behavior they don't say. It's just this week's feature item on the Fear a la Carte menu. No matter which door of a warehouse store you enter, the only checkout line (and there's always only ONE) will be at the extreme other end. That's what I love about this group -- always willing to take on a problem. Self-motivated, reasonable, crusading types with a strong "get-it-done" work ethic... a few more like us and the world would know real terror... My pet peeve about the English I'm seeing and hearing these days is the apparent abandonment of the word "who." It has been replaced by "that." I haven't heard a good "who" (never mind what Horton might be hearing) in so long, I'm about to the point of starting some sort of Society to Save Who or something. I still think we should maintain the distinction between humans. who are referenced with "who," and inanimate objects and animals, which are characterized with "that."
The loss of this distinction confirms, to this old curmudgeon anyway, that people really have descended to the level of animals. When I was doing the resume I attached (in another msg) I nearly tore my hair out. Some like X, some like Y, some prefer Q, others hate the hobbies section, some think it's useful (I do). Some want you to put some sort of life statement on it, or career objective statement (which I loath. I want an effing job so I can support myself. Beyond that, I'm just looking for a modicum of happiness... don't make me splurt out the corporate weeniespeak. Gag. For the record -- I also loath those
"inspirational" work posters... showing the guy climbing the mountain with the word "Dedication" under it, or the woman sculling her way across mirrorsharp waters with the caption "Vision" etc etc. Hey, morons! I'm not climbing a fucking mountain, I'm chained in cubicleland hoping you don't lay me off before I have a chance to feed your intestines to the paper shredder. My vision is of your head on a stick, ok? ARGH) I made some sort of wisecrack Friday morning with Ivan and he laughed, shook his head and said "you are such a pain in the ass. Even now you're laughing, and worse, making me laugh" (which nearly made me cry) but, if I can't find some way to laugh at disaster then it really does defeat me. Laughter keeps the monsters at a distance. (ok, sometimes it's only eyeball distance, but still... that's far enough out of the digestive juices for me!)
I hope to have minions again some day. They make life so much easier.
I tell you what -- if I were in charge, it would be official policy to shoot looters on sight. Some ppl are lower than blood sucking parasites.
We live in frightening times . . . but then we always do, don't we? And the planet keeps moving around the sun despite it all.
I say the Emperor has no clothes, someone else sees a miracle of minimalist weaving. <shrug> [Bill Gates] He's likely "just like everyone says" those who hate him and those who love him. Mileage varies for all. Driven is a given, predatory is largely in the eye of the prey, hyenas and buzzards have to eat too and provide a valuable resource doing so. Better to eat than be eaten, sure - but I'm not about to hang him for eating better than most. And once a company has been around a while, the "culture" is no longer really about the person at the top. It takes on a life of it's own.
Microsoft is now considered an "old growth" company, and with such a large company you've got an overabundance of compartmentalizing and hoop jumping, with fiefdoms staked out and firehydrants copiously peed upon so everyone keeps in their place. I don't really think it's about Bill anymore.
But even if it were, and even if he's an ogre, well - he's doing a lot of damned fine work in the humanitarian zone to entirely condemn his table manners (to sort of continue the metaphores). More - he's doing it in vital, non-sexy areas no one else is as effectively combating, and doing it without a lot of fanfare and "Oooo, Looky Me". I happen to admire that.
If his company needs its teeth filed down a bit, I'm for that too - but imo, the vilification of MS is far out of proportion to their actual evil. I see them mainly as a victim of Set 'Em Up and Knock 'Em Down. Success breeds contempt, and vast success breeds mutiny. Even Wal-Mart "suffers" from some of that and no one could accuse me of being a fan or apologist for Wal-Mart. I loathe them - their "evil" reputation is far more deserved than Microsoft's. Anyway... one person's opinion. There
are a few billion more of them out there... The most perfectly constructed grammatical sentence can still be swill, and most ppl of any discernment at all, will know it when they taste it. (Return to Quotations Files Index)
Well, you know it's hard to see the alligators for the t-rexes coming your way ... especially when your objective was to get a cup of espresso. When I was a therapist-in-training I took abnormal very seriously. Well, I was interning in a prison with very disturbed persons who had committed reprehensible acts. That sort of abnormality aside, I learned the "normal" and "abnormal" are a spectrum, not a stable state. Not in any given individual nor in the general populace. A rainbow of behavior, if you will.
We are all very complex creatures with layers of ability, personal mythology, ambitions, dreams, desires, cultural patterning, and pasts unique to each of us that have shaped all of the above. It makes life very interesting on this planet.
It has become quite fashionable in the last thirty years to describe oneself as "weird" or "abnormal", especially if one's job involves creativity: writing, the arts, programming, etc. This is OK, so long as it doesn't create the conditions of self-limitation, thus allowing for estrangement and alienation.
All I'm saying here, is that "normal" is a huge category, which includes some things which are uncommon and even a little odd or involve various counterculture movements: hippies, Goths, Techno, whatever. A person can be depressed, angry -- even clinically depressed or raging in a justifiable way, and still be a perfectly normal person. Golly, one can even be an artist and be normal, well-adjusted, and really in love with life.
Abnormal, in my mind is the state of alienation that makes for pain. In the extreme, it's the persons I worked with in prison: Ca Code 1310, that's violent sex offense. I think everybody can agree that that is abnormal!
What is very much more dangerous is cameras everywhere placed by the police depts, watching everyone's behaviour, to see if we're up to no good. That's anti-democracy! There is a story on KQED right now about Pinol's "crime prevention" survailance cameras all over the parks, city streets, buildings, and etc.!
Outrageous! Frankly, fellas, if I'd known how much trouble being a married parent would be, I'd have gone to a sperm bank. My fashion credo (from my friend the Drag Queen):
There is a time for fru-fru Heels are stoopid on camping trips and hiking gear out-of-place when Out for An Occasion. Professional wear will up your IQ at least 12 points at a job interview, and down it by 30 on the beach.
And, never, never visit your Baptist Maiden Aunt or chop wood in the nude.
A little fashion advice from the Queen.
Yours, Lezlie Hmmm... follows what I noticed as a disturbing trend: if it was written by a woman and isn't a "crime novel" or "SF" it's "chick lit" --- If it challenges the Marketing aspect of Anything, it's "left wing libberul". Marketing is at it again. Atwood is too rough to be light reading for anyone. Look -- this is a fairly large step backwards in the media portrayal of women and people of color, there is absolutly no way you or I can put a good face on it -- that would be IMO-- collusion. That is, and remains, *my* chief issue with the mess. If somehow the folks here have some other impression of my reaction to the production (other that that I really disagee about it being a "pretty good" film -- adaptation or not) -- then here it is plainly and bluntly said: This production was racist
& sexist in its production values, its casting, direction, and in the additions and changes not only to the original story but also as it was portrayed on the screen -- that is unforgivable in 2004 and Leiberman, Halmi & the SciFi channel and its advertisers should be ashamed. I'll say it and stand by it until the cows come home, and I know that I am hardly alone in my critisism.
(Return to Quotations Files Index)
Surf to: Writing Echo Quotation File Part IV (Kurosawa - Shafferman)
--Kestrel T'Rael, 30 Jan 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 01 May 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 18 May 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 18 May 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 17 May 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 24 May 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 26 May 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 07 June 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 06 June 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 07 June 1997
[Concerning characterizations in writing; specifically about the difficulty of creating whole, well-constructed characters of the opposite sex. -MN]
--Kestrel T'Rael, 06 June 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 06 June 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 14 Jun 1997
--Kestrel
T'Rael, 14 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 21 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 22 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 23 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 25 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 29 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 30 Jun 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael
--Kestrel T'Rael, 03 Jul 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 10 Jul 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael; 18 Dec 1995
--Kestrel T'Rael, 25 Jul 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 25 Jul 1997 [MOtR stands for Middle Of The Road -MN]
--Kestrel T'Rael, 05 Aug 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 05 Aug 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 15 Sep 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 01 Oct 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 01 Oct 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael, 21 Oct 1997
--Kestrel T'Rael
--Kestrel T'Rael, 09 Jan 1998
--Kestrel T'Rael
--Kestrel T'Rael, 18 May 1999
--Kestrel T'Rael, April 2000
--Kestrel T'Rael, 10 Sep 2000
--Kestrel T'Rael, 12 Sep 2000
--Kestrel T'Rael, 11 March 2001
--Kestrel T'Rael
--Kestrel T'Rael, 26 Oct 2001
--Kestrel T'Rael, 17 Nov 2001
--Kestel T'Rael, 09 Jan 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 04 Feb 2002
--Kathy Wilson
--Kestrel T'Rael, 16 Jun 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael
--Kestrel T'Rael, 13 Aug 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 04 Sep 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 08 Sep 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 09 Sep 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 14 Sep 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 14 Sep 2002
--Kathy Wilson, 19 Nov 2002
--Kestrel T'Rael, 24 Jan 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 27 Mar 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 03 Apr 2003, on the topic of Oregon Senate Bill 742
(see My reply to this rant)
--Kestrel T'Rael, 04 Apr 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 23 May 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 12 Jun 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 21 Jun 2003
--Kathy Wilson
--Kathy Wilson, Aug 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 18 Aug 2003
--Kestrel T'Rael, 10 Jan 2004
--Kathy Wilson's Law of Checkout Distance
--Kestrel T'Rael, 14 Apr 2004
--Kestrel T'Rael, 20 Apr 2004
--Kestrel T'Rael, 06 Jun 2004
--Kestrel T'Rael, 06 Jun 2004
--Kestrel T'Rael, 20 Jun 2004
--Kestrel T'Rael, 09 Sep 2004
--Kathy Wilson
--Kestrel T'Rael, Jun 2005
--Kestrel T'Rael, 09 Jan 2006
--Kestrel T'Rael, 23 Jun 2006
Leslie Kinyon:
--Lezlie Kinyon, 20 Feb 2000
--Lezlie Kinyon, 18 Sep 2000
--Lezlie Kinyon, 23 Sep 2000
And, a time for no fru-fru
And a season for lace and leather
And a place for nothing at all.
--Lezlie Kinyon, Jan 2004
--Lezlie Kinyon, 23 Apr 2004
--Lezlie Kinyon, 20 Dec 2004
[About a film adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's Legend of Earthsea]