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Ramblings about the world and myself |
I have never really been able to write every day. I probably won't be able to do it now. I would like to write on a more regular basis. This blog is an attempt to develop a more regular writing habit. I can't guarantee an entry every day.
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I really relate to this song. It helped me realize something about myself that I never knew about before. I live under a big load of stress all the time. I’m not going to go into the causes here. This is more about the symptoms. I go through life handling all the problems to the best of my ability without showing much of a reaction to any of it. I keep my cool through all the worry and I do what needs to be done, or at least what I think needs to be done. I smile while I’m doing it. Whether it’s financial, health or whatever, I deal with it. I don’t even realize that anything is bothering me. The problem is that stress is cumulative. It builds up to a critical mass. It might take a month. It might be a couple of weeks or days depending on the heaviness of what’s going on. Then all of a sudden I walk into a low hanging branch that slaps my glasses off my face, or five pounds of frozen meat falls out of the freezer onto my bare foot at three o’clock in the morning. Instant rage! I spit out a stream of the most ungodly cussing that ever befell an unfortunate set of virgin ears! I jump around and possibly kick a chair with the uninjured foot, which only makes it worse. All this happens before I know what is going on. Then I hear my wife from the other room yelling “What the hell is wrong with you?” Listening to It’s The Little Things a few times helped me to realize that those minor irritations aren’t what is bothering me. It’s all the accumulated stress of the big hard things that I have to deal with. The little things are just a catalyst. I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but I think it might be a good idea this coming year to try to deal better with the stress of those big things. My wife Lesia and I had the pleasure of seeing Alice Cooper's Brutally Live tour in Knoxville TN in 2000. It included It's the Little Things. |
"Blogging Circle of Friends "  DAY 3319 December 10, 2021 On this day in 1907, Rudyard Kipling receives the Nobel prize for literature, the first English-language writer to do so. What is Mr. Kipling best known for? Poetry or Children's stories? The prompt asked which Kipling is best known for, poetry or Children’s stories? He is a master of both, and also adult literature. I am more familiar with his prose. I have loved and enjoyed his work since before I could read. The distinction between his poetry and prose blurs sometimes. Here are some examples: “Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, ‘Go to the banks of the grey-green greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees, and find out.” From The Elephant's Child “And he went back through the wet wild woods waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone." The Cat That Walked By Himself Both quotes are from Just So Stories for Little Children When, I was little my mother took me to see the Disney movie based on Kipling's novel The Jungle Book . I liked it very much. Since I enjoyed it, Mom bought me a copy of the above album “Just So Stories Volume 1: The Elephant’s Child and The Cat That Walked By Himself”, read by Sterling Holloway. Holloway's distinctive voice fits Kipling’s poetic prose perfectly. He also voiced Kaa the python in the movie The Jungle BookWhen I got a bit older I read more of Kipling’s work including Kim and Stalky and Co. which demonstrate that he is not limited to children’s literature. The imagery and descriptions in Kim bring colonial India to life.I studied Kipling in an English Literature class. Here I learned about a less positive characteristic of Kipling. He was a strong proponent of Empire, both for England and the United States of America. This is evidenced by his poem The White Man's Burden . This poem seems to say that it is the responsibility of the white man to "civilize" people of color whether they like it or not. "In 'the white man's burden', Kipling encouraged the American annexation and colonization of the Philippine Islands..." This aspect of Kipling’s character disturbed me. Still, I am not one to "cancel" someone’s work based on something I disagree with. I can dislike The White Man’s Burden while still loving his other work. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 3316: December 7, 2021 Prompt: The time everything changed in the blink of an eye.
I don't want to recount the time I almost lost my wife. I entered the link to my piece about it. Everything did change in the blink of an eye that day. It was one of the scariest things I have ever lived through. After the crisis was over things continued to change. I was a caregiver before that happened. After it was over my wife needed much more care. She still does. She can't be left alone at all now. It is hard, but she's worth it. She is the only person that I believe would do the same thing for me if the shoe were on the other foot. She is the love of my life.   |
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