“It was the best of times…not so much,” said Charles Dickens never

Quick update:

I just wrote a short explanation on what’s been happening and why I haven’t been writing when…… I lost it, as in the draft, not my sanity (which is tenuous in the best of times, which this isn’t).

So…..Let’s try again. Shall we?

Very brief explanation: When I was finally ready to get back to posting a few weeks ago, my laptop died, as in completely, as in no amount of begging, jiggling cords, or cursing would resurrect it, and so I am left with only my old phone as the only method with which to write, and as witnessed by the loss of a post just seconds ago, it’s not the best route for writing anything more than a sentence or two. Plus, my Swype function is doubling every other word, so instead of getting the word write, I’m getting writewrite. Apologies if I don’t catch allall of the errors (like the one that I’ve deliberately left in this sentence).

I’m hoping to bring my old desktop back online soon, but that requires so much more than just plugging it in. So until then, this is all that there is, and it ain’t much.

Hope you are all staying safe and healthy out there. Remember: Hoarding toilet paper or any other commodities doesn’t make you smart; it just makes you an a-hole. 

More later just as soon as I can. Peace.

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If it’s Friday, it must mean leftovers . . .

Friday evening, partly cloudy and very cold (especially when you’re out of firewood), 36 degrees.

For the last three nights, a stabbing migraine has arrived around 3 a.m. I would say that I woke up with a migraine, but I was still awake at 3 a.m.  It’s a long story involving dogs, puppies, goats, a revolving open door, and Corey’s snoring . . . I’m saving my pennies to buy a used copy of A Very Stable Genius for some soothing, nighttime reading to combat my insomnia . . .

Today’s leftovers are brought to you pretty much exclusively by the site called Liberal Memes. Hey, I’m cold and lazy, but I wanted a leftovers post. Whatever.

Enjoy. Or not, as the case may be.

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Orwell has been proven right time and time again:

Our national health and survival in the face of a worldwide pandemic depends on an educated, informed, efficacious response and approach by an administration filled with people whose only talent required for employment is the enduring ability to kiss ass:

Just saying . . .

Talking to you, Susan Collins . . .

Corey has never gotten over Bloomberg trying to regulate soda size in NYC . . .

It’s all a liberal plot:

And finally, let me close with these:

SOCIALISM! IT’S SOCIALISM!

Who cares what the evidence shows. We don’t want socialism. The U.S. isn’t a socialist country . . . Just don’t take away existing benefits/programs like Social Security, Medicare, fire and police departments, public libraries, military defense, the USPS, garbage collection, public schools, the VA, public parks, the GI bill, SSDI, school lunch programs, WIC, and many, many others, including the CDC, which we really need right now. All of these products and services rely on taxpayer funds to benefit our society as a whole. You know . . .

SOCIALISM………………………………..

“To hell, to hell with balance! I break glasses; I want to burn, even if I break myself. I want to live only for ecstasy . . . I’m neurotic, perverted, destructive, fiery, dangerous—lava, inflammable, unrestrained.” ~ Anaïs Nin, from a 1933 diary entry

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“Turn on the dream you lived
through the unwavering gaze.
It is as you thought: the living burn.
In the floating days
may you discover grace.” ~ Galway Kinnell, from “Easter”

Wednesday afternoon, overcast, 52 degrees.

It’s not a wordless Wednesday; actually, it’s a Wednesday full of words. I usually check my birthday sites before beginning a post to see if I want to include something about a particular writer or just mention a birthday worth nothing. But as February is almost over—a fact that I’m having a real problem wrapping my head around—and as the month happens to include birthdays of so many authors/poets/essayists whose work I love and admire (for whatever reason), I thought that I’d share a brief list. Each name is linked to a bio for that person. I’ve also included just a few of my favorite quotes and/or selections from works.

So, yeah. Lots of words for what is usually a wordless day . . . Enjoy.

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• Galway Kinnell, Rhode Island-born poet and 1983 Pulitzer prize winner  (February 1, 1927-October 28, 2014). Aside: favorite poem by him is “The Olive Wood Fire”
• Langston Hugues, African-American poet and translator, leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance (February 1, 1902-May 22, 1967):

“Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.” ~ Langston Hughes, from “Mother to Son”

• James Joyce, Irish novelist, poet, and stream-of-consciousness pioneer, author of Ulysses (1922), which was banned in the U.S until 1933 (February 2, 1882-January 13, 1941)
• Christopher Marlowe, English poet and dramatist (February 6, 1564-May 30, 1593)
• Charles Dickens, English novelist (February 7, 1812-June 9, 1870)
• Elizabeth Bishop, Massachusetts-born poet, 1956 Pulitzer Prize winner (February 8, 1911-October 6, 1979):

“It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn” ~ Elizabeth Bishop, from “At the Fishhouses”

• Kate Chopin, St. Louis, Missouri-born writer of The Awakening and numerous short stories (February 8, 1850-August 22, 1904)
• Alice Walker, Georgia-born novelist, poet, and political activist who won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple (February 9, 1944)
• Boris Pasternak, Russian-born poet and author of Doctor Zhivago; he won the Nobel Prize in literature (1958) but was forced by the Soviet government to decline (February 10, 1890-May 30, 1960)
• Toni Morrison, Ohio-born African American novelist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1987 and the first African American woman to be selected for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 (February 18, 1931-August 5, 2019):

“And I am all the things I have ever loved:

scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water,
dream books and number playing. I am the sound of
my own voice singing . . .

I am not complete here; there is much more,

but there is no more time and no more space . . . and I
have journeys to take, ships to name and crews.” ~ Toni Morrison, from the jacket of The Black Book

• Anaïs Nin, novelist and diarist, ground-breaking The Diary of Anaïs Nin published in 1966 (February 21-1903-January 14, 1977)
• W. H.  Auden, U.S. poet, winner of 1948 Pulitzer (February 21, 1907-September 28, 1973)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, Maine poet and playwright, 1923 Pulitzer prize winner for The Ballad of the Harp Weaver (February 22, 1892-October 19, 1950)
• Samuel Pepys, English diarist (February 23, 1633-May 26, 1703)
• Anthony Burgess, English essayist, novelist, and musician, author of 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange (February 25, 1917-November 22, 1993)
• John Steinbeck, American novelist and Pulitzer prize winner in 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, an award that few, including the author, believed he deserved (February 27, 1902-December 20, 1968):

“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.” ~ John Steinbeck, from Of Mice and Men

Personally, I always liked Steinbeck more than Faulkner, and Fitzgerald more than both, and Carson McCullers more than all of them.

More later. Peace.

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Music by Martin Harley and Daniel Kimbro, “Goodnight Irene”