samoyeddogs

February 25

I didn’t know that. Know that February is 25 today. Congratulations! That’s a nice number.
There’s been some chatter around the site that things can get confusing occasionally with all these fluffy white dogs climbing up everywhere and licking everybody and wagging their tails and looking for treats.

It’s true. It’s totally true. I’ve felt that way myself. If it was up to me I’d say ‘Absolutely right.’ Right on. Righty-O. Right as rain.

You can get kind of addicted to these images. These strips of, what are they, landscapes? Panoramas. Profiles. I forget the rest.

This Malbec is quite tasty. And, for reasons not entirely understood, I’m thinking for some reason of Duff Cooper.

Duff Cooper quoted in Alexis Lichine’s Encyclopedia of Wine

“I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say was good for me. Nor do I regret it. Wine has been to me a firm friend and a wise counselor. Often wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences.

“Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature, and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace.

“Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them.

“Under its influence words have often come too easily which had better not have been spoken, and letters have been written which had better not have been sent.

“But if such small indiscretions standing in the debit column of wine’s account were added up, they would amount to nothing in comparison with the vast accumulation on the credit side.”

Duff Cooper: “Old Men Forget”

7:17 pm. There’s a dog howling around here somewhere, but it’s not ours. Down below. It’s an Aussie Dalmation yearning for it’s Aussie master and mistress. The wind sets fair Saturday and everything is bent for Australia! Hooray! Howl howl!

Sorry February

I want to thank you for that, as one of my mentors once said. I want to thank you for your graces, February, and sorry I didn’t get back to you a little sooner. It’s the Canadian in me. And I was thinking about that. Where was I this morning? Yes. Driving wonderfully, hitting the greens beautifully and making good time, which is important, but not always guaranteed. I was thinking I’m so Canadian. It hit me hard.

It’s tough. It’s tough realizing what you are, and how little you can do about it. Canadian. Born but not bred. A wild, uncontrollable baby and it’s never changed. February’s half over and it’s like I’ve been avoiding it. Like I don’t care. I’m sorry about that, Feb.

Boredom is a terrible contagion. Plus when you stumble onto the ‘Apathy’ app. It’s new. Check it out. Works great. Create an account and you don’t have to give a darn about a whole bunch of stuff. You can care less.

I should have got here sooner but just didn’t feel like it. It’s terrible. It’s February and all this darkness is so tiresome, but give the month a chance and maybe it’ll add some lightness and everybody should be encouraged but they don’t have to be if they don’t want to because they’re on their own and and and… That is an example of a run-on sentence. Remember those? Run run.

Everybody needs a break and that certainly includes February. February’s a good kid and is getting brighter all the time. Sure it is. It’s a wonderful month. Sometimes you just don’t want to think about it. Everybody knows what that’s about.

If only it was true. I don’t know what happened here.

But February is great. I love this month. It’s still the start of the year. Brand new days. Get to be born and re-born. Just like a lot of other people so you feel that sense of community, that compulsion to isolate yourself.

February, more surprises are in store. We’re gonna find some new categories! We are! And a bunch of other changes you can’t get too hyped about either because they just may never happen. Thank you for hanging in there. “I realized changes needed to be made. I couldn’t make them”.

But you can make them. Changes are in the offing. The offing. Where exactly is that anyway?

Makes about as much sense as anything else around here.

January 2015

I hate technology. I’ve been thinking about this all month. You just want it to work, right? When you get some irritating message meaning nothing you just want to return to yesterday. Who’s writing this stuff? It’s awful. I love technology.

Right. What a month it’s been. Your time machine is working and here you are. 2015. Strange, incomprehensible year (SIY). Just like last year.

The taste for acronyms seems to be dying down. Good thing too. Extinction’s the inevitable result but other things are always evolving. It’s common sense. Let’s get started.

I’m not sure who these people are but I know in a general sense, so that’s positive. The reading went well, and Phil who in his own mind, I’ve no doubt, even years later, was still scurrying around in his miniscule lodgings in Belfast, has been put to bed. Yay. 175,000 followers can really pack a room. Thank you for your business. The other readers were terrific too. Sugar Le Fae. Diane Tucker. Kevin Spenst. Daniel Cowper.

Then STJR packed it. Still think of the man and how, wow, he’s really not around here now. Really. A great man and across the great divide, sir, I salute you. Thank you. Thank me. Thank everyone. We’ll find a better ending for this paragraph later.

That’s right. For whom the bell tolls. Had your bell rung. Five o’clock bells. Tintinnabulation of the bells. Bellwether. Alexander Graham Bell. Ding dong.

So you’re dead in January and what else is it but the cold, hard rain as described earlier? Plenty else. It’s three in the afternoon here on the late-breaking 25th and we’re heading to the beach.

Well trammeled by fine looking, living humans. I’m thinking this sitting in the car sitting in the parking lot. Here they are. Walking the dog. Jogging. Slogging. Partnering. Friending. Holding hands. The sun is even shining. How dare it? It’s supposed to be overcast. It’s pretty disappointing. No it isn’t.

I enter a short story contest. Why not? I can use the $1500 US. Probably the greatest short story I ever wrote born of honestly acquired pain and suffering and light sprinklings of deep psychic anguish. Of course it was. Pain is hilarious if you can get the words in the right order later.

So I’m not sure where this is headed. February, probably. It’s time to take stock and maybe make some. Winter soup for the loved. The lost don’t get any. It’s too bad. Short story update in a couple of months. If this was Canada it’d be a year. In terms of writing Canada takes more decades than you’ve got. Chalk it up to experience and other clichés. Graffiti the whole thing.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: