Al Sabo 22 July 2015
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Posted:Jul 24, 2015 7:15 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:42 am
28164 Views
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We haven't been hiking much for the last couple of weeks, and it was starting to tell on us. So we picked a couple of cool days and went out to Al Sabo. It felt good to be back in the woods again. The dragonflies have had their day, and although I saw a few, the squadrons of a couple of weeks ago have flown on. The deerflies and other biting flies weren't as troublesome either. I wasn't very happy with most of the photos I took, but a few were interesting enough to post. We only walked about three miles. There were a dozen or so other hikers out and a few bikes as well.
It was PD who pushed to get back to the trails- she gained a couple of pounds back- I did too- and we've been slugs lately. We have some hot muggy weather coming up and haven't decided if we'll try to hike in that. Probably not! It was Gracie's first ride out in the back of my new truck. She was a bit hesitant at first, but car means "Al Sabo" to her, so she jumped in and handled it well. I'll have to put a rug back there for her.
One final thing- when you see someone carving on the trunk of a beech tree, it's OK to hurt them.
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"On Slut" is the topic!
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Posted:Jul 20, 2015 8:26 am
Last Updated:Jul 22, 2015 5:47 pm
29212 Views
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On Slut Is The Topic For The Tenth Virtual Symposium
“On Slut” Is The Topic For The Tenth Virtual Symposium
Seven days to think about sluts. I must be in heaven. Or else it's just a normal day for me.
The Symposium is a gathering of the minds, such as they are, to expound and elucidate upon a selected topic in an open manner, that is: unclosed, unfettered, unbarred, spread out, unfurled, unrolled, yawning, gaping, unreserved, blatant...well, you get the idea. The only rule is to say what you think. Whatever you think! Cut right to the heart of the matter or sail off on a tangent for obscure, tenuous and unexplored regions. It is open to any blogger who wishes to write, sing or post art. Simply create your post and notify humorlife that you have posted. He will create a list of links to blog posts for the Symposium. The very loose deadline is Sunday July 26. Post early if you can- the links often don't go live the first time around and he can use the head start. And then sit back and enjoy!
The Symposium itself is a little bit slutty, it should be obvious. it's open, as I said, to anyone, whether rank virgins or experienced practitioners. The bloggers express themselves without restraint, if we're lucky, and frolic through the metaphorical flowers winsomely and wantonly. It is a sight to behold when it gets rolling. Please take part- life is short and uncertain, so eat dessert first.
“On Slut” Is The Topic For The Tenth Virtual Symposium
On Slut Is The Topic For The Tenth Virtual Symposium
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The Tenth Virtual Symposium
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Posted:Jul 16, 2015 9:29 am
Last Updated:Jul 19, 2015 9:19 am
28546 Views
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The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
Symposium time is nearly upon us again. Visit humorlife and vote for a topic. You have four choices this go-round, and as usual you may write in a topic of your own choosing as well if you like long shots. Participation is open to all comers- current bloggers and new alike.
My own choice was "Sluts", and why not? I LOVE sluts. I even like the sound of the word, vaguely Central or Eastern European. There is a great deal of irrational prejudice against not only the word but the practitioners thereof- but I'll save that rant for the post itself.
Whichever topic climbs on top and cavorts with wild abandon, this is a chance to meet interesting new bloggers, hear their thoughts on one broadly interpreted and well used subject, and perhaps eventually fuck them. It is possibly not unreasonable to hope that actual sluts may participate. Hope springs eternal!
So! Three cheers for sluts, and may the best topic penetrate to the Fornicate Gyrus- I can smell it already!
The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic- humorlife
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A Fishing Story
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Posted:Jul 13, 2015 10:17 am
Last Updated:Aug 6, 2016 6:12 pm
31027 Views
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Here in Michigan people take pride in and bitch endlessly about the weather. Surrounded by the Great Lakes, if you don't care much for the weather you're currently experiencing, wait five minutes- likely it'll change. Drivers here like to claim that we have two seasons- winter and road construction. Although there are some hard assed individuals who love the cold weather (Like me!) and still go fishing on frozen lakes, summer is for fishing and winter is for snowmobiling. I'm not fan of snowmobiles. They're noisy as hell and the drivers always trespass and run over fruit tree seedlings. It's dangerous too. Fishing however, is a quiet, laid back, easygoing and time-honored sport, celebrated in seventeenth century England by Izaak Walton in "The Compleat Angler" and in twentieth century America by Richard Brautigan in "Trout Fishing in America". Each may be considered a sort of philosophical treatise, as may be the following.
On a hot June day, three men went fishing and, as the day began to really warm up, they really started swilling the beer in the coolers, which helps to explain why they were still out fishing in the middle of the day when fish are not biting, and when the speedboats are out and about. They soon got pretty irritated by the power boats, creating big wakes and stirring up the water, not to mention the racket. Finally one boat seemed to come close on purpose, likely the result of the owner swigging his own beer. The fisherman in the middle of the bass boat stood up and shook his fist and swore at the speedboat, but its wake rocked the boat and he spilled right into the water.
The guy in the back of the boat said he thought they should help him back into the boat, but the other fisherman said "No, I've fished with this asshole before. He's just clowning around, splashing and floundering around like he's in trouble. He's just trying to get us wet. He's a jerk when he's drinking."
A minute later the guy in the water went under, and didn't come back up. The guy in the back of the boat said "C'mon! we gotta help him now!" But the other guy said "No- I'm telling you, he's just fucking with us. In a minute he'll see we aren't panicking and he'll come back up and get back in the boat. Fuck him!"
After another minute the guy in the back of the boat thought it had gone on just a bit too long, and couldn't take it anymore. He pulled off his shoes and dove into the lake, swimming down to look for his fishing buddy. But the speedboats had the weeds and mud stirred up and he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Suddenly, he got lucky, and feeling around in the gloom he grabbed the drowning man's foot! He surfaced with his partner in tow and they wrassled him into the boat, and the guy in the front of the boat immediately started doing mouth to mouth resuscitation on his friend. After a few blows into his mouth, the resuscitator backed up sputtering and spitting and said "Goddamn, his breath stinks! I didn't notice he smelled so bad this morning!"
And the other guy, still wiping water and lake weeds from his face, said "No. Come to think of it, I don't remember him wearing a snowmobile suit either."
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The last one...
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Posted:Jul 3, 2015 7:11 pm
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 11:03 am
30772 Views
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Just because I was so pleased with how it turned out.
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Al Sabo in Summer
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Posted:Jul 3, 2015 6:46 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:36 am
26889 Views
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We're having a cool summer so far- just what we wanted! We did have some really humid days, and mostly we stayed out of the forest when it was muggy like that. Fo one thing, when it's warm and wet the black files and deerflies are awful, and the mosquitos are bad too. We got bug netting for our hats to keep them off of us, but the weather has dried up some so we haven't needed it lately. We do spray bug repellent all over us, and Flies Off spray for Gracie, but they seem to see that as simply a challenge to be overcome. A big problem is mosquitos flying into my eyes- I don't ever remember so many zooming into my eyes before.
I haven't been taking quite as many photos as at first. I was shooting between six and seven hundred a hike for a couple of weeks, but I've backed off to two or three hundred lately. The meadows are ablaze with wildflowers- Jacob's Ladder, butterfly weed, daisies, coneflower, Queen Anne's Lace. It's a lot easier to capture closeups with the new camera, and one of the reasons for taking so many shots was to ensure I got at least one good one. Now I've got more confidence with it so I'm taking fewer shots. I still have a fair number of failures.
Insects are fun to try to shoot too, as they harvest from all the wildflowers. I've got a ton of dragonfly pictures already- I never seem to get tired of them, they're so magnificent looking. And you see a lot more when you're stalking for good pictures of bugs and flowers. I noticed most of this stuff anyway before I started taking pictures, but I REALLY look at it now, and I see things I didn't see before, and others I study in a different way. And I get a much better and closer look at them, too. Dragonflies aren't really all that big, and you can study one in the viewfinder and in the uploaded photo. They'll never hold still that long in life!
Milkweed is blossoming now, with those beautiful round clusters of pink and white flowers, and it's a good place to find all manner of bees collecting nectar to make honey. The wild rose is finished flowering now, and the four o'clocks are gone too, replaced by the summertime flowers. And the trails are used more this time of year- young women and men hiking and running. I always keep an eye open for photographic opportunities there. A few of those have been blessed events.
That's enough talk. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
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Clown Suits for Christmas and Other Ritual Humiliations
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Posted:Jun 27, 2015 5:54 pm
Last Updated:Feb 18, 2023 1:27 pm
30301 Views
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Body Count Body ImageImagery Is The Topic For The Ninth Virtual Symposium
Clown Suits for Christmas and Other Ritual Humiliations
By PD
Body image is a thing now, but what I love are stories that put the fun back into 'dysfunctional', the family dramas and other bizarre social conventions that chip away at women and keep us in our place.
Feeling ugly and grateful for whatever we get is an essential part of being a woman because 1) if we don't feel that way we won't buy a bunch of stupid expensive stuff that is supposed to make us look beautiful, and 2) how are guys going to catch us at all if we don't run from them in high heels?
Genital mutilation is frowned upon in the U.S., but reminding your daughters that they are undesirable and had better snag a mate pronto before all the men are taken is not only fair, it's a capitalist responsibility that every American mother and grandmother and great-grandmother is tasked with carrying out.
That's how it worked with in my family anyway.
Grandmothers did their part on holidays and family gatherings. Usually the routine would start with an elderly family member approaching a pubescent female and smoothing or rearranging her hair while staring intently at her face. "You'd be such a pretty girl if only…" was a much-used sentence that never ended well and, because we were expected to respect our elders, we had to endure it.
You'd be such a pretty girl if only….
You'd fix your hair.
You'd cut your hair.
You'd lose some weight.
You'd get a better fitting bra.
You'd fix yourself up a little.
And so on and so forth.
My own mother was especially gifted at this kind of ritual humiliation. She showed up days after my third was born with a pair of beige pants and a top that would have been three sizes too small before I got pregnant the first time, never mind the third. She regaled me that day with stories of how, after each , she curled her toes around the foot of the hospital bed and did sit ups right there, right then, right afterward.
That story was bullshit of course. But it was brilliant ritual humiliation.
She insisted I try the outfit on but I politely declined with some lame excuse. I knew my mother pretty well, and she'd already made her point--I wasn't going to let her wallow in it.
My sisters and sister-in-law were not so quick.
When we all had reached -bearing age, my mother started a tradition of buying each or -in-law an outfit several sizes too small for Christmas, then insisting that everyone try on their new outfits and be photographed together wearing them.
The larger the recipient, the more outlandish the outfit. One of my sisters and my sister-in-law were very large women indeed, and their outfits were always so garish they took to calling them 'clown suits', as in "I wonder what color clown suit mom will get us this Christmas."
I usually got something beige, because I hate beige, and I'm not a huge woman, and of all the colors out there, beige is probably the one that does the least for me. I never tried mine on, but my sisters always did.
I always wondered why they fell for it. Maybe they were healthier than I was and could laugh it off easier. Maybe they thought it was funny.
I don't know.
I do think it wasn't that funny. My mother was a perpetual dieter, yet she never lost weight. When we were little , we learned that when my mother announced she was on a diet it meant the house would be full of pies and cookies within a day or two. As I got older, I learned it was a signal that I'd be getting the "You'd be so pretty if only you'd lose ten pounds," routine from Mom.
I did not need to lose ten pounds. Mom did not need to lose ten pounds either.
She was ritually humiliating herself. If your female relatives do it right, you do get to that point.
My mother died of a sudden major stroke in her late 50's, the kind that can only happen when you've been binging and purging, or just purging. She was on the phone to one of my sisters when it happened, so an ambulance was called and she was kept alive with very little brain function for three days. Eventually, one of my sisters took her off life support and she died.
At 62 I like my body fine, more than I ever have, even though I surely looked 'hotter' when I was young. In some strange way I gained respect for myself as my attractiveness faded with age. In some ways losing my looks has been a loss, but in more ways than not it has been a relief and a release. I also rarely see my original family, and that helps too.
I feel free from all that crap for the first time. Sure, once in awhile I still catch some 30-year-old looking at my tits in the supermarket. That still shocks me. (I'm 62!) But most of the time, men leave me alone. Women talk to me. People seem to trust me. sit on my lap when they don't know me. Dogs approach me for pets.
I like that.
As for "getting a man" before all the good ones are gone, I've learned that that is just not necessary. Men are all over the place. Always. Many of them are very nice. And the very best way to 'get one' is to not want one. Try it, it works. It takes all the pressure off and drives them crazy.
Just remember, once you 'get one' you have to feed him, and walk him, and fuck him, and listen to him and be loyal and tolerate his farts. Show up naked and bring food, as they say.
They make bad pets, men, but often, good friends.
And your body?
From a man's point of view, the most beautiful body in the world is the one he knows he's going to slide into within the next several hours.
That body could be yours. And you get to decide.
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The Manly Man
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Posted:Jun 27, 2015 5:44 pm
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:29 am
30882 Views
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Body Count Body ImageImagery Is The Topic For The Ninth Virtual Symposium
Body Count: “Body Image/Imagery” Is The Topic For The Ninth Virtual Symposium
A project of humorlife
The Manly Man-by Bill
It isn't just women who have body image issues. It's well known that many American women suffer from negative body image, even when they look just wonderful to others. It's driven into their heads from an early age that they can never look good enough, or try hard enough, or compete fiercely enough with other women to look their best, and that their best will never be good enough. I can't really add much to that discussion that hasn't been said better by someone else. It would be silly if it wasn't so damn cruel.
Men have body image problems too. Not to the extent that women suffer, but most men want to appear robust and virile and can get a bit confused by the pretty boys, the underwear models and the guys in the perfume ads who look like young Italian gigolos. Women often seem to swoon over these guys, but they look to most other men as if they weren't too interested in women, like they'd prefer each other's company, or maybe just prefer to be alone with a mirror. Most of us are somewhere between heartthrob lunching at The Little Owl and computer nerd living in Mom's basement and surviving on Hot Pockets. Theres a crowd at the cellar end of the spectrum and precious few at the apex, with most men scattered all over the map in between.
Not Vladimir Putin, though. This guy knows he's a man's man, a manly man, and he rarely misses a chance to strut his stuff. You must remember when President George W. Bush claimed he had seen into Putin's soul, and liked what he saw there. It struck me as a singularly idiotic remark, but I think something must have changed in Putin that day. Now, not only was he a Russian hunk, but he had an enchanting soul as well, and it must have made his biceps swell with pride and then spread to his pectorals. And elsewhere. (For a while the news was full of Bush/Putin, Bush/Putin, Bush/Putin. It sounded to me like something you'd find in a woman's pants at a chili eating contest.)
This guy never misses an opportunity to get photographed shirtless.
If he goes fishing- off comes the shirt. If he gets on a , he sheds the tunic. Swimming with the dolphins? Can't be done in a wetsuit!
He's not afraid to show a softer side too- a leader has to have compassion for his followers, and demonstrate kindness, a gentle nature belied by all that manliness.
He's so in tune with the animals that he even has a doppelganger…
…and he's pals with them all too, just like Tarzan! They can't wait to do his bidding.
Putin- he's got NO body image issues and it must be grand for him. Most of us will suck in the gut when a good looking woman walks by, stand a little straighter, flex the biceps and try to look as much like good breeding stock as we can manage. It's usually a dismal failure, but not Putin! He's got attitude and he ain't afraid to show it!
If it's true that women like a man with a bit of an attitude, a bit of an edge to them, a bad boy thing goin' on, he ought to be draped with gorgeous women. Hell, he inspired a group of women to name themselves Pussy Riot! But oddly enough, the Pussy Riot doesn't appear to be enamored of Vladimir. He's been confronted by them before. They were naked and from the look on his face, he wasn't feeling too well. Maybe he's angling for an underwear ad, or maybe, just maybe, he only wants to be alone in his room with a mirror.
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The Other Stuff
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Posted:Jun 20, 2015 7:27 pm
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 11:01 am
26885 Views
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We didn't just find dragonflies yesterday, but they deserved their own post since mcmaniac was also looking at them hundreds of miles to the south, at practically the same time. I'm starting to get the hang of my new camera. I'm nowhere near knowing what I can do with it, but I'm starting to scratch the surface.
I was the laggard again Friday at Al Sabo, and a number of times I'd round a curve in the trail to find PD and Gracie sitting alongside the trail waiting. Gracie gets concerned if they get too far ahead of me and she balks, making PD wait too. There's no loyalty like a dog's loyalty. Sometimes she even insists on going back to look for me. Then they'd take off again and I'd get behind again, right away. I used to take a hundred photos per hike with the old Nikon, maybe two hundred on a special day. I'm taking between six and seven hundred shots now every time we go out. If I can get the macro lens I want for ultra close ups, I may never come back. Autumn and winter are going to be great!
At home, we have woodchucks. One of them is so big I thought he was a goddam bear! I swear he's gotta weigh fifty pounds. I set a live trap for him, and baited it with muskmelon. I'm none too confident of this trap- I don't think it's anywhere near big enough for the megalodon woodchuck. That animal has got to be sporting saber teeth.My last Rocky could have handled him but I don't want Gracie getting near him- he'd scare her, shame her, steal her lunch money and send her home in tears. The trap in the end is a failure for any size woodchuck- the hooligan ground squirrels are stealing my bait. I may have to get a bow and arrows- I can't legally shoot a firearm in the city.
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Day of the Dragons
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Posted:Jun 20, 2015 8:42 am
Last Updated:Jun 30, 2016 11:02 am
26263 Views
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It's been hot and humid, but yesterday was cool and dry. It's been a rough spring. A lot has happened that I'd just as soon have missed, and it occurred to me that one of the things wrong was I was missing the hikes in the forest. The three of us don't much like hot weather so we've been staying home and tossing a ball for Gracie in the back forty. She can run when she likes and rest when she likes- and so can I.
But since it was cool and sunny we headed out for Al Sabo, even though I felt too tired for it. I've learned that even though I'm feeling punk the woods always heals me. I get out there and I tend to forget all the shit. I have to walk it off. For the first half mile or more my brain is still roiling and cranking, but gradually all that melts away and I get into the moment. You don't even notice it happening. Everything just drops off unnoticed. I don't need it anyway.
The wildflowers are in their glory in the meadows and there's a riot of insects buzzing around. Especially dragonflies. The little meadow just south of the east marsh is an air traffic controller's nightmare of wild dragonflies. that meadow has lots of moss and lichen and I love looking at the flowering lichen there. The dragonflies like it too and I got photos of a brilliant green one there, choppering in to land on the lichen and then rocketing off to another patch.
The big meadow near Texas Drive is alive with the dragonflies too and there I found the red one. But there were blue and brown ones too, and a friend of mine identified one as a twelve spotted skimmer. They were lined up in the path at times like aircraft taxiing a runway and waiting for clearance, and then impatiently taking off in a rush.
We only hike about two and three quarters or three miles- it was still warm and we haven't been walking much so it tired us out, but it felt good. I left some burdens in the woods for a while. They'll find me again. They always find their way back to me but I lost them for a while.
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Go and catch a falling star
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Posted:Jun 15, 2015 9:55 am
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:05 am
26752 Views
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Go and catch a falling star
It's been the monsoon season here after a fairly dry spring. The weather has been warm and always muggy with little respite from the humidity. I'm hearing thunder as I write this and the rain is coming down again. There were enough breaks in the deluge yesterday that I managed to finish a new pair of gates to the back forty, but even dodging the squalls I was drenched in sweat.
Finally a cool front blew in by early evening and PD, Gracie and I went out to sit by the garden. Gracie loves chasing her jolly ball outdoors and she had divots of grass torn up from tackling the ball and bringing it to bay. The air dried up considerably and we sat and talked, and occasionally heaved the soccer sized ball for Gracie.
PD had been musing about making Mayapple jelly. The plant is poisonous in large amounts, in that it might cause belly ache and the trots, so naturally PD is drawn to it. She had neighbors as a girl who were half Polish and half Potawatomi. They used to collect acorns and process them for meals, and PD has been fascinated by the art of gathering ever since. I promised to help her but I never promised to eat the Mayapple jelly. Mayapple is also known as American mandrake, and I remembered a line from an old poem, "Get with a mandrake root".
The root of the mandrake often resembles a fetus, or a gnarly little man, hence "get with ". But I couldn't quite recall what poem contained the line, and the best I could dredge up was "The Lament of the Makers" by the fifteenth century Scottish poet William Dunbar, which is of course incorrect, and I knew it wasn't right but couldn't for the life of me bring up the right one. The refrain in "The Lament of the Makers", Timor mortis conturbat me- fear of death troubles me- isn't exactly one I share, but I think it expresses something echoed by Jim Morrison centuries later: "No one here gets out alive."
Lament For The Makers
by William Dunbar
I that in heill wes and gladnes,
Am trublit now with gret seiknes,
And feblit with infermite;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Our plesance heir is all vane glory,
This fals warld is bot transitory,
The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
The stait of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary,
Now dansand mery, now like to dee;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
No stait in erd heir standis sickir;
As with the wynd wavis the wickir,
Wavis this warldis vanite.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
On to the ded gois all estatis,
Princis, prelotis, and potestatis,
Baith riche and pur of al degre;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He takis the knychtis in to feild,
Anarmit under helme and scheild;
Victour he is at all mellie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
That strang unmercifull tyrand
Takis, on the moderis breist sowkand,
The bab full of benignite;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He takis the campion in the stour,
The capitane closit in the tour,
The lady in bour full of bewte;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He sparis no lord for his piscence,
Na clerk for his intelligence;
His awfull strak may no man fle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Art-magicianis, and astrologgis,
Rethoris, logicianis, and theologgis,
Thame helpis no conclusionis sle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
In medicyne the most practicianis,
Lechis, surrigianis, and phisicianis,
Thame self fra ded may not supple;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
I se that makaris amang the laif
Playis heir ther pageant, syne gois to graif;
Sparit is nocht ther faculte;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He hes done petuously devour,
The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour,
The Monk of Bery, and Gower, all thre;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
The gude Syr Hew of Eglintoun,
And eik Heryot, and Wyntoun,
He hes tane out of this cuntre;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
That scorpion fell hes done infek
Maister Johne Clerk, and Jame Afflek,
Fra balat making and tragidie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Holland and Barbour he hes berevit;
Allace! that he nocht with us levit
Schir Mungo Lokert of the Le;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Clerk of Tranent eik he has tane,
That maid the Anteris of Gawane;
Schir Gilbert Hay endit hes he;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He hes Blind Hary and Sandy Traill
Slaine with his schour of mortall haill,
Quhilk Patrik Johnestoun myght nocht fle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He hes reft Merseir his endite,
That did in luf so lifly write,
So schort, so quyk, of sentence hie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He hes tane Roull of Aberdene,
And gentill Roull of Corstorphin;
Two bettir fallowis did no man se;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
In Dumfermelyne he hes done roune
With Maister Robert Henrisoun;
Schir Johne the Ros enbrast hes he;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
And he hes now tane, last of aw,
Gud gentill Stobo and Quintyne Schaw,
Of quham all wichtis hes pete:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Gud Maister Walter Kennedy
In poynt of dede lyis veraly,
Gret reuth it wer that so suld be;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Sen he hes all my brether tane,
He will nocht lat me lif alane,
On forse I man his nyxt pray be;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Sen for the deid remeid is none,
Best is that we for dede dispone,
Eftir our deid that lif may we;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
"The Lament for the Makers is a favorite of mine, and as PD pointed out it reads like a chant and the refrain has a nice somber toll, like a heavy bell.
The poem with the line about mandrake root is the song "Go and catch a falling star" by John Donne (ask not for whom the bell tolls- it tolls for thee) a hundred years later. PD also pointed out that Donne's poem is lovely but misogynistic. You can take the girl out of the philosophy department but you can't take the philosophy department out of the girl.
Song: Go and catch a falling star
by John Donne
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
To me this expresses what all of us feel when unlucky in love. We have a tendency to think that all is fakery, that there is no escape from perfidy and falsehood, and that all lovers are false and untrue. It isn't so of course. This is heartache talking. If we couldn't recover from it in time there would be no "Upon Julia's Clothes"….
Upon Julia's Clothes
by Robert Herrick
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free,
O how that glittering taketh me!
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Luna Moth
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Posted:Jun 15, 2015 9:10 am
Last Updated:Nov 12, 2015 10:03 am
25174 Views
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On the third of June we hiked in Al Sabo Preserve. It's getting hot and muggy so we aren't hiking as much. PD, Gracie and I are cool weather creatures and the heat and humidity wear us all out. Top that off with a bumper crop of deerfies this year and it takes some of the shine off a walk in the woods. Usually the biting flies don't become burdensome until late july or August, but they are her in force this summer already. We look for cooler days, and rainy days when it won't be as crowded with walkers and off road bikes- and the flies will be sheltering under leaves.
One of the last series of photos I took with my old Nikon Coolpix was that day, the third. I intended to take some closeups of a fern alongside the trail when I noticed something odd, and white, clinging to the back of one frond. It was a luna moth, its wings nearly translucent against the bright green fern. All the photos turned out well, but because of the moth's perch I could only shoot from a couple of effective angles. I regret now that I didn't pose my hand in a picture for size reference. The luna moth is four to six inches across, and you can see the outline of the fern through its paper thin wings.
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