I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity. Edgar Allen Poe
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. - H. L. Mencken Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so -Bertrand Russell What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ... -James Branch Cabell
December 16, 2013 - 9:56 a.m. I didn't do anything yesterday so this is going to be tough. I could just skip a day but then I'd feel that something was missing. I had a conversation not that long ago with dear friend about what I do here and in life in general. I take the random events of life and weave them into stories. Let's see if I can do that today. Stories and the power of stories is the focus of the book I'm reading now, Witches Abroad, it's a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. So once upon a time there was a third prince. Well his two older siblings were sisters and his parents weren't king and queen but that fits close enough. He didn't have fabulous luck and he never found a princess but he did find a treasure once. It was on a game show. So this prince wandered as third princes often do and lodged where he could as is their wont. He met many strange and wondrous people in all walks of life. He found particular favor amongst the minstrels. Some of the minstrels he befriended were playing in the far north to celebrate the winter solstice in the castle of the Emperor of Folk Music of the North but he had been seeing minstrels every day for over a week and foolishly decided to rest. In his wanderings he had left much of his clothing behind so he went in search of simple but fair attire. Oddly the marshall had a shop where the prices are low and there he found two pairs of pants and four pairs of socks. The prince then went in search of food from the Trader named Joe. He was feeling sad so he bought the magic food called by the sages theobroma cacoa but by the common folk chocolate. And he bought the nog of the egg. He pondered a lifetime about what other kinds of nog there were other than egg but never did research till someone joked about onion nog. So he went to the Oxford English Dictionary to find out just what nog was and this is what he found; "a small block or peg of wood." That did not seem very helpful. He went to a less authoritative source dictionary.com and found; "any beverage made with beaten eggs, usually with alcoholic liquor; eggnog." So there is no nog but egg. The egg is redundant. The world's possibilities shrank. He returned to his temporary home as he left on the magic cart on rails through the dwarf tunnels. When he got off the cart he saw that all was not well in the humble part of the great city of the kingdom where he dwelt. He encountered the beggar that is always a the entrance of the tunnel and another at the tavern of Popeye where he stopped for the evening's repast. The prince came home and ate his chicken and did not do much else that night but somehow took a long time to do it. After he went to bed and turned out the lights he heard a pounding on the door of the kind landlady who's rooms were next to his. It was a woman akin to Cinderella's step sisters. She woke the gentle landlady to complain at 2 AM. The prince went to sleep and put this out of his mind with thoughts of the fair princess. In the morning right after he awoke shortly before 8 AM he heard the pounding again. Once again the difficult tenant complained. The prince was taken aback by her lack of consideration for others. He thought of how she often complains about how inconsiderate others staying at the inn were. She needs a magic mirror that will reveal her true self. The prince records his deeds and thoughts and feelings on his magic mirror that allows them to be seen in the magic mirror of others. And so we come to the present. The prince will break his fast with sausages and eggs then head off the Isle of Manhatta to give his students their final exam. I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge: please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
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