Loose Leaf Notes

1. Favorite line seen on Facebook this week: Feeling uncomfortable with all these Mondays we’ve let into the country. –Floyd author Neil Sagebiel

2. Trying to put life into written words is like trying to pin the tail on the donkey while blindfolded. And sometimes we break piñatas.

3. You cried wolf / Now you got one / Pandora’s Box can’t be re-locked / There is no hiding in sheep’s clothing / The little pig’s house is coming down … Read the rest of my poem Predator Politics HERE.

4. My Dharmacratic poet friend Will and I agree that this the election and Donald Trump have provided ripe material for poets and comics (although I wish it really were funny). Will’s been on a roll lately. He recently posted several Taoist punch line-truths, like “Often things suck hardest right before they totally blow,” followed by “The budget deficit is troubling. The attention deficit is terrifying.

5. THIS song makes me happy. We sang it for Joe’s birthday on Saturday.

6. I asked Liam (pictured above) how he learned to pose with his hat like that and he answered, “I saw it in a movie.”

7. One thing that gives me some degree of needed hope in this post-truth election climate is that I know I can count on psychological truths and natural laws, such as the way truth has a way of eventually revealing itself – through body language, irony, karma and Freudian slips – and then playing out.

8.  “When we are being inauthentic — projecting a false emotion or covering a real one — our nonverbal and verbal behaviors begin to misalign. Our facial expressions don’t match the words we’re saying. Our postures are out of sync with our voices. They no longer move in harmony with each other; they disintegrate into cacophony … lies inevitably leak out and one can learn, through extensive training, how to spot these leaks by watching facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviors, such as incongruities between what people are doing and what they’re saying …” More HERE.

9. When my heart is heavy, it’s hard for me to say the words, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all,” but I can always manage to quote Elvis Costello and ask, “What’s so funny bout peace, love and understanding?”

10. At the close of 22nd annual Floyd Winterfest Arts and Crafts Festival, attendees gathered in the Festival of Trees room to see if their silent auction bids won them a tree.  The trees were created and donated by local businesses and organizations to benefit the Floyd Center for the Arts (formerly the Jacksonville Center).  Many were decorated with homemade ornaments and themes.  Some were stocked with gift certificates for dinners, gourmet cupcakes, a cabin stay, free festival entry and more. See some of the trees in THIS recent blog post.

11. There are so many hat idioms: Hats off, keep it under hat, pull a rabbit out of a hat, wear more than one hat, talk through your hat, pull it out of the hat, toss your hat into the ring, take my hat off to you, hat in hand, at the drop of a hat, home is where you hang your hat…Anything else?

12.  My father wanted me to be a doctor, but I had a secret romantic idea that I wanted to be a peddler, either that or join the Peace Corp …  – More from “From Dishwasher to Night Watchman,” a 2006 post about all my unlikely past jobs, including a brief stint as a hat check girl  HERE.

13.  Liam Pat wore his hat / all the way to the laundry mat / The only time he took it off / was when he went t0 the barber shop / Liam Pat wore his hat / seven days a week / The only time he took it off / was when he went to sleep … Read the rest of the poem Liam’s Hat that I wrote for Liam in 213 HERE

___________Thirteen Thursday