Loose Leaf Notes

1. “The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.” ― Confucius

2. Beware of Be aware?

3. Yesterday I rode past a house with a large propane tank in the yard and thought it was a snowman.

4. The snow we got at the New Year was like frosting that covered everything and made me wonder where the gingerbread was. See HERE.

5. I guess my booster was a breakthrough case of Covid, which I just got over and which I hope offers some degree of natural immunity, at least in the near future.

6. “Some time wastage is unavoidable, such as unintentional nondimensional dementia in which physical objects float through space and the screwdriver you had in the kitchen winds up in your sock drawer and your grilled cheese sandwich departs the microwave and goes into a bookshelf atop a dictionary, but this is how I get my daily exercise, walking from room to room tracking things down.” Garrison Keillor

7. One of the things I learned this week was that “Quiet Storm” is a genre of music, contemporary R&B performed in a romantic jazz-influenced style, named after a song by Smokey Robinson. Wikipedia says: Quiet storm was marketed to upscale mature African-American audiences during the 1980s, while falling out of favor with young listeners in the age of hip hop.

8. A wonderful one-minute film about marriage that has won an award and 2 million views HERE. 

9. Windowsill Frill HERE. 

10. I close my eyes to see/ until the drum is silenced / until life’s puzzle is nearly finished / and I can add my piece to the whole / But don’t look too close / or you’ll miss the full picture / where everyone is a beautiful loner / where we all belong to each other / are the parts of the same single truth.  -Read Surprise Endings in its entirety HERE. 

11. Poetry is a condensed form of expression that doesn’t follow the rules of prose and, like a dream, isn’t limited by one reality. A bus ride can symbolize a lifetime. …Once you’re on board / you have to trust the driver / You pay for your baggage / and lift your own luggage / You take every turn / that you didn’t plan / and hope you don’t feel lost….  Check out the intro write-up of my new book Objects Are Closer Than They Appear HERE.

12. Driving down Route 8 in the town of Floyd, going 50 miles an hour, I hit a cow.  I was in my ’87 Honda with the license plate that says “Let it be.”  That’s the name of the song we sang to Danny the morning of his death.  For though we may be parted… there is still a chance that we will see….There will be an answer….Let it be.  It was night and the cow was black.  I never saw it coming, the way Jimmy never saw the machine part that pinned him against the wall until it was too late.  The impact of the cow’s body shattered the windshield and dented the hood, but the car still ran.  Sort of like breaking a leg and not like losing the function of a liver, like Dan did.  I remember Dan’s liver doctor talking to me about using kidney dialysis to help Dan’s failing kidneys kick back.  “It’s like putting new brakes in a car when you really need a new transmission.  Don’t get your hopes up,” he said…From The Jim and Dan Stories 2002

13. Journalism 101 “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry. It’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the window and find out which one is true.” – Seen on Facebook

____________Thirteen Thursday