Loose Leaf Notes

1. A mystery person left these drawn hearts on my car.

2. Maybe they were praying that I’d go to a car wash.

3.With the dirt roads of country living, it looks like I just Let it Be too long.

4. Also, the picture sort of fits the paradox of praying for peace in these corrosive and war filled times.

5. This weekend, I went to a children’s (2) birthday party and did get some relief chatting with friends, watching young mothers take care of their babies and watching a throng of children play.

6. Yes, 3 and 5 make 8, as in he 8 the whole thing.

7. I also went to a meeting of Wise Woman minds.

8. Some mornings I don’t want to get out of bed: I prolong my sleep / for the lure of escape / from the doom of false prophets / who impose their beliefs / who stake their claims / on the bodies of women / and degrade individual freedoms.

9. “Is this the Broligarchy’s first world war?-AI-guided weapons, two out-of-control authoritarians, no legal authority and a toxic mess of masculinity: welcome to the manosphere’s first major conflict – brand is chaos. That’s the defining quality of everything that Donald Trump is doing. It’s also the state of our information system. They’re both marked by the same absence of rationality, order, logic, rules and signposts to the future. We are living in an eternal present, an unending scroll of news, videos, cats falling off logs, bombs blowing up apartment blocks and perfectly smooth foreheads speaking at the camera as they narrate the narrowest of world views. There is no sense to be had in a media landscape that both mirrors and enables the political turbulence we’re living through. We’re trapped inside this never-ending algorithmic scroll where our dopamine-fuelled lust for the endless new is Trump’s literal foreign policy. In three months, we’ve careered around the world in his wake from Venezuela to Greenland to Iran. Next stop Cuba…” More from Carole Cadwalladr on Substack HERE. 

10. Years ago, I was a Secret Santa, anonymously leaving a young mother a $50 check in an envelope. $50 was like $100 today.

11. Outcomes are influenced by conscious observers / Intentions conspire to bring natural order / Everything bends to synergistic making / Every word has a place in the giving and taking. Read my poem Poetry’s Epilogue in its entirety HERE.

12. A dreadlocked country boy who grew up fur trapping, raising fighting cocks, driving his dad’s 18-wheeler, and playing golf, Joey Jones is a ceramic artist shaped by paradox.  His art education has run the gamut from prestigious to folk.  His functional moonshine jugs, hand painted with Southwest Virginia motifs of hounds, raccoons, rabbits, and cocks, reflect the influence of his country upbringing.  His dramatic and sometimes disturbing sculptures are inspired by ancient Chinese bronze tea ceremony jars and explore themes of religion, politics, and eroticism. Read more about my friend potter friend Joey who recently passed on HERE.

13. The following was first published at Floyd Times on March 4, 2026 – “Join the Convent and see the world,” is a tagline that Martha Taylor, a former nun and pediatric nurse, has playfully told her friends. Taylor is the author of a new book, The Color of Covering: A Life Changing African Adventure, a 172 page personal memoir that chronicles her life of service and self-discovery, and spans continents and cultures. – More from my Floyd Times story   Life in the Convent and Beyond HERE.

____________Thirteen Thursday