Fortune Cookie
“But, to the extent that your sanity can bear it, always keep an eye on the corners, the edges, and especially learn to watch for those infinitesimally tiny figures starting to shuffle around near the horizon. Because a lot of the things that seem ridiculously small and inconsequential right now will soon cast a shadow that millions of people are chasing for decades. It’s just that we’re never sure which tiny figure that will be.”
—Merlin Mann, Watching The Corners
Static & Crickets & Cobwebs & Ghosts
So, it’s been kind of dead around here, huh, folks? (Are there folks? Anymore? Anyone? Oops.)
Allow me, if you will, to sweep aside the cobwebs and triumphantly announce the reason for all of this dust. After blogging for eight years, freelancing for six, not updating this site for two: we’re taking this operation to a whole other level. That is, after nine months of hard, hard labor, during which I could have more easily:
1. had a kid,
2. done something else kind of as hard,
this site is about to be quietly laid to rest, domain and all, and a whole new bright, shiny, lovely one to take its place.
Even with coding my little heart out between projects, though, I am my own most demanding client, and so the new site isn’t going to be ready to roll out on the new domain for another couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter, lay odds and wagers, and keep an eye out for things to start looking mighty different around here.
Huzzah!
Love & Marriage
“What was that terrible thing you told me about Mrs. Tolstoy?”
“Copied War & Peace for him six times by hand. But you know, it would beat copying most books six times by hand.”
— Ursula K. LeGuin, “Hand, Cup, Shell”
Oh ten
I came here to post another quote when I realized that all I’ve been doing is posting quotes. It’s not my fault, entirely; so many good things to do (and not to do) that I’ve been fall-down-asleep tired every spare minute. Like today, it’s bitterly cold and I’m piling on so many layers I could take a punch to no effect, just so I can treat Emily to the farm before she goes back to her icebox in Indiana.
Life is good. The new year has been successfully, absurdly, wildly rung, in disastrous ways that only serve to make it all the more memorable. I love that the people I love best are with the best people; ones that, even amidst shitstorms of great magnitude, can drive around lost and stranded in the middle of New Years’ night and curse the insanity with incredulous laughter.
And now, back home, early and right on time. Frostbite and flannel, mud-caked jeans and boots; how can anyone fault me for wanting to be only here?
I don’t have a single new year resolution to make.
I can absolutely guarantee, the naps ARE better too
“You should see this place. Man, it’s so beautiful. I mean a Wednesday afternoon at 3:47 is fall-down-the-stairs stunning. We learned to see this. We watched the fireflies come out on the porch and missed the new CSI. Truthfully, we barely look at the television anymore. It’s a side effect of the new place—there’s just so much to do and we’re scared if we let ourselves get distracted we’ll miss the fireflies. We can only take so much tragedy, you see.”
— “We’re not from around here,” Cold Antler Farm
On The Road
The WSJ talks with Cormac McCarthy:
“Your future gets shorter and you recognize that. In recent years, I have had no desire to do anything but work and be with [son] John. I hear people talking about going on a vacation or something and I think, what is that about? I have no desire to go on a trip. My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That’s heaven. That’s gold and anything else is just a waste of time.”
And on productivity, “Your busiest day might be watching some ants carrying bread crumbs. Someone asked Flannery O’Connor why she wrote, and she said, ‘Because I was good at it.’ And I think that’s the right answer. If you’re good at something it’s very hard not to do it. In talking to older people who’ve had good lives, inevitably half of them will say, ‘The most significant thing in my life is that I’ve been extraordinarily lucky.’ And when you hear that you know you’re hearing the truth. It doesn’t diminish their talent or industry. You can have all that and fail.”
I didn’t get along so well with All the Pretty Horses (punctuation!), but this makes me want to read The Road.
