otoh

I was just reading a brief bio of novelist Russel Banks and this caught my eye:

He managed to win a scholarship to college but he felt so out of place there that he quit after eight weeks and moved to Florida. He considered joining the communist revolution going on in Cuba but he got married instead.

What’s that — choosing to be an inlaw rather than an outlaw? He was in a combative mood so he figured he would fight with her instead of the Cuban government? I can picture him with his hands like a balance… go to war… go to the altar…. People are are often suspicious that I never married. I think next time it comes up, I’ll say I’m a revolutionary.

A bachelor is someone that never made the same mistake once.

Actually, I used to be married to my job. And then I found out it was cheating on me.

Technorati tags: sequitur?~blog~personal~otoh

Inspired by this post from a couple days ago, here’s a classic peace sign for you. Here’s hoping….

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh~photo~hnt~otohPhoto: Peace

I saw this on another site and lost the link. Let me know if you saw it somewhere so I can give proper credit.

I have to admit I had to look twice before I caught it. (Claiming I was distracted by a shiny object would not be far from the truth….) Is this corporate sponsorship or do face painters need a proof-reader?

This is a screen capture from a story on cnn.com recently. I was born in 1959 [shut up] so scenes of protest were part of my childhood. And I know that a peace sign looks like this

and the logo for Mercedes looks like this

Oops. Given the girl’s apparent age, we have to excuse her. But I bet her parents didn’t let her out of the house looking like that….

Peace, man….

Technorati tags: Give [fill_in_blank] a chance~blog~personal~otoh

She has a runner’s form, long and lean. Thin ankles and round calves. Long legs and slender waist. Pony tail swinging with each step. A few stray hairs sticking to the sweat on the nape of her neck. Her breath is measured to her stride.

“Poetry in motion,” I think as she runs and runs and runs. Her skin glistens and I feel the heat. For hours, it seems, I watch her body move. Just a few paces behind. And then I stop. Her feet pound the ground and the blood pounds in my head and everything fades away slowly. As I realize. She isn’t — she never was — running toward me.

Technorati tags: Runner~blog~personal~otoh

I just can’t help believing
When she slips her hand in my hand
And it feels so small and helpless
That my fingers fold around it like a gloveAnd I just can’t help believing
When she’s whisperin’ her magic
And her tears are shinin’ honey sweet with love

This time the girl
is gonna stay (this time the girl is gonna stay)
This time the girl is gonna
stay for more than just a day

P.S. The photo doesn’t really match the lyric because those are both my hands, but I like the song better than the story I was going to tell today….

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh~photo~hnt~otohPhoto: Hands

I am a wordnerd. I like words — from word histories and origins to new words and their genesis. A few years back I picked up Family Words by Paul Dickson. [Get the Book] It’s a collection of words coined by and used within families. Sometimes these words enter mainstream usage. My favorite word from that book is niblings to refer to nieces and nephews. (Since brothers and sisters are siblings….)

On my list to pick up on my next trip to the bookstore is Word Fugitives by Barbara Wallraff. Get THIS Book Based on a column for The Atlantic Monthly and excerpted over there, word fugitives are “holes” in the language — common phenomena that should have a word, but don’t yet. Wallraff and her readers relate the holes they have discovered and suggestions for words to fill the hole.

NPR recently held a contest “to find a word that describes the phenomenon of almost sneezing.” The results are posted here with many examples of suggested words. The most common submission was snizzle. The first runner-up (decided by All Things Considered staff) was an-tissue-pation. And the winner is sniff-hanger.

Technorati tags: Word Fugitives~blog~personal~otoh

When spring officially started this afternoon the weather in central Florida was mostly clear, winds from the south at around 9 mph, and 83 degrees (F). Some other places had snow today. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ….. I’m sorry. That’s mean. You can laugh at us when the next hurricane hits or when we’re sweltering in 90+ temperatures and humidity.

Cruise on over to The Daily Bitch where aka_monty has put me in her image game. Sorry, no autographs please.

Technorati tags: Sprung~blog~personal~otoh

Jamie Raskin is a Democratic candidate for State Senate in Maryland. Since I’m mostly apolitical and have never lived in Maryland, I normally wouldn’t take any notice of him except for this: There is a proposed amendment to their state constitution (Senate Bill 690) that would prohibit same-sex marriages. Mr. Raskin is a proponent of marriage equality. [Pundits say that gay people have the right to be as miserable as everyone else, but I digress....] On March 1, Raskin was testifying before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs asked him whether marriage discrimination against gay people is required by “God’s Law.” And he answered,

“Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn’t place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

Technorati tags: This Guy Gets It~blog~personal~otoh

Yeah, it’s St. Patty’s Day, which means there will be a lot of people puking green tonight and tomorrow….

Also, on this day on 1901 there was an exhibit at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris of paintings by Vincent van Gogh. He had achieved some acclaim before his suicide about 11 years earlier, but his fame really spread following this exhibit.

According to Wikipedia:

He is popularly known as much for his embodiment of the myth of the tortured romantic artist as for his work, which is seen as the visual expression of his life. Three of the most widespread myths about him are that he cut off his ear (it was only the lobe), that he killed himself because no one recognised his talent (in the last six months of his life he received generous accolades which he found very disturbing), and that he painted as he did because he was mad (he painted during his lucid periods).

I find the myth of the tortured artist especially interesting because it is so persistent, because I have some aspirations in creative pursuits, and I have questionable mental stability. (But I’m feeling much better now….)

I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. ~Don McLean

Technorati tags: It Ain’t Easy Being~blog~personal~otoh

Sticking to the Green Theme suggestion, I wrote before about the color of my eyes. Today I’m green all over

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh~photo~hnt~otohPhoto: Green All Over