C.B. Potts's Blog, page 10

Be Glad You Are Not Here

It is one of those Mondays where I am full of Solzhenitsyn & Bruce Sterling - you must read The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things - & look for Mikhail Khodorokovsky; relatively freshly out of Putin's prisons, will he change Russia as we know it? (Spoiler: no.)

The sheer, utter, overwhelming meaningless of what I do wears some days. This is one of those days. But there is coffee and the wood stove is cranking and over the weekend, we got cider donuts from the orchard & really, that should...

On Travelogues

When you pass through a place, and afterward, you write about your experiences and your observations thereof, it's a travelogue. Travelogues are among my favorite types of literature; Joseph Campbell traveling through Ireland is a joy to read.

However, travelogues have their limitations. They are, by their very nature, idiosyncratic. The landscapes described, the characters detailed, the experiences had - they may not be there for the next traveler. Travelogues catalog moments that exist only...

In Memorium

Ash was wldrose on here, and over the years her wisdom, grace, compassion and wit have appeared in many comments. When I am in a place when I am not so much with the crying, I will collect them all together so we can have them.

Okay, I Hope I Did This Right

This should be how you go sign up for the TinyLetter thing, if such a thing should interest you. I like this venue because it's a good space for short, poetic pieces - I'm still learning how to do pictures, formatting, etc. I don't know if you sign up now if you'll get the letter I just sent out this morning or if you have to wait for the next one - can someone let me know?

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Thursday Morning

At 12:30 last night, I would have given anything, up to and including the internal organs of random passers by, for a sleeping pill. But one of the really nifty benefits about living out in the sticks is that there's nowhere in a reasonable driving distance where the insomniac can go for relief. The internet hasn't quite gotten to the point where we can wire our medicine cabinets up and ensure there's always what we need when we need it; that being said, I'm not sure I really want anyone on t...

Embracing the Power of And

I realized I may be able to address some of my concerns without leaving LJ entirely; perhaps in this case, 'and' is better than 'or'.

That being said, I am going to take some time to do some longer thought pieces elsewhere - probably Medium - where they can be seen by a larger audience, without the bigger context of roughly 10 years worth of blog entries; there's been a lot of water under the bridge, you know? I'll put links to those pieces as they go live.

I'm also very, very interested in Ti...

I'm Thinking of Leaving Livejournal

I've got my reasons, and am pondering what to do with my freewriting/blogging next. It wouldn't be bad to have a more robust, visible, perhaps branded platform - at the same time I'm very, very intrigued by the intimacy offered by Tiny Letter, which is like blogging except entries are emailed to people who sign up for them. Maybe I should do both?

What do you think?

Checking In

Hey everybody. Things have been good, I've just been mega, mega, mega busy in a mad scramble to pay for Harmony's glasses (did you know you shouldn't carry eyeglasses in your pocket? It's true!) school taxes and all that other fun stuff. Add in a free bonus side order of stupid vehicles, mid-life angst, and everything that's on the news, and keeping my head down & writing sales copy is just about the best thing I could be doing right now. Thank goodness they pay me for it. Expect things to re...

Wednesday Morning

Molly Brown was unsinkable, and so am I. Things get tough sometimes, but they've been tougher. Onward, upward, forward isn't always easy, but it's necessary and any thing that is necessary gets done, usually by stout women in sensible shoes, and I just happen to be one of those.

Well, this morning, I'm barefoot, but you know what I mean.

Do you know what they were showing on Al Jazeera just this morning?

Off the African coast young men scoop sand from the ocean bottom and bring it up to dump in...

Jeff Smith, Joseph Campbell, and Me.

When you travel, Joseph Campbell advises, stay out of the valleys. That's where the darkness is. Go instead from peak to peak; the journey will be better. He was writing about traveling through Ireland, but I think it's a good way to live your life as well.

Another thing to learn from Campbell is to go ahead and be delighted with the world you find and the people who are in it; whatever they show you is a story to be told, a narrative to be treasured. Reading Campbell describing the landscape...