Where did PRAGMATIK go?

I screwed up some stuff, and I had to clear the Wordpress database. Yeah, that means that I have to re-import, re-categorize and re-upload photos to all 400 plus posts. Yeah, I’m wondering if it’s worth it, since blogging has really become my narcissistic way of living with an audience. Not sure if that’s good for me, and so many people that actually know in real life (real life!) read it, that I find myself censoring myself to an increasing and alarming degree. Plus, it’s just become a very boring blog because I’m a grad student and — thus — lead a very boring life. I don’t write poetry anymore, and I pulled my bass out today for only what I think is maybe the tenth time since I moved to Illinois. I don’t read enough or write letters anymore or take enough photos.

I’m told I should still post photos. So I have Flickr. Maybe I’ll get a Flickr Pro account, etc.

Maybe I need a break of blogging or this blog. Maybe this break will be a weekend, maybe a week, maybe forever.

Maybe I won’t take a break at all.

Who knows? If you still read this crap, thank you.

Photo Friday: Baby.

I’m going to get crap for posting this at all, let alone under the “Baby” challenge, but enough folks are going to post photos of babies, puppies and kitties. Besides, newly born and newly deceased are not all that different. And I think Uncle Walt explains it best:

“The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots…”

Looks like we’re in for stohmay wetha.

Yes, in the middle of February, we are under both a Tornado Watch and a Wind Advisory. This used to drive me crazy when we had the black car. Wind means stuff falling on your precious shiny black car that can scratch dent smash it. Maybe hail, which can do the same. All bad if you are the kind of person who worries about stupid shit. And that was me. My legs and bike are all inside and safe and dry. So bring it on, Mr. Thunderstorm, you bitch.

Let's all shoot our friends.

I would like someone to help me prove a point, that point being that members of the Bush administration can get away with almost anything. Rather, I don’t want to prove a point so much as test a hypothesis. Proving a point makes it sound like I want to be proven right. The ramifications of being right in this case border on unbearable, so I think it’s more of a hypothesis. I am a moderately strict vegetarian (no meat, but eggs and milk), and I am not exactly into hunting. Aside from shooting guns at targets being among the few manly (!!) things I’m good at, I don’t go carrying or playing with guns very often. Really, I swear. Anyway. Okay. Now here’s where I need help. I need someone willing to go hunting with me so that I can shoot them. No, seriously, I need someone to go hunting with me, and I’ll let you shoot me in the chest. I want to see if you get charged with assault, with being an irresponsible idiot, some gun charge, etc. I don’t really know much at all about The Law, but it seems like shooting someone is a pretty bad thing to do, even if you did it by accident and even if you say you’re sorry. What happens if this dude dies? Will they charge the Vice President with involuntary manslaughter or some such offense? Or will they let him go? Is there some loophole in American Law (whatever that is) that makes killing a man not a crime, just because you said (but can’t really prove) that you didn’t mean it? I’m not saying Dicky did it on purpose, but would anyone believe me if I shot a dude and said it was an accident? What happens if Dicky goes to jail? I’m sure lefty bloggers (like me, though I rarely blog about political gear) are eating this all up and hoping the old dude dies just to see what happens (not really wishing for that, though, thanks). I’m sure the righty bloggers are trying to blame this in the liberal media and those America-hating bloggers. Yeah, well, you know, Dicky was thinking about the damage that the evil liberal media and anti-American bloggers do to the greatest country on earth, and he got distracted while toting his gun around shooting things. It’s our fault he shot that poor dude. I have really fallen out of the political loop, especially after too many lazy assed Americans didn’t vote and got us four more years of Mr. Winkydoodle, so I don’t pretend I have much to add to the discussion. I try to be practical — pragmatik. So my contribution will be my experiement, for which I need your help. Let’s go out and get me shot! We can pick up a gun at Walmart, or any pickup truck in the parking lot there, in these parts. But, dudes, I’m not paying for your lawyer if you get charged. Sorry.

Happy V-Day!

(This is a photo from June 1999, when we were 18 and 19, together less than two years.) We played/are playing hooky from work and responsibility today, like we always do for Valentine’s Day. Slept until 11:00, had a big breakfast of frittatas (my specialty!) and gifts. Rather than totally play into the whole “spend money to prove your love” thing, we do a little V-Day of a small gift. I am the lucky repicient of the gnome book I’ve been wanting, and my Valentine scored a set of Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils — we’re strange, yes, a little. It’s fun and fresh, and that’s what’s important. For our first Valentine’s Day ever, we went hiking. Then we had to be apart (long distance relationship thing) for two years, and we sorta spent most of the rest of the V-Days after doing the sorts of things lovers do, like dinner, movies and the like. We resumed the hiking tradition two years ago. So we are taking a trip to the Marberry Arboretum which is a short walk from here but where we’ve never been because we were too lazy to go. While we don’t have any snow for photos and merriment, we have sun and a nicely warm day to enjoy. And my camera batteries are charged, for some photos to share with you lovely people.

Jealousy.

So New York got a record-breaking blizzard or some such. Baltimore City is buried. All we got were some some dustings. Like flirtations from the person you want for Valentine’s Day, only they are forced, half-assed, hardly there, and so you don’t even want them. After several grey days that didn’t give me any snow to take photos of or to construct dirty snowmen and snowwomen, I’m glad the sun’s out today. But I know, buried people with buried cars who can’t get to their hurried jobs will tell me that I don’t know what I’m asking for, that I’m better off. Like unhappily-joined people tell single people on Valentine’s Day, as if they really know other people’s hearts or as if everyone will fail to appreciate what they have like they have.

Photo Friday: Blur.

Dang, it’s hard to choose a blurry photo — ever-present caffeinated shaking makes so many blurry.

New blogs.

One of my favorite things to find on my favorite blogs is a group of links for my pleasure. But I feel like a nerd when I do it. For some reason. But screw it. I’m gonna do it anyway.

Flow to Bliss: Gary’s blog is back, with a new direction and gorgeous look. Inkmusings: Gary’s main blog is back. I’ve been looking forward to its return. Binky Boy: Fellow Carbondaley blogs his heart out.

Two years old.

Despite going on hiatus for nearly a month after while I posted at Blog Collective, this here blog is two years old tonight. Blogger to TypePad to Blogger to Wordpress. Etc. Who knows where it will be next week, or what the template/theme will look like tomorrow? Or when I’ll get off my ass and add the links, etc.?

Gnomish beard.

It seemed, at three this morning, that one of the gnomes on my desk looked like me, but with a whiter beard. And smaller, of course. It was like looking into a tiny mirror that made me appear as a two-inch desk ornament fifty years older than I am. Okay, so it wasn’t like a mirror. Funny though.

Photo Friday: Disguise.

My brother in New York, December 2004. I think this looks like a Rene' Magritte painting, in a nowhere near as good kind of way. We were waiting for a table at a fancy pizza joint, and I tied that yellow balloon to his bag on our way to our table, which he was not happy about. Funny, though. For Photo Friday: Disguise.

Story. Soon.

So I have a story about my Magic Gloves. My Magic Gloves and how Tuesday can't stand up to them. But I'll have to tell it later today or tonight. Been very hectic, moving the pencil blog to Wordpress, for reasons I can't talk about yet. You know the love I have for Blogger, etc. So you know it's for good reasons. Here's more snow village, cause it's going to hit 60 degrees today in Carbondale (cold planned for the weekend, though).