This is a prisma-altered pic of the Plateau up above Jim and Jan’s place. It was one of the most beautiful walks I was ever on and you can’t beat the company.
wandering
Month: February 2021
Please check the number / words fail / the telecom song
Your call cannot be completed as dialled
please check the number and try again
Your call cannot be completed as dialled
please check the number and try again
You have reached a number to which long distance charges apply
You have reached a number to which long distance charges apply
What will it take before I can get through to you
what will it take for you to see
what will it take before I can get through to you
and what will it take from me
what will it take from me
Words fail
you walked away
you walked away from me
This is the sin that goes before all others
this is the sin I see in me
this is the pride that says that you will turn around
and look at me…. Turn around and look at me
Words fail
you walked away
you walked away from me
Your call cannot be completed as dialled
please check the number and try again
Your call cannot be completed as dialled
please check the number and try again
You have reached a number to which long distance charges apply
You have reached a number to which long distance charges apply
A comment about the unborn
Not afraid to believe
This is a unitarian hymn. If you want the lyrics email a hundred dollars to allegra sloman at the house of gmail. This is not a sign I believe in god…. it’s just a hymn.
If you are wondering what’s happening, I think a lot of unitarian musicians are sockholes about copyright, so I’m asserting my right to be pissy about that by demanding money the way they do.
Kanno Sugako
Kanno Sugako was a Japanese Anarcho-Feminist.
Radicalized by rape, she tried to assassinate the Emperor. Maybe the second world war in the pacific wouldn’t have happened if she’d been successful.
walkies with OTTERS
Two decades I’ve been going to Deer Lake Park and this was the first time I’ve ever seen otters. I’ve seen their slides a million times, but not them. They looked me right in the face. I thought my soul had been yoinked up to heaven, I was so happy. And do you know where they were? WHERE THEY COULD BE SEEN WHEN WE GOT OUT OF THE CAR.
Now that’s Mother Nature excelling at yanking my chain.
Jeff got to see one too.
It’s Monday so….
yuppers time for a maudlin poem
The House by the Side of the Road
by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)
There are hermit
souls that live withdrawn
In the peace of their self-content;
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran;-
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house
by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban;-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house
by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears-
Both parts of an infinite plan;-
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladdened
meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my
house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish- so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?-
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Catnip on my shoes
This song was part of a three song day I had in Toronto long about 1983. The splendour of the true was another one and I can’t remember the third although it might have been the con committee waltz which I don’t remember anything about now.
Think I’ll rub some catnip on my shoes and go strolling through my neighbourhood
my neighbourhood
it does me good to see those furry felines fling their faces at my feet
I’m a potentate and it feels so sweet
SPCA’s suspicious
it looks like cru -el -ty
but the cats aren’t yowling for my blood or for a government inquiry
whenever I rub catnip on my shoes and go strolling through my neighbourhood
the man at the food truck
This is a picture regarding the mask policy at a food truck. It reads
MASKS GO OVER MOUTH & NOSE
it’s been a year, I could potty train a dog faster than this.
I forgot it You won’t hear me I can’t breathe
GO GET IT be LOUDER Grow up
Survey – Music
If you had your life to do over, would you have kept up that musical instrument you learned as a child?
Would you take up an instrument or take singing lessons?
Would you try at least once to be part of a band?
Company Dump
I don’t ask too much of life, I’m a regular kind of a guy
but I got a job that makes me scream and yell and cry
my coworkers are panicking, don’t know which way to jump
but I’m hiding in the men’s room and I’m taking a company dump
WHEN I’m feeling ner-vous, when I’m in a slump
I flush my little cares away and take a company dump
WHEN my work life hands me a little plate of lumps
I flush my little cares away and take a company dump
The boss looks like a thundercloud he’s storming up and down
But I saw it coming and I’m nowhere to be found
the sports section is on my knee I’m in my favourite stall
and the only thought that’s in my head is a cheerful “Screw you all!”
WHEN I’m feeling ner-vous, when I’m in a slump
I flush my little cares away and take a company dump
WHEN my work life hands me a little plate of lumps
I flush my little cares away and take a company dump
What am I supposed to do I’m just a normal slob
it’s hard to keep my sanity and also keep my job
I am past my eyes in debt, my wife is up a stump
and the only peace I ever get is taking a company dump
WHEN I’m feeling ner-vous, when I’m in a slump
I flush my little cares away and take a company dump
WHEN my work life hands me a little plate of lumps
I flush my little cares away and take a company dump
This song was written for JS when we both worked for SR Telecom. He had the worst undiagnosed case of ADD I’ve ever seen in my entire life and he took the paper with him into the bathroom and then said go ahead and read it afterward and I’m like NOOOOOOO
The Evening News is also about my job at SR Telecom, and there’s one other song I wrote while I was there that I really like…. maybe you’ll see it tomorrow.
Blue blue
What, another lazy day
I continue to plug away at pre-posts on the blog. I am sleeping rather more and rather harder than I normally do, so maybe it’s a bug – not much sign of it – or maybe I’m just blue. I definitely feel better than I did at the beginning of the week.
Posted another fic on AO3. It was within 500 words of being finished so I polished and removed “wait, what?”s and added clarifications and removed extraneous words and synced up all the spellings and got rid of the britishisms and added the americanisms and shrank Dean’s spoken vocabulary (absolutely essential if you want the character voice to work properly) & ensured that you always knew who was speaking; now it’s sitting at 50 hits and 4 kudos. There’s character death in it so it’ll never be as popular as ‘le big one’.
tired now, think I’ll snooze
nice nap now flower rolls
Language revitalization
Housewife’s Lament
this is also copyright; most of the verses, with deletions and shifts for singability, are in rise up singing. Other versions of this have a traditional melody which is sung faster and is more cheerful. I personally think my melody supports the words better, but as is always the case your mileage may vary wildly from mine.
John and Paul and I used to stand together and sing this in three part harmony.
I really really miss John.