May 7th, 2016 → 5:36 am
“Such wind as scatters young [women] through the world
To seek their fortunes farther than at home,
Where small experience grows.” – The Taming of the Shrew
There has been a lot of press around Malia Obama’s decision to take a “gap year” between high school and college. I would just like to note that I took a gap year 20 years ago now, before it was ever made cool by a president’s daughter. Mine was between college and graduate school and I worked at a minimum wage job for half of it, and for the other half drove around the U.S. in a car worth $300, staying at youth hostels and camp grounds, and visiting 44 out of the 50 U.S. states. It was amazing. And yes, everyone should do it.
May 3rd, 2016 → 5:00 am
“O that this too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew.” – Hamlet
Shakespeare has numerous quotes on suicide. Many of the best authors often do! I’ve been reading Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery this week, and came across one of the most beautiful, accurate descriptions of nonemotional suicide I’ve ever come across. I quote only a part of it here: (for full impact you should probably read the whole thing)
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Other
April 29th, 2016 → 5:51 am
“Ships are but boards…” – Merchant of Venice
Upon which, apparently, to put supremely silly names.
March 17th, 2016 → 6:04 am
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” – Hamlet
Or, as The New York Times noted this morning – NOT. For yet another year Denmark has come in at No. 1 on the World Happiness Report. In large part, apparently, because of a relative lack of inequality (at least as compared to much of the rest of the West). Go Denmark!
Oh, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day ☘️
March 4th, 2016 → 5:34 am
“A woman is a dish for the gods.” – Antony and Cleopatra
I guess March is Women’s History Month. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that March was supposed to be a celebration of women’s history; it certainly doesn’t get much play. Anyhow, in honor of this, I tried to find an applicable quote from Shakespeare, but it was hard! Shakespeare has a ton of quotes about women, of course, but most of them are actually rather degrading. Even the one chosen above is sort of degrading. I’d rather women be less a dish for the gods, then an admired member of human kind. It’s 2016 already – let’s focus on women’s minds and not their looks please!
February 25th, 2016 → 6:16 am
“We are but warriors for the working day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field.” – Henry V
It was a snow day here in St. Louis yesterday, and the whole family stayed inside playing games and watching movies. Now, alas, it is back to work…through wet, sluggish fields.
Filed under: Blog & Other & Self/My Life
February 21st, 2016 → 6:37 am
Rosalind: “Not true in love?”
Celia: “Yes, when he is in, but I think he is not in.” As You Like It
I didn’t blog about Valentine’s Day, but here’s an entertaining after Valentine’s Day post. Apparently Goodwill stores in Florida and Nevada have a campaign going about exs that break up with you on Valentine’s Day – Don’t Hate (them), Donate (their stuff)! I love the image of hundreds of jilted women (and men) throwing insensitive ex-lover’s stuff in boxes and giving them away to charity.
February 10th, 2016 → 5:09 am
“The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.” – Hamlet
I get much of my inspiration regarding what to blog about from reading the newspaper and keeping up with current events. But these days, all you can read about are the U.S. presidential primaries! It’s as if the entire rest of the world has disappeared! So I have no real inspiration for what to blog about this morning. I’ll instead focus on the cold winter weather. It snowed yesterday and my poor son woke up insisting that it meant he could stay home from school. I had to explain to him that just because there was new snow on the ground, that didn’t automatically mean there was no school. I’m not sure he ever really got over the disappointment of having to get up out of his warm bed and face the day…
Filed under: Blog & Other & Politics/Politicians & Self/My Life
January 25th, 2016 → 5:36 am
“When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.” – Love’s Labor’s Lost
Ahhhhh, this winter weather. Might as well sing a little ditty as you try to keep warm.
(Note: Dick is blowing on his nails to keep warm. And the “parson’s saw” is a sermon.)
January 19th, 2016 → 5:08 am
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.” – Sonnet 60
Classes start again at the university and winter vacation is most certainly at an end (really, it was over for me weeks earlier when I attended a conference in San Francisco, but still). It is amazing how fast time can fly. The good news is, the blog posts are back!