Poem accepted!

Four and Twenty will be publishing my short poem "The Nature of the Parts" in their May issue.

Early

We deserve early what we await late.

The Persona (Toltz)

People are always saying that a person's character is unchangeable, but mostly it's the persona that doesn't change, not the person, and underneath that changeless mask exists a creature who's evolving like crazy, mutating out of control. I tell you, the most consistent person you know is more than likely a complete stranger to you, blossoming and sprouting all sorts of wings and branches and third eyes. You could sit beside that person in an office cubicle for ten years and not see the growth spurts going on right under your nose.

Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole

Clarity

In the realm of the confused, clarity is king.

Delusions

Delusions aren't sexy...except for love.

Viral stupidity

Stupidity taints everyone around the origin.

Last minute food

Spicy mushroom chicken with quinoa.

On authority

Authority is born of hierarchy, not wisdom.

Beginnings

Savor beginnings, because nothing ends well.

Without death

Without death, there is no tragedy, only inconvenience.

On technology

Technology is the extension of the senses and the mechanisms of mobility and manipulation. We enlarge ourselves through technology via the proliferation of our awareness of and associated mastery over the world. The future, one can infer, will consist of one of the following conditions: individuals reduced to insignificance as a node caste or demigods empowered beyond imagining by a linked and leveraged world.

What, then?

What is death to one who has not escaped the grasp of ignorance and negativity, who has not striven to complicate and simplify his mind and his relations with the else? Opportunity evaporated. But to he who has added layer on layer, to she who has etched an electrochemical pattern into the fluid limestone walls of Plato's chamber, a marker of perspective and purpose, what, then, is death? The ink that lies down to become the line is made impotent by knowledge of the advance of the eraser.

Ideas

Embrace ideas; avoid systems.

On women and religion

It never ceases to amaze (and, I must admit, amuse) me to see women sympathetic to and supporting of religions which they did not create and in which they are allowed to participate only in the most limited and demeaning fashion. A church service is, perhaps, the most widespread sublimation of female passion ever perpetrated upon the inhabitants of the earth.

Ills

By separating yourself too far from domesticated ills,
you leave yourself more vulnerable to wild ones.

The 21st century thus far

The predominant activity of the 21st century is, it appears, the creation and emplacement of artificial and often frivolous and inexplicable barriers to progress. The self-defeating strategy writ large.

Understand the criteria

Every judgment is suspect (and subject to rejection) until one understands the criteria upon which it was based.

Think instead

If you need to rely on guilt for a moral guide, you are not only incredibly unthoughtful but you are forever playing two moves behind the game.

Tonight's dinner

Creamy Dijon Chicken, from this recipe.

Also, pickled beets, a deviled egg, and a salad (not pictured).

Even better

I am very good at following instructions. I'm even better at ignoring them when I think they are ill-advised.

Specificity

Death is a reorganization into a less specific arrangement.

Asparagus popover

Made with fresh garden asparagus from this recipe.

More baking

Blueberry coffee cake, from this recipe.

BBQ

Pulled pork sandwiches (using a variation of this sauce)

and homemade pound cake with fresh strawberries for dessert.

I uploaded 10 new poems from March.