Compulsively Aimless

Every few months, I clear the scraps out of my journal and put them outside for your amusement. Here's a few just in time for Black Friday Clearance.  Our prices are insane.   Timing is Everything You feel it in your bones Time to let the dogs roam Time to quit throwing stones Time for boys and girls to come home Time for a grandson to pick up the phone. Sun Watcher Travel east to see where the sun rises Travel west to see where the sun sets Travel north or south      to see if it will reach you high or low.   Quiet Clam up Pipe down Shut up   The Battle of Yellow No. 2 Ft. Ticonderoga My weapon struggles to cross the blank pages and the scale the heights of meaning only to lose the element surprise and forfeit my dreams of glory.   Orange to Black   Orange sunset-- you get a couple of moments of color before the big black of night.   Follow Your Dreams   Dreams can be balloons that pull you up to the clouds      or l...

  Horological Aristocrat             a Cento All the clocks tik but a grandfather clock talks he is always companionable never obvious his words blend with the mood of the moment When the mind begins to tire he seems to say "Don't press, have a rest." but the evening, he says softly, "Forget, relax." He is quietly persistent but never monotonous murmuring, he gives a sense of well-being and pleasant detachment from the thing we call progress. Source: Old Clocks: For Modern Use,  with a Guide to Their Mechanism, Edward Wenham

  Thanksgiving Traveler Some souls travel as radio and TV forecasters warn of heavy rain in the Pacific Northwest and snow in the higher elevations. Some souls at home search  for family recipes from the comfort of a messy kitchen while outside their window, oak trees shake in the same gusty winds that bring icy conditions to the upper Midwest. What is it about Thanksgiving where there is a certain ritual rejoicing about travel, traffic, and bad weather? We celebrate the sacrament as pilgrim and host. Every traveler is on a hero's journey a shared struggle from the Mayflower to the driveway arrival where we sit down together hold hands and say a blessing.  

    The madness continues in the pointless exercise to generate band names. Today, I'm repurposing mathematical terms. Geometry alone would supply enough band names for the next generation.  Here are some of my favorites. Higher Math Bands   Absolute Value Arbitrarily Large Binomials Coefficients Common Factors Cube Roots Fibonacci Sequence Denominators/Numerators (must perform together) Derivatives Empty Set Exponents Floor Function Ideal Theory Imaginary Unit Initial Conditions Improper Fractions Irrational Integers MeanMedianMode Natural Numbers Obtuse Angles Probabilities Standard Unit Subset Tensor Product X-Intercept Geometric Bands Angle of Depression Annulus Bisectors Center of Rotation Circular Functions Glide Reflection Major Arc Ordered Triple Pappus's Theorem Platonic Solids Sector of a Circle Self-Similarity Standard Position Zero Dimensions    

Escape Fate  Walking on the beach  In the dead of August  I met a fish Who told me I could escape  and live without my Fate cut away from the gods’ woven fabric. “What’s the catch?” I asked the fish. You will have nothing  but your own choices I stood stock still  the waves lapping at my feet and the fish long gone. 

From Bottom Dog Press, A Midwestern Heart, my first book of poetry. 

                  I'm continuing my never ending pointless exercise to generate band names. Today, I'm repurposing grammatical terms and fonts. Some ideas in the grammar category: Subordinate Clauses Third Person Diphthongs  The Elipses  Idioms Personal Pronouns Indirect Objects Past Participles Prepositions Subjective Case Passive Voice Past Perfect Infinitives Em Dashes With Fonts, its a target rich environment and I couldn't make up my mind so I had to restrict my choices to a small sample: Arial Black Chalkdusters Trebuchets Comic Sans Bold Italics ALL CAPS Also, if you haven't seen the genius of Elle Cordova's videos on fonts. There are a must. Random bonus name: Les Majeste Form a band and take a name. Goodbye for now. s s ttps://x.com/ellerhymes/status/1751280764023701939

  One thing I enjoy about a physical book versus a digital version is that the book can share its own story. I recently finished, Wind in this Sahara by R.V.C. Bodley purchased for one dollar at a thrift store in Alexandria, Virginia. It’s the story of an Englishman, between the world wars, who decides to live among the bedouin tribes of north Africa for seven years, apparently on the advice of TE Lawrence.    The book itself was printed in the United States in1944 and, because it was during a war time in America, required lighter paper, and the text was more condensed on each page to save paper. On its inner pages is an inscription that it had been donated as a gift to the Atchison, Kansas public library by Mr. and Mrs. John Breaky (sp?) and the librarian's notation in pencil assigning a Dewey Decimal designation. Although the library card is no longer in the pocket and there's telling how many times it had been borrow out, it leaves you to wonder how many readers...