Harumph.

AHHHHHHHH!

I'm better now. Thank you.

Toodles.

Hierarchies

There are many days when being a graduate student feels just like being a member of the faculty. You teach classes. You grade students. You go to meetings. You sit on committees. You research. You write. You meet with colleagues. In each of these ways there is no discernible difference between the one life and the other, save that faculty get paid considerably more. Inevitably, however, someone or something returns you to reality, you are dashed out of your happy illusion, and you run smack into the existence of the hierarchy. This happened to me today, and in order to have catharsis, I intend to write about it.

Gilman Hall is the center piece of Hopkins' Homewood campus. It is the heart of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, though there are never any sciences present in Gilman. No, that lovely building serves as the home of the school's various humanities departments. In the new Gilman, that is the Gilman post-70 million dollar renovation, three of those departments share space. Specifically, the graduate students of the three departments share a lounge and a workspace room. While seated in the lounge this afternoon, I overheard a conversation between a member of our faculty and an administrator from another department. You see, the issue at hand was the large and lovely pantry (complete with fridge, cabinets, microwave, and sink station), which is a wonderful feature of the new Gilman. Alas, I heard, and had later confirmed, that this lovely space was for faculty and staff only. Graduate students were forbidden to use it. The tone of voice of the speaker made it incredibly clear that a hierarchy did exist, and we didn't measure up to the ability to use the "big people" pantry. Instead we have a destitute little unit of our own.

Ah, graduate life. The sooner you are over, the better.

Time to research.

Malfunctions

I had occasion to be in Lancaster, Pennsylvania this morning. One of the doctors that I see keeps his practice in that city, and so I make the trek once (or sometimes twice) a month, generally enjoying the ride up I-83, which is relatively scenic. This is especially true on bright, clear days, when various river valleys and woods are available for the eye to see. Unfortunately, today was not one of those days. The rain, which was much needed and appreciated, was coming down in proverbial buckets. This not only (of course) made the roads slick, but it also obscured the lovely vistas that help to make the ride to Lancaster a pleasant one.

My Oldsmobile Achieva, nicknamed Bessy, chugged merrily along all the way to Lancaster without trouble, fending off the rain droplets with a slightly squeaky swish-swish of my windshield wipers. Bessy also managed to get me all the way back across the Maryland border before something went wrong. Just as the rain was increasing, my right wiper, the one directly in the face of the front passenger, began to malfunction. It started to swing too far to the right, and then kept getting stuck in the down position. I still had my driver-side wiper, and so I didn't worry (immediately) about it. I had another appointment at Hopkins, and so I didn't have time to pull over and figure out (hah!) how to fix it. As I approached Hopkins, with the rain beginning to lessen, the right wiper suddenly flared to maniacal life. It swung all the way across my windshield, striking my working wiper, and entangling with it. This caused me to shout and plead with the wipers to stop their terrifying death dance. I did manage to get them to stop swinging, but now both wipers are bound to the down position.

I guess I know where I'll be tomorrow.

Oh, Bessy, what will I do with you...

How We Decide - a Review

I read a lot. Not every book that I read deserves a review. Some books are just too light, to uneventful, too prosaic to bother adding my opinion to the public records of the Internet. Jonah Lehrer's book, How We Decide, is not one of those.

How We Decide is an succinct examination of how brain structure and chemistry impact the decisions that we make. This book has changed the way I think about my own mind, and it has made me highly aware of my decision-making process. A few weeks ago I wrote about decision-making as it applied to food in my life. This is only one aspect of how Lehrer's book has affected my life.

I am a consummate procrastinator. I wait until the last minute to do just about everything. This has, in recent years, caused me no small amount of stress and aggravation. For years I have tried to break the ingrained habits created by years of putting things off. I have been mostly unsuccessful. In the past few weeks, however, and much of it due to Lehrer's book, I have begun to take stock of the decisions that I make and the reasons behind them. A particular section of How We Decide deals with the brain's love of instant rewards. Thus, Lehrer argues, we turn to those things that give us "immediate" benefit. Here is the example he used:

A psychologist gathered together some children. Each child was placed in a room, and provided a single marshmallow. The psychologist then told the children that they could eat the marshmallow now, but if they waited for him to return before doing so, they would get a second one. Now, who doesn't want two marshmallows. Most of the children, however, failed to wait. They were unable to control their impulses, those brain desires that demand immediate satisfaction.

I realized, after reading this part of the book, that I was living a life demanding immediate satisfaction instead of waiting for my second marshmallow. I want the greater rewards. I want the things that will be more satisfying. Putting off work, so that I can watch a funny video on YouTube means that I get instant gratification, but it is short lived. Soon I must contend with the fact that my work is not done, and by that time I have even less of a chance to do it. I am no longer putting off my work, or my projects because something fun and trivial raises its head. I will focus on my decisions. I will decide, not my impulses.

Of course, this is only a small part of what Lehrer argues, but he can tell you much better than I can. I give his book How We Decide my highest praise, and I think everyone who has an interest in how the human mind works should give this book a go.

Managing Your Time

Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University until he died of complications arising from pancreatic cancer. While watching TED videos on YouTube this weekend, I stumbled upon his lecture (from 2008) on time management. It was presented to an audience at the University of Virginia, where Pausch was a professor throughout most of the '90s. I've included the video below, but be aware that it clocks in at just over an hour. I cannot, however, recommend it highly enough. I have a problem with time. Most people have a problem with time. We don't treat time as the precious commodity it is. We squander hours in a way that we would never squander dollars. Randy Pausch speaks wittily and wisely in this lecture about the need to determine for ourselves what is really important. Only when we can decide what is important can we begin to prioritize our lives, and when our lives are thus organized we will stop wasting so much of them on things that are patently not-important to us. I do not have pancreatic cancer, and I have a reasonable hope that I will be alive for many years to come. But I don't want to waste any of the years I have.  I'm taking Randy Pausch's advice to heart, and I suggest you do the same.

Joys of Walking the Stacks

I get a visceral thrill from wandering the stacks in a library. First, there is the famous (or infamous) library smell, the scent of millions of pages slowly aging between their various bindings. Second, there is nothing quite like going to search for a book, and then seeing the book next to it, and the one next to it, and the one next to it. Related to one another, and yet potentially very different, the wanderer in the stacks can make connections between texts that the Internet searcher cannot. This is what I hope will become available for e-books. When we walk through an e-book library, I want the same random feeling that comes from walking down a library corridor. I want to be able to look at the shelf above and the shelf below and make the mental connections between texts that a computer cannot.* Today I began in a section of the library devoted to family studies and then continued to walk two or three shelves down, and I found myself in a section devoted specifically to the raising and training of children. I know that libraries are not randomly organized, and that this procedure I love first requires categories to be established, and so I understand that I a significant amount of order has been applied to chaos, but there is still nothing like simply turning around from one side of the stacks to another and seeing what is on the other side.

Making Decisions

Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide opens a window onto the inner workings of the human mind. I have always had an interest in the intersections between brain chemistry and cognition, and Lehrer's work answers so many of my questions. In the very briefest of nutshells -- dopamine and the prefrontal cortex work together (or in opposition) and thus our decisions are made. Lehrer takes gambling, credit cards, and the stock market to task, since all three play upon logical failings within the mind. His work has forced me to take a sterner look at why I make the choices that I do.

Example:

I have for several weeks been attempting to eat better, to choose foods that are of better quality, more likely to end my hunger, and best for me and my personal longevity. But, if I fail to eat a proper breakfast, one that has enough staying power to last me until lunch, and I find myself near the coffee counter in the library, all of those muffins, which I know to be both bad for me and bad tasting, call my name. This is my prefrontal cortex demanding a sugar spike. It has lost the energy it had from breakfast, and you know what, when your mind is focused on writing, or reading a complicated text, and it is faced with the possibility of an easy sugar fix -- it will take the easy fix. Before I know it I'm munching unhappily on an icky-muffin, ruining my meal plan, and leaving my wholly unsatisfied with my choices. Boom.

The lesson I take from this? Willpower needs help. In any specific moment our minds can fail us. We can be misled by quick numbers, or by the need for a shot of sugar. Getting ourselves to make better choices takes care and careful planning. Breakfast needs to be more substantial, and better mid-morning snacks need to be made readily available so that the icky-muffin doesn't present so tempting an option.

Thank you, Jonah Lehrer, for making me understand my own mind a little better.

My Grandfather - R.I.P. April 18, 1930 - June 30, 2010

Sometimes people get better. Sometimes they don't, and we have to say goodbye. We said goodbye to my grandfather a week ago Wednesday. I flew down to Florida earlier on the same day. Little Thorn was in tow. I saw grandpa alive, one last time, but he barely looked like the man I have known all my life. Thin, pained, his breathing shallow, my grandpa, once so vigorous, so engaged, waited for his body to admit defeat. It is not something I think he did easily. Death has knocked on my grandpa's door more than once in his eighty years of life. But, in the end, we all die. Avoidance is temporary. Eighty years is long. One hundred years still wouldn't have been long enough. Thorn got to say goodbye, too, although he didn't know it at the time. There were many tears, though none of them mine. I've said goodbye to two grandpas now, and I still haven't cried. I don't really know why. Everyone else did, even my father. Maybe someday it will hit me, and I will weep. Right now, though, I write.

Grandpa did not want to be buried, and so according to his wishes he was cremated and his ashes spread around the grounds of his Floridian church-home. The funeral service, which I could not attend, I am told was beautiful and fitting for my grandfather. I am glad. There is power in ceremony, in ritual, and funerals can help to close relationships, just as marriages can begin them.

I have also seen the strength of my family through this, and the strength of my grandmother. There were tears, but there was also laughter. Stories were swapped. Tales of sorrow, of joy, of humor, and of foolishness were traded around the tables of my grandmother's small home. Grandpa would have been happy. He will be missed.

All love to you, Grandpa.

Porto, portas, portat.

My Grandfather

I had the great fortune to grow up in close proximity to all four of my grandparents. My parents met in High School, and their families lived only a block apart. This situation stayed the same until my father's parents moved to Florida. I think I was nine or ten when they did. My mother's father died in 2005, rather unexpectedly. My father's father is now ailing in his Florida home. I spoke with my mother this morning. She and my father will soon be on a plane to Florida. It doesn't look good. I thought, then, that it would be good, before word comes to me one way or the other, to write about my grandfather.

He loves television. I recall that the largest unit was up on the second floor of their Long Island home, and it dominated their Florida home's living room when they moved there. Sports are the prize shows, especially those featuring New York teams - most particularly the New York Giants. I learned my first curse word from my grandfather, who could often become irritated at his team's progress during a game.

I came to love the water because of him and my grandmother. They had a pool while they lived in New York, and I spent every summer of my remembered childhood there. When they moved to Florida, I was crushed, but they visited often, and we visited often, and there was still swimming, and there were amusement parks, and laughs, and card games, and fun. That is what I remember most about my grandfather -- he was fun. He was light-hearted, full of banter, full of stories. He was warm. We haven't had the chance to speak as much as I would like these past few years. I am busier and less organized than I want, and he was less well. But ours isn't much of a talking relationship, anyway. It was a doing relationship. With grandpa there were things to do. He loves food as much as I do, and movies, and eating out at restaurants. There is a picture I will always treasure from our last visit with him. He is holding Thorn, our son, and I am sitting next to him. Grandfather, grandson, and great-grandson. The oldest and the youngest members of our family together at the same time. It is a beautiful picture. I will tell Thorn all about his great-grandfather, and he will have that picture to know, for it is evident in it, how warm, generous, and loving his great-grandfather was through all his life.

I love you, grandpa, and I hope you pull through. We're praying for you.

The Ten Book Challenge

Fox and I own a lot of books. We both had fairly significant individual collections, and in the six years we've been married, we've managed to increase our library by several hundred books a year. We do not, alas, read several hundred books a year, and so we have a growing, ever-growing number of unread books on our shelves. In order to stem the tide, before we are overwhelmed, I have decided to institute the Ten Book Challenge.

I pledge that I will not purchase any new book until I have read at least ten books from my personal library. Books from other libraries do not count, which, you see, makes this challenge rather difficult, as most of my reading is school-library related.

Ten Book Challenge begins now!

Redo

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." - The Doctor

I don't know if the Doctor is right about time, but his statement certainly can apply to blogs. My last entry, sometime in late April, was all about working, about getting enough courage to start working, to stick working, to keep your head up and soldier on. I didn't really do that. I fell. I wept. I shattered into a million pieces, and now, with June rolling to a sweltering close, I am finally putting myself together again.

I have decided to pick up my own challenge. It is necessary to write every day. Writing must become an addiction. I've tried so hard to make it one, but each time I fall short. Well, folks, I'm starting again. I need to. I can't explain why yet, though I think it has a lot to do with sentiments of self-worth, but I need to try again. I need to get it right. Today is Sunday. It begins my week. Tomorrow, Monday, is the first step in my challenge. We'll see how it goes.

Love to you.

~ Sparrow 

Practice Makes Art

Hello, blank screen.

We meet again.

I'm getting a little tired of these gatherings.

You mock my existence, and I do whatever I can to shatter yours.

It is an odd cycle.

Don't you agree?

---

Blank screens are compelling, are they not? Perhaps not as compelling as empty pieces of paper, but close. Both are awkward in their naked state. Embarrassed, even. A piece of paper with a word or two jotted down upon it is at least fulfilling its purpose. The tree, who gave up its life for the purpose, did not perish vainly. The same is true for word processor screens, save that the trees are safer now. A blank screen is empty, lifeless, devoid of art and substance. Put a word on it, however, and it has purpose. Put a second word next to the first and the blank screen isn't blank. It is actually a remarkably easy process - writing. You think words and then you, well, write them. The trouble comes when you say to yourself that you have chosen the "wrong" words. It is not, however, the words which are wrong, but the writer. Confidence is the chief ingredient. The rest--all the rest--can be acquired after. Skill comes with time and with practice. Writing is an art. All arts require practice.

I've never been good at practice. When I was a boy I wanted to play the piano. I didn't want to practice playing the piano. I wanted to play it. I wanted to sit down at the keys and channel Bach or Mozart. I want music to rise up awesomely from my fingers. When this miracle of talent did not happen, I quickly lost interest. I hated to practice. The monotony of sitting hour after hour, day after day, working my fingers into shape, learning the shapes and distinctions of the musical marks, gaining a sense of rhythm, did not appeal to me. I abandoned the piano. I also abandoned the flute, the clarinet, tap dancing, and solo-singing. Math, too, once it required more work than the most basic algebra, I left behind. Anything that required me to practice, I despised. But now, seated as I am in graduate school, staring my dissertation in the face, I realize that I have long been a coward and a fool. For, you see, I must write, and I must write like I have never written before. And writing requires practice.

I still hate to practice, but now, at least, I know why I do. It was not, as I told myself all those years ago, that the subject just didn't interest me. It was because the subject was hard, and I was afraid to fail. If you don't do something, you don't fail at it. If you try, however, you will probably fail at least some of the time. Your fingers will miss a key, or your eyes will miss a note, or you will miss a step in your equation--and that idea, that concept of failure, was so terrifying that I backed away from it. I have run away from everything that was too hard to do. I have permitted myself to move by innate ability, choosing easy things, playing to my strengths, because when I did that I was less afraid of failure. But now that this vast writing project is before me, I have had to come to terms with my fear. I was afraid to fail, but now, I'm afraid not to.

It is a remarkable shift. I fear not-failing, or rather not-doing, more than I fear failing. I would rather fail, for failing means that I tried. I did something! I am tired of not doing anything, of watching while others do things. I want to write. I want to love writing. I want to foster an addiction to writing. I want to be ill with the idea of not-writing, rather than be ill with the idea of writing and writing poorly. I don't care if I write poorly. I can edit. I don't care if I ramble. I can edit. I don't care if my first ideas don't work. I can revise. I can edit. You see, I'm sure, the same pattern that I do. It shouldn't be the blank screen that is compelling, but the one that is filled with my words. Like Michelangelo with marble, a blank screen should burn to be filled, formatted so that a shape emerges from it: the shape of my work. That is what I intend. That is what I will try to do. I accept that I will fail as often as succeed, but at least now I'm practicing, and I'm bloody happy about it.

The Food Meme -- and I want answers!

Here is a blank meme, from which I want to see answers from YOU. Gimme a comment with your favorite foods. I'll wield it with efficiency whenever you visit. Mwahahaha!

The Food Meme

In everyone's life, there is the potential for the ultimate day of food: a day wherein all foods are favorites, and all sounds are sounds of delight. So go on: wake up! Today is your lucky day.

It's morning. You're still partially asleep when your significant other holds a cup of _________________ under your nose. Best morning drink EVER.

This is followed shortly thereafter by your favorite breakfast, which is _______________________.

Later, at the gym, you need a quick energy snack. Your favorite is ___________________.

What a productive morning! To celebrate, you buy each of your co-workers your favorite sandwich, _________________, and your favorite cold drink, ________________________.

Hungry again? Well, it IS time for lunch. What do you have? ______________________.

Well-fortified, you easily make it through the rest of the day, to supper. Or is it dinner? A sage over your shoulder quips that "dinner" is whatever the largest meal of the day is, unless it's breakfast. So what do you tell the sage? When is "dinner" for you? ________________________.

Time for supper! And I'm sure you have an ultimate feast in your mind. What is the best supper (or dinner) you could possibly have waiting for you when you get home? ____________________.

And no day is complete without your favorite desert, right? _______________________.

Ahhhh, bliss. As you slide between the covers, your stomach says that no, it isn't quite bliss without that other favorite food -- the one you couldn't fit in before now. You sigh and walk to the kitchen to have some ________________.

Sweet dreams!

Fatherhood: The First Hour

Thorn will be a year old at the end of May.

A year ago, when Fox was nearing the end of her pregnancy, when the fateful moment was weeks and not months away, I made a decision. I decided that I would capture the memories of my first year of fatherhood in a special journal, and then I would share the best parts with whoever would listen. I chose a happy blue journal--we knew Thorn was a boy, and so blue seemed only fitting. Affixed to the front was a lacquer turtle, and, because it was cute, it fit with the sentiment of a father's journal about his son. My pen scratched in some small details of the day Thorn was born, but the rest of the journal is bare.

I never understood how much work it was to raise a child. I knew, of course, that it was work, but the time, the hours, the exhaustion…these were things about which I possessed no accurate sense. I have spent a little time beating myself up for not keeping to my original plan. But that type of self-indulgence just doesn't sit well for long. No, there is no point getting upset about work you haven't done. Don't cry over spilled milk. Clean it up. Dear friends, here is the beginning of that process.

---

Thorn entered the world eagerly. Weeks ahead of his due date, he decided to squirm his little body out into the bright light of his first day. Unfortunately, his attempts met with little success. Simply put, his head was too large and Fox's bones too delicate and slender. The most exceptional physician knew what to do, and so Fox and Thorn (still wriggling away, perhaps aware that his moments in the womb were swiftly departing) were ushered off to the nearby operating room. Never before in my life had I observed a crew of people move so quickly and so calmly. I, alas, was anything but calm. C-section. Surgery. They were going to cut open my love, and she was out the door before I had time to get the green frock they'd tossed in my direction over my head. I did manage to get garbed. Many thanks are owed to my mother-in-law, who maintained her serenity when I had lost mine to the rush and the winds. The pants were several sizes too large, and so I had to hold up the ensemble with one hand. For minutes (exceedingly long minutes) I waited just outside the operating room. A nurse eventually arrived to convey me to Fox's side. The operating room was small. A huge curtain had been raised above Fox's midsection. The anesthesiologist sat by her head. His small corner of the room was filled with enormous machines that hissed and whistled as they pumped merrily away at their appointed tasks. Another nurse, or perhaps the same who led me in, provided me a folding chair. I sat down, my legs trembling, my breath short, and my heart pounding. The surgery had already started. I could hear it, though blessedly, I couldn't see it. Fox and I comforted one another as best we could, as the most exceptional physician did her work.

We knew the baby was out before we heard him. There is this terrible and intense moment, when, blinded by the curtain, you cannot see the babe they've pulled from your love. You wait, counting heartbeats, straining to hear a breath, a cry, a squeal, anything to confirm that your child is healthy--that your child is alive. There is a sound that comes first, a strange suctioning sound, and then, finally, you hear the intake of breath and the cry. Loud. Throaty. Indignant. Little Thorn wailed to the world that he had arrived and that he didn't think it was as great as he hoped. No doubt it was too bright, too cold, and too crowded with strange and mysterious folk garbed in sterile greens and blues. Thorn was cleaned, placed in a plastic bed atop a cart, and then wheeled over where we got our first look.

He was thin. His long limbs of bone thrashed about while the nurses measured, poked, and prodded to see if all was well. All was well. I think I cried a little, and I kissed Fox, and she kissed me. We were parents. Here was our child. He was red and distressed. His skin was wrinkled and filmy. And yet, he was beautiful.

The most excellent physician restored Fox's body to its closed state, and then they once more wheeled my love away. I remained behind to stand as a witness to the marking of my child. Hospital rules require that each parent and child receive wrist-bands that indicate you belong together. These bands come off only on the day you take your baby home. Fox needed to be in post-surgical recovery, and so I stood, jittery, dancing from foot to foot, as the nurses took samples of blood from Thorn's foot, and then placed identical tags on each of us. I got my first good look at him. He was well-formed. A strong torso and the lungs to inhabit it extended into four bony limbs that twitched and flailed passionately. He had hematite eyes -- I will never forget them, though now they've gone, replaced by browns and lighter grays. His skin was warm and dry when I touched him. I was not permitted to hold him yet, but I longed to. He was my son. My boy. My firstborn. Together, once he was tagged, diapered, and bundled, we went to find his mother in recovery.

I thought the most stressful time was behind me.

Silly me.

---


More on Fatherhood in a later installment.

Primary Source Hell

There is little worse in the writing world than making bibliographies of eighteenth-century British newspaper clippings. My beloved Chicago simply doesn't have clear enough guidelines for them. I took what otherwise worked and applied it, but there's this nagging feeling that I missed a comma. Or a period. Or a location. Perhaps another level of publisher? Arrrrrgh.

(Thank goodness some of my sources come from this lovely compilation. They aren't precise, but this isn't for a dissertation. And the best part is that Internet sources are so easy to cite.)

Writing-Fox

I have never looked at my vixfey Gmail address at this hour in the morning. Apparently, what happens in my fox-themed tea house background is that three ghost foxes get together the garden to play Go. I find this amusing.

What I did not find amusing was last night. I must have leeched the insomnia from my brother, or perhaps from Sparrow, allowing him to sleep (that at least sounds philanthropic). I could not get comfortable. All of the little lights, so small in the bright sunlight of day, got to me. Even when I blocked them with artful stackings of the comforter, my mind raced. I worry, because it always seems to happen when I have things to write. So here I am, trying to write enough to confound my inner writing-fox, as it were.

I call it my writing-fox, not because everything is fox to me, or because my fox-associated best friend always nudges me to write, or even that the muse of our Unseelie Court is Fox, but because of something earlier, read in a fit of poetry. The Thought-Fox, by Ted Hughes. The poem takes place at night, and concerns writing more than anything else. A blank page becomes printed, and it is an effort, but an animal one, as all nighttime efforts are, in part.

I would like to fall prey to a sleep animal, myself, but my writing-fox is quite the insistent one. It isn't passive, as Hughes's fox. And foxes smell, did you know that? As strongly as a ferret or skunk. So while most folk may maintain the mental image of a fox as a sly creature easily eluding hounds, mine is of a skulking Presence who lurks with intentions known, demanding to be found, hard to see, but obviously there. In more than one tradition, foxes went between the spirit world and this one, so why not make a writing-fox usher of inspirative words? Especially at night. At night, when I would rather sleep and let the feathery martlets guide me to dreams with no grounding. But foxes invade the dreams, give me ideas, make me wake up and write them down lest they, with much gleeful yipping, retreat to torment me at a later time. Not all writing-foxes retreat, however. This one planted himself squarely on my chest and stared. I will need a new animal to push them away and guard my sleep, methinks. A ferocious dachshund...?

Shrink-Wrap

Do you ever feel like time is shrink-wrap, conforming to your habits and pushing out your occasional, deviant joys? I don't like having the mere outline of a life. The only thing I can do is to tear at the shrink-wrap, or else make more things habitual.

Writing, for instance. Who says I have to limit myself to the Most Important Matters first? It isn't as though there is a shortage of ink. Writing is positive feedback. The more you write, the more you create an addiction to write. Starting today, I'm tackling all of my backlogged correspondence, my limping blog, and my dusty idea-books. They will be viewed. Written-in. Covered with words in their imperfection. I will not wait until summer to work on sellable fiction. I will feed my sense of wonder until it is a bonfire, until others' firepits spontaneously ignite. Write, my friends, write! Write before you rot!

...and then post something here of your writing. It doesn't have to be more than a phrase. I'm just keeping you honest! Throw a stick onto the fire, eh? It's cold without words.