Category: thinking

  • Half-penny Thoughts | 12aug25

    Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

    I’ll admit it: I’ve been binging The Walking Dead again.

    If I want to pretend to be an intellectual, I’d say it was research into human nature in the face of an apocalypse. I have not recently seen evidence in real life that suggests that people will act differently than their fictional counterparts if they were faced with a zombie (or any kind of, really) apocalypse. Zombies in TWD might be the overt threat, but the real monsters are other people. The Witcher games and books, fantasy tales about a “monster hunter” mutant named Geralt of Rivia play the same tune. Horrifying creatures are a real threat, but the true monsters are us.

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  • Half-penny thoughts | 07aug25

    Somewhere in Alaska, my photo

    My mind keeps going back to when I was driving through Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia. Not to disparage Alberta or Saskatchewan, but those landscapes were too “familiar”. Really, once you’ve seen one endless field of a particular crop, they all take on a similar character and we have a hell of a lot of examples of that landscape when you’re away from the river valleys in the upper midwestern states of North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin. My eye craved something different from what I could view a half-hour’s drive from home. And so, the last leg of my trip was not nearly as visually stimulating as the foreleg of the same.

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  • judgment

    i  swear
    i always intend
    to get out more
    meet new friends
    do new things
    but—

    peopling terrifies me now
    when every word or action
    is a litmus test to
    determine tribal
    affiliation

    it seems more sensible
    to stay at home
    and not subject myself
    to the world’s
    casual judgment

  • Torture

    close up photo of yawning cat
    Photo by Serena Koi on Pexels.com

    I probably shouldn’t reveal this in public, but I think I found the torture that might push me over the edge and confess to being an accessory to John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Lincoln, should anyone want to force me to make that claim. I might even believe I was part of it, if someone were to focus on one tiny part of my body.

    No — not the lower unmentionables.

    Something much less in the manner of “naughty bits”. It would be: My teeth.

    Yes. My teeth.

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  • half-penny thoughts | 03jul25

    Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

    I seem to have puppets on the brain these past few days. In part, it has something (in part) to do with purchasing and playing a game that I wasn’t sure I would like. But that’s not the only thing prompting the ponders on puppets.

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  • wandering at amble

    Photo by Fabian Bächli on Unsplash
    is it descendance
    or ascension
    when desire is
    in suspension?
    when you feel
    tension but remain
    uncompelled to act
    on anything at all?
    are you alive
    without drive or
    are you just living
    life small?

  • Half-Penny Thoughts | 24jun25

    Photo by Bradyn Shock on Unsplash

    Every once in a while I find myself cruising comfortable on the highway of life, so I take off my seatbelt and kick back in the convertible as it hugs the curves of the road and I think to myself, “Wow. It’s been a pretty smooth drive lately and I think—”

    Then there is an unexpected road bump that sends me flying out of the convertible, and all my motivation to “git ‘er done” (because, you know, I’m feeling the groove of life’s tunes) evaporates like a fart in a strong breeze. All that’s left is me wondering if I can at least stick the landing and not soil myself in the process.

    I tell you, there are days that I miss being an underpaid barista in a no-name espresso bar, cranking out some of the best damned shots that anyone can find in town (even if they can’t find this no-name espresso bar). Ahh, to have that self-esteem back. Wouldn’t that be grand?

    Instead, consulting: The job where every task has a potential hidden pitfall…

    If you have worked both professional and blue collar jobs, which do you have a better relationship with? If the matter of income were moot (“you won the lottery!”), which would you choose?

  • Revisiting Syd

    Since last week, I’m been very much in a Barrett mood.

    It’s been a while since I last listened to Madcap Laughs and Barrett, and I was only slightly surprised to see that they had been pulled from my streaming service. It seems like albums are chronically coming and going, especially when they are from acts “across the pond” [Syd Barrett joins Jesus and Mary Chain for albums I can’t listen to… at the moment]. Without super-simple access to Syd’s solo albums, I opted for Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn album to tide me me over until I could either pull up my MP3s or find time to find a quality upload of the complete albums up on YouTube for me.

    Listening with “fresh ears”, it strikes me just how much Syd indirectly and directly influenced some of my tastes in music.

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  • Half-Penny Thoughts | 23jun25

    Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

    I used to be really proud about how clever I could be and how much information I was able to amass in my cranium.

    The past decade or so, however, I’ve been discovering how liberating it is to be the one asking questions instead of being the one who “knows” stuff. And how freeing it is to let “knowledge” slip away when the information does not have an immediate and proven need. I can always ask the questions, or read something, again and — sometimes, even — I learn something completely different when I learn something “from scratch”.

    That means I can often reread books, for example, and see the story or the information with completely new eyes. Or find a new technique to troubleshoot a problem.

    Forgetting doesn’t have to be the horror that some folks make it out to be. Memories are not something that require preservation. They may give you joy or feel useful, but there is no real reason to cling to memories, or that joy, just for the sake of remembering. Or is there?

  • The long drive, connectivity and tech

    Image of a writing journal and a pencil.
    Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

    In my post where I mentioned I will be busy this summer with things that take me away from posting here quite so frequently, I alluded to a lack of connectivity for a spell as being one of those reasons. Well, those plans are starting to firm up and I will be incommunicado near the end of July for about 5-10 days.

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