May I sleep on your couch for 6 hours?
I’d ask that you consider this seriously before answering. Not because I think you’ll say no. But because I think you’ll be tempted to say “yes” too quickly.
Think about it. Me, your couch. For 6 hours.
If you’re thinking that perhaps my question isn’t so much about my need to sleep on a couch as it is about something entirely greater, you’re onto something.
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This is the first winter I’ve ever gone without setting foot in a single bit of snow. It’s been wonderful. At no point did I feel like I was missing out on something important by not having snow to slip in, shovel around, or drive through.
It just got cold. Not terribly cold. But cold enough that it’s obviously spring now. People are going out on the beaches now. The 5 people in this entire town that get exercise are out jogging around. It’s wonderful.
Spring coughed up warm days like a veteran smoker as clover rushed to heal the scars left by Dad’s overeager snowplow.
I tweeted that earlier. My father was notorious for overeager snowplowing. We made some sweet forts though.
What is your favorite part of spring?
image: source
Remember the game The Oregon Trail?
If you don’t, an explanation won’t help you much. It simply wasn’t a good enough game to be worth explaining.
For those of you who do remember your digital family dying of dysentery, broken axles, and fruitless hunting trips: How would you change The Oregon Trail to fit into the current family of social web-based games?
Would you integrate it with Twitter, like FourSquare but with updates from your game? Would you encourage Facebook’s shifting horde to leave Farmville and join a wagon train of friends travelling west?
I’m interested to know what you’d do!
Image via Wikimedia
Will you take a moment to introduce me to a song you’ve really enjoyed lately? Maura turned me on to Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’s Album Raising Sand.
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Have you heard of The Narrative? They’re great. I’ve been listening to them a bit lately. By “a bit” I mean I tripped across them early on Sunday and have enjoyed them since.
By “enjoy them” I mean I like them enough that I’m not so angry about the train engineer who insists on 3-5 minute horn sonatas as he slows his iron beast to a crawl through town.
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Why don’t we talk about death more often? Have we convinced ourselves that death cannot scale our wall of silence?
As some of you already know, I’ve been spending a lot of my time working on a collection of chapters. It’s big enough to be called a volume but not complete enough to be called a book. In wrestling through a particular portion of the story, I encountered something deep within myself that worried me greatly. Namely, that I was not fully decided on what I thought to be the contents of a full life.
I put that on my list of things to figure out before I die and pressed on to give voice to a particular character’s thoughts on death. The words didn’t come easily. In fact, I’m not sure they’re all in place yet. However, I stumbled across a gorgeous little book written by Adrienne von Speyr called The Mystery Of Death that has proven useful.
Here’s an excerpt from the chapter, Death As A Punishment And An End:
The most compelling consequence of death is not merely separation but a growing limitation of understanding, the breaking off of a dialogue, a rapport, a love which had thought it was wider and bigger. My friend is dead, but this death tears holes in my own existence. Not merely in that my own death comes closer, but more deeply, in that whole context, things I took to be certain and understood are now torn down and taken away.
I love that. Sure, it’s about death and I associate death with a rainbow of pain. But there is also an elegance, a willingness to recognize the crumbling and not despise the crumbles. I hope to provide the same sensibility for my character. Just in shorter sentences. =)
I hadn’t expected to get so much out of this process. A happy surprise. I’m glad for your thoughts.
Designers, people with photoshop, snooping relatives, etc. What do you think of this as a possible logo for Simonds Media (my slightly more formal presence online)?
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