the day is done...
it is the ending of the day. The candles in my lair are alight to ward off the spectre of the empty night that looms before me. My beloved is far away, and it is at times like this that I feel the sting that is the difference between being alone and being lonely...
pearls before swine...

Ok, Jim...
ya forced me to do it.
I was tagged by Jim of Parkway Rest Stop
today, so... here's my answers!

If I could be an athlete... I would be a basketball player. Having had some top notch hoopsters living with my family over the past eight years has brought a new perspective of just how much talent it really takes.

If I could be an innkeeper... I would have a little place in a quiet little town that would be a combination English pub and the Addams Family house! MWAHAHAHA!

If I could be an actor... I would strive to be half as good as the wonderful Alistair Sims.

If I could be llama-rider... I would be the Clint Eastwood of the Andes! Taco Westerns!!

If I could be a linguist... I would be a cunning one...



Following this is a list of different occupations. You must select at least five of them. You may add more if you like to your list before you pass it on (after you select five of the items as it was passed to you).

Of the five you selected, you are to finish each phrase with what you would do as a member of that profession. Then pass it on to three other bloggers.

Here's that list:

If I could be a scientist...
If I could be a farmer...
If I could be a musician...
If I could be a doctor...
If I could be a painter...
If I could be a gardener...
If I could be a missionary...
If I could be a chef...
If I could be an architect...
If I could be a linguist...
If I could be a psychologist...
If I could be a librarian...
If I could be an athlete...
If I could be a lawyer...
If I could be an innkeeper...
If I could be a professor...
If I could be a writer...
If I could be a backup dancer...
If I could be a llama-rider...
If I could be a bonnie pirate...
If I could be a midget stripper...
If I could be a proctologist...
IIf I could be a TV-Chat Show host...
If I could be an actor...
If I could be a judge...
If I could be a Jedi...

I tag Erin at Sweet and Sour Goth, because she just plain rocks!

I tag Rob at Gut Rumbles, because he's an honest man, and I admire that to no end.

I tag SondraK at Knowledge is Power, just because!

pearls before swine...

ah, Sunday afternoon...
it's too chilly to be out fooling around in the gardens, besides the NBA playoffs are on. I've ingested the better part of a six of Beck's and have a full supply of UTZ pretzel rods to munch on, which will hold me until dinner, which will be spicy bratwurst, cooked in saurkraut and beer, lovingly assembled with some good old Foodtown american yellow cheese and a slathering of hot mustard, on Jersey hardrolls, with some delicious Tater Tots and, of course, some more Beck's. Hey, it's the simple things, guys... me and the Mrs., some bratwurst sandwiches and basketball. I am not in need of high-browed amusements.
I sometimes think that I would have fared well in simpler times. I don't need much to make me happy. Some good company or a good book. A meal of simple fare. A warm fire in the winter or sitting outside having a smoke on a summer's twilight is enough to fill my life with goodness. Sharing food and drink with good friends on a summer's afternoon, or the solitude of a snowy saturday night, it's all good. I feel bad for people who constantly have to be "on the go", always running about, looking for something exciting to fill their lives. Sometimes you have to let the good things come to you; if you stand still long enough, the world will bring itself to your door and present you with the most wonderful little things that might go un-noticed in your frenzied chase. I think we've all been imprinted with the idea that you need to do everything possible in as little a time as you can manage to be happy, but, for me, anyway, the best of things are those that are right under your nose. Like I've written before, I love the way the twilight invades my parlor at this time of year, it has a quality of light and color like no other time of year, and it's free to be enjoyed as long as it lasts; as the sun creeps higher into the sky as summer comes on, the light changes and even though the sun retreats along the same path in the autunm, the light is not the same. It is a special thing that I love and I don't know if anyone could understand it, save me. In the autumn, it's the twilight sun that invades the kitchen that turns me on, casting a warm glow into that room that is the very soul of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor. Hearth and home, you know; there's nothing like walking in the back door on an autumn's evening and smelling dinner being prepared... Sorry, but I'm just a old, romantic fool when it comes to this precious little gift we've been given; I do love life. I don't know where, if anywhere, I shall travel after my time on the mortal plane is over, but I doubt it will be as interesting as this. What say you?

pearls before swine...

I score..!
I picked up a pristine lp today for a buck. Tony Bennett with the Count Basie Orchestra, recorded live at the old Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, NJ. It was pressed in 1958, not a pop or a scratch on it. Gotta love it.
pearls before swine...

a beautiful...
albeit breezy early evening here at Stately Sad Old Goth Manor, and I sit in my lair with the fading light visiting me once again before it succumbs to the lure of night and heads off to places west to begin anew the day of someone else, somewhere else...

I am feasting on Sicilian olives and marinated mozzarella, washed down with the last bottle of 2001 Morellino di Scansano, I having made a sort of sack and pillage of the wine racks under the stairs. My impromptu wine cellar is small, it hold about two dozen bottles of assorted vintage, all red and of varying degrees of dryness, except for a stray bottle of blanc, for friends so inclined in their taste. My wines are an eclectic mix of Californian, Italian, Australian and New Zealand vints, I think there's a bottle of Pinot Noir from New York State in there somewhere and, if memory serves me correctly, it will probably stay there for a long, long time, unless I stoop so low as to foist it on unsuspecting partygoers at some point during the summer. I think New York grapes are played out, but that's just my uneducated taste, probably, although every time I taste a NY vinting, I keep waiting for it to be transformed into vinegar as I swallow it, like some cruel and funny miracle pulled by a bored Jesus on his drunkard friends. Whatever.
I was in my usual musical quandary this night as to what to listen to, so I dug deep, deep, deep into my cabinet of rarely listened to CDs and pulled out one by Duncan Sheik. Very mellow, very soulful, lots of strings and acoustic guitar backing up his almost whispered lyrics. Nice stuff actually. My usual solution to being adrift in the musical doldrums is to tune in the Princeton University radio station, which is a close to musical Zen as you can get. Their dj staff, which rotates and evolves during the school terms and summer vacations, all are very heavily into what they play, whether it's classical, jazz, rock or what have you, which is a rarity in this day of usual twenty top ten song cycles of commercial radio or the creaking door of that bizarre musical crypt, "Classic Rock". (Someone should roll the stone back in front of that door for a few years; that stuff might sound good again if we could get a little break, huh?). The folks at WPRB 103.3 FM, Princeton play what they love to hear themselves and never seem to be in a musical rut; you can hear old school punk followed by opera, follow by a vintage blues recording, followed by an Allan Sherman comedy cut; you never know what will be coming out of the speakers next, but it always seems to be just right. Radio Zen. It is what it is and that's what makes it so special; I can just float along on an aural breeze with no effort expended in making choices, no changing cd's or vinyl over and over because no matter what I choose, it's just not right, so I leave it up to someone else, and it's usually just fine. You can listen to them online while you blog away, if you like, just click here.
I wish I could live my life like I listen to my music, although it harkens back to what I wrote last week; words can not describe what I hear in my mind when I listen to music, so I know that I could never put into motion or words what it does for me. It is the most spiritual thing in my life. I'll leave it at that.
I'm going to go outside and gaze at the beautiful Lucina and have another glass of wine and pipeful of Longbottom Leaf... I shall return.
pearls before swine...

OUCHSKI'S..!!!
ATTENTION, COMRADE SOLDIERS...

DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT WEAR YOUR LEATHER SOLE BOOTS WHEN IT HAS RAINED IN RED SQUARE...
that is all... as you were...
pearls before swine...

I hate nights like this...
Darkness is full on and it's crept like a haggard beggar into every nook and corner of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor, save for the little pool of light cast by the solitary taper here in my lair, where I sit and stare into my monitor, wishing I was in my usual funk, but, alas, Spring has managed to pry open a corner of my equally dark soul and has raised a rare and fanciful mood in me... which, I suppose, in a moment of outright enthusiasm, I might describe as almost gay. There are hints of green here and there around the grounds; the irises and the lilies are already a foot tall and the perennial beds are showing signs of sure resurrection, in spite of suffering the worst exposure to the woes of winter that could be, my planning of their locations lacking not a little foresight. The rockery is a riot of snowdrops, narcissus and grape hyacinths, and even the bane of all who dare run their gauntlet along my back walk, my lovely prickly pears are starting to shed the odd purple hue they take on in the cold weather and what was a carpet of spiny pads resting thickly on the ground now are stirring in the longer days and have begun to stand erect, to worry all who tread amongst them and ever at the ready to remind our poor old Sheba, The Hound from Heck, not to sniff too close... Soon enough there will be a display of bright yellow flowers that look as though they are crafted of spun sugar, they glisten in the sun so, but, as with all things of beauty, they do not last, they fade and fall to give way to the unique bulbous fruit that gives said cactus it's name.
The specimens in the shrubbery are beginning to bud and the ancient and weary maples that guard the front corners of the property are showing hope that they, too, have survived another bout with winter. Soon it will be warm enough to set out the annuals and the canna bulbs, maybe even a smattering of gladiolus here and there, all for cutting to decorate the dining room and parlor, to enjoy throughout the summer months.
It is at this time of the rolling year that I am in awe at the power of the goddess; just when it seems that the grey of winter will never be conquered, that perhaps, this time, it has won over the world and we will forever toil under it's absolute monarchy, to spend all the rest of our short, grey days and endless nights of frozen pitch in pursuit of warmth and light, backs bent and heads bowed against the cold and the snow and the ice that almost drives the life out of you, borne on winds that surely originate from some other unimaginably cruel world, so hard and sharp they are, almost blowing the very spark of human life out of your shivering husk, to fly away on them, never to light your soul again. And then, it happens. Like a compassionate mother who cannot bear to punish her children any more, for she knows that they are not errant, only foolish and willful and not yet wise, the goddess brings back lord Helios to ride his fiery chariot higher and higher through the skies, to relight the wick in our heart candle, so we, like he, may again burn brightly in our little world, anew. She sings the frozen world awake with her life bringing song, a tune not for our human ears to hear, but to vibrate through the world, to stir all that sleeps within to arise and join us in celebration of her love. And so, at this time of year, whether we know it or not, we all join in her song of life reborn and renewed, for we and the world are one; forget not that. We are all made of the same stuff, are we, and the world and the very universe that beckons our wonder over our heads at night; we are made of the very same stuff as the stars of night that grace her mantle and the morning dew that touches her hem, are we. Know this is true.
I shall now take my leave of you, but for a short while. My stomach rumbles for want of filling. Perhaps common fare of cheese and bread and olives and wine is called for this night. That ought to get the juices flowing.
See you later.

pearls before swine...

twilight again...

it paints this golden light upon my parlor door...
how many hands have turned this knob in all the years? How many times was this door opened in joy or closed in anger?
pearls before swine...

oh, my cousins...
riddle me this...
What's the difference between...

the late Terry Schiavo...

and a stranded dolphin..?
I strongly doubt that this dolphin's mate would allow it's feeding tube to be ripped out, and I'm sure the Supreme Court of The United States of Amerika would, no doubt, rule in favor of keeping the dolphin alive, not matter what.
After all, dolphins are cute, cuddly little creatures, aren't they? And humans..? Well, the value of a human life seems to be weighed, not upon its unique and precious worth, but on whether or not that life is worth sustaining where there's no obvious return.
Maybe Terry should have changed her name to Flipper...

pearls before swine...

that horrible dragon...
who rules the wasteland of the empty mind has stirred from it's lair this evening and laid ruin to all in it's path. My head is so full of things I would like to say, that they've become all tangled and knotted, like that string of Christmas lights that seems, no matter how carefully you wrap them, somehow gain a life of their own in your attic over the warm months; they twist and squirm unseen, until, in that dark and dusty smelling cardboard carton, they contort themselves into an unfathomable wreck. You fight them and curse them and swear to become an unbridled heathen, just so you don't have to contend with them, and yet you toil on to un-invent their self made cat's cradle of glass and wire, until you have overcome them and in a fit of pride, dare to plug them in, just to test them, you understand, and... they don't work. Twenty four shiny, multi-colored C-2 bulbs, just lying there on the living room carpet, dark, cold, dull and useless... such is my mind this evening. I have plugged myself in and like that old string of lamps, I am no doubt wired in series, not parallel; one dead thought kills all the others and there's no telling where to start to try to fix it. I suppose I could ply myself with some of the vintage from the recently restocked wine cellar under the center staircase, but somehow I think that would be cheating. Writing is like love; when it's on, it's on, but when it's lost, there is nothing to fix. So, I guess I'll sit here in the candle glow and peck away and hope that something worth reading might issue itself forth and delight all comers. Or not. It doesn't matter, really, does it? That's the one thing I always come away with when I finish a book. I either like it or I don't, but I read on and, once finished, my opinion on the thing really doesn't matter. I've digested it. It's become part of me, never to leave, never to diminish in my mind, whether I ever consciously choose to recall it or not. Reading is called food for the mind for a reason. You can't un-eat an apple; you can't un-read a book; you can't un-see a picture; you can't un-hear a song. Makes you wonder where all that stuff goes in our pitiful little lump of gray matter, huh? Millions of pages, millions of words and pictures and notes all dispersed amongst unknown numbers of neurons playing shoots and ladders with equally unknown numbers of synapses, firing away, always there, ready at the moments desire to bring back everything we've ever stored away, for good or bad, better or worse, till death do we and our thoughts do part... or do we? Maybe we become all that we've absorbed; maybe that's why we have such a desire for knowledge, maybe that's why we understand so little of what we know - maybe it's being reserved for a better use down the road a piece. Or not. Perhaps it's all a hoarded treasure, squandered. Maybe the whole idea is that we disperse as much as we learn, share it all, give it away, cast all you know before every one of your fellow sufferers who make up this mortal coil and see what you might reap... I should like to try that sometime, but I keep thinking about what happened to Jason, who sowed the dragon's teeth...
but that's an old story, isn't it and these are much different times... I think.
So, once again I've lulled you into wasting your precious time reading my drivel, when you could have been doing something constructive, like reading something actually worth reading, or standing outside and communing with the night. Sorry. Really, I am. And I do thank you for your time.
Be well.

pearls before swine...

ah, coffee...
Hot, black and in my favorite blue mug. Curfew shall not ring tonight!
So, I'm blogging to the curiously sweet, yet sad strains of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #2. The setting sun is painting the parlor of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor in hues of orange and violet, a fitting pallet for this particular labor of dear Johann S. At times, all is right with the world...
Maybe I'm in such a rare, gay mood because I read something on CNN today that, in spite of my constant fear that the world has become a singularly cold and cruel place, made me think that in the face of it all, there are some compassionate moments that make me step back and view my fellow man in a slightly brighter light. Perhaps, it's because I have a soft spot in my old black heart for ducks...
*insert long break here...*
Sorry, I was having a long on-line conversation with a friend. Now, where was I..?
Ah, I don't know. My muse is upon me this evening and while she hasn't been around of late, when she is, as now, she is a hard task mistress, indeed. And while the words don't flow like I want them to, she stirs my mind like the wind stirs the alder leaves in the winter - I am as they are and I almost quake in her will...
What would we say if we could put our real thoughts into comprehensible words? How do you describe what we really feel with these pitiful runes of ours? For all we are, we are truly incapable of describing our deepest thoughts, for words do not capture the feelings that feed our thinking being. How wonderful would it be, to be able to communicate with each other by thought alone? How deeply moving would it be to share how much you love someone with that person, with not words, but emotion unspoken. To be able to touch the mind of another and bare your soul to them, to share your feelings, not through any language, or any poem or prose we might muster, but by sharing the essence of what we feel, the stirring, the flush, the rushing of the mind when in their company. We are beings of thought, not beings of deed. We are governed by the limitations of our physical self and we have evolved into creatures that must act, however pitiful and shallow those acts may be compared to the depths of the mind that drives them. I cannot describe to you what is in my mind when I gaze at the night sky, nor can I speak the joyous feeling of a freshening breeze on my face on an autumn's afternoon. How do you emote the smell of a wood fire on a winter's eve, the satisfaction of a hearty meal, the sorrow of loss or just the plain joy of being? Words are for naught, and yet, they are all we have. And so, I sit here, fingers clacking away, working a tool to create shapes that cannot fulfill the will behind them. Misshapen lines on a page, forged and arranged, wrought of good intent and laid in front of you in hope that you might, even slightly, understand what I mean them to say, to you, through them. Perhaps it is all for the best. Words, like paint, like clay or stone, are only the medium in which we work. They are, at best, like the flag that flies like glory over a dark and mysterious keep, whose unknown treasures are guarded by a door with a lock for which we have yet to cast the perfect key. And so it is...
And so we are...
The hour grows late. The candles are failing and Darkness spreads her soft and comforting wings over my lair, to wrap me within, to shelter me from the fell deeds of daylight and of men... I bid thee safe journey through this night and I shall keep you all within my thoughts, until dreams doth take me.

pearls before swine...

welcome to Amerika...
so, let me see if I have this right; I will now need a passport to return to the country of my birth from our "friendly" neighborhood countries to the north and south... just to make sure that I'm not a middle aged, overweight, white male terrorist trying to sneak into the country to commit mayhem and ill deeds.
but the press is denouncing the efforts of American citizens who are volunteering their free time to spot people trying to enter the country illegally across the border with Mexico, alerting the US Border Patrol to take action, since the US government does not seem all that worried about it?
Sometimes I wonder if the real terrorists aren't already here, not having crept in under cover of darkness across a border, but freely and openly elected to high positions in our Federal and Local governments, by the unassuming citizens of their own country. I really, really wonder where the allegiance of some of our "leaders" lie...
pearls before swine...

what a hoot...
'da Jersey Blogmeet was super. I felt like I'd known everyone there for years. Thanks to all for making me feel so welcome and special thanks to Jim of
Parkway Rest Stop for throwing one hell of a Jersey party!
pearls before swine...

'da Jersey Blogmeet...
is tomorrow evening. I've never attending anything like this before and I'm really looking forward to it. Bloggers are an interesting lot, at least judging by those I've had the pleasure of meeting so far, and I'm sure this crowd is going to be a lot of fun. I'll have a full recap on Sunday. Between now and then, lots of roller derby stuff to attend to, including setting up an appointment with a reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News for an interview. That should be an experience, I'm quite sure.
So, be back on Sunday, unless another bout of depression hits me or I think of something astoundingly witty to assail your senses with.
be well.
pearls before swine...