Happy Easter!

here's the original Greek (and translation) for Easter:

spring?

the first day of spring . . . really?  after shoveling eight or ten inches of snow from the driveway yesterday and scraping a layer of ice from the windshield this morning, it felt more like January.

another day on the wedding production line here (gluing bookmarks and making version 1.0 of the wedding ceremony music CD), and that felt springlike (even though it's a fall-themed wedding ;-).

scanning in Daniel Dennett's Elbow Room for my own personal PDF; only got through Chapter 1, but it's a start.  don't know why, but i really enjoy making ebooks.  wow, an almost job-worthy interest & skill!

Work As Play

What would you choose to do every day if you could do anything?  How long do you think you'd last before you became bored of choosing and wanted somebody else to decide?

Here's to choice, on this 2013 Mardi Gras!!!

We each have some freedom of choice, and how we exercise that freedom reflects on our character.  My only advice for the day is "Think before you choose."

And to that i would add "Enjoy yourself, always."

Ciao!


(P.S.  I found a lot of hits for "shrinkonia" when i did a "work as play" search.  Hmmm. . . .)

La brea ata ann

Sure, some days i don't manage to write a blog entry when i should; some days i do.  Day before yesterday, i started a new blog, http://GOFAIinC.blogspot.com/ (though it's only just begun); i'm trying to stay true to my intentions and not let my dreams fade away.

Anyway, here's a picture of this morning's sun creeping over the hill behind our apartment — an inspiring view to have before me as i work!

("La brea ata ann" is Irish for "It's a lovely day")

Ciao!

What if . . .

What if this morning you had stopped your truck in a space across the street from the CVS on Concord Street near Union Ave in Framingham; maybe you wanted a quick soda or a coffee on your way to whatever it is you were doing.  You'd put it in park, shut off the engine, and unbuckled your seat belt.  But you haven't opened the door yet, because you can see (and hear) the massive dump truck coming up behind you, too far over in its lane—maybe you'll crawl across the seat and exit on the passenger side, since you don't really want to step out into traffic.
---Except W H A M ! the dump truck clips the corner of your rear bumper.  Your pickup lurches diagonally forward—stiffly, because the body doesn't softly crumple like a car's—and you're catapulted through the windshield, through the air over an empty parking space in front of you, and into a metal parking meter mounted on a sturdy cement-filled pipe.
---You come to briefly in the ICU, but you won't remember it.  You have multiple skull fractures and severe traumatic brain injury; you probably would not have survived the head trauma, except that Metrowest Medical Center is only a few blocks away and there happened to be some EMTs nearby.  You survived . . . barely.
---You stay in intensive care for a month, running up bills over a million dollars.  Your caseworker puts you on MassHealth, which you'll need during the estimated six months-to-a-year of rehabilitation you'll need.  State and federal funds pay your medical bills, and your health insurance company is grateful they don't have to pick up the tab.
---Who knows if you'll ever be able to work again; you'll be lucky to be able to still walk and speak somewhat coherently.  Most people with your level of injuries would have died.  You'll depend on Department of Transitional Assistance benefits (aka Food Stamps) for at least a year or two, if not for the rest of your life.  And hopefully you won't resent the disability money you'll live on—after all, you've paid into the system all these years.  Maybe you won't see "wellfare" benefits in quite the same way anymore.  And maybe you'll even be able to work a job again someday; maybe not.

Or maybe you didn't stop at CVS this morning after all and just continued on your way.  If you didn't, you're lucky.  Don't forget it.

Celebrate!

Pop the champagne bottles and belly up to the bar, boys (and girls)—the drinks are on me!  Someone bought a copy of anomaly on Amazon—Hooray!!!—and i'm pretty sure it wasn't my mother (as she hasn't touched a computer, so far as i know, since about 2005).

Looking out the windows at the fog this morning:  a very calm & restful (& humid) view.  Procrastinated with some chores already today (dishes, laundry, putting away holiday lights), so i guess it's time to write again.  Yay grind!

Cornell University Suicide Exposé

Well, sort of.  The memoir that Mary Evans wrote in 2001—anomaly— is finally available on Amazon as an ebook.  And some of it is set on the Cornell University campus.  And there is a suicide attempt.  But it's not very sensationalistic or tabloidish.  It's just the story of part of someone's life.  An unusual story, certainly.  And it does expose some of the unfortunate culture of suicide that existed for too long at Cornell.

http://www.amazon.com/anomaly-improbable-memoir-stories-ebook/dp/B00B5I7JUK/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

So far the commercial success of the book has been underwhelming.  But the book wasn't written with commercial "success" in mind.  The book was written because the writer had to write it—that's what writing is often about.

[some appropriate tags for the book:]
mental health
depression
suicide
traumatic brain injury
Cornell University
love
self-discovery
rebirth

Not the most fun list, except for the last three.  They are the salvation of anomaly.