Was that Tom of Highland Farm fame who commented on my blog the other day? Hi Tom. Tom is Derek’s father, retired now from AT&T to run a farm. Old, you would enjoy Tom’s blog. “Old” is Jes’ father with a blog of his own. Old and Tom have both referenced Dylan in recent posts, so they should get along just fine.

I’ve been doing a great deal of wring for my classes of late and I have a great deal more to do in the immediate future, meaning today. I thought I might blog as a pallet cleanser before I get into my writing proper.

I had a huge cranium incident yesterday, I know how you like to read about those, I was trying to put on one of Jes’ T-shirts and my head was too big to fit through the designated head hole. It was a pink shirt so it would have clashed with my red hair anyway. I crowned, but ultimately had to go cesarean.

It turned cold today. I had to go back in the house for a coat and I am wishing I had taken the time to put on socks and other cold weather accoutrement. I was parked in the commuter lot at the train, listening to the NPR ten minute top of the hour news roundup, and I noticed that there was someone sleeping in the front seat of the car next to me. She, like me, was waiting for the library to open. It’s odd to overlap intent with strangers. It reminds you of the infinity of stories running parallel to your own. Einstein postulated that we will never meet; as truly parallel lines rarely do (you’d have to curve both space and time).

I’ve been fighting off my perpetual low grade depression by being of good cheer. For those of you who don’t have perpetual low grade depression, this may not make much sense. Consider it making the choice to feel good, or at least ok, about feeling bad.

I had this exercise in one of my classes the other day that borders on art therapy. The exercise was given by a retired drama teacher who wanted us all to explore the Hindu Rasas, or twenty something categories of emotive expression as explored in the Vedas. He was modeling using drama to enhance English instruction.

My little fortune cookie strip of paper had a Rasa on it that translates loosely as humor in the face of the macabre (imagine that). We were to draw the first image that exemplified this emotion so I, being the literary sot that I am, drew a picture of a naked Yossarian in a tree watching Snowden’s funeral. If you haven’t read catch-22 then that last bit won’t make any sense, but if you have and you’ve lived a little, perhaps you’ll agree that each of us has Snowdens stacked up behind the barn and if sitting naked in a tree helps a little with the absurdity of this human misadventure then by all means have yourself a chuckle and don’t give them anything to pin a medal on.