A wandering mind has slipped its moorings, severing connection with its immediate environment. No longer paying attention to what it can perceive in the surrounding world, it turns inward, self-referential, occupied by dreams and memories and stray thoughts. Instead of musing about what its partnered body is experiencing, reading, hearing, thinking, it slides away to a different destination altogether.
You may be surprised to hear that St. Louis is an excellent place for a fall hike. But that is because St. Louis and its surrounding areas are full of surprises.
I return to the tv, determined to cure myself of the casual lust that overtakes me every time this crap comes on, the mild hypnotic state in which I watch messes wiped from a sparkling white surface, food prep bewitched, household glue used to hold a Volkswagen in midair.
Conversation is just as vital now, a glue for friendship, a bridge to romance, a necessity in any workplace, and a source of energy and creativity and understanding.
The club would meet for eight months of the year. I would conduct the group in reading one book every month. There was a bit of concern if there would be enough books to keep the club going. I told them there was no shortage of books about jazz.
"Have Gun—Will Travel" defined itself by its difference, with co-creator Sam Role supposedly worrying about its reception: “Who’s going to buy this radical?”
When we bought our house, now well over 100 years old, I held the antique keys in my hand, loving their weight and ornate design, sure there was an energy swirled into those oxidized molecules.
I could have sworn Bruce Lee used a yo-yo in one of his kung-fu movies, a sign that the yo-yo moved across the colored world in impressive fashion. But Lee did not use it and the Filipinos never killed either Spanish or American soldiers with it. It has always been a toy. I loved Duncan yo-yos as a kid. I still have one. In times of stress, it is better than a glass of wine.
Anaerobic bacteria, courtesy the CDC/Gilda Jones A multinational corporation was investing in environmental initiatives, and I hoped to write about them. Their main project was highly technical; for background they had me email two university scientists. The scientists could not easily explain to a layman what they did,…
The mentalist’s tone matters: an offhand, “Oh, and did you want to change that?” is less likely to elicit a change than a slow dangling of the temptation to change the card.