Maybe I'm doing this wrong

But first, a couple of hints from the fifteen-year-old cat (who's perhaps not as heat tolerant anymore as he would have been as a younger Max) on how to deal with a heat wave:

On the left, we see use your favourite brass music stand as a pillow. On the right, sleep under the damp clothing. I'm not sure if either of these really work, but he seemed happy enough. And if anyone's wondering why my clothes were hanging inside on a day when they probably would have been dry in approximately fifteen minutes outside, I'll just say that my work uniforms are variations on brown cotton t-shirts. Drying them in the sun is pretty much akin to pouring bleach on them.

----------

I'm having a bit of a weepy day. No worries there; I'm a crier at the best of times, and some days it just seems like anything will set me off for no reason. Well, I suppose there might be a reason in the background at the moment, but let me just say there that it sucks knowing someone you like is hurting and leave it at that. Maybe we'll (me 'n alllll the voices) discuss it more fully at another time. It's not the main reason for the tears anyway. Mostly it's just one of those days, compounded by heat-caused tiredness. I did, however, sleep in the basement again last night, so maybe I've banked a little for the sleep I won't be getting when I'm back in my own apartment. And anyway, like I said I've always been a crier. No need to tell me that it's hormonal, because if that's the case I was born that way (well... technically I was, being a mammal and all. Or, really, I could have said being an organism and all).

Anyway, the current maudlin mood has probably made some of my usual morning internet reading hit me a little harder than it might otherwise. When I have the time -- if I'm here at my dad's or if I come in early enough to work to have time for personal internet business -- I have my daily places that I go, as everyone does. You can get an idea of some of the blogs I visit from the list on my profile (although some of those aren't very active), but there are other sites as well that I'll just keep to myself for now.

For whatever reason, the morning reading has combined into a general feeling that I'm doing this wrong.

Blogging, I mean.

I could be doing something with this blog, really. I could, I suppose, be trying to change peoples' minds, for one thing. I have beliefs and I have opinions, and for the most part they're kept very carefully from the blather. Of course some things get through because they're a part of who I am, and if I didn't have me on the blog it'd read like build-it-yourself furniture instructions. Still, I defy anyone to be able to tell where I stand on... well, just about anything from what's written here.

Is that the way it should be? Shouldn't I be trying to convince you why you should believe what I believe?

Or if I didn't want to go the full philosophical route (whether philosophy of religion, or politics, or life, or whatever else), shouldn't I pick a cause? I work at a nature centre -- shouldn't this blog be a voice for what's wrong on the planet (or, more accurately, what's wrong with the way we're treating it)? Despite what you see here, I'm capable of writing well, and writing persuasively. Shouldn't I be using that for something?

It seems a waste, really.

But.

But but but but...

That's not me, I don't think.

I'm not The Voice. Of anything. I don't want to be Jeanne d'Arc or Cassandra (and they each came to such good ends anyway, didn't they?). I made a comment on Linda Hensley's blog recently about being scattered rather than passionate, and that's a problem if you're wanting to focus your blogging on some cause or other. I don't want to be heard, or at least not in that way. In my job, I teach. I give information to help make choices; I don't tell you what choice to make. I guess that's a reflection of how I live my life as well. And how I blog.

Having said that, does anyone besides me find it odd that I do far more teaching on my so-called arts blog than I do on this one?

As to my beliefs, it's hard for me to get past the feeling that they're none of your business in the end. I use Whomever (somewhat facetiously, admittedly) here rather than Allah or Jesus or Krishna or, well, Whomever, for a reason. I have no need or desire for you to pigeonhole me. Yes, my thoughts are clouded by my beliefs. That's unavoidable. But by not sharing those beliefs with you, I'm preventing what I post here from being further clouded by your prejudices.

I think, anyway.

As far as politics go, at least that's an area where there's nothing to think about (as far as blogging goes). I'm one of the most apolitical people you'll find in the world when it comes to party politics. Yes, I have ideas as to policy, because I believe (ah, belief. Back to that then, eh) that I have a responsibility to be informed as a citizen. When it comes to the whole your party is evil just because it's not my party thing, though, you've completely lost my interest.

And incidentally, and certainly no offense meant to those of my two fans who are Americans, to a non-partisan Canadian the current American situation seems pretty much nuts.





Hmm. Reading back what I've just typed (and believe me, I've been typing off the top of my head) it looks like I've completely talked myself out of any semblance of relevance.

Well, that's convenient. Forget about stream of consciousness helping you to know your own mind. Apparently all it takes is stream of blather. I guess that, in the end, this place is what it is because that's what I apparently want it to be. Besides, if I was trying to make this place mean something I'd have to start making sense allllllllllllllllllllll the time.

That doesn't sound like any fun at all.





Ok then. Glad I got that settled. And without any more tears, even. Bonus.

----------











One last thing: a quick car pet update. On the left, the car pet of the last week or so, which since the photo seems to have disappeared. I hope for its sake it disappeared right off the car, since I would have felt a little sad for it having to make a second trip down the highway. On the right, though, is proof that my car doesn't like to be petless for terribly long. Not the greatest picture of the actual spider, but get a load of the reflection in the mirror. When I checked it last night it was in the process of making a (very futile) web whose scaffolding stretched from the top of the door frame all the way to the ground. Not very car friendly, but it'll find that out soon enough...