My own fear is no match for my ego, though, never has been, so it’s never been an issue for me…. I couldn’t wait to start blogging, as I’ve had stuff to say about life and society for many years, with no outlet for my outrage, or my angst, or my decidedly odd sense of humor. Once I was retired, and discovered that I had all the time I wanted to write, I jumped in without any discernible hesitation, taking to it like a duck takes to water….. but, happily, without the water all over my butt…..  🙂

Then, of course, Murphy came to live with me, as he found his perfect target in my attempted routines, my attempted regular posts, my attempted sleep, and all the other parts of life that he found he could so easily distort and pervert, such that I never know where the next conundrum will surface. I seem to be a fertile field for his machinations, and ever since, oh, a week or so into this time period, since I began blogging, he has made it his life’s work to find a new way to fuck with me, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY!!! If it weren’t such a pain in the ass, I might feel special (cue Gilda Radner’s Church Lady voice for that last word….).

I didn’t mind so much, until the wearisome events surrounding living in poverty began to mount up into a mass that even my well-buried depression couldn’t keep hidden, and my PTSD became a daily issue, with the advent of unpredictable emotional storms, causing me to burst into tears at the slightest stress, or the thought of any stressful concept…… Concepts of a stressful nature….. yeah….

As you might guess, this little revelation has thrown me for a bit of a loop, and I don’t really even know how I feel, other than tearfully sad, fearfully mad, and a hundred other powerful emotions I can’t even name. So tearful, a break is needed, to get rid of some annoying fluid build-up that is common when I cry….. I’ll be back…. Okay, well, that didn’t work out so well….

I’m going to have to resort to more emergency procedures today, in order to get this Pearl done. I don’t know why, exactly, but it seems important to do so today. So, in sections one and three, where there would normally be a rant or two, I’m going old school, because that’s all I can do for now. I’ll do my best to make them potent pearls, even though they won’t be as floridly original, or as clear, I’m sure. At this point, enough emotion is swirling around inside me that a poem may just break out in section two, but, if not, I’ll find something sufficiently compelling in a more classical selection, if I can hold it together that long…..

I’m going to go for a dive now, and see if I can drown a bit of this sorrow in knowledge…. I have hopes, because aphorisms have always been a source of comfort to me in times of need…. So, I’ll stop torturing y’all now, and get on with it…. Shall we Pearl?….

“When you get older you have to be careful about always saying, “Things  aren’t as good as they used to be.” But it’s hard not to.” — Andy Rooney
(I don’t much like Andy Rooney, but even a blind dog can find a bone some days….)

— Bother! said Pooh, on his deathbed.
__________________________________

I was a bit nervous as to how this might turn out, given my state of mind, or lack thereof, but, Smart Bee seems to be in a compassionate mood, for a software program, anyway, so maybe it will all be okay….. Here are five pearls, each with their own message for the world to consider….. I particularly like the first one, and the last, and they DO help the pearl make its point…. That point’s a bit subtle, even for me, but, it’s there, if you wish to look for it, and it’s not bad….

“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time–a tremendous whack.” — Sir Winston Churchill

“A time to be born; a time to die.” — Ecclesiastes 3:2

“Allow your children to face the consequences of their actions.” — Brown

“If you ever feel like you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown, just follow these simple rules: First, calm down; second, come over and wash my car; third, shine all my shoes.  There, isn’t that better?” — Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

“If possible, try to find a way to come downstairs that doesn’t involve going bump, bump, bump, on the back of your head. -” — Pooh in Winnie the Pooh A.A. Milne, English author (1882-1956)

See? As I’ve been known to say previously, it’s all in the wrist….
__________________________________

What I said above about Smart Bee’s apparent empathy today seems to be accurate…. When considering poetry to fill this space today, after determining there is no poem of my own ready to come out, it showed me an excerpt from a Yeats poem, which prompted me to go find these two gems, both of which fit my mood today, as well as the apparent theme, obviously chosen by Reality…. Enjoy!…

A Friend’s Illness

SICKNESS brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?

William Butler Yeats

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Dream Of Death

I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
{She was more beautiful than thy first love,}
{But now lies under boards.}

William Butler Yeats
__________________________________

Here is a seven star pearl for your perusal, as a finish to today’s effortful outpouring of confusion…. Smart Bee was again very cooperative, giving up this group in less than forty clicks, an astounding rate of success, especially given how it has performed already today. One could get the impression that it was AI software, and was reacting with compassion to my pained mental static….. Lest that be untrue, or, in case it is, I’ll not suggest otherwise…

Meantime, here are seven pearls, that just fall together into an attractive shape, no matter which way you jumble them up…. enjoy! Should it be necessary, there are cleaning solutions and tools in the cabinet by the pantry, including items to clean your clothing, in the event of spills or splashes…. We’re big on safety here, but, Life can be dangerous, especially when dealing with ideas…. unpredictable little buggers…. Why, I’ve seen them jump right out of a frying pan, into a fire…. imagine that!….

“What UNIVERSE is this, please??” — Zippy the Pinhead

“Two wrongs are only the beginning.” — Kohn’s Corollary to Murphy’s Law

“To get really high is to forget yourself.  And to forget yourself is to see everything else.  And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.  And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe.  That’s why I think it’s important to get high.  I’m not talking about unconscious or zonked out. I’m talking about being fully conscious.” — Jerry Garcia

One ship drives east and the other drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Winds of Fate

“The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.” — Alfred North Whitehead

“Those who will not reason, perish in the act.  Those who will not act, perish for that reason.” — W. H. Auden, _Shorts_

Lastly, a perfect find for today…. The counter-curse to the one I received long ago, when the ancient Chinese gentleman said to me, “May you have an interesting life.”….. Now all I have to do is find a competent, relatively cheap, er, inexpensive necromancer to say it to me….

“May you live in uninteresting times.” — Smart Bee
__________________________________

I can’t speak to how today’s effort has been for y’all, but, it has helped me a lot, to regain enough composure to get the rest of the way through the day. The process of creating a Pearl has always been therapeutic, (a big part of why I started in the first place….), and today has served to solidify that characteristic for me…. My only remaining hope is that I haven’t bored anyone to their own tears, or offended anyone enough to lose them in the process, but, that’s always a gamble in this universe, so….