I can’t keep up. There are at least two bloggers that are publishing about 30 times a day each, one with pictures I have no interest in seeing (in addition, he will often post the same article or pictures four or five times in a row, within minutes of each other), and one with re-blogs of just about every blog they visit. Then at least one a day from the over 140 blogs I follow….. I’m dead…. I’ll never get caught up, unless I get ruthless and just delete all the ones I have now, without reading any, to get caught up.

SIGH…. a dilemma, and the only other way to cut back the emails is to Unfollow a bunch of folks. I don’t want to have to do that, for several reasons, one of which is that I’m a softy, and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings if I can help it…..

I’m sure others have this problem, too; how do you deal with it? Is there a way to turn off the email notifications without unfollowing a blog? I’d ask WP but it seems to take forever to get a response, if they answer at all, so I’m asking y’all first; if you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments, and thanks in advance for anything you can tell me….

Housekeeping out of the way, we can now get down to the whole point of this getting up early….. a Pearl….. shall we, then, go Pearling? Let’s do…..
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And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
— Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882) — The Day is done

Apparently, what has stolen away is my Muse…. pearls seem to be hiding from me, inspiration is AWOL, and she’s nowhere to be found. I am almost tempted to fall back into the Assassin’s story from yesterday, just to get things moving. I hate to set a precedent like that, though, they can become habits too quickly. Now if only Longfellow’s poem would come true, and my cares were all to fade away, maybe they would find the Muse and send her home…. it may be the only hope I have….

“You know that feeling when you’re leaning back on a stool and it starts to tip over? Well, that’s how I feel all the time.” — Steven Wright

Well, maybe not all the time, but right now for sure…. the search for a suitable pearl goes on…..

Baby! Baby! oo-ah oo-ah! Baby! Baby! oo-ah oo-ah! — Not Smart Bee, I hope….

Okay, that’s it… all this time and effort, and THIS is what I can find…. more than just pathetic, it is beginning to look like conspiracy….. and the only thing to do in that case is to go back to bed…. I’ll see you in a while….. Sometimes, one has to retreat in order to have any chance to win….. Patience, I’ll be back (Ouch, sorry…. didn’t mean to inflict any Arnie on y’all….)   Hang in there…..
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I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.  Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read.
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains.    Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), “Ozymandias” (1819)

Apparently, going back to bed for a couple of hours helped…. can’t yet say if my Muse has shown up, but within moments of resuming my search, the above showed up. Even without the lesson this poem teaches (of humility before the sands of Time) its sheer beauty is enough to have it grace this page. I am encouraged, and we shall now resume the search for more pearls with a lighter heart…..
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“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!” — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Here is a subject upon which I’ll bet I can rant without any warm-up, mostly because I happen to agree with the sentiment completely. I find this quality in a human being to be incomprehensible, as well as scary, and often wonder how such folks live to the age they have achieved, considering their lack of survival skills. Mother Nature is usually not kind to those who would ignore her rules and regulations, (and she doesn’t care why….) choosing instead to live with their heads cocooned in cotton; for most of history such folks as can do this were summarily executed by the Universe at large, a sentence generally carried out in short order when proof of their stupidity arose. “Oh, look! It’s one of those pretty sabertooth kittens…. how cute! Here, kitty, kitty…..”  Or some similar event; you get the picture, I’m sure….

“What a fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking that by his laughter he shows superiority instead of latent idiocy.” — M. Corelli

“Der christliche Entschluss, die Welt h\”asslich und schlecht zu finden, hat die Walt h\”asslich und schlecht gemacht.”
(The Christian determination to find the word hideous and bad, has made the world hideous and bad.)
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Well, here I am in AMERICA..  I LIKE it.  I HATE it. I LIKE it.  I HATE it.  I LIKE it.  I HATE it.  I LIKE it. I HATE it.  I LIKE..  EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!!” — Zippy the Pinhead

I’m very close to pulling out what little hair is left on my head…. This is the best I’ve found in the last 30 minutes, and to say the least, I’m very disappointed. Though it is strange enough to tickle my whimsy, it isn’t strong enough to carry me into either a rant or a subtle discussion of hidden meaning; there isn’t any!  I’m going to have to resort to drastic measures, I guess…. I’ve never encountered such a dearth of material. Every oyster I see is pearl-free and now it looks as if the beds themselves are shifting and moving, trying to hide from me. Well, one more try…..
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The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) — The Last Leaf

One may always trust poetry to save the day. Or, if not save it, at least support it long enough to get done with the day’s work. These two short tastes of beauty and grace will serve to end this fiasco for today, and carry it into tomorrow, when I trust I shall find reality to have resumed a more amenable shape, bursting with pearls, and more grist for my mill…. I only hope these do not serve as an elegy…..

So perish all, whose breast ne’er learn’d to glow
For others’ good, or melt at others’ woe.
— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 45
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I believe today’s offering has reached a new pinnacle of weird…. I felt the whole time as if I were swimming through cotton candy or spider webs, pulling at me, sticking to my legs and arms, and keeping me from getting anywhere. I will need to think about this today, it has been a severe struggle; I’m already exhausted, it isn’t 9 AM yet, and I have a lot more to do today. (Without even thinking about the 300 emails awaiting my reluctant attention…..

Well, so be it…. pissing and moaning about it isn’t going to get anything done, so I’ll leave it at that…… Here is hoping that your day goes better than mine has begun. I plan to go hence and try to persuade things to move along more in my chosen direction, so, we’ll see…. As long as I can avoid any further attention from Murphy, I should be okay…… Y’all take care out there….. and May the Metaphorse be with you….