three

three poles walk into a bar, originally uploaded by McBeth.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

--Tom Bodett

getting naked, revisited

Was it only two years ago when I first revealed my Deepest Parts? Oh, how the time flies!

I'm not exactly prepared to tell the story of my appreciation for Isthmus Eye Care and, in direct oppositional proportion, my deep deep loathing for Medicare/Medicaid's health, dental and optical care coverage.

With the exception of the cost of the basic exam, I used my income tax refund (+) to pay for the (uncovered) Optoscans, to purchase (uncovered) eyeglass frames that weren't in the pathetic little wallet of ugly Medicare/Medicaid sanctioned frames, and to pay for my (also uncovered) first-time-ever bifocals that the doctor said I would most benefit from wearing.

Not medically necessary my ass, Medicaid.


Ah, and in the interest of full disclosure, I want to mention that I have lightened these two images a smidge. The originals were just too dark to be able to see much. Top image is of my left eye; bottom image is of my right eye.

you don't believe me?

crackerjacks, originally uploaded by McBeth.

"Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which give their lies such wide-eyed conviction."

-- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

growing

how avalanches are born, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Mighty things from small beginnings grow.

-- John Dryden

drowning

canoe melt, originally uploaded by McBeth.

You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.

-- Edwin Lewis Cole

holding hands

highwire act, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well.

-- Dennis Waitley

tithe

velvia palpatine, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Moreover, we will bring to the storerooms of the house of our God, to the priests, the first of our ground meal, of our grain offerings, of the fruit of all our trees and of our new wine and oil. And we will bring a tithe of our crops to the Levites, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all the towns where we work.

-- Nehemiah 10:37 Bible, NIV

coming back down

snowy isthmus, originally uploaded by McBeth.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

-- Winston Churchill

sustenance

ginger ale, originally uploaded by McBeth.

“The cliché that women, more consistently than men, turn inward for sustenance seems to mean, in practice, that women have richly defined the ways in which imagination creates possibility; possibility that society denies.

-- Patricia Meyer Spacks

travel

wait 20 minutes, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

thirst

blue swoon, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

-- Anais Nin

stand up

egghead, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Imagine the Creator as a stand up comedian - and at once the world becomes explicable.

-- Henry Louis Mencken

two things

question: what do squirrels make when they play in the snow?, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.

-- Adam Lindsay Gordon,
from Fytte VIII
Finis Exoptatus
[A Metaphysical Song]

opportunity

split greens, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

-- Mark Twain

womanhood

hearts and crossbones, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I have a woman's body and a child's emotions.

-- Elizabeth Taylor

verification

pregame net check, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

-- Bertrand Russell

power

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

-- Harry Browne

waked with laughter

gone. (fishing), originally uploaded by McBeth.

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

-- William Shakespeare

POV

i heard what you heard, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.

-- Henry Ford

waiting

across the field, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

-- Malachy McCourt