I gave her my number once

evening lobby, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself.

-- Lily Tomlin

it is not over until it is over

never thought it would lead to this, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.

-- Aesop

take the gesture

palomino's last laugh, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Every man has a different idea of what's beautiful, and it's best to take the gesture, the shadow of the branch, and let the mind create the tree.

-- William Faulkner

tre

three, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Even in war moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.

-- Napoleon Bonaparte

one's duties

blessings, originally uploaded by McBeth.

To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy is to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot; bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it.

-- Horace Walpole

spinning discs

coliseum, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.

-- Russell Baker

an art form

DeGrazia, originally uploaded by McBeth.

When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you'll come to realize what you were dragging around with you. And for that, no one else other than you was responsible.

-- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

mother's day reminder

your attention please, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Mothers are integral members of families. Before a child is born they’ve read books written by experts. Despite morning sickness and her gag reflex your mother choked down prenatal vitamins the size of horse pills to give you every nutrient your sea monkey self would need for proper brain development. Mothers even refrain from consuming alcohol during pregnancy to ensure a safely delivered package. She does these things because she already loves you, even before your birth. Mothers feed us, they teach us to clean our hands, our ears and our teeth. They comfort us when our feelings have been hurt and they love us unconditionally. Your mother would put her personal safety behind yours in any dangerous situation. She would pitch you out the second story window of a burning building into the arms of a waiting rescuer before tossing herself out. She is the person who will reassure you that you are the most exquisite creature on earth, even during your clumsiest, most acne-laden years. She may dispense advice and demonstrations on completely embarrassing topics you are horrified to be speaking openly about, but this is because she knows the Universe will at some point hand you a pop quiz and she wants to know she did her best to help you study for it. But make no mistake: she who gives life can also take it away. If you giggle during worship services she will squeeze your hand so tight you’ll start to wonder as you squirm if she’ll ever let go, or if you’ll ever get the feeling back in your tingling purple fingers. You cannot imagine the challenges of motherhood, young friends. Mothers are burdened with the task of saving us from ourselves until we are old enough to recognize that we don’t actually know everything, and mothers take their jobs seriously. It might seem like unfair wrath, but trust me on this one: don’t talk back to your mother.

You and your friends have been engaged in covert ops during lunchtime and math classes, hatching plans to get to the Rat Poison show next Friday night. Your plan is to induce her into giving you her blessing by tugging at her heart strings. If you’re brighter than the average bear your argument will resemble some form of ‘I’ll die if I don’t get to go’. Be prepared: she will probably say no. Even if she does, even if you cannot convince her with sobbing and tears rolling down your cheeks, don’t tell her you hate her. She can, and will, come up with a list rivaling Santa’s ‘Good Children’ tome of ingenious ways she will teach you to regret the fact that you said you hated her. Unless you enjoy cleaning carpets with your tongue for a month, do not tell your mother you hate her.

It is a sunny Saturday afternoon and, because you’re bored now that you and your friends exhausted all the ways to set things on fire using a magnifying glass, you inform your mother that you’re going to head over to a convenience store two miles away to watch the clerk twitch as you and your friends paw each piece of pocketable candy. If your mother has a pulse she will say, over my dead body. This, young friend, is not the moment to tell your mother she is not the boss of you. Right there, in front of your friends, she will peel your emotional skin off with a single silent glance. She will grin her grinchiest smile. And because mothers are calculating creatures, she will calmly inform you, oh yes she is the boss of you. At this point you may hear the screen door slam, an indication that your friends have abandoned you. This is because they know you will be spending at least the next month setting tables and scrubbing toilets, cleaning the litter box, the hamster cage and your little sister’s stinky diaper pail until your mother is sufficiently convinced that you do understand she’s the boss of you.

Your mother wants the best for you even if the direct route to goodness is paved with dictatorial punishment and personal misery. Make her job easier while you save yourself some time and tears; don’t talk back to your mother.

celebration

two left over, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

-- Oprah Winfrey

commitment

bouquet, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Onion soup sustains. The process of making it is somewhat like the process of learning to love. It requires commitment, extraordinary effort, time, and will make you cry.

-- Ronni Lundy

rest

lights off, originally uploaded by McBeth.

He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.

-- William Dean Howells

the quiet ones

paoli, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

fun

night vision specs, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Fun is good.

-- Dr. Seuss

ignorance

cannot just ignore it, originally uploaded by McBeth.

An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out.

-- Will Rogers

gather around

rocking the firehouse, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

-- May Sarton

transmogrification

grape hyacinth, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The fool inherits, but the wise must get.

-- William Cartwright

broken places

bug guts, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

-- Ernest Hemingway

mortality

gumbutt tree seedlings, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.

-- R.D. Laing

sundown

sundown, originally uploaded by McBeth.

What a nice night for an evening.

-- Steven Wright

try it

tentacle salad, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

-- James Stephens

unfashionable

in here, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken.

-- William Hazlett

hold please

michael graves design, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

-- George Bernard Shaw

limitless

spirits among us, originally uploaded by McBeth.

In the material world, there are limitations. We always want more, but in the spiritual world, just a short prayer and you're infinitely content.

-- HH The 14th Dalai Lama

thank you, and safe passage

leaning into light, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.

-- Buddha

rebuke the darkness

rear view mirror, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I speak of peace, while covert enmity under the smile of safety wounds the world.

-- William Shakespeare

a little faith

face it, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I still say a church steeple with a lightening rod on top shows a lack of confidence.

-- Doug McLeod

jammed up

overflowing, originally uploaded by McBeth.

There's the given and the expected
I count my blessings while I eye what I've neglected
Is this for better is this for worse
You're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst.

I hear the owl in the night
I realize that some things never are made right
By some will we string together here
Days to months and months to years
What if everything we have adds up to nothing.

-- Indigo Girls

the best things

a watched pot, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

-- Ben Okri

virtue isms

the other way, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The excessive regard of parents for their children, and their dislike of other people's is, like class feeling, patriotism, save-your-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.

-- Thomas Hardy

well seasoned

harbinger, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Summer makes me drowsy.
Autumn makes me sing.
Winter's pretty lousy,
but I hate Spring.

-- Dorothy Parker

prodigy

two tracked mind, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If I was the protagonist of a movie, she said, I’d be they lady who, no matter how many times she tries, could not remember the differences between the movie theater that offers terrific afternoon matinee prices and that other one.

what are you suggesting

bean juice, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.

-- Mae West

one out of four

gravity holds us down, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

-- Rita Mae Brown

directionals

reading leaves, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us-and those around us - more effectively. Look for the learning.

-- Louisa May Alcott

making plans

princess daydreams, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

-- Gloria Steinem

surprises

red shutter, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty.

-- Eric Hoffer

choices

possibilities, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you posses. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.

-- Kent Nerburn

watching for signs

mum, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I used to wait for a sign, she said, before I did anything. Then one night I had a dream & an angel in black tights came to me & said, you can start any time now, & then I asked is this a sign? & the angel started laughing & I woke up. Now, I think the whole world is filled with signs, but if there's no laughter, I know they're not for me.

Brian Andreas, Story People

fleet

steadfast foundations, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.

-- Bob Dylan

theirs to ours

wanilla wodka, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Maybe it's other people's reactions to us that makes us who we are.

-- Fox Mulder

un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq

five cubes, originally uploaded by McBeth.

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.

-- Chinese proverb

weapons down

getout 'n stayout, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

costume change

coming alive, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?

-- Chuck Palahniuk

remember this day

remember this day, originally uploaded by McBeth.

These things that leave you so frustrated will pass.
They will.
When a day like this happens again you will know what it feels like because you've been here, before, today.
Even though you will cry and feel just horrible, because that's what you do, it will pass.
And you'll feel a whole lot better knowing that ,
at least,
you're trying to do something you believe in.
That's something.

to the library boys, who will never read this

fidget works her warm fuzzies, originally uploaded by McBeth.

First of all: I'm old enough to be your mother. Even if I wasn't I am a fellow student who wants to just get through this time so I can move along to what comes next. You don't have to be a dick when someone asks you to not do something annoying. Try using some of the manners that I hope I am not wrong to assume your guardians taught you.

When I asked you to please lower your voices because I couldn't concentrate you were awfully attentive to my needs, like that cosy little moment when you suggested that I go into the 'Quiet Room' section of the library if I want quiet. Really, the way you are looking out for me nearly brings a tear to my eye it is just that touching. But c'mon dudes, look at the situation! I am seated at a school computer - in a LIBRARY. It's not like I can yank the cables out from the back of the Dell and drag computer guts into the Quiet Room to do this non-interactive online work. I have to sit at one of the school computers where it is set up and plugged in, to do this thing I'm doing. You don't have to be in a library to share the best secret hunting spots you've discovered across the tri-state area. Go somewhere else to yack.

Yes I concur with you, the library is indeed a public place. But it is also a LIBRARY, where people are doing homework and research and reading and studying. Were you raised in a barn or something? Did nobody every teach you the concept of indoor voices? Use them. Trust me on this one... annoying and interesting are two very different animals. You're not that interesting. If I squint a little I can understand why you'd think you have every right to carry on a loud conversation about hunting and blowing up crows with inappropriately large guns, but the thing is not all of us think you're awesome or that your immaturely gruesome hunting stories are exciting. Not everyone else seated around you wants to hear what you expect you should have every right in the middle of a LIBRARY to chortle over. Want to hear about my menstrual issues? Mmhmm, thought not. Context, my little friends, context.

And try some freakin' manners. Sheesh.

solid footing

inaugural socks, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust.

-- John Akers

back home

crawfish , originally uploaded by McBeth.

When I get away from home for too long I start to get crazy, so I need to get back, ... We have to get back just to get our feet in the mud, in that crawfish juice, or something.

-- George Porter

headed there

as the crow flies, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Life begins at 40 - but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times.

-- Helen Rowland

a one and a

on a scale of one to ten, originally uploaded by McBeth.

According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.

-- Jerry Seinfeld

small medium and large

available at fine retailers everywhere, originally uploaded by McBeth.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

-- Mark Twain