I guess you live and learn (if you are paying attention), you make different choices the next time around, but you also have to consider that people change and that you change as well.

I tried to post some Langston Hughes on thursday, but apparently that fell through. But now I know that I was doing something wrong. Guess and check was, however, never my problem-solving-technique-of-choice (de muerte!), but if the clock tics...

In any case, here is a quaint excerpt from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". Enjoy.

November 12, 1991


Dear friend,
I love Twinkies, and the reason I am saying that is because we
are all supposed to think of reasons to live. In science class, Mr. Z.
told us about an experiment where they got this rat or mouse, and
they put this rat or mouse on one side of a cage. On the other side
of the cage, they put a little piece of food. And this rat or mouse
would walk over to the food and eat. Then, they put the rat or
mouse back on its original side, and this time they put electricity
all through the floor where the rat or mouse would have to walk to
get the piece of food. They did this for a while, and the rat or
mouse stopped going for the food at a certain amount of volt-
age. Then, they repeated the experiment, but they replaced the
food with something that gave the rat or mouse intense pleasure. I
don't know what it was that gave them intense pleasure, but I am
guessing it is some kind of rat or mouse nip. Anyway, what the sci-
entists found out was that the rat or mouse would put up with a lot
more voltage for the pleasure. Even more than for the food.
I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting.


Love always,
Charlie

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

- e. e. cummings

I guess I was not supposed to post the splendid little paragraph that I had just spent a good, oh, half hour on. Story of my life, what can I say. Let me tell you though, it was great. And then it was dessert for my mutt computer (nothing against mutts, mind you, but quite 'litterally' my computer is probably part everything but mac). Oh well, I will have to let bygones be bygones and maybe use it at a more opportune time, not that such an achievement of online greatness could ever be replicated. For now, all I have left to say is: If you love someone who has Schizophrenia, you're not ALONE.

Please never resist the urge to catnap; stretch out in the sun and simply soak up the solar energy. Thaw, not melt. Also, enjoy old people while you can. Always put in the effort to see your favorite flowers, even if you are uncertain if they are blooming or not. It is worth it, especially if it is nice out. Siblings and friends make the greatest pillows, and are also good for leaning (on). (lean on me/when you're not strong...you know the rest.) Be aware of earrings before taking off your shirt with reckless abandon, especially if the grass is long, and the earrings are not yours. Build up as much air pressure as possible behind a watermellon seed before spitting it out to achive maximum (or at least halfway decent) distance.

There, now I have imparted some of the things I learned (relearned) today onto you.




:)

Prelude

into the strenuous briefness
Life:
handorgans and April
darkness,friends

i charge laughing.
Into the hair-thin tints
of yellow dawn,
into the women-coloured twilight

i smilingly
glide. I
into the big vermillion departure
swim,sayingly;

(Do you think?)the
i do,world
is probably made
of roses & hello:

(of solongs and,ashes)


- e.e cummings