Show Your Work

I read a story about a Korean couple who let their five month old baby starve to death while they went to a cybercafe where they played with and nurtured a virtual child for upwards of twelve hours a day. This, even I have to say, is bizarre. But I'm not going to lecture about the dangers of the internet (like everything else, best in moderation, prone to abuses) or the evils of games like Second Life or Farmville (hey, we all have time to kill -- I like to clean which isn't exactly excitment city, to each his own). It's got me thinking about what we feed in our lives -- real babies or virtual ones. It's easy to be deceived into thinking that we're feeding our most alive impulses when we're often only medicating impulses.

Lately, I've had to take a very different approach with my writing which involves getting back to the basics of what I knew a long time ago -- it takes as long as it takes, it pays to study other models until you want to stab your eyes out, and you must throw out a lot even when it pains you. Oh, let's face it -- it always pains you. I've had to feed the real baby and ignore the fun stuff, the glitter and bells and whistles. You think this stuff would be pretty basic. But it's not for me. In math classes, I remember teachers always telling me, You got to the answer the hardest way a person could. Don't I know it.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it." Confucius

Cocktail Hour
Drinking jewelry suggestion:
www.jewelryartdesigns.com

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday!