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Journals are good for me	[Jun. 10th, 2024\|01:10 am]Footpad
[Tags\|diaries, j'y suis j'y reste, journal, mental health, meta] [Current Location	Mallorca] [Current Music	birdsong and a distant road]The Sahara has come to Mallorca on a big brown wind, coursing up from the south laden with dust from the desert. All those fabled Mediterranean colours are muted in the haze and the sun's disk is dull silver on a colourless sky. It's beautiful but it's vaguely unearthly. So my sister and I and the podenco dog went walkies, rising at five in the morning to climb into the ragged hills behind Alcúdia. We rested at a mirador on a limestone crag and talked about our lives and prospects, we savoured the less sultry air among the pine trees, we restrained the dog from his visceral hunter's passion for the feral goats. Much of the rest of the day was spent knocking off tasks that my sister had lined up for me during my visit: fixing some fencing, sorting out a recalcitrant scanner, that kind of thing. Making myself useful in a way that will place no mark on history, or even necessarily on memory, but that's still part of the fabric of my life. I kept a journal when I was young (several in fact, at different times and in different phases of my existence). It's remarkable, when I review those decades-old pages now, how much returns to my recall that would otherwise be lost entirely. I'm no longer young, but then again I'm not old either, and there's much to learn. ( Read more...Collapse )
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New LJ friends page	[Nov. 13th, 2012\|09:28 am]Footpad
[Tags\|lj, meta] [Current Location	Zurich, Switzerland] [Current Mood	bored]Dear LJ,I've seen complaints from folks about a new Friends page of yours, mostly on the grounds that it looks like a "tumblr". Anyway, I tried it, and...... it doesn't even word wrap correctly? Er... what is wrong with you?One hears a lot of gripes ending with something like, "one more offence and I'm going to a different blogging platform". But, actually, if in due course you give me no alternative to that page? Then, why, yes, I will in fact go to a different blogging platform.For now, though, I'll stay on the familiar old-style page that I've been reading for ever so many years. Because, as usual, there are more pressing things to worry about
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Revitalised blog; caffeine	[May. 14th, 2012\|12:34 pm]Footpad
[Tags\|caffeine, lj, meta]Almost one post per day so far in May! And no shortage of things on the List Of Stuff To Write About. Wow.It feels good to be blogging again, but, far more significantly, it feels good to be having the kind of life that I feel moved to write about. Stuff Is Happening. Life is happening. I've been stuck in a rut a long while. Now I'm in exactly the same place, doing almost exactly the same things, but life is infused with the sense of possibility that is perhaps the single most vital thing in our existence.After my last lapse, the caffeine is out of my system and I'm back on the wagon, but this time with stronger rules. No coffee, not even decaf; no tea, and, from now on, no chocolate (with an exception for the very rare indulgence of cake).I've heard it said that alcoholics and heroin-addicts have to bottom out before they can truly break away from their addiction. You will always be susceptible to the weakness of temptation until you understand in full, deep down in your heart and brain and guts, that the pleasure of the moment can never outweigh the reckoning that's sure to follow. Then, giving it up becomes, not a resolution, but a matter of common sense. Thus it is, in microcosm, with me and stimulants.Still, there's always temptation. Today is Day 4.
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Revitalised blog; caffeine

[May. 14th, 2012|12:34 pm]Footpad

[**Tags**|caffeine, lj, meta]Almost one post per day so far in May! And no shortage of things on the List Of Stuff To Write About. Wow.It feels good to be blogging again, but, far more significantly, it feels good to be having the kind of life that I feel moved to write about. Stuff Is Happening. Life is happening. I've been stuck in a rut a long while. Now I'm in exactly the same place, doing almost exactly the same things, but life is infused with the sense of possibility that is perhaps the single most vital thing in our existence.After my last lapse, the caffeine is out of my system and I'm back on the wagon, but this time with stronger rules. No coffee, not even decaf; no tea, and, from now on, no chocolate (with an exception for the very rare indulgence of cake).I've heard it said that alcoholics and heroin-addicts have to bottom out before they can truly break away from their addiction. You will always be susceptible to the weakness of temptation until you understand in full, deep down in your heart and brain and guts, that the pleasure of the moment can never outweigh the reckoning that's sure to follow. Then, giving it up becomes, not a resolution, but a matter of common sense. Thus it is, in microcosm, with me and stimulants.Still, there's always temptation. Today is Day 4.

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Backdated entries	[Apr. 11th, 2008\|06:36 pm]Footpad
[Tags\|memories, meta, sailing, travel] [Current Mood	pensive]Five weeks' worth of backdated entries that I found in an old handwritten sailing-journal from 1995. It was a six- or eight-month journey, all told, but I only recorded about five weeks of it. Three weeks' cruising from Cornwall, England to the Algarve, Portugal; then a couple of weeks in St Martin, Caribbean. I eventually jumped ship in the Bahamas and flew back to England. I wasn't really into it: a sort of ennui which has been all too common in the post-Scientology years. So this isn't a journal of sailing so much as the journal of a confused teenager who should have been paying more attention.Story of my life. :)So these entries miss the most exotic bits of the journey. Climbing mountains in the Canaries, the taste of fresh papaya in the morning, the magic of passing from the North Atlantic into the radiant blue of tropical seas, the Atlantic crossing itself. Landfall in the Windward Islands, sundry crises, the hellish effulgence of the Puerto Rican coast at night. Strange days cruising with my uncle in the Bahamas. The magic-realism and twisted Communism of back-country Cuba. The endless energy of the trade-winds, towering cloudscapes at dawn. Flying-fish and tropic-birds.Memories now, and fading into tatters as the years go by. All memories fade. But they fade faster if you don't have something to recall them by. That's what my journal is to me: a link to memories. Even reading my childishly vague journal entries from twenty years ago, I can often dimly recall being there—the smell of rain, the shape of a coastline, the kindness of strangers. Without those scribbled notes to recall them, those memories would be nothing but occasional flashes of déja vu.That's why I try to write my journal evocatively. The more senses I can weave into text, the more today's memories will still be alive to me in many decades to come. Or so I hope.Of course there's the whole blog-as-performance-art thing. I love it when people enjoy my blog, and it's a nice vehicle for social commentary and silly "memes", but mainly it's for me. I mostly try to avoid this.I love reading back through my blog occasionally and remembering stuff. Oh yeah, that, with an internal smile or wince. I'm just wary of starting to live on my memories, as though the present is no longer tenable or interesting. Usually it means that I should be out doing something else memorable. Like going for a run with the dog. Mischa, _komm!_Entries for October 1994 (15 entries), November 1994 (8 entries), February 1995 (7 entries), March 1995 (5 entries).
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Backdated entries

[Apr. 11th, 2008|06:36 pm]Footpad

[Tags**|memories, meta, sailing, travel] [Current Mood**

pensive]Five weeks' worth of backdated entries that I found in an old handwritten sailing-journal from 1995. It was a six- or eight-month journey, all told, but I only recorded about five weeks of it. Three weeks' cruising from Cornwall, England to the Algarve, Portugal; then a couple of weeks in St Martin, Caribbean. I eventually jumped ship in the Bahamas and flew back to England. I wasn't really into it: a sort of ennui which has been all too common in the post-Scientology years. So this isn't a journal of sailing so much as the journal of a confused teenager who should have been paying more attention.Story of my life. :)So these entries miss the most exotic bits of the journey. Climbing mountains in the Canaries, the taste of fresh papaya in the morning, the magic of passing from the North Atlantic into the radiant blue of tropical seas, the Atlantic crossing itself. Landfall in the Windward Islands, sundry crises, the hellish effulgence of the Puerto Rican coast at night. Strange days cruising with my uncle in the Bahamas. The magic-realism and twisted Communism of back-country Cuba. The endless energy of the trade-winds, towering cloudscapes at dawn. Flying-fish and tropic-birds.Memories now, and fading into tatters as the years go by. All memories fade. But they fade faster if you don't have something to recall them by. That's what my journal is to me: a link to memories. Even reading my childishly vague journal entries from twenty years ago, I can often dimly recall being there—the smell of rain, the shape of a coastline, the kindness of strangers. Without those scribbled notes to recall them, those memories would be nothing but occasional flashes of déja vu.That's why I try to write my journal evocatively. The more senses I can weave into text, the more today's memories will still be alive to me in many decades to come. Or so I hope.Of course there's the whole blog-as-performance-art thing. I love it when people enjoy my blog, and it's a nice vehicle for social commentary and silly "memes", but mainly it's for me. I mostly try to avoid this.I love reading back through my blog occasionally and remembering stuff. Oh yeah, that, with an internal smile or wince. I'm just wary of starting to live on my memories, as though the present is no longer tenable or interesting. Usually it means that I should be out doing something else memorable. Like going for a run with the dog. Mischa, _komm!_Entries for October 1994 (15 entries), November 1994 (8 entries), February 1995 (7 entries), March 1995 (5 entries).

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Dear Mr Nossik...	[Mar. 20th, 2008\|05:12 pm]Footpad
[Tags\|drama, lj, lj boycott, meta] [Current Mood	pragmatic][Following grayscalewolf's comment: Nossik appears to deny that his comments represented the opinions of LJ management; which is a bit ripe from a Media Evangelist; but, much more significantly, he says that the story was a digest of a two-hour phone conversation. During which anything might have been said. And after re-reading the more charitable translation, I found that a lot of what Nossik said could actually be interpreted fairly charitably. So I retract any implication that I'm boycotting LJ. I'm just taking the day off from drama!]( The original snide meta-drama: people are boycotting LJ because...Collapse )And partly because, hey, it's Good Friday, and I have a lot of other things I could be doing. Now, where did I leave that handkerchief...?
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Dear Mr Nossik...

[Mar. 20th, 2008|05:12 pm]Footpad

[Tags**|drama, lj, lj boycott, meta] [Current Mood**

pragmatic][Following

grayscalewolf's comment: Nossik appears to deny that his comments represented the opinions of LJ management; which is a bit ripe from a Media Evangelist; but, much more significantly, he says that the story was a digest of a two-hour phone conversation. During which anything might have been said. And after re-reading the more charitable translation, I found that a lot of what Nossik said could actually be interpreted fairly charitably. So I retract any implication that I'm boycotting LJ. I'm just taking the day off from drama!]**( The original snide meta-drama: people are boycotting LJ because...Collapse )**And partly because, hey, it's Good Friday, and I have a lot of other things I could be doing. Now, where did I leave that handkerchief...?

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Go East, life is peaceful there	[Dec. 3rd, 2007\|09:46 am]Footpad
[Tags\|lj, meta, sup]Holy shit. They're not kidding? No, they're not kidding! Ladies, gentlemen and others; cats dogs and reptiles: the future is Russian! Please show your gratitude with a moment's silence for our erstwhile patrons at Six Apart_thank you._And now to a bright future in the arms of the Russian business network—but do we get to be face up, face down or FaceBook? Soon the funny policies and the Great Strikethrough will be naught but a memory—but only time will tell whether a sour or a wistful one.Personally I'm hopeful.Backtrace: thewerewolf.
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Go East, life is peaceful there

[Dec. 3rd, 2007|09:46 am]Footpad

[**Tags**|lj, meta, sup]Holy shit. They're not kidding? No, they're not kidding! Ladies, gentlemen and others; cats dogs and reptiles: the future is Russian! Please show your gratitude with a moment's silence for our erstwhile patrons at Six Apart_thank you._And now to a bright future in the arms of the Russian business network—but do we get to be face up, face down or FaceBook? Soon the funny policies and the Great Strikethrough will be naught but a memory—but only time will tell whether a sour or a wistful one.Personally I'm hopeful.Backtrace:

thewerewolf.

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