Datebook 3-18 thru 25

Sorry, no quote for the 24th and 25th. I simply had other things to ponder. The weather was so beautiful that there were bike rides to complete. I also spent some time sitting in my garden having an "Artist's Date". The artist's date is a concept from the Walking in This World book, and I haven't held true to it every week.

The doorway is a sketch from memory. I was watching the movie Holiday, with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant—great movie and the third or fourth time I've seen it. Anyway, I caught a brief glimpse of the doorway of the house. I'm sure the details above the large globe are wrong, but I was having fun by the time I got to those details and just didn't want to stop.


The quote: "Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." —Author unknown

Gee, as much as I'd like to get the worst stuff out of the way first thing in the morning, I'm going to have to take a pass on this.

The background on this spread is the worst one in the book so far. The doodles helped a little since they cover some of it.


In the way of "less is more", I really like this spread. The sunset was one I saw from the train on the way home weeks ago, and I did it via reflection since I was sitting with my back to the west. The quote is the end of the one from the previous spread—it was rather long.


H.D. Thoreau's journal entry 17-Mar-1852:
"I catch myself philosophizing most abstractedly when first returning to consciousness in the night or in the morning. I make the truest observations and distinctions then, when the will is yet wholly asleep and the mind works like a machine without friction. I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual and made observations and carried on conversations which in my waking hours I can neither recall nor appreciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind, and at that moment of awakening we found ourselves on the confines of the latter. On awakening we resume our enterprise, take up our bodies and become limited mind again. We meet and converse with those bodies which we have previously animated. There is a moment in the dawn, when the darkness of the night is dissipated and before the exhalations of the day commence to rise, when we see things more truly than at any other time. The light is more trustworthy, since our senses are purer and the atmosphere is less gross. By afternoon all objects are seen in mirage."

Datebook 3-8 Thru 17

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I'm just getting over a bug that was going around. These won't quite get you up to date, but within spitting distance at least.


The quote: "There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read." —G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

How true, how true. I'm not a person who memorizes quotes very easily. They strike a chord of accuracy in me—or echo my own thoughts—and I note them down, but they don't often stick. This one sticks.


H.D. Thoreau's journal entry for 14-Mar-1860: "No sooner has the ice of Walden melted than the wind begins to play in dark ripples over the surface of the virgin water. It is affecting to see nature so tender, however old, and wearing none of the wrinkles of age. Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect water as if it had been melted a million years. To see that which was lately so hard and immovable now so soft and impressible! What if our moods could dissolve thus completely? It is like a flush of life to a cheek that was dead."

A little note about how this journal is put together: The backgrounds are done in advance. In this particular case, Thoreau's entry and the background seemed to suit each other very well which is a result of coincidence instead of design.

I have a difficulty with one of the adjectives he used to describe the melted water—"impressible" doesn't seem accurate because it suggests that an impression will remain (which it certainly won't in water). Of course, "fluid" would be the logical substitute but also terribly obvious and less profound. I'll have to ponder it a bit more.


The quote: "In religion and politics, beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination." —Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Gotta love a little Twainism. You must have your beliefs and convictions, but it's necessary to revisit their basis every now and then and reassess them in the light of new evidence. Just my 2¢ worth.


The quote: "If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." —Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

I think I would still be impressed because that meant his mastery came to him very naturally—an enviable talent.

Now for a bit of cycling analysis. I'm waaay behind on my mileage for the year, and I'm rather disappointed that Saturday, March 10th was the day of my first outdoor ride. This was the first year in a long time that I didn't ride outside in January and February. I'll have to work that much harder for the rest of the year.

On the upside, the trainer work I've been doing, combined with the walking to and from the train station (and elsewhere), seems to be keeping me a bit more fit than I usually am this time of year. When I went outside for that 21 mile ride, it wasn't as difficult as it normally is this time of year.

Sunday the 11th was all about cycling too. I spent some quality time on the trainer. The weather was nice enough to ride outside, but I didn't feel like putting on lots o' layers. It's good to have options.

Sunday evening the Versus channel (formerly known as OLN) had coverage of the prologue of the Paris-Nice race.


The quote: "Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an aquaintance, or a stranger." —Franklin P. Jones

The drawing: my slippers. The measurements: a framing project I was working on. The Floyd Fairness Fund Art Sale & Fundraiser: an event I thought of attending but didn't.