Unfinished

Lately, each day has been vacillating between autumnal and wintry. There are hours of clear sky, hours of scattered clouds, hours of heavy overcast without rain, and hours of drizzle. The leaves continue to drop from the trees, but the pines have already shed most of their dead, brown needles. By night, when there are thin clouds, the moon sometimes casts its light through one that contains ice crystals which act as prisms, and the moon will be surrounded by a cloudy halo in the vivid colors of the rainbow. Twice tonight, I have seen slow meteors trace a bright line across the stars. The Leonids will arrive in a few days. I hope that it is clear enough to see them.

The essay I began on the 11th continues to grow. I am only now reaching the part where I originally began it, before Sluggo crashed and lost it. I'd like to say that I'm now about half done with it, but I don't know. The thing might grow a new end as well as the new beginning. For some reason, I'm finding this piece more difficult to write than I have any of the other long posts I've done recently. Well, I won't predict when it will be ready to post. For all I know, the damned thing will turn into a novel, and I'll never finish. This has happened to me before. I'll try to keep it within reason, but there are no guarantees.

Now, for a few minutes of recreational mucking about the internet, before I must sleep. Large numbers of words are tiring. I want to go look at something entertaining.

Weather Report

The day surprised me by being balmy. The dawn revealed masses of pink and lavender cloud, which I expected to grow into the grey canopy which that condition usually presages this time of year. Instead, I was greeted in the afternoon by a bright and still day of scattered clouds and almost toasty sunshine. The hounds of spring on winter's traces, four months early. I went out and took a few pictures. Now that the foliage on the trees is greatly thinned, more of the light reaches the ground, dispelling the air of melancholy that frequently falls over this place in autumn. It was nice for a day, but I wouldn't want it to continue for too long. I need my seasonal melancholy. California has a nasty way of being much too cheerful. A bit of gloom is needed to prevent the emotional equivalent of diabetes from setting in.

In other news, memory is taking over my waking life. This might be a bad thing. I don't know yet. Everything reminds me of something else. If this state continues, I might end up trapped in the wallows of nostalgia. Memory is useful and pleasant, up to a point. When it starts hanging around like the smell of cabbage, it becomes enervating. Once this memory-sodden post I'm (still) working on is done, I'll have to go out and find something entirely new to do. Not easy around here. Maybe I should try installing another OS on Sluggo. That would be new! But, given my level of technical skill (namely, zero) such an attempt might easily end in chaos. There would be nothing new about that! Well, we shall see. Now, back to work on the recalcitrant post.