Least Fancies Distracted into Violence

Oh, how tedious a job is cleaning up a computer. I've got a bunch of .clp files I've never gotten around to deleting -- most of them LJ entries which I saved in case Sluggo crashed before I could post them. (This entry is about to join them.) I've groused before about how Windows Clipboard is both one of the most useful and one of the worst designed programs Microslough makes. It has probably saved me from having to re-write dozens of LJ entries and comments, but it is such a lot of bother to delete them, one at a time, as must be done. I've let them pile up too long. It isn't that I lack space on the hard drive. It's that there's a point at which the clutter becomes too much, even for me.

Anyway.

Night is sprinkled with stars, and I discern no clouds (inferred from starless stretches of sky rather than seen in these moonless hours.) Even though the clouds have gone, and there is no sound of thunder, however distant, I see occasional flashes which might be lightning far in the north. Still, they might be the headlights of cars rounding curves on upgrades, sending their dispersed beams skyward. I don't like to think of the roads up there, narrow, twisting, most of them unpaved. They are the sort of roads I would see in nightmares, twisting through a sinister and corrupted former wilderness. There are cabins up there where people as damaged as their landscape lurk. Who can know what happens in that isolation?

Damn, but I've been getting morose lately! It's anxiety does that, and exposure to incidents of human destructiveness, corruption, deceit, and irrationality.

Outside for a moment, to clear my head, I see a great flash in the north. It is lightning, indeed, but no sound of thunder reaches me. There are times when I hear thunder rolling very softly from that quarter, but see no lightning. The thunder at a distance reminds me of the purring of a cat, and nearby it is like a booming warning. The lightning, silent or not, always makes me think of purification. It seems appropriate to me that lightning would be the weapon of a wrathful god. It illuminates as it destroys. But the thought remains in a corner of my mind: What have the trees of the forest done to arouse the ire of a god? Better that the lightning come here, and wreak vengeance on the wicked of the town. But it remains distant. I can only hope that those cabins are in its way.

Here, Kitty, Kitty!

A few days ago, in a neighborhood only a bit less developed than this one just a couple of miles from here, a guy saw a mountain lion in his yard. Deer are plentiful this year, and wander into populated areas in search of food, and the lions follow. I've never seen a mountain lion. They tend to be elusive. I'd like to see one, but have mixed feelings about them coming into my neighborhood. They sometimes eat domestic animals, including cats. Someone I know on the other side of town, right next to the canyon, had a cat who got eaten by a lion. I don't want my cats munched by a bigger cat. The lions also sometimes go after people, but seldom finish killing them once they get a taste. Who could blame them?


I am greatly amused by this book review posted by shane, and would very much like to read the book.

How About You?

My comments are posting in some journals but not others. I'm getting e-mail notifications of comments which have been posted in my journal, but when I go to the page, the comments aren't there, so I can't reply. I hope this is temporary, and the comments aren't lost. Extra weird LJ today. I didn't make a support request, as I figure it's probably widespread.