Odd Still Life

Things tend to go good for awhile and then they go not so good. We’ve lost our car. Hoping to find one that isn’t quite a piece of junk. We were going to move and get a pet. We were going to get me high speed internet and now that’s up in the air. If we move we’re getting rid of the cable so we won’t be able to afford the high speed internet service. Right now, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I will try and keep this blog up and let everybody know what’s up.

So, that means the youtube stuff is still on hold. (It takes way too long to upload all the stuff I’ve got ready. I might upload one thing. That’s it.) That means no puppy for my kid, for at least a few months yet. (We will get moved sometime this year, maybe.) I’m slightly upset about the whole thing, mostly about the not knowing. But things could be worse. I suppose.

More later.

Our house has been struck by a horrible virus-y type of thing. Started with the kid, a week or two ago and just the last week or so I’ve been struck with it. So, no new site stuff, no youtube stuff. Nothing. Had to write the post yesterday, but that was pretty tough, for more than one reason. My fever broke last night though, so I’m fine today. Still no youtube stuff though, because my voice sounds like a bad imitation of Kathleen Turner. I might get to that stuff next week.

So, this post is just a heads up, to let the few of you who have stuck around know what is going on and that I haven’t disappeared or had computer problems again. I’ll try to write at least one more post this evening after 6 p.m. and maybe by then I’ll be able to put up some stuff on the site. 

(Oh, yeah. Sorry about the title. It was the most creative thing I could think up at 7:30 in the morning. Also the most descriptive of the present situation.)

He is gone. His words will live on forever. His life will stand as a lesson to us all. His work will be like textbooks.

I have very few words to write about a man that I admired more than I could admire almost any teacher or diplomat or great man. His novels and essays speak for themselves, and say far more than I could ever imagine.

For those of you who haven’t heard: Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest thinkers and writers (in my personal opinion) has died. He lived about sixty years longer than anyone could have ever expected him to. He was a father to many children and a teacher to hundreds of thousands more.

He is often compared to Mark Twain and I would guess that he did not object too long or hard to that. I suppose he was the Twain for the twentieth century.

I have not read every word he has ever written (yet). But it is a thing I will strive to do in the future. I know that as a writer (unpublished, just yet) I have always wished I could write as he does (did). It was not simple for him, but it is simple for us (the readers).

Those who do not understand his writings need not try so hard. Read it twice or three times. It won’t hurt you. (Cat’s Cradle is a good start.) It’s easy to read and it only takes a while for the words to sink in. Maybe it’s like how you feel when you lie down on the ground on a sunny day and can see only sky above you. It’s hard to comprehend that you are basically staring into infinity. Or maybe it’s like the thing kids do when they take a mirror and try to walk around by only looking down into the mirror. (When you do this outside its like your body imagines that you’re flying. You get a tingly, sort of light-headed feeling. I always get that tingly feeling when I’m reading Vonnegut. The feeling I’ve always imagined is my Soul letting me know it still exists.)

Knowing about his life makes me realize that there is still so much in humanity to be proud of, so that we can point to it and say “A person, a man, a human being, did that and something else and even something better.” His passing will leave a hole that not even every word ever written could fill, but the fact that he existed and did things and wrote things and lived things gives us the hope that there are others out there who might have learned at his feet (or at least from his books and stories).

I say to you, whomever may read this, Kurt Vonnegut was a man. He lived a long life. He saw much and lived much that would’ve destroyed another man. He was a writer and a thinker. He has died. “So it goes.”

First the kid was sick for 2 weeks. First the terrible tummy bug thing that made her be sick to her little tummy and then last week the horrible hacking cough that scares parents crazy.  As for me: I’m not feeling so great either.

(Small aside: my kid is talking in her sleep. It’s 5:45 and she’s sleeping in the room down the hall. Yes, my three year old talks in her sleep. Pretty loudly, too.)

I have returned, though, and with some interesting, if not amazing news. I will be getting High Speed Internet at the beginning of next month. Yeeehah!

(Another aside: Does anyone besides myself hate that the updated doohickey here at WordPress implements a spellchecker. — By the by : the spellcheck does not recognize WordPress nor spellcheck. I despise spellcheck. If I want to misspell a word I shouldn’t have to be bugged about it. It can probably be turned off, but I haven’t figured out how, yet.)

Anyway! Until I get the cable internet in May, I’m unable to be on the internet at all during the day, so I’m using this time to totally rework the whole site (offline). By the Big Spring Holiday I should have at least a handful of pages up, including a brand new home page (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) and at least one downloadable file. (‘Downloadable’ bothers the spell checker. Is it not a word? By the by, ‘offline’ also is underlined. Hmmm? Seems the spell check dictionary is antiquated. That word looks like it is spelled wrong but it isn’t. Antiquated is a strange word, it sounds unreal and looks even worse, but the spell check accepts it so I will too.)

Does the last paragraph seem strange to anybody? It does to me. I’m not even tired (went to sleep early and woke up early) but that paragraph looks like I haven’t slept in days. Maybe I’m just rusty.

I should have some new pictures up at flickr, under tracelore, by 9:00 my time. Nothing much. Some old stuff. Some new stuff. I’ll write more later, probably after 6:00 pm. For now, good bye, with all that that entails.