Given Unsought - Shakespeare

What We Think We Know - Kristen Stendahl

Infection

16^th July 2013

Dear Cassi,

        

It would be some great understatement to say I’ve been in a slump for the past two months. As it stands at this very moment I am seventeen days behind on Random Street Theater and the nature of that comic demands that every day be filled with something. 

For a part, I can blame the heat. The heat is a pounding thing pressing my energy from me like a press taking oil from an olive. My clothing is often stained with the salts of my body and this often makes my working more difficult. I could shower but would find my body only tainted again with the salts that leave white rings in my shirts and a film on my skin. 

Another aggravation is that the skin of my right leg has become irritated. The skin itches and the pairs became sickbed over, but I dare not scratch for fear that this is a sub dermal infection. Scratching will only make the problem worse.

Sadly this is the nature of my work with the homeless. Illness is common and the dirt of the world will find it way to me, drive itself into my skin, and make me ill. What can we do but press on?

Stay strong, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal 

Book Review: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

I remember picking this up at a Boarders back in the nineties and I wasn't much of a reader back then. I'm still trying to be a reader today. I had to try five or six times to get through this book. It isn't a book on how to write stories or poems. It's a book about making works on paper.

Once you get past that this is about being an author. A book about all the parts of authorship, save writing and publishing. I mean, if you want to know what it is like to live as a somewhat successful author then this is a great bio pick for you but I didn't like it much.

Who should read this book?

Folks who need to put words on paper.

ISBN-13: 978-1590307946

  Total books 5 of 5000

Pages 288

Total pages read for 'The 5,000 Project' 1195

Opportunities are Like Sunrises - William Arthur Ward

Love Reckons - John Dryden

Open Your Mind - Mary Stavros

No Act of Kindness - Aesop

Winners and War Crimes - Gary Willis

Book Review: The Little Book of Stress

Back in the days before E-readers I ran into this book, thinking it was about stress management, and foolishly picked it up for just under five dollars. I then kept it around for years having read just a few lines of the thing, because it wasn't what I wanted. 

Let that be the first lesson of this review: Never judge a book by its title.

Now that I'm making the effort to read every one of my books I took this along when taking someone to the doctor and stuck my nose in it for the hour or so I spent in the waiting room.

'The Little Book of Stress' is a comical book on how do stress people out. In other words, it is not a joke book but a book that is a joke, not a good joke, and not a joke I found funny.

Printed without page numbers and with the pages almost blank, this is a blank page and they think that is funny, there is almost nothing to this book. I can Tell Rohan didn't put much effort into his little book of stress, and I didn't find it funny.

Who should read this book? 
No one, don't kill poor trees for this nonsense.
Pages 160 (as noted by Amizon.com)
ISBN-13: 978-0740704741

Total Books: 4 of 5,000

Total pages I have read for 'The 5,000 Project' 907

No Failure in Friends - Clarence

Exactly Like Me - Tallulah Bankhead

Try Anything Once - Mae West

Love is that Condition - Robert Heinlein

Ship of Dreams - F. Bolen

Read-Only

26^th June 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

Among the oddities of my life stands the end of the working time of my flash drives.  I have never met another person who has used a flash drive so often and long that they have moved to the read-only level and so are in need of replacement. As for me, twice in my life this event has transpired.

       

I still have to say that the read-only life end of a flash drive is still much more agreeable than the dead and not working condition of the hard drives and disks of time past. I’m reasonably sure that I will be able to recover my files and the new drives are faster and longer lasting.

       

There have been so many great changes in the world of computers and most of them improve stability and durability of technology. My first Windows computer ushered in a life far more tracked and understood than before with writings of old still held on the thing sheets of magnetic material that we once used to store things.

       

I have never been a man to live on the cutting edge because the sharper a knife the easier it is too dull, but I love technology. With that, I find nothing sad in the retirement of my old flash drive and welcome the new, faster, and more advanced unit.

The only real tradition is change,

Richard Leland Neal

Who Travels for Love - Japanese Proverb

Streamlining

24^th June 2013

Dear Cassi,

It was the odd happening of my weekend that I worked an extra day and so had one day off only to sleep through almost the full duration. It was not until Monday afternoon that I finally woke for the day and found myself useful. As it stood I had my work cut out for me.

       

Pickles had put some work into the dishes and so the sink was still disgusting. I know that he ran the dishwasher once this morning before I roused and I ran a second after I made us a chicken salad.  This made almost no dent in the dirt and grime of my home and so I labored on with laundry and dishes literally until the moment I grabbed my coffee box and left for work.

       

Here it becomes necessary to note that measured out my coffee, creamers, and sugar for the week. These all went into a set of glass jars that I keep in my old turkey pan. On a Monday, the turkey pan and my coffee box should be full, and so I should have no need for grinding coffee for the week.

       

This makes for one less thing I need to do every night and so should streamline my week. Every morning when I come home I should restock my coffee box for work and every night I should then have to do no more than pick it up before I leave.

       

This is again one of my futile acts of streamlining my life. Surprise will overwhelm me if I manage to do this again next week. I’ve come up with idea after idea for how to make my life faster and more efficient by never have I kept the practice and rarely has it been much of an improvement.

Never give up, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Sunday Bells Issue 13 Sin