The Return

Well, after an unintentional two month hiatus, I'm back in blogging action (complete with my very own photo of a moonflower blooming on my back deck). I used my lackluster technical skills to mess up my template and have been utterly frustrated since my last post in June. I kept adding new posts and could see them in my Blogger account, but nothing ever showed up online. But thanks to a very helpful fellow Blogger user, I have fixed the apparently simple problem. Simple is in the eye of the beholder, I'd say. Merriam Webster online provides this delightful definition: "lacking in knowledge or expertise." Well.

And since we're being word geeks, the word of the day is:

orotund • \OR-uh-tund\ • adjective
1 : marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound : sonorous
*2 : pompous, bombastic

Example sentence:
Josh cleared his throat dramatically, then did a dead-on impression of the professor's orotund, patronizing speech.

Did you know?
The Latin roots of "orotund" are related to two more common English words—"oral" and "rotund." Latin "or-" means "mouth," and "rotundus" means "round" or "circular." The Roman poet Horace joined forms of those Latin terms to create the phrase "ore rotundo," literally meaning "with round mouth," and figuratively meaning "with well-turned speech." "Ore rotundo" was modified to "orotund" and adopted into English in the late 18th century. It can indicate either strength of delivery or inflated wording.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Live Everything...

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

~~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

All I gotta say is...

...that it's 1:30am Sunday night (or Monday morning, if you like), and I'm not in bed and I'm not even worried about it.

I didn't have to wash clothes for work tomorrow.

I didn't have to work all weekend to finish the article that's due at 5:00 on Monday. (Although, judging by the current state of the article, perhaps I should have worked all weekend. But the point is, there is still time.)

I'm a night owl and now I don't even have to try to hide it and wrestle it into submission. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm still up doing work because that's what I chose to do, darn it. And there will be no early-morning-alarm and working-for-someone-else to bother me. (But there is that pesky article... which may drag me out of bed earlier than I'd like, but still...)

So all I'm sayin' is, I quit my job and now I'm my own job.

I'm just sayin'.

hee-hee!

I Did It!

I quit my job on Friday.

Well, I gave my 30 days' notice. So starting June 12, I'm a free agent. Literally.

I suppose I should have more to say about such a monumental decision, but I'm actually a bit tired of talking about it. I spent so long talking about whether or not to do it, when to do it, oh-dear-what-if-I-do-it-?, that I'm worn out.

So I've done it. Let the adventure begin.

After All These Years

Some old loves never die. And just when you think you've plumbed their depths, new beauties arise!

Many thanks to my friend Jack Warren (who is married to the lovely and talented Melissa Mander Warren) for sending me a link to live Harrod & Funck recordings. There are several previously unheard (and presumably unrecorded) songs, which is a really nice surprise.

Don't know who Jason Harrod & Brian Funck are? Find out. (And here's an interesting site if you're looking for lyrics and guitar tabs. Disclaimer: I haven't tried any of these.)

Although this duo is no longer together, Jason Harrod is still making music. (And I'm even listed as his friend on his Myspace, which is silly, I know. I'm not all that into the Myspace revolution, but I do have a little corner over there.)