Brothers K, the wrong ladder.

"I blushed not at your words, and not at your deeds, but because I'm the same as you."
"You? Well, that's going a bit too far."
"No, not too far," Alyosha said hotly. (Apparently the thought had been with him for some time.) "The steps are all the same. I'm on the lowest, and you are above, somewhere on the thirteenth. That's how I see it, but it's all one and the same, all exactly the same sort of thing. Whoever steps on the lowest step will surely step on the highest."
"So one had better not step at all."
"Not if one can help it."
"Can you?"
"It seems not."
"Stop, Alyosha, stop, my dear, I want to kiss your hand, just out of tenderness. That rogue Grushenka has an eye for men; she once told me she'd eat you up someday."
Brothers K, pp 109-110, Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.

One doesn't take the first step down a road one doesn't want to arrive at the end of. Me, I've started rereading Brothers K. I suspect I'll be at the end by the end of tomorrow. Then I think I may loan it and Brideshead to a friend of mine because they are such great books. Though the last time I lent out BK, it went to the Holy Land twice over the course of a year and a half before I got it back. Those and the $10 10th anniversary edition of Infinite Jest. It's not a great book, really, but those three share a valuable theme which I cannot emphasize enough. Once, my freshman year, I was talking to a man who was much more erudite and impressive than I and somehow DFW came up, and the man said, "DFW? What, do you enjoy sitting in the dark contemplating deformed babies?" The answer is, yes, perhaps. At times one has to see what is at the top of the broad and easy staircase if one won't see and love the beauty of what is at the top of the narrow and difficult path up the mountain. Hell is the pain of no longer being able to love, and while it's certainly not ideal to love God from fear of hell, it's better than the alternative, and you have to start somewhere. And that's what these books are about, in my perhaps twisted reading of them.

EDIT: less so BR in the matter of loving God from fear of hell, but, you know, you can see what I mean.

I was going to shave in shame...

...but it's far too cold for that. But, fortunately, that woman is gone for a week with half the office [and all the women, incidentally] to $some_other_city on business, so I get a reprieve, a week to make myself ugly, and a week to find somebody who needs to get married in a rush [or at least engaged] so I can make my escape [or to find a monastery who'll take me despite my student loans, but I doubt they'd like that I'm just there to flee somebody]. So instead I'll let the beard grow unruly in shame? Or is the cold snap to be taken as God's just punishment on those who must shave their beards and possibly their heads in shame?

Q: What the?

Serious question: What the hell is up with people who don't believe in global warming? Do they just enjoy being contrarian and not know much about anything, or are they genuinely stupid and not just ignorant?

EDIT: they are possibly insane or morally compromised.

UNEMPLOYABLE

This comic expresses so many of my attitudes about myself. Well, not really, even in caricature, but it is awesome.

I know those people!

Known 'em for years! Either since I was wee or since they were wee, depending on the age difference. That was my cousin's car.

Things I Need.

Because sometimes people find these glimpses into the mundane interesting.

1. New socks.
2. New walking/running shoes.
3. That paycheck.
4. To escape before that woman gets me.
5. See above.