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Last legs

November 12, 2026
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Last legs

Dawn brightens outside the window of the breakfast room of the Super 8 in Marshall, Illinois

I have breakfast of a Danish a banana a probiotic and a cup of coffee with whole milk and Splenda

And take notice of the scaling down of complimentary breakfasts in the course of my hotel stays in recent months

..

In about an hour the sun will be high enough to drive Eastward without photonic discomfort

Rush-hour traffic will have lessened as well

And I will then safely speed to the side of the woman who shares my life

Plenty of time then for a hobbitish second breakfast

..

I had a doctor’s appointment at ten am today but was able to reschedule online in two minutes to eight am tomorrow

Some aspects of life have improved now that I am threescore and ten and two

On the last leg of my trip home

In the throes of my last and best romance

Tying up the loose ends of a satisfying life with festive bow knots

Hoping for a few more megamonths of journeying

foggéd

November 10, 2026
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foggéd

this tucumcari’s scary when a fog has snuggled in

it has crept in while i slept to my somnambulist chagrin

and i amend intended liftoff till it’s lifted clear’d and brighten’d

for to drive unto arrival does require i not be frighten’d.

..

Fog has bedeviled my cross-country travel in three different cities in five days. ‘Tis the Season!

Alive and Wellish in Concordia, Missouri, En Route to Glendale, Arizona

November 5, 2026
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Here is where I landed after checking out of the Super 8 in O’Fallon, MO, and driving a couple of fairly stressful hours, more often ROAD WORK than not, featuring a swaying, loaded vehicle carrier/deathtrap fond of slopping over into the next lane. I needed gas, food, and non-driving downtime.

We have here a “Club Wrap” and “Caramel Frappuccino.” I may deserve a scolding, especially for the sugary drink. But I have been mostly good.

I was hoping to arrive in the Phoenix area in time to attend the First Friday Open Mic at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, but that can’t happen safely, not with 19 driving hours to go, so I console myself that I will be there in plenty of time for the Glendale High School multi-year mini-reunion at The Nest North. Odds are high that this will be the last time on Earth that I see many of my fellow Class of 1972 alumni.

Safe travels for us all, Friends.

To My Everlasting Shame, I Did Not Vote Today

November 3, 2026
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Photo courtesy of WordPress Free Photo Library

I presented my driver’s license to the friendly volunteer at the polling place.

I was not listed.

They looked everywhere they could think of.

Nada.

“But Motor Vehicles said they had registered me to vote.”

“When was that?”

“August.” Eyes widened.

They said they could give me a provisional ballot but if I wasn’t registered to vote on Election Day it would be considered invalid.

So they registered me to vote, but I won’t be able to vote till the next election.

I should have followed up after I “registered.” Shame on me.

PLEASE VOTE today if you haven’t already, my fellow Americans!!

by your leaves

November 2, 2026
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by your leaves

by your leaves we can tell it is autumn

in an early and savory season

and it’s two months till winter’s rock bottom

and for bundling there’s not much a reason

we can tell that it’s calm and unquizzical

and that seasonal changes abide

so we revel in that we are physical

with our senses along for the ride

bedbound then not

November 1, 2026
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a single tear escapes his eye.

some of it evaporates,

some is absorbed by his pillow, and the rest

is a thin encrustation of salt.

..

his grip on the bedrail is weak.

the rail feels like the javelin

he wielded and hurled 70 years ago.

he can still remember the moment of release,

that perfect throw with all his muscles in sync,

and the certainty in that moment that his javelin

would sail beyond all others.

his suffering is eased by that memory.

..

minutes later he is not suffering at all

as a telemetric line streams across a screen

like a javelin hurled into the Infinite.

n.e.s. #191 of 480

October 31, 2026
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Here We Are

Have some Awe

Etch a shwa

Rate it fair

Eh, we’re there

..

Random Setter

Recon jets

Aces ease

Nero wept

Donald kept

Own store

More moor

..

Safe T Ness

Seratonin

Aspertame

Fosters [Facilitates]

Ecstatics

..

Splish Splash

She seeks & grasps

Pads a lock @ the hasp

Leans on a Fella–well

If his mushroom’s portabella

Snuffs a candle w/a hiss

Hits the hay & makes a wish

..

Hey You

Hot & gooey

Eager too

Yesterday is dèja vu

..

Dive Vers

Danger is a ready shiv

If you want to pass the sieve

Visit Hell but do not linger

Escapades need tricky fingers

..

Club Glub

Casino G

Lets a heel

Ugh up you

Bye bye noob

..

We are on stage on Earth, mere players. In our life’s time we will play many parts. Enter; exit; enter again, changed. Some day we will play our final role.

William Shakespeare, paraphrased

Ha[p]py Halloween

October 31, 2026
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A SAWING sound, and the flash of a tiny handsaw, come from the interior of a ripe PUMPKIN. With a PLUNK! sound the PUMPKIN’s SAWED-OUT RIGHT EYE hits the TABLE. More SAWING and PLUNK!s come as the PUMPKIN’s LEFT EYE, NOSE and MOUTH are carved. Lastly the PUMPKIN’s NOTCHED TOP is carved and pushed out.

A HARPY, modified from myth to fit inside the PUMPKIN and wied the SAW, jumps out of the PUMPKIN, strikes a LOUNGING POSE, and declaims the PUNCHLINE, which is “Harpy Halloween!”

..

Happy Halloween to all my READER FRIENDS, be they from CHINA, THE UNITED STATES, FINLAND, TRINIDAD and TOBAGO, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, ISRAEL*, SINGAPORE, or any other location OUTWARD.

..

*Make Peace! Free Palestine! Heal the wounds of War! Please!!

Eightfold Path, part 8 and final: Right Concentration

October 30, 2026
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When I started this project I thought it would be enhancing to embed the numbers 1 through 8 in the individual acrostics. But I did the numbering top to bottom then left to right, and then I spelled out numbers in individual acrostics felt to right then top to bottom. I think I was trying to shake up reality a little. I know I was making it more of a challenge to throw in a bunch of numbers.

Paths 1 and 8 match the numerals and the alphas; the other, middling paths are mismatched. Many journeys are like this.

Right Concentration

Einstein changed our Fate–good chap

Goldened boy–Phi Beta Kappa

HEPA and filter–octal & eight

Th’ E equal’d MC² he saith

..

Curiously, a different sort of Concentration was required when assembling the atomic bomb. Only purified Uranium-235 works when preparing a critical mass. The chain reaction would not have worked otherwise.

“Namu amida butsu” is a mantra, a phrase that members is a special sect of Japanese Buddhism use to help with meditation. It roughly translates to “I take refuge in Amida Buddha.”

My college sweetheart wore a pendant with the wheel symbolizing the Eightfold Path on one side and I AM A BUDDHIST on the other. When we broke up she gave me a book of Buddhist chants. Somehow over the decades I lost that book. I do so regret that loss.

Eightfold Path, part 6: Attentiveness

October 29, 2026
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Right Attentiveness

Eigenvectors f l a p

Gladiators clap–a

Healthful sentiment

Takes hold on day the seventh

..

The first word of this acrostic is Eigenvector. It is from linear algebra, the land of matrices, determinants, Fournier transforms and the like. The Vector concept is fairly simple: a Vector is a force with Magnitude and Direction, represented by an arrow whose length is the Magnitude and whose arrowhead points in the Direction. An Eigenvector is a special vector whose direction is either unchanged or reversed when a matrix transformation is performed on it. This is somehow an essential component of facial recognition software.

Meanwhile, when Westerners use the interjection “Darn,” they are being polite and euphemising “Damn.” The Bad Punster in me has a character in my cartoon call this a “faux cuss,” and “faux cuss” is phonetically quite close to “focus,” and “focus’ is quite close conceptually to “attentiveness.”

Attentive readers may have noticed that this post, labeled “part 6,” is actually part 7, and the previous post, “part 7,” is actually part 6. And SUPER-attentive readers may have noticed that there has been some hanky-panky with numbers and numbering from the very beginning of this Eightfold Path sequence. All will be explained in the next and final Eightfold Path post.