413.6 direction at once, as usual

Made it through November 1st without going barking mad...that's refreshingly unexpected. Two points for contemplative disassociation.

Busy week this week, Professor Kacy Wiedebusch is retiring as the Goddess of Dance at WVU and there is an "event" tomorrow night I would be remiss in missing. Friday night I am working with Tag on his podcast content. Saturday...hm...there's something out there, but for the life of me I can't remember it...Sunday I will, in accordance with revisionist Western theology, rest (for an extra ten minutes) then plot to take over the world. (are you thinking what I'm thinking?)

It has been already pointed out to me that, notable amongst the mp3 files on Radio City of Legends is the absence of discussions of two of my best-selling books, THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES and 101 GREAT LOVE POEMS.

Hoo-hah. (see the bottom of this entry)

I haven't gotten around to the latter and we're having technical problems with the former...I'm not superstitious (crossing my fingers and looking over both shoulders before I spit on a black cat I'd just thrown salt on) but maybe preconsciously I know how to fix the file problem and just really don't want to promote that book more than I already have (or perhaps the shockingly confessional tone of my discussion is a little too self-revelatory?)

Was talking to an ancient acquaintance yesterday, someone I've known for over thirty years...he all but shoved me towards the nearest airport. Guess many of those who are part of the local tapestry don't want to be...welcome to Dante's tenth ring.

I don't know if they are still around in some form or another, but I used to get a kick out of the Lord British Ultima computer games, especially how they would make you make some tough choices aout priorities and values to help you select your character ("You slay a dragon for whom there is a great reward offered. A starving knight, who needs to feed his family, claims the feat, do you let him gain the reward for the sake of his charity or denounce him out of honesty?" Real life moral choices are rarely that clear-cut, but you get the notion.)

I was thinking this morning of what the entry choces into a game of my life would be:

You've just written a love poem guranteed to melt the heart of any woman, but to an abstraction. Do you a) Tell a beautiful woman you are fascinated by that it is of her so that you can win her heart (and the rest of her, for that matter) or b) Stay true to your muse and risk offending every woman who wishes that was her and imagines you wrote it to someone else?

You screwed up your marriage years ago, even your daughter says you should not have stuck around. The suspicion and emotional abuse is oppressive, even though you have walked the straight and narrow for more than a decade. Do you a) Stick around for the kids - out of some sense of honor or penance or b) Give everyone a fresh chance, realizing that you're going to be the one to suffer the most?

You meet a young woman who has severe problems, you are told she is near death due to them. She convinces you that if you marry her she can turn her life around. Do you a) Marry her and surrender your own happiness to be "the guy" or b) Stay true to your heart and deal with the remorse of having let her self-destruct?

I am reminded of Al Pacino's speech at the end of "Scent of a Woman" one of my favourite movies, one of my favourite movie titles and one of my favourite scents...maybe there have been times when I have allowed my sense of duty, of obligation, my Superman complex, to run my life (okay..all the time it has run my life...wanna buy a cheap used cape?)