Raining and 45 degrees here in sunny cheerful warm Grand Rapids. The taking stock of the past year has been done, and my major accomplishment occurred this past night at midnight, when I filled the last page of a journal in which I have been writing since mid-August 2000.

Raining hard now. The skylight sounds like a popcorn popper.

The journal is 380 pages of 8 x 11 paper. I write small. But I also send my creative energies into this vampire computer machine. I spend a lot of time here. Too much. Let’s just go ahead and call me obsessive. 380 pages in 850 days. My new journal is about 150 pages, unlined, designed and built by the extraordinary Tracy, who gets nowhere near the credit she deserves for her art. Why unlined? I have never learned to draw, and now is as good a time as any to begin.

Not raining so hard now. The skylight sounds like a skillet full of bacon.

Christmas was actually kind of fun this year. My favorite gift was a 5-pound venison sausage, lately from a deer my brother done kilt. Chopped up a chunk of it and threw it into some jambalaya. A perfect match, I gah-ron-tee.

Now it the time to think about New Years resolutions; whether and what. When you think about it, resolving to do something starting exactly on January 1 is rather arbitrary. From a practical point of view one day is as good as any other. I like to think I am riding a karmic wave; that so many others are making the effort will somehow make it easier for me.

Last year I resolved to reduce the amount of mediocrity in my life and, to a large degree, I feel I have succeeded. For 2003 I think I want to learn more. Sure, I learned a lot in 2002, about writing, photography, computer stuff, people… but I’m pretty damn smart and I feel like what I learned was a by-product of things I was required or compelled to do.

So, what then? Re-learn all the Russian I have lost over the last decade? Re-learn the trombone? Learn to draw? Learn Tibetan? Learn to dance? Trigonometry? Calculus? Iambic Pentameter? Java? Guitar? Drinks? It seems that whatever the new thing is, it should be an almost purely mental exercise. I have plenty of physical pursuits to keep me occupied *snort*.

Another possibility is to do a Good Work or a Great Work, or preferably both. A Good Work might be to help Project Gutenberg XML-ize a few dozen texts. A Great Work might be to create generative art based around something no-one has ever tried. Or a combination of the two… I dunno… Whatever it is, I probably won’t realize I have done it until well after the fact.

The Scotch for New Year is….
Ardmore 19-year (1977 – 1997) cask-strength single-malt Scotch Whiskey. Mmmmmmmm.

Now off for Christmas back on the farm with the fambly.

To build a mandala is to practice non-attachment. A thing of beauty is created, cherished briefly, then destroyed. While it is being created those who are working bear in mind that the mandala is a transitive thing. When destroyed it is gone, but the event is now a part of history and nothing will ever change that.

The ring (yes, That Ring ) is the opposite. Created of hard metal to last forever, coveted by all who come into contact with it; none moreso than its creator. Everyone wants it but no-one enjoys it. It traps the act of creation into a spiral which does not allow the possibility of creating anything else.

This is a good thing to bear in mind when handing off a project to a client. We built it, we cherished it, now it is gone, and now it is time to move on. A project is a mandala. To treat it as a ring is to continue work past the point of diminishing returns, until we are full of resentment and burned out.

The things we build are not our own. They will not last forever. Best to do it right, then let go.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I’m not dead. Merely…distracted.

The Uzbeckistan Diary is the journal of an American, er, journalist, working to promote an independent press. Quite an interesting read.

Assume two possible states of the universe, or reality, (hereafter referred to as [R]). They are the open state and closed state .

The evening snack: One apple, one small block of sharp cheddar cheese, and a very small glass of St Julian Simply Red wine.

I was informed today that we will be given the entire week of Christmas as extra vacation time. Sometimes I love my job.