On Lying in Bed

G.K. Chesterton, sometimes you just get it right.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. [...]

Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. [...]

For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac.

--"On Lying in Bed"

Movie Preview, 2012

So many good movies to anticipate! Ahhh!

-The Hobbit, part 1
-Les Miserables
-Life of Pi
-Wuthering Heights
-Anna Karenina
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Making autumn soup while I work (one of the perks of working from home).

Dream a Little Dream of Me

The mental health experts would have a field day with this one... 

Scenario: The dear cat of the house encounters the crazy about 5:30 a.m. and begins running suicides across the house, ending each one by slamming against my bedroom door.

Subsequently, I have a vivid, memorable dream that I am attempting to recoup, among other things, a dozen or more loaves of sliced white bread, and I am being attacked by a gang of middle school boys brandishing sticks.

I win.

Look out, ALN.  :)

All in the Rhetoric

Last night, I watched Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention, and I was frankly captivated. What a compelling speaker she is. My next thought was that I would love to use her speech as an example for rhetorical devices and oratory in general.

The more I dig in to curriculum writing, and the more time I spend getting fired up about speeches, politics, tutoring, and even marketing, the more I wonder if I might not find my passion better met in Rhetoric and Composition. Not this year, but maybe down the road...

I'm getting back a little of my fire back, y'all. And it feels great.