I was very much a pencil kid, and for many years always carried multiple mechnical pencils. I’ve been a pen person for many years now (pen doesn’t smear and rub all over notebook pages like pencil lead does) so it’s an amusing surprise to be reminded of things like eraser lint. If I can figure how to deal with the eraser lint, I think (colored) erasable pens may be a solid way to go.

The question is: how well will the ink on the page hold up over decades?

Erasability and novelty, or reliable traditional permanency?

Jonsi – Sticks and Stones
Mumford & Sons – Awake My Soul
Matias Aguayo – Rollerskate
Josh Ritter
The Rescues – Let Loose The Horses [get EP]

This came through as a Forward in my email (thanks Mom). I’ve seen it before; I still don’t know its original author/source.

A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside of an old man.

?Your son is here,? she said to the old man.

She had to repeat the words several times before the patient?s eyes opened.

Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man?s limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

…

When I was younger I read a lot. I always checked out the library limit (35-40 at a time) and had them all read well within their due dates.

I walked out of the library today with just a handful of books, knowing sadly that there will almost certainly be one or three of them that I do not get to open at all before they’re due.

I realized my reading habits are rather like my eating habits: they haven’t really changed over the years, while my metabolism has.

Aaaargh. I’m looking at renewing my passport and I find myself physically uncomfortable and resistant to the idea of putting my old/current passport in the mail — even if they give it back.

A strange, long dream. One I can’t really share here or hardly at all. My old house, I think more than three stories high in this case.. many people in it, but three guests in particular of note. …

Dream involved a snake in my room. Hiding in the shelves/closet or something. Copper-colored, but very smooth, from the glimpse I saw of its head, so don’t think it was a copperhead. …