Gregg Levoy from his book Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life:

Anyone whose goal is "something higher," author Milan Kundera says, must expect someday to suffer vertigo, which is not just the fear of falling, but also the desire to fall; it is the voice of the emptiness below us that tempts and lures us.

Like most of us, I had to parse sentences in junior and senior high school English classes. And I wrote (simple) computer language parsers when I was flunking out of college. But this is a sentence I don't want to get near: I need you to help me to remember to wipe the walls down the next time I clean the bathroom.

I brought in the last of the hummingbird feeders this morning; I guess summer is really gone. (Of course, the fact that the trees are fast becoming naked might be a good indication, too.) Seems kinda late to be taking them down, but we saw a visitor to the feeders when we came back from vacation, and the hummingbird.net FAQ says hummers migrate based on hormonal changes triggered by the changing day length, not by declining food availability. They recommend keeping feeders up for a week or two after you last see visitors, for any birds that are migrating through. The site also has a map of the first sightings in this year's northbound migration; Chicago's first bird was reported in mid-April. Gotta get those feeders out earlier next year!

How easily we, the 'net society, get sidetracked. Earlier this week we saw a house finch at one of the feeders, with one side of its head grossly distorted by some disease. We've read about finch eye disease in the past, and I wanted to find out more about it. So, I fired up Copernic and entered "bird eye disease" as a search phrase. Copernic shipped it off to the 15 or so search engines, and gave me a limited subset of the hits. Search engines being the fuzzy beasties they are, I got more than a few tangential hits, including THE NECROFILE: Martha Stewart Disease. Scant seconds later I got sucked into the Necrofile index perusing oddities like The Resurrection of the Cock. So much for "real" work.

(By the way, I actually did get a useful hit at the Nebraska Cooperative Extension web site. Better than some times...)

I'm only going to say this once. Go. Do it. Keep moving forward and stop worrying about where you're going. Do the chore, and know it's not really a chore but a prayer in honor of the beauty around you. Then continue doing the next thing on the list. Stop waiting for creativity to arrive - you know that creativity only flows when you're engaged. Oh, and start paying close attention to your dreams. Pay close attention to your dreams. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO YOUR DREAMS! Everything that you want to be, do or know can be illuminated in your dreams.

There's a mailing-list-newsletter called The Red Rock Eater News Service. In it, Phil Agre passes on whatever interesting tidbits he's recently found, usually, but not always, related to "social and political aspects of computing and networking". A recent issue offered cheap pens for a $20 donation to Amnesty International. Agre gave descriptions of the choices, such as:

Pilot Hi-Tec-C. Highly sought-after and impossible to get (so far as I know) outside a few Japanese import shops, it's best for people who are gifted with the precise handwriting of an architect.

and:

Micro TANK-Pen. This very rare Korean liquid-ink pen is outstanding. I haven't done a write-off, but it may be the best yet. The company has a Web site but it hasn't responded to my entreaties. If anybody happens to be in Lisbon I can explain how to find the stationer where I bought it.

I think Mr. Agre is a burgeoning pen afficionado.

There I was in the supermarket, comparing brands of silver polish with my wife. Uh-oh, old fart attack coming! Ah-oo-ga! Ah-oo-ga! And next, to the paper products aisle, for 24 rolls of toilet paper. Yeah, that's right, 24 rolls of toilet paper. With a carrying handle, 'cause there's 24 rolls of toilet paper in the package. There's only 3 toilets in the house, and - popular as druid labs may be among the upper-crustian travelers - we don't get that many visitors. I swear the cat is carrying them off, one roll at a time. Late at night she meets the mice in a dimly lit garage and swaps rolls for catnip. Drug habits are so hard. Finally, a bag of walnuts. Because, you know, like, you never know, do you? Chit-chat in the checkout line with the clerk, and, as we're walking away, I use the carrying handle to sling the 24 rolls of toilet paper over my shoulder. Like flipping a cloak with that practised Errol Flynn move, you dig? Cool. Way Cool. Iceburg and Martini Cool. Except the carrying handle, which, not designed for middle-aged attempts at youth recovery, separates from the package, dropping the 24 rolls of toilet paper. And only through the intervention of the God Who Prevents Bozo Moves does the package not split wide open. You can't be cool when you're carrying 24 rolls of toilet paper.

Is it real? Is it fake? Originally I thought it was one of those micronations Wired magazine described some months ago. The ones created by (presumed) high-school geek loners with control fetishes. But there's a real Arcata, California, so perhaps one of the editors at the Arcata Eye is just a very funny person. Whichever case it may be, the Police Log is a great read.

Ahem. Just returned from another bliss-filled trip to the Pacific Northwest. The usual "It's a sign!" and real-estate blather ensued. Actually, I will admit it was a relentless barrage, without a single "Give it a rest already" from my beloved. More on the trip later. For now, let me just state to the world that in the limousine with us on our return was a gentleman who will be visiting the San Juan Islands in a few weeks to begin looking for property for his retirement. Need I say more?