On Friday after work I bought a new computer printer, a USB cable for the printer, and an online computer game: Star Wars Galaxies. As predicted, I’ve already started to waste some hours of my life. For example, I opted to stay home on Sunday rather than do my usual Sunday morning writing ritual. I think the initial thrill of the new game has worn off (some). I’ll be more sensible going forward and work the game into a balance with my other interests and responsibilities.

On Saturday I received a rejection from Crazyhorse. No ink on the rejection, but the rejection did invite me to submit again in the future. I really like Crazyhorse and would love to have a poem published there. I’ll try again in a few months with some different poems.

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[T]he ear is a prime judge of what I’ve accomplished or have not accomplished. I wouldn’t even know whether a poem was finished or not unless my ear told me. I think music must be in the poem somewhere. Poetry is traditionally a musical structure….people who don’t hear the poems are missing a good deal, and a poet who doesn’t hear his own poems is missing everything. He’s got to hear his own voice saying it. It’s got to come off the page.

--Paul Blackburn

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

--Charles Darwin

Man with all his noble qualities…still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origins.

--Charles Darwin

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equals.

--Charles Darwin

He who understands a baboon [will] would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.

--Charles Darwin

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.

--Charles Darwin