h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been in Yorkshire over the weekend.
No bathing nekkid, but we walked on Ilkley Moor 'bah't 'at. It was warm and we saw curlews and grouse

I love Willem's alley gater, and think it would be good to have one of those to keep the doorstep salesmen away!

I haven't tried tweeting, cc but I think you could do a haiku in 140 characters : -

Curlews rose and called
with the sound of moorland streams
on a marbled sky.

I like your story and wondered if it would work even better if the character started out to bin her ambition of creating art, and ended with a new idea of silhouette leaves and spider graphics against an orange autumnal sky.

I was amazed by the idea of the zucchini blogging from space.. What would the zucchini find to say?

I want Peanut's recipe for mushroom burgers

And I think this is the only thread in the known universe where you'd find all these things together!

By the way, I love that Alley Gater, too.

And hurrah for MVP, on Ilkley Moor Baht 'At. Did you sing?

Afraid not. Wouldn't dare trying a Yorkshire accent in Yorkshire!

Nothing wrong with humming in baa though

haha, you guys.

ah so Yorkshire eh? so that's where you escaped too, mvp. mwhahah.

Sounds amazing! love that haiku, damn, can I be you please? so strange, I did one tweet already, said I was a pattern poet , this my first tweet etc, and the guy was so sweet, said it's like doing haiku. Now I am going to take you with me next time I go in there. heheh.



That's a good plan you know, I could end by creating the spider piece, like pulling it out of the bin. Also spiders don't sway from car mirrors, they swing. I don't think you can sway from anything can you? not even a chandelier. Not that I'm intending to swing from a chandelier in the next ten minutes ...

I'd like to see you do that, cc. If you do it have the Scotsboy video it. I bet the vid posted on Youtube would go viral in three shakes of a
s tail. Or would that be a ?

especially if nekkid, ba' tat and all ..

oh no! I didn't say that ... the thought is too gruesome ...

has there always been a blacksheep smiley?

I think I prefer hootoo conversations to twitter, but it's early days. I miss the fried eggs , and I get homesick for everyone.

Hootoo on twitter is good, I just read a really surreal Guide Entry about blank pages. .

It's awesome reading the tweets from the ISS, though. There's a piccy of their fridge, which I find more awesome that shots of my own jewelled planet seen from space. .

I miss the fried eggs though. . And the . I don't think you get Romanian earworms on twitter. And this thread is a bit peculiar also. It is? . I like peculiar.

The haiku potential is good on twitter, if mvp will swap souls with me. . The miniscule prose poem still appeals, but I can do that here, and drink peculiar tea at the same time.

Thoughts about expectations and epiphanic moments, the awesome is the ordinary is the awesome.



I was watching my Dad's family cine films last night, all black and white flickery, grainy and silent, magic, strange also to see the past animated like that. My bro had them put onto DVD. I haven't been able to watch them since my parents died.

Anyway, there's this sequence, circa 1956, my Dad is trying to show me a flower from the flowerbed, it looks like a pom pom dahlia, and I'm toddling precariously towards it, enchanted. The family dog, springer spaniel, charges into the frame, also attracted by the game, but my Dad gently distracts it, and he and I have a moment with the flower. It's so special.



I never lost my love of the small details in life, those epiphanic moments when the awesome becomes the ordinary becomes the awesome becomes the ordinary. I think many, perhaps most, people have epiphanic moments of various types, in the course of a lifetime. Doesn't have to be an NDE or come with bells and angels. Hard to describe. You know what I mean? Perhaps epiphanic is the wrong word.



I've heard people say that the technological advances of the last twenty years ....

damn. . No kidding. For real. . Cyberdoc from Porlock. That's our friend and computer expert, come to fix our failing broadband signal........

see you laters alley gaters .....

I would give you a recipe MVP only I brought them, although now I have seen the way of the mushroom burger,I was going to check out recipes.

I also remember how much I like mushroom filled with cheese and a tomato salad so some nice big mushroom are on my shopping list for this week

My cherry tree has really burst into blossom

Need to baton down the hatches though today, apparently

test 121212

crackle crackle through the static ....

(screen flickers into life, hootoo appears)

...it's a darlin' Peanut , with news of cherryblossom, , and the approaching rainstorm, (thanks for warning!), back on cybertrack!


We needed a new computer component, a cheap one, luckily. What a marvel.

Now, where was I? ...have technological advances created a sensory overload and undermined a simple sense of wonder, or textures of sensory perception? Someone asked me that once, they were feeling depressed, a bit jaded faded.

No! (holds laptop to chest). . . Sense of wonder will always come from within, but interacts with the outside world, I think Just depends on expectations. Depends what one is looking for.

I don't care if it sounds simplistic , these little smileys are a miracle to me. .

When my Dad was dying I sat beside him in the hospital for three days, completely numb and brainless, gone were all my ideas about the big stuff, like life and death.

I just stared at the folds and creases in the curtains, watched the to and fro of traffic in the hospital carpark, saw the changing light on his face. Awesome yet ordinary yet awesome. I'll never forget those incredible folds in the curtains, just basic white curtains, they looked like Eden and basic white curtains at the same time.

ahhhhh the elusive expression of moments of perception ... priceless treasures, available to all ....

my life! my life!







Laters gaters.

PS

Getting really addicted to those hootoo Guide Editors tweets, those sweet tweet treats, bite size intros to the Entries. I love it, keep 'em coming kids. .

I'd tweet my admiration, but first have to sort our twittername and hootooname, in case I forget who I am. Who am I?

I am just in the virtual sand.



The spider, in my story, is refusing to do anything other than sway. It is? Yes. Is this relevant? No.

Oh it's just sooooo difficult

'No! (holds laptop to chest). . . Sense of wonder will always come from within, but interacts with the outside world, I think Just depends on expectations. Depends what one is looking for.'

That made me


*Makes peculiar tea *

I'm glad you are back with us CC and it wasn't an expensive fix

Is the still swaying?

It's precarious right now

ah peculiar tea , thanks luv. Nice to hear from you.

. Makes me feel better that my strange sentence made you laugh.

I had one of my sensitive turns last night. I felt a bit shy and open about all the daft things I write online, it's just me, you know me.



Then I went and read the news, and had one of those times when all the pain and cruelty and weirdness and horror of the world just did me in, you know? and I get almost paralysed with panic and heartache and can't breathe properly. Which is counterproductive, doesn't help anyone.



So then I wished I had a God to talk to, asked laptop if it could take me somewhere else please, away from sensory overload.

not saying laptop is God, (talks to laptop) don't get ideas ,

...and found all these beautiful tweets from Zen and Buddhist worlds, all these quotes and proverbs and Zen koans and wisdoms from the Dalai Lama himself, and they healed me and helped me.

So now I have a twitter prayer in faves, like my list of Zen/Buddhist quotes, which mix in with the hootoo Guide Editors great intros to Guide tweets, haha get them mixed up sometimes, Zen Guide, humorous, compassionate, unusual.



So I might take things a bit quietly for a while ....

Although I have to do another posting about spider story.

If anyone has any Zen/Buddhist quotes and things, I'd love to hear them.

Or just be you, that's enough. Thanks for being you.

Laters .....

If it's any consolation I'm convinced there is a pattern of light and shade in everything.

As there is light at the western edge of a dark sky, and shadows in sunshine, there are kind deeds in the midst of cruelty.

Do you have any good Zen sayings you can share?

That's very beautiful, mvp, thankyou , that's seriously amazing, I really appreciate it. It has just made me cry, but in good way, that is such a moving word painting, a pattern painting, and with healing properties.



So annoying this sensitive problem, one minute I'm laughing and being quite stupid, , then whoom! I go all shivery like a whippet. Could be genetic, could be just part of the human deal. Have to work with it, I realised today it's not going to go away.

I began to absorb too much world when I worked for the BBC news room, typed news all night, and that was before computers, so can't blame lappy laptop. heheh.

So, I'm gong to study more Zen writings and things. I'd like to be able to write them one day, be able to give out to others. I'm still in the discipline, have to be patient. I won't know if I have written one though , medicine doesn't work like that.

I'm into the medicine of writing.

Oooh philosophical tonight eh?



. I could quote from the spider story , no! no! I'm working on it.

Let's see, check my twitter list , my Zen feed, that's mixed up with hootoo Guide tweets. ....

Towel day is coming! Oh no, that's hootoo-Zen I love it.

'Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday' Dale Carnegie

that's good eh?

Thanks again for your beautiful writing.

hey, this is good, (sorry anyone who isn't into Rumi, bear with me .. )

'Yesterday is gone and its tale told. Today new seeds are growing.' Rumi

I like that, new seeds are growing.

Actually, mvp, I think your obversations are as profound as this.

I've realised the western sky is only light in the evening, after the goes down . It would be eastern sky in the morning, before the comes up. And that's probably only true in the summer...

That serves me right for trying to be clever!

heheh, mvp, you're being as perfectionist as I get with my own work. . I guess we ourselves are the sternest critics of our own work.

Strange thing is, I didn't notice, , and it wouldn't have made any difference if I had, it is the energy shining through the words that I picked up on, the soul of the pattern.

The soul of the pattern?

I like that. hmm. Thanks! I think energy does shine through words sometimes. I quite often read texts and don't understand a word but I love them anyway, something about the energy. Like my Henri Michaux books.

There now, oh wise one, there's the teaching you gave me through all that. Cor honestly, us perfectionists. .

I was going to ask you to compose one sentence for me, for the spider story oh no! not the spider story, but strangely I keep running out of time, later later ....



OK, so here's our thought for the day, which I'm taking from my twitter temple

http://shine.yahoo.com/visit-britain-us/don-t-panic-towel-day-other-events-britain-190055738.html

what??? I love Towel Day ...

and

Love calls - everywhere and always. Rumi

and there was a Dalai Lama one, (scrolling through list), where's my quote gone? .... can't find it, what? another towel day link just appeared , anyway it was about happiness, and how it's so great to share happiness.