the news of my demise...

i'm not dead yet!
in fact:
i feel better!
so much better, that:
i think i'll go for a walk!

ever feel like the cart is pulling up alongside, just waiting to take you out with the rest of the dead? luckily, i haven't got anyone in my life to thwack me over the head and make me eligible for the cart prematurely. this is lucky, you see, because i've been right at that "thrown over someone's shoulder to be carried out to the death cart" place for the last little while- and (as you can see in the still shot from the movie) it's a precarious position. but, i truly have been feeling better the last week or so, and think that my outlook just may be more fortunate than the outcome for the poor old man in the movie.

i am hopeful, at least. and hope is half the battle. maybe more than half.

(if you are clueless regarding the movie the still shot is taken from, then i will refer you to a transcript of this scene from this great and esteemed miracle of 20th century cinema: http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-02.htm and encourage you to experience the movie in it's full glory- i've got it on dvd should you need it. hee hee.)

I have lately finished reading for the second time that volume of literature titled Jane Eyre; a novel of not only engaging characters and intrigue of plot, but one which also reminds the reader of the rather startling- indeed, frightening- decline in quality of the average person's usage of basic language in communication: namely, the near extinction of the art of writing and reading volumes containing more than the vocabulary of a small child and which are constructed of sentences and descriptive passages more complex than those employed by Dr. Seuss. Let me not convey that I disparage the talent or the place in our culture for Dr. Seuss as a literary figure; I have enjoyed the eccentric rhymes and jovial illustrations of that author as like as any other. I am merely struck by the extreme abandonment of the current so-called modern culture of the study and practice of language in it's more complex and effective forms. I think it is not mere coincidence that, as the true ability to author and orate in fine form has declined, so have the abilities of the common masses to construct thoughts and follow thoughts that are longer than 10 words and need more than 10 seconds to express. This lethargy of the mind, this loss of keen conversation and sharp observation conveyed within finely crafted sentences, appears to me as grave a deficiency of society as any other put forward by the statesmen, clerical leaders, and social commentators of our day.

And if you followed that, then i entreat you to go immediately to the library and procure for yourself a copy of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre forthwith.