Positively Puzzled

foggy cypresses, b&w , originally uploaded by I, Puzzled .

A Berry for your thoughts? , originally uploaded by Rick Leche . A photo by Rick Leche that reminded me of spring, though this is a fall image. What do I know. Writer's block continues to plague me, alas. But my blog says hello. I did manage to finish reading Mary by Vladimir Nabokov (his first novel, translated from Russian). It is over a 100 pages, quite an achievement. Meera and I have fallen out of the habit of reading War and Peace together. We didn't get very far. Let's see if we can't get that going again. Ten movies I've watched recently... The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) The Naked Spur (1953) Monkey Business (1931) The Big Sleep (1946) Junior Bonner (1972) Ocean's Twelve (2004) It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) Key Largo (1948) Adaptation (2002) The Stratton Story (1949)

Evidently I've been watching a lot of old movies instead of blogging, so the last ten get their own post. Anthony Perkins and Orson Welles in The Trial . Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart in Passage to Marseille Tom Hanks in Big. Humphrey Bogart and Elisha Cook, Jr. in The Maltese Falcon (1941) Terrence Stamp as Billy Budd Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1931) Bette Davis and Warren William in Satan Met a Lady Raymond Massey and Humphrey Bogart in Action in the North Atlantic Hoagy Carmichael (at the piano) and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not Gene Kelly as D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers The Trial (1962) Passage to Marseille (1944) Big (1988) The Maltese Falcon (1941) Billy Budd (1962) The Maltese Falcon (1931) Satan Met a Lady (1936) Action in the North Atlantic (1943) To Have and Have Not (1944) The Three Musketeers (1948) Things I've been listening to... Worry Rock─Green Day─ Nimrod Under Pressure─Queen Don't Be a Lemming─k.d. lang─ Reintarn...

view from my polling place on election day It was quiet, cold, and peaceful. Frost on the leaves and rooftops. The street lamps gave off a warm orange light. Before setting out to find Room D-1 and begin my new one-day job, I looked up at the stars twinkling in the clear and still dark early morning sky. A rare and beautiful sight for night owl like me. The polls open at 7:00 am , we were supposed to be there at 6:00 for the set-up. I was a few minutes late and hadn’t had time to eat my bagel and coffee, so I brought it with me. Some people were setting up, while others milled about waiting to be told what to do. Nobody was talking much at this hour, and I was able to keep a low profile while I ate my breakfast, the cream cheese of which was suddenly very messy to manage as ate quickly with groggy fingers. When I was done with breakfast, I took the job of placing orange cones at specified locations outside. When I was done with that, I saw that the new-fangled optical ...

brothers at the beach , originally uploaded by I, Puzzled .

I see it’s been nearly three months since I composed a full blog entry. I seem to have lost my voice. I never intended to drop out for so long, but that’s how it turned out. It’s not for lack of an earnest desire to speak out on a myriad of issues and deep concerns, particularly about the state of the union. It has been a difficult period for me, which would have been unbearable without the solace and support, the love and blessings, of my family. I’m so grateful that they’re here for me. I thank them for their patience in dealing with the vagaries of my funk and splenetude. Frankly, just about every day it seems, I’ve felt overwhelmed and depressed by the accumulation of things I hear and read about in the news. So many of my days have seemed joyless, and I’ve come to sorely miss my sense of humor. Also, I’ve been extremely frustrated by the very fact that, despite a sense of urgency, I’ve been unable to write about it. I’ve been backed into a corner, mainly b...

tatong lightning , originally uploaded by Andrew C Wallace .