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Didn't take any opportunity to buy unread paper-based books so the paper-based books for this weekend's rereading were:

• "Bars, Babes, and Boo-boos" by Marvin A. Camfield
• "Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece" by John Pinsent
• "Letters from the Earth" by Mark Twain
• "A Fan's Notes" by Frederick Exley

Spent weekend with friends and family - they know the local events/places we enjoyed together and will cherish the memories without my recounting them here.

How long do we mourn before we find love again or love finds us? And what about love? Let the troubadours and poets own that field of expertise. I only know what I see, the lust of looks and chemical attractions hidden in flowery words. I love myself, if by love I mean I want first and foremost to live as long as my ordinary life needs no extraordinary means of support.

What about extraordinary? Psychologists, psychiatrists, hospitals, general practitioners, surgeons, traffic enforcers, road builders, pediatricians, teachers, lawyers, CEOs, technical support specialists - how many of these working around me define "extraordinary" in my life? Automobile technicians, factory workers, taqueria owners, carpenters, quilters, crane operators, farmers, ranchers, accountants, bookees, drug dealers, receptionists, security guards, computer programmers, nurses, religious leaders, videographers, pilots, bus drivers, generals, freedom fighters, boilers mates, cooks, vintners. Admit it, Rick, my life is already extraordinarily supported.

A set of wind chimes that plays chords. Jamaican drums in the rain. Right now, I hear drops of water, built up by a rain shower, falling from the house eaves onto an upside-down metal bucket.

Never resist an emotion. Go with it and feel the bodily reactions. "Internalizing" your feelings denies the pleasure/pain of being.

I hear individual rain drops on leaves but cannot reconcile that sound with the total sound of rain falling through the forest of trees, the first a low frequency and the second a high frequency.

My heart and/or lungs literally hurt today and have hurt for several days now. I...I feel a weight on my chest. What bothers me? My weight has not varied on scales greatly these past few days. What, then? My mortality - torn between living a simple, frugal life and wanting to see the stars from the other side of Earth's moon, my...what is the gap between the two. Am I lazy? Am I tired of physical pain for temporary gain?

I can play with words all day long and know these ink scratchings are the manifestation of chemical combinations swirling in one place on a temporary body called a planet.

The study of human history has shown me what? who? where? to what extent? how? The study of human history has shown me questions. I am the microcosm of human history. I am questions. The solution to one question somewhere, an ordinary guy with an extraordinary life.

I have trained myself to have words ready to express my thoughts. That's all I do. I'm not trying to save millions of lives or solve the knapsack problem. I'm playing games with the members of my species as playing pieces, no winners allowed because the game never ends, the rules always changing, heroes and villains swapping places in succeeding generations. Only the next few moves interest me. At least at this moment until I get bored and want something else fun to do. Whatever entertains me. Any other action and I'm betraying myself. No profit motive. No ulterior motive. Just good ol' vulnerable me, one in the multitude, a tiny fraction of seven billion, a sample, an example of one like me, a person who doesn't want to know others like me or those who would like me. Although I like me, I know what it takes to be me and I would not wish my life for/on anyone else.

To be me, the microcosm of my species, means I love myself, I like myself, I abhor myself, I hate myself all at once, with all the human emotions we feel, all at the same place/time. That's why money, wealth and riches have little meaning to me; I'm rich in thoughts and emotions, a joy and a burden, Aphrodite and Sisyphus holding up Atlas' feet cycling on the wheel of life advertising paradise on the bike spokes, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammed, Moses and Jesus sitting in the basket having lunch while deciding who's missing out on their jokes about the meaning of life.