It really is.

Really.

* * * * *

It’s been a long time, my friend.

First, don’t worry. They’ll gloss over this. They won’t understand what I’m saying. It’s all white noise to them. Virtually everything is lost when you don’t understand the context, and people care too little to spend time and energy to try and discover what doesn’t come easily.

Imagine this, if you will… place it at any point during the last half of the third debate, as part of Kerry’s reponse to virtually any question. Proper execution would have mandated “breaking the rules” by making direct eye contact with Bush and holding, but then, such disregard of convention is typical of those who do not flip-flop:

JOHN KERRY: Mr.

A close friend (well, okay, my mother) wrote me this morning and asked what I thought of the Terri Schiavo case, whether my conversion to Catholicism had impacted my opinion, and suggested I might blog on the subject.

In keeping with the spirit with the beginning of Spring, I’m not going to do any background research, but write from the gut with accumulated fragments of context.

Let’s start with the internet.

Myself and two others have had internential crises in the last weekend, and they haven’t been pretty.

Mine has probably been the most gentle of the three, and the worst was an absolute doozy. I don’t feel at liberty to share the details of the others’; I only bring them up to illustrate the workings of the Law of Threes in our lives, that things change for the better and the worse when winter moves into spring, and to backhandedly suggest that we, as humans, are naturally lazy, and tend to take the collusion of opportunity and comfort for granted.

COMMENTS
– Oh, cheer up. If you look up, there are buds hanging on the trees and in less than a month they’ll be heavy.
– Yesterday, after the trials and tribulations of shopping and getting my hair cut (Arg!

COMMENTS
– It’s been awhile since I’ve posted on a Sunday, which says something. This has been nice; a relaxing weekend.
– Happy first day of spring.
– I never really consider winter to be over until the beginning of April, but I have to say this is the most satisfactory Chicago winter I’ve remembered since 1999.

COMMENTS
– Well, here I am, at work and thoroughly on time. And not feeling bad about it at all.
– Not to say that I’m not a little bit hungover. But it’s a mellow, palatable hungoverness.
– Last night, Sam and I hosted an Occlusion Group St.

And here is the account of the (much better) South Side St. Patricks day parade.

Unfortunately, I went to this one alone. Also, I think that the photos are less differentiated… while the South Side trade in of glamour for spark was a worthwhile transaction, it doesn’t show well in 2D.

COMMENTS
– Top o’ th’ mornin’ to ye!
– Ha ha! So much for the death of winter. Every time we think we’ve got her figured out, she goes and fools us again.
– Last night I left work for Kopi cafe where I read for several hours.

2nd little dot from the left.

If I can see it in the murk of Chicago light pollution, there’s no reason you can’t see it.

Look to the unobstructed west a half-hour after dusk.

via my phat photo editing skills.