Wow, I'm sore.

I worked out very hard today, so I don't have anything bright to say here. Instead, here's some pretty shoes.

Carlos by Carlos Santana Womens Windsor Platform Pump

Primary source research and other wacky hijinks.

Over the holiday weekend (and I hoped yours rocked, too), I got sidetracked by some research. I was figuring out how modern Berlin differed in layout from World War II Berlin, especially what happened to the land where the final bunker was.

(It's an apartment block and playground now. How very cool!)

In the course of looking that up, I found a book called In the Bunker with Hitler by Bernd Freytag von  Loringhoven.

Von L, as I started to call him, was a Captain in the regular Army, and was aide-de-camp to the Army chiefs of staff- Guderian and Krebs. He describes his experiences in the Bunker from July 23, 1944 to April 29, 1945.

It's a fast,  fascinating read, and I suddenly wanted to do a paper on Group Think and the Third Reich. Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, by Irving L. Janis is one of my favorite books. This would be an amazing study, full of footnotes and quotes (and parenthetical statements).


But alas, there is only so much time in the world. So instead, I'm going to use In the Bunker... as a primary source on Hitler's behavior and personality in the last days of World War II. Some of my notes:

1. Never underestimate the power of charismatic, motivated, deluded idiot.
2. As much as it sucks, it really does help to listen to people who disagree with you.
3. As nice as it is in your own little world where your soldiers are at full strength with plenty of food, ammunition, fuel, and not being killed by your enemy, you might want to maybe, just maybe try playing make-believe.
4. The regular Army really didn't know about the war atrocities. I never understood that before, but after hearing how Hitler ran things, I see how he did it, and why. (Secret meetings with the Nazi party because he didn't trust or like the regular Army men).

This is why primary source research is the most fun of all.

Quote-tastic for the Holiday, part II

"May your walls know joy; May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility."
Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey

"Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountain split."
-Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

A great deal of life consists of hurling ourselves into poorly-mapped abysses. That's how things get _done_. We can try to choose our abysses well, but there comes a time when we have to leap. Daily.
-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden

"anyone or anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you." david whyte

"Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a ****load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but, Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes."
-Dave Eggers in "The Harvard Advocate."

Don’t let fear decide how you live, what you wear, what you say, or what you do. Identify your fear, understand it and accept it, and move on.
--Coco Graham

A bad reputation can set you free. After all, if you've already declared yourself to be a pot-smoking, acid-addled slut, your opponents are forced to oppose your ideas on their merits, rather than strategically revealing your hidden depravities. Shame is no weapon against the shameless.
-- John Perry Barlow

(so when people get snippy about writing romance, just smile and agree. "Why, yes! I am shameless!")

Inspirational Quotes.

Every one has quotes they pin up on their wall by their desks. As we close in on American Thanksgiving, I want to highlight the most important gratitude of all - that of love.


For one human being to love another:
that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks;
the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work is but preparation.
-Rainer Maria Rilke

"Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire."
-Teilhard de Chardin

The subject tonight is Love
And for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die!
-Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love."
-Leo Tolstoy

"Any thought that is not filled with love seems unholy."
-André Gide

"Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully."
-Jesus Christ

"Right now, we are appearing as the very light of consciousness, alive as love, although we may require some training, like an artist would, to fully offer our self as love's gift."
-David Deida from "Waiting to Love"

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
-Thoreau

"When I love, I love so much, it's dangerous."
-Nicole Kidman

"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's
sweet."
-Pablo Neruda

When I think of you,
fireflies in the marsh rise
like the soul's jewels,
lost to eternal longing,
abandoning my body
-Izumi Shikibu

Pillowed on your thighs in a dream garden,
little flower with its perfumed stamen,
singing, sipping from the stream of you --
sunset, moonlight -- our song continues.

-Ikkyu Sojun

Celebrate what you have, every day.

A dream gave me the idea for this poem. I wrote the first draft as soon as I woke up. :)

Making Cookies

c. Linda Smith

I wrap my hand around yours and kiss your neck as we
cream butter and sugar together.

Your sari is bright and soft under my mouth as
we dance in time to your limp
to the refrigerator for eggs.

Vanilla haunts the walls
as the oven works magic.

You always
forget melted chocolate burns.
I lick your tongue all better.
Your sweetness surpasses all others.

Someday, I will lose you to the rot in
your bones.

But not today.

Today, these cookies are perfection.

My body is a temple.

Picture from National Institute of Massotherapy

I'm giving myself the present of a massage and facial today.

What presents do you like to give yourself?