Month: May 2015

I am against the death penalty. Not only is it not a deterrent, this will create more killers.

But most of all, I would prefer a response of mercy and grace. I felt like this after 9/11. I would prefer to show the world that we are better, or that we can be. After 9/11 I wanted to respond by building hospitals and schools in the areas occupied by terrorists.

I realize gestures like this would be lost on some people, those too far gone, but I genuinely believe that if this is what we’d been doing for the past 14 years, in addition to limited military response to address those too far gone, we would not be in as bad a mess all over the place the way we are now.

Sentencing Tsarnaev to death demonstrates that we’re out for blood, just like they are. To those who would say we are only responding to his acts, he killed first, Tsarnaev and others would say that they are only responding to ours. You can go back and forth forever, like a bunch of global Hatfield and McCoys. Someone has to stop and rise above it.

I bought myself a bunch of lilacs, to celebrate my fabulously clean apartment. And because pictures of flowers can be boring, I got Bleeck and Finney in the shot.

The first day was intense. I worked so hard my hands hurt. Why do I care if all the wires under my desk are washed and dust free??

The Terra Quartet playing for free at the 14th Street station. When I was passing through they were playing Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart, very famous, even if you don’t know the title you know this piece).

I’m moving one of my domains from one service to another. If all goes well I will be moving all the rest each time one comes up for a renewal. I’m stressed because every time I do anything like this something goes horrible wrong, especially any time I make any sort of change with the service I moving from. One of the big reasons why I’m leaving them. Plus, they cost more than any place else.

A model shoot downtown across the street from the Municipal Archives. It feels like there is always some sort of shoot going on in that area. All the buildings are quite majestic and beautiful so it’s not surprising.

For those who follow my blog you know that every year I make a BIG deal of spring cleaning. This year I’m going to conduct a heartless pare-down and culling. I’ve already gotten rid of one steamer trunk worth of papers, pictured below. For me, nothing feels better than having fewer possessions. This trunk is now filled with copies of my books, which used to be tucked into all available corners around the apartment and are now are all in one place. So satisfying.

But the real, serious cleaning begins on Thursday.

Another thing I’m planning is transferring my video tapes to digital files. These are mostly news pieces about Echo, and if the transferring process isn’t too expensive I’ll go ahead with it and post snippets from them here. Might make an interesting early social media history lesson.

One of Finney’s favorite spots is on the steamer trunk that is now filled with books. He likes it because it’s harder for Bleecker to get at him here. Most of Finney’s favorite spots now are hard-for-Bleecker-to-reach spots.

This is on 11th Street and only reason I took this shot was because the cherry blossoms were pink. The back story is not particularly interesting, but I took this shot as proof to myself that my brain isn’t completely gone. See self? There are pink blossoms on 11th Street.

Gramercy Park. A gated park that you and I may not enjoy but we can still see the flowers inside. I prefer a less manicured park myself, but it’s still lovely.

Also in Gramercy Park. I don’t know what these are called, but these flowers always bring back my childhood. I see them and I’m back in Centerport, LI, playing by the streams and ponds in the woods. I will never forgetting getting up before dawn with my brothers to go out and pick wildflowers and catch salamanders. Ohmygod those poor salamanders. Going along, enjoying their salamander life, and then they’re plucked away from it by some thoughtless child! I hate my former child self!