Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I took her at her word. I thought she was sincere. I thought she meant what she said. Won’t I ever learn?

Can you find the bee?

Mea culpa, j’aime bien le noir. Je préfère être dans les ombres de la société. Mais j’aime bien la lumière. Plus on éclaircit un sujet, plus on peut discerner tout ce qu’il y a sur ce sujet.

Donc, je préfère observer les sujets bien éclaircis mais de ma position dans les ténèbres. Mon destin dans la vie c’est d’être observateur. Osservatore. Les allemands ont deux mots pour noir : la couleur c’est schwartz ; mais le noir de la nuit, c’est Dunkelquelquechose. La couleur que je prends, que je préfère, c’est le noir, en m’habillant, en bagnole, en décor, en beaucoup de choses. Le blanc c’est toutes les couleurs, dit-on, si on passe la lumière blanche par un prisme ; mais le noir c’est la collection de toutes les couleurs—mélangez toutes les couleurs dans un pot et voilà, le noir. Le noir accepte toutes les autres couleurs, collectionne toutes les autres couleurs. Donc le noir c’est le plus inclusif des choix de couleurs. Mais pourquoi le blanc pour la pureté et la sainteté, et le noir pour le mal ?

La ferme! Ou bien pour dire autrement, Ferme-la!

Ta gueule ! ou simplement, tais-toi. Fous-moi un peu la paix.

Shut up ! Or rather, S. H. U. T. U. P. !

I want to turn and viciously say it to the obnoxious, loud, grating, porcine woman with the piercing nasal voice walking up and down the aisles of the store talking on a cell phone. Shut up! Stop! It annoys me no end when strangers afflict me with their petty, meaningless conversations carried on one-sided, by cell phone, while they are in line near me, or walking anywhere near me, or sitting anywhere near me. LAISSE-MOI TRANQUILLE! Leave me alone. Go somewhere private to talk loudly on your cell phone… and not to your car to drive around talking on the cell phone. Grant H. and his wife were killed by a woman distracted by talking on her cell phone, going through a stop sign, all blithely chatting away. I excoriate the practice. I need to get a cell phone soon, though.

Le silence éternel des espaces infinies m’effraie.

— Pascal

Blouson noir—c’est mon manteau d’hiver, epais, garde le chaud, garde contre le froid et le vent. Cuir noir, epais. The leather itself is heavy ; but adding in a camera, then a little, tiny flashlight, then some keys in the pocket, and then a Sig und Sohn Model A-H .32 cal. that weighs a couple of pounds, with eight rounds, another half pound? quarter? It is a weighty coat. People would not believe the weight I carry around when I have my coat on. Maybe ten pounds. It feels like my heart has put on my leather jacket. So I found myself alone, and I put on FAMINE: Remembrance, into the player and turn up the volume where it ought to be: not worrying this time about infringing, bothering—playing it like it needs to be heard. For me, that makes the heaviness a bit more bearable. Perhaps because the music is heavier than my heart. Perhaps because the music soaks up the heaviness and neutralizes it. Something light-hearted and gay would not do. I need the heavy and somber tones of Cassidy’s Remembrance, requiem, to palliate the somber shades of my heavy heart. Perhaps the commiserating strains give a hand to the oar the galley slaves pull to their chest and push away, over and over again.

One day Jim was walking to school and didn’t see the giant hole in the sidewalk. He fell in.

It was way over his head and had steep, crumbly walls of wet dirt, and it took him a long time to climb out. He was afraid, down there in the bottom of that hole, and worried, and he was glad he got out. The rest of the day he was dirty and miserable.

The next day, Jim was walking to school. He fell in the same hole. He was aggravated and very upset, and after a long struggle he climbed out and went on to school. He was dirty and miserable. It was not a good day.

The third day Jim was walking to school, and fell into the same hole. He thought, “Well, at least I know where I am.” And he struggled to get out. But because he had struggled to get out two times before, he had crumbled away most of his footholds and hand holds, and it was much harder to get out. He was mad at himself when he finally got out. He went on to school, late, wet, dirty, miserable, and tired.

The fourth day, Jim was walking to school and he went around the edges of the giant hole. He didn’t fall in.

The fifth day, Jim went to school a different way.

How do you keep on being stupid time after time? I don’t know the answer to that, even I am guilty in many ways. Like the kid who whacks on the furniture with a drumstick until there are dents all in the nice wood of a beautiful piece, and then when asked, “What made you do that? Huh? What? What possessed you?” the kid answers, “I dunno.” And he’s not lying.

Repentance is not easy. But once you realize the pain it relieves, don’t you want to do it?

Eh oui, c'est moi, le vieux crapaud.
Mea culpa,
Mea culpa,
Mea maxima culpa.
What? Something's done wrong there, some time ago? Yes, it must have been me. I guess I'm the one to blame. In very fact. Who else would there be to blame?...you?
Well, that's OK, I am the one to blame. You put the load right back on me... --Van

So, there's a new way of doing things. It's called compromise. You give your idea, then I give mine; then we do what you want. That's how it works. That's the uxorial dilemma.

What if… in the heat of battle in the confusion of the thousands of men gathered at Gettysburg to do battle, with cannon roaring and balls snapping, and smoke and yells and screams, with troops and companies and battalions ready for command and orders, waiting for General Lee to signal them, with all the intricacies of timing and positioning, what if word came to General Lee that a young private in General Pickett’s command had sent word to the General that he, the young private could not find his ramrod? And what if General Lee stopped what he was doing, and went down and showed the young private exactly where to look so he could find his ramrod? No. Incredible. Not to be believed.

How does God, our Father in heaven, hear all my prayers? How does He hear mine when a million others are praying to Him at exactly that moment? And how does He take time out from running the universes and all His creating new universes and caring for all His children, and help me with something so small as finding my lost fountain pen? But He does. He has. I know.

I am so much the homunculus.