Sunday, January 02, 2005

Happy This-Moment

... and may you have many more such moments to follow.

Earlier today, while wishing a friend happiness in the New Year I was struck (anew -- this has been happening several years in a row. It must be age) with the falsity of it all. I don't mean that it's false to wish someone well, just that a year is an utterly arbitrary unit of time. The earth goes around the sun, ooookay. But our days and moments aren't really circumscribed by planetary time. Today is no different in texture to three days ago, in old 2004. For some people it will be a better year, for others it will not, while for most it will be more of the same. Is this just crankiness? I'd rather aim for the idea that happiness or the lack of it has nothing to do with years, just our specific circumstances/neuro-chemicals. So ... ummm ... enjoy, or not. As always.

Meanwhile, for all those of you who have either been in touch with me by e-mail and are wondering why I haven't replied or are wondering why I haven't been in touch regardless of whether you've written to me, the reason is that my Hotmail account has unaccountably gone into coma. I can't get into the in-box at all now -- till this morning I could at least check to see who'd written and could, with a great deal of prodding and coaxing, force one or two messages to open up. Now I can't do anything at all except initiate a sign-in that goes nowhere. I'll wait a few days before ... well, of course, there ISN'T anything to be done about it, and I can't even get my addresses out now (though I have most of them stored elsewhere, so it's not a major catastrophe at that level). Till it clears up, the e-account to write me at is the one associated with this blog, i.e., marginalien@yahoo.co.uk.

And one more item, this one aimed specifically at those of you who play Spider Solitaire on your PCs: have any of you come across lay-outs which DON'T resolve themselves successfully? I only ever play the two-suit lay-out and my experience so far has been that every single game can be made to work out successfully -- believe me, I've played mega-dozens of games, so I know whereof I speak -- that is, until two days ago, when I caught a game that after innumerable re-starts I STILL cannot solve. If anyone knows a site or a player who has deep knowledge of Spider Solitaire, I'd appreciate being directed to it/him/her. If it turns out that some games really DON'T resolve successfully, I'll stop trying (and frankly? I'd really like to stop trying right away. But I HATE giving up).

2 comments:

Unknown said...

We don't get the TOI. Why? Wot's it about?

Unknown said...

I can buy that. Sometimes I wish nature would express its power even MORE forcefully. We humans need to be shown our place in reality ...

Today I saw a pic on-line of an Andamanese islander aiming his bow up at a helicopter -- it was a tiny picture, showing a small yellowish rectangle, at the centre of which was a dark rod-like shape. You had to look closely to see that the rod-like shape was the minute figure of a naked tribesman, aiming his bow and arrow straight up at the machine whirring in the air high above his head. Talk about tilting at windmills! What a picture. I salute that nameless tribesman and his instinctive, indomitable defiance.