"The best-laid schemes of mice and men..."

Sometimes life doesn't go the way you expect.

Of course, that does not mean we should view the result with quite as dreary an attitude as Robert Burns in his poem "To a Mouse, On Turning Up Her Nest with the Plough."

In the poem, the narrator discovers that he accidentally uncovered the nest belonging to a mouse family, and laments that despite the resulting hardship for the mice, at least mice can only experience the present moment. In the narrator's case, however, he can always look back on his life's dreary prospects, and look forward to possible future fears and distresses.

The angst gauge

Ok, so life can be hard. Things don't work out that were supposed to work out; you fall out of touch with people you had promised to keep in contact with; you have an old-fashioned rough day at work.

Sometimes life can just be that dismal, with no positive end in sight. Cue the angst.

Don't forget your story

I recently attended a day-long event that involved touring a bunch of old, historic churches in the area.

I was mainly focused on getting photos and quotes from the event. I would have enjoyed a leisurely walk around the buildings, but I didn't really have time to do that, and I didn't mind since I still got to see quite a lot.

Why I'm doing this

Some years ago, an Italian journalist arranged to interview the pope in person, on television. Unfortunately, the pope's busy schedule did not allow him to ever meet with the journalist, despite the detailed questions sent over by the journalist to help the pope prepare.

Casino sign revelation?

Today was one of those days I really just wanted to dress up. That was my mere request.

Of course, it couldn't be that easy. (At least I got the iron to work this morning; it had been giving me some trouble for the past few days, limiting me to non-ironable clothing... I discovered today that I'd been putting it in the outlet upside down. Problem solved.)