Sometimes even the best of witches cook instant soup

This much I’m certain of: it doesn’t happen immediately. You’ll finish [the book] and that will be that, until a moment will come, maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe even several years. You’ll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the first time in your life. It won’t matter. Out of the blue, beyond any cause you can trace, you’ll suddenly realize things are not how you perceived them to be at all. For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You’ll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you’ll realize it’s always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won’t understand why or how. You’ll have forgotten what granted you this awareness in the first place.

…

You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay. It will get so bad you’ll be afraid to look away, you’ll be afraid to sleep.

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.

And then the nightmares will begin.

Excerpts from House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski

Day 20,465

We got quite a glazing of ice on the trees before the big melt set in.

Ninety-five percent of the snow has vanished over the course of today. All that remains are stray snow nuggets and a few large puddles in the mud, not even slush.

The Amish Powerball is up to 4 dozen eggs

Underrated classic book –

The movie was so-so, but Ellis Weiner really outdid himself on the Howard the Duck novel.

Certainly worth being on a shelf next to D Manus Pinkwater and Douglas Adams (same style, at least!)

I think Steve Gerber would have liked it.

My old man was a bread stasher all his life.
He never got fat. He wound up with a used car,
a 17 inch screen and arthritis.

Tomorrow is a drag, man.
Tomorrow is a king sized bust.

They cried ‘put down pot,’ ‘don’t think a lot,’ for what?
Time, how much? And what to do with it.

Sleep, man, and you might wake up digging the whole
human race giving itself three days to get out.

Tomorrow is a drag, pops, the future is a flake.

I had a canary who couldn’t sing.
I had a cat who let me share my pad with her.
I bought a dog that killed the cat who ate the canary.
What is truth?

I had an uncle with an ivy league card.
He had a life with a belt in the back.
He had a button-down brain.
Wind up a belt in the mouth with a button-down lip.

We cough blood on this earth.
Now there’s a race for space.
We can cough blood on the moon soon.

Tomorrow’s dragsville, cats.
Tomorrow is a king size drag.

Tool a fast shore, swing with a gassy chick.
Turn on to a thousand joys.
Smile on what happened, or check what’s going to happen,
You’ll miss what’s happening.
Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum.

Tomorrow, DRAG.

I am working on a background for a future doodle. I might put a path or stream down the middle and change the color to put snow highlights on the branches.

I might brown it up for some post-snow melt too. Not sure. 

#art #doodle #wip

Some privilege I have as a giant  older white guy.

Absolutely nobody I don’t know has ever given me any crap about my wearing a mask when I am out in public.

The only one who ever did was my neighbor, and he died of covid related issues back in 2021.  

More proof that redcaps are cowards.

Day 20,464

Yesterday’s snow, through this morning’s starting melt.

The sky color bounces from pink to gold to grey through the cloud cover. Night vision barely clicks in, because of all the diffuse light.

Day 20,464Yesterday's snow, through this morning's starting melt.The sky color bounces from pink to gold to grey through the cloud cover. Night vision barely clicks in, because of all the diffuse light.

— Scottobear (@scottobear.bsky.social) 2025-02-12T18:31:50.230Z

What I see when old white folks get bent about halftime show music.

Hey, Pearl! Want to come play in the snow?

“NO, sank yew! I’m cozy!”

It’s still coming down, but the fat flakes are now little salt shaker sprinkles.

#cat #tabbycat #stripedcat #roanokeva

Snowy front yard and trees, Tuesday, Feb 11, 2025

Day 20,463

Front and back yard snow this morning, it is supposed to keep coming down until noon.

I really think it is lovely, especially on the trees. That little bit of returning green will have to wait a bit longer.

#snow #roanokeva #trees

https://bsky.app/profile/scottobear.bsky.social/post/3lhvsql7c5c2y

A little deer visits our #backyardzoo for a snack on some tasty grass before the snow comes.

#deer #naturecam #roanokeva

Day 20,462

After a brief week or two of balmy weather, it’s getting cold tomorrow night, and 1-8 inches of snow, and maybe an inch of ice on top.

Not sure which of these I like better; probably the one without the shadow. (My inner groundhog is showing.)

#art #doodle #yeti #selfie #snowcoming

Day 20,462After a brief week or two of bally weather, it's getting cold tomorrow night, and 1-8 inches of snow, and maybe an inch of ice on top.Not sure which of these I like better; probably the one without the shadow. (My inner groundhog is showing.)#art #doodle #yeti #selfie #snowcoming

— Scottobear (@scottobear.bsky.social) 2025-02-10T22:03:49.701Z