White Coat Underground

Writer’s block open thread

Posted by PalMD on September 6, 2009
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Holiday weekends are supposed to be quiet around here. People head up north for the last long weekend of the summer, eat ripe cherries, melon, and peaches, go to street fairs. Apparently they also go to doctors. But I have a brief lull before the next onslaught of twisted ankles, hand-foot-mouth disease, flu, strep throat, chest pain, back pain, or whatever other common medical complaints walk in the door attached to a person.

There’s a little cemetery up the street from me. This isn’t New England, and old cemeteries aren’t the norm, but this one look interesting from the car window. So me and the kiddo saddled up and rode up to the place. It’s really cool. There’s a number of the usual headstones, but a lot of small ones from the mid 19th century, back when this was all farmland. Many are too faded to read. There are also a number of ostentatious obelisks marking family plots, and small veterans stars, some with flags, some rusted nearly away.

And bees. Lots of bees. Some hornets, yellow jackets, wasps—basically anything that can sting. After enjoying the spot, I got out, and a little ice took care of one particularly annoying sting.

Anyway, it’s Labor Day weekend, so you should be away from your computer. You may discuss below why you have failed in that task.

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Comments

  1. #1 Bob O'H
    September 6, 2009

    Damn. Wife still in NYC, so have to skype her.

    Oh, and it’s not a holiday for us tomorrow, so I have to *gasp* work.

  2. #2 PalMD
    September 6, 2009

    Well, we can’t have “Labor Day” on May 1, because that would be too commie, and our kids would sing the Internationale, probably in French, and be forced into re-education camps, just like the Europeans with their wimpy health care system that takes care of whiny people instead of making them tough it out.

  3. #3 The Blind Watchmaker
    September 6, 2009

    Just got back from a picnic with old college buds and our families. We had a good time sitting on the deck reminiscing and joking around. I haven’t really had a long talk with one of my friends for years.

    The conversation somehow got onto religion and belief. Now I normally do not speak openly, especially in mixed groups about such things, but he broke the ice by saying some truly skeptical things (not cynical). We talked about skepticism, science, medicine and epistemological stuff. Without having read Sagan, Shermer, Dawkins, Randi, Gilovich or others, my friend had honed in on a rationalistic world view that kind of surprised me.

    I often hear skeptics say that they thought they were the only one’s that thought this way. I, like them, have been happy to find that not only am I not alone (as blogs like this demonstrate), but there may be a skeptic sitting next to you at a picnic.

  4. #4 Donna B.
    September 7, 2009

    I’m back on tonight because my granddaughter left this morning to go back home. I miss her energy and laughter so much already!

    I hate it that all my grandchildren live at least 1000 miles away.

  5. #5 Daniel J. Andrews
    September 7, 2009

    Heh…there’s an ad in the banner that says, “How to Cure Writer’s Block”.

  6. #6 Charlotte
    September 8, 2009

    Nice to hear that you like headstones – I thought that was just me :)

    Saw a fantastic one last weekend at a church I happened to be passing, lots of elaborate masonic imagery and half the inscription written in pig-pen. I haven’t decoded it yet, but it should be simple enough – 1735 is a bit early for a rotating cypher. I hope.