LR Mole on the subject of my mother's death, Thanksgiving, 2000...

"It'll probably take some time for your head to catch up with your heart,but you know where you are, and many of us have stood right where you're standing (and if we haven't, most of us will). Time is an illusion anyway, and the meaning that matters is the meaning we make. Slow words down and see what they tell you. Thanks. Giving. LRM"

On the subject of teaching...

"Enjoy teaching? Ah...speak, hear, read, discuss,play, listen, it's all part of the same circle for me. Best job in the world, because it happens now and in the past and future as well. Most teachers are basically shy, I think,and to follow the great procession of the immortal wordsmiths (hands in pockets and secretly worried that someone will catch us) is to help point the way, a little. What's not to love? (Gotta go--Huck's holding the raft). LRM"

On the subject of weather and technology...

"Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows...sunshine, blue skies, feh. Two cars in the parking lot. Lawn mower broken again. Waiting for paycheck. A student gave me his final paper on this black disk thing: don't they have viruses of some sort, which will spread all through the college computer system and bring knowlege to its cyber-knees? Or something? I can't even get the lawn mower to work and this idiot wants to send me to Alpha Centauri. I want clouds, and a moor to stalk on. LRMole."

"Big hot yellow thing in the sky today, and I don't care for it."

"Well, I'm off through the viscous (or couscous) air, ahead of promised thunder, lightning and cool rain. Interesting word, lightning: sounds as if it should be gradual (the actual word for the first daylight is "morngloam"). Should the meteorological prophecy deliver, I'll be out on the back deck, Marktwaining in the night. For now, though, off in search of a key lime muffin. LRM"

"The back deck on my house is known as the Mark Twain Hurricane Deck, which is sort of a misnomer since an object named a hurricane-anything (like hurricane lamp) is protected from wind and rain. My deck is protected from rain but not wind, and so is the ideal place to watch lightning come in and rumble around.There wasn't much Friday but we had a real rip-snorter Sunday night: wild enough to make me wonder if we were entering the realm of Too Much Weather. It's OK now, though: cloudy and cool. --Mole Twain"

On the subject of tuna casserole...

"I use Cheddar Cheese soup, with cubes of Velveeta melted in and (Secret Cheesy ingredient) several glops {a glop=an unshaken tablespoon} of PLAIN yogurt. Other secret is letting the elbow macaronis inhale the sauce. Elbows, unlike, say, seashells, will absorb sauce into themselves. But not if plugged by those nasty fungal bits endemic in (feh) Cream of Mushroom soup."

On the subject of cheeze...

"My own cheeze-puff fave is Chee-tos; the rounded type, not the sort of clotted type. I'm partial to cheez-flavored stuff, of an orange color not found in nature. Cheeze Waffies are my very favorite. A Cheez-Waffie is a terrifying creation involving cheese-flavored paste squished between little waffle-patterned cracker things, the whole in a terrifying fluorescent orange. Mmmmm. Sort of like cheese-in-a-can without the gas, or the effort. One more class. Then home. Mash potatoes. Creamed Chipped Beef for dinner. Not a single Cheez Waffie in sight."

On carbohydrates...

"There's carbohydrate in fruit juice? This hardly seems fair. Carbohydrates are supposed to be fun and useless, or bread. As Charles Young said, it's like finding a cheeseburger in the medicine cabinet."

On meatloaf and dragons...

"Yesterday, music, then meatloaf (cold sandwich with cheddar and mayo,on English muffin. Today, music (performance of a song I helped write, I think, yesterday) and then home for hot meatloaf with brown gravy sandwich. (Too bad there's already a performer called Meatloaf). "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for they are subtle and quick to anger," said Gandalf in "The Hobbit". Saturday I saw a bumper sticker that made me snort: "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons because you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

On paradise and chowder...

"I just bought a can of "Paradise Delight" or something from a vending machine downstairs, having arrived too early for the cafeteria to be open.Imagine my chagrin when it turned out to involve carrot juice. And pineapples. Paradise my foot. The REAL Paradise involves chowder."

On the subject of personal loss...

"No one does any of this well, you know...Look, if everything teaches us anything, it's that what we think of as hope and the future is really an ever-changing present: the part we're around for. Even music demands one more measure, and then there's always one more echo. But of course it's painful as hell. That's how you know it's your story and not someone else's. One foot, other foot, and don't stop breathing."