{cough} Thank you; nobody who isn't constipated, a liar or both, eschews all praise - though the seeking of such would lead to the execrable {Celebrity-ugh}. I accept the two edges of the sword as inescapable in our illusionary duality n'stuff :-)

Still.. I think most folks who love the possibilities of language - wish they could write, not just admire those who can. Besides, the effort to write anything that coheres on one or more levels, is itself just another way of finding out what you Really think = no? And like most of us, I have few Original thoughts; life seems to consist in trying to concentrate the good stuff overheard -- and becoming better and better at discarding the er 'trite homilies' as fast as one is recognized. (And even these comments are a synthesis of what I've heard from good writers talking about umm writing / what it means or doesn't to each. I note that not all good writers can speak very well, let alone about their writing)

Obv too, mine is an often negative view of the milieu in which I chance to have been born. Certainly a part of that [-] is about disappointment of the sort, what we Might have become? given all the goods and land we have appropriated by stealth, crook and a large hook. Maybe our means of acquistion have permanently laced the loot with Strychnine, or maybe our myths have all-along been too tawdry and superstitious, our preoccupation too $-besotted (?)

Anyway - we blew it IMhO. Can bitching and moaning atone? correct? alter focus.. some people think so. I sometimes think so, but believe that Habit and addiction to comfort is our thrall - until some large Shock occurs to snap us out of it. {Hmmm.. maybe sooner than later}

But Hey.. abs *everyone* Needs 'an Editor': the mantra of every intelligent person I've come across. (Was [the Real] 'Marlowe' - Shakespeare's .?. unlikely to be resolved any time soon)

Should I head N-ward, will try to nick you (and Brandioch) for a taste of the local Surf n'Quaff -- and our mutual disillusionizing ;-) I think I'm getting near-itchy to try the new(er) wheels to get away from this local oasis anyway, noise-free as it is (the fight against the comfort-drug begins at Home).


Cheers,
Ashton