Tonight, I’m at the top of the proverbial mountain. I’ve arrived at the pinnacle.
This is it. Ta-da.
Tomorrow is my birthday, the one that changes everything. It’s the big four-oh.
No, I’m not Sisyphus. There is no huge boulder to roll back downhill, allowing me to start over. My punishment reward is to keep going.
Here’s what I’m blessed with: I’m comfortable in my own skin; I have a strong sense of self; Being 40 is 10 times easier than being 20.
I’ll get through this, even if it kills me.

Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don’t have time.
Quotation from Tallulah Bankhead

“I was blackballed by seven Pizza joints.” (Sarah Colonna on Youtube)

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Quotation from Maya Angelou

Blueberries are still in season and I’m finished with finals.

It is better to travel well than to arrive.
Quotation from Buddha

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Quotation from Mother Teresa

I’m trying a new image format for today’s comic– a format that employs lossless data compression called png (portable network graphics) instead of my usual jpeg graphic. I think almost everyone can view the png format, unless you are using an obscure or very old browser. Let me know how you like it. Do you have any trouble seeing my comic? Does it take too long to load? Can you tell the difference?

PNG is considered a better choice than JPEG for storing images that contain text, line art, or other images with sharp transitions. Where an image contains both sharp transitions and photographic parts, a choice must be made between the large but sharp PNG and a small JPEG with artifacts around sharp transitions.
Quotation from Wikipedia.

The United States Constitution established freedom of religion in America in 1791. The right is guaranteed in the First Amendment, along with freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Specifically, it says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Even though 60% of Americans currently oppose an Islamic Cultural Center near the World Trade Center site, freedom of religion is what makes America different from many other countries. If we deny some people the right to worship the way they please, then the nature of our society will change and none of us will truly be free again.

But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are.
Quotation from President Barack Obama

I can’t do it alone. The poor can’t, the rich can’t. What’s needed is universal agreement on basic needs such as education, healthcare, housing, justice, resource management, fairness and human rights. We can no longer afford the hatreds of war, racism, sexism, intolerance and other inequities. It has been 65 years since the formation of the United Nations to promote economic development, social progress and world peace. Nothing of cooperative substance has happened since. Perhaps it is time to move the United Nations from New York City to East Jerusalem, making Jerusalem an international city accessable to all. If we put our minds together, even the most vexxing world problems could be solved.

“Freedom from fear” could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.
Quotation from Dag Hammarskjold

They say the universe is endless. They say the universe is expanding. These are the same people that tell you “If you want to know how something works, follow the money.” I’m certain some genius has designed a spreadsheet to explain how this is possible.

Expressed in the usual variables of general relativity, it may appear that our usual space and time are disappearing. However, viewed with the proper variables, our usual space dimensions actually remain infinite and time runs continuously. The transition from big crunch to big bang is due, instead, to the collapse, bounce and re-expansion of one of the extra dimensions.
Quotation from Paul J. Steinhardt, The Endless Universe: Introduction to the Cyclic Universe

School is going well. Casual observation, however, suggests the universe is neither endless nor expanding. The universe is a box and I am trapped inside. In Excel, the spreadsheet software from Microsoft, this is called absolute cell referencing. It is the reason why Encore Seraphine updates have become as rare as refracted rings around a summer moon.

It is permissible to enjoy moments of not understanding? Do we suffer when we understand too much?

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.
Quotation from Carl Sagan

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable. They never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.
Quotation from Marquis de Sade

If you think fats and oils are at the top of the food chain, you deserve at least partial credit for a correct answer. But bacteria breaks down oil in this rock-paper-scissors game we call Life.

For the first half of geological time, our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.
Quotation from Richard Dawkins

Salad bars are like a restaurant’s lungs. They soak up the impurities and bacteria in the environment, leaving you with much cleaner air to enjoy.
Quotation from Doug Coupland

If you don’t change, then what’s the point of anything happening to you?
Another quotation from Doug Coupland

Word of the Day: Contiguous. It means to have contact with, or to be adjacent. It is the opposite of being fragmented or scattered.
When all of your thoughts are touching, it is called Logic. The problem is thoughts jump all over; we don’t have contiguous thoughts. Therefore, we mentally reorder our thoughts until they begin to make sense. In this manner, we build a reasonable case for ourselves based on a kind of false logic. Tragically, the result is we don’t know how stupid, or average, we really are. We can only guess.
In a moment of clarity, everything (and nothing) is readily apparent.

The cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint old houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise. There had been no rest for her that night. She was still in her pretty ball-dress, her fair hair hanging somewhat out of curl on her neck, and the circles round her eyes dark with watching. “What a fright I seem,” she said, examining herself in the glass, “and how pale this pink makes one look!” So she divested herself of this pink raiment; in doing which a note fell out from her corsage, which she picked up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box. And then she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass of water, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably.
Quotation from William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

I am sick. I’ve been in bed all weekend. Since we’re both sick, I don’t get any sympathy.

The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane,
As a little wind comes in.
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
Folded in its legs as in a bed,
Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see but twilight and walls.
Poem by D.H. Lawrence, Malade