Earlier I made a lengthy entry all about city life versus country life but somehow when I went to post it, the writing disappeared! So I guess I'll just sum it all up by saying that I am a townie and did not like living in the rural area for seven miserable years. And fortunately, DH's offer to buy the property/house in the country was countered by a vastly larger sum, which we wouldn't even consider. Believe me, my earlier entry was MUCH better, but I don't feel like repeating myself.

However, maybe the following song lyrics express my feelings best:


You Belong to the City
- Glenn Frey

The sun goes down, the night rolls in
You can feel it starting all over again
The moon comes up and the music calls
You're gettin' tired of starin' at the same four walls

You're out of your room and down on the street
Movin' through the crowd and the midnight heat
The traffic crawls, the sirens scream
You look at the faces, it's just like a dream
Nobody knows where you're goin'
Nobody cares where you've been

'Cause you belong to the city
You belong to the night
Livin' in a river of darkness
Beneath the neon lights

You were born in the city
Concrete under your feet
It's in your moves, it's in your blood
You're a man of the streets

When you said goodbye, you were on the run
Tryin' to get away from the things you've done
Now you're back again, and you're feeling strange
So much has happened, but nothing has changed
You still don't know where you're goin'
You're still just a face in the crowd

You belong to the city
You belong to the night
Livin' in a river of darkness
Beneath the neon lights

You were born in the city
Concrete under your feet
It's in your blood, it's in your moves
You're a man of the street

You can feel it, you can taste it
You can see it, you can face it
You can hear it, hey, you're getting near it, hey
You wanna make it, cause you can take it
You belong to the city, you belong to the night
You belong to the city, you belong to the night
You belong, you belong...
======

Here's an interesting, dismal excerpt from a New York Times book review:

'Our Final Hour': Global Warning


Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, a professor at Cambridge University, one of the world's most brilliant cosmologists and a longtime arms control advocate, gives civilization as we know it only a 50-50 chance of surviving the 21st century. The proposal for ''Our Final Hour,'' a breezy but deadpan recital of all the possible ways that the sky could fall on us, was so depressing, Rees has said, that his agent had a hard time selling it.

But that was before 9/11.

Humanity has progressed to the point where we are now our own worst enemies: adding to the backdrop of natural calamities that have always threatened us, technology, Rees argues, has now so highly leveraged the power of the individual or the small group that a biological ''unabomber'' or a mistake in a laboratory could wreak havoc only dreamed of by the Strangeloves of the last century, who held the forces of nuclear apocalypse at bay by war-gaming scenarios of mutual assured destruction. He says, in fact, that he has bet $1,000 that an instance of bioterror or bioerror will take a million lives before the year 2020.

But there are many things to worry about, some of which will be familiar to all: global warming, asteroid impacts and that old bugaboo nuclear war, which has been transmogrified by the end of the cold war; the collapse of the Soviet Union, Rees points out, has left the world awash in the raw materials, enriched uranium and plutonium, for some 70,000 bombs.

Others are novel. Engineering advances could lead to the creation of intelligent self-reproducing nanoparticles that could eat us and every other living thing on Earth, reducing the biosphere to what Eric Drexler, one of the pioneers of nanotechnology, calls ''gray goo'' -- the subject of a recent thriller, ''Prey,'' by Michael Crichton.

Certain physics experiments might be even more catastrophic, Rees reports. In principle they could disturb space-time itself, causing the laws of physics to twitch into a new form, like water suddenly freezing to ice, destroying our atoms and everything else. Since we lack a ''battle-tested'' theory of what happens at very, very cold temperatures, he says, we would have been right to be worried when a metal bar -- part of an apparatus to detect gravitational waves, ripples of space-time predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity -- was recently cooled to near absolute zero, making it what Peter Michelson of Stanford University called ''the coldest large object in the universe.''

As I've stated in other journal entries, why isn't it conceivable that HUMANS are a blight on the cosmos? And that we are doomed to self-destruct? Or at best, NOT populate the whole cosmos...so that our destructive forces are at least limited to earth?

Bummer! Trying to make a decision about the house/property in a rural area today. It IS within our financial means, but I am wondering if it's worth the hassle of changing our lifestyle? Living in a small town (as we do) is greatly efficient; we've saved money, have a mortgage-free home, and peace of mind. On the other hand, DH is heavily involved in his horses, and if we bought this place, we'd have a beautiful, large pasture for those. And he'd enjoy living in a rural area. I'm born-and-bred townsfolk, so I don't think it'd appeal to me as much. BUT, will I regret it if we don't buy this place? A delimma for sure!

Here's an insightful story for all:

A conversation between an Indian and a
banker:

Banker: Red Arrow, you really should apply for a loan.

Indian: Why?

Banker: So you could start a business.

Indian: Why?

Banker: So you could make a lot of money.

Indian: Why?

Banker: So you could save some of that money for retirement.

Indian: Why?

Banker: So you wouldn't have to work, you could sleep in the mornings, hunt and fish all the time, have a beer whenever you want and take life easy.

Indian: But I'm doing all that now...

There's gotta be a life lesson in there somewhere.

Just a brief update to post these song lyrics. This song hasn't been too popular, but I have always thought the melody AND the lyrics are some of the most beautiful ever written/sung. Very poetic...with a deeply ingrained TRUTH about ALL artists.


Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) lyrics

--written by Don McLean
from the album, American Pie (1971)

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colours on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds and violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colours changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artists' loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They're not listening still
Perhaps they never will...

A few insightful, interesting quotes to pass along today:



"The truth may be hazardous to those who tell it, but truth is not dangerous, disinformation is." --Elizabeth Neuffer, journalist killed in Iraq covering the aftermath of the war

"People who claim they support free speech but try to destroy people whose speech they disagree with are liars. When confronted with speech we disagree with, we are entitled only to exercise our own free speech and say, "I disagree." But if we attempt to punish the people with whom we disagree, we are revealing ourselves as fascist bullies. Trying to silence someone with whom you disagree is not respecting free speech. It is the act of a totalitarian who fears above all an open and honest debate." --Charley Reese, columnist

"What drives our choices and our decisions is not cold, hard reason: it is the emotional predilections of the human being. We ought to pay attention to those because it is fear and desire that drive the world. Knowledge is just something that helps us do it." --Margaret Atwood, novelist