Into Each Life a Little Rain Must etc.

Lately I've been schooled repeatedly in the notion that in all experiences, there are necessarily both positive and negative elements. This comes forward in the places I work, the place I live, the people I love, the technology I use...I'm starting to believe there is no unalloyed good in the human experience.

I suppose exceptions would include enjoyment of arts; I've recently discovered some incredible music, and rediscovered a good bit more by transferring all my CDs to an external hard drive I bought. The pure joy of laughing at Buster Keaton, perhaps. I'm not sure, though. The way the universe seems to balance begs to me the idea that there will always be some negative hidden in any apparently pure positive. The best example that springs to mind is God. (Go ahead, disagree, and we'll talk about the Crusades.) 

In other news, after doing too much at the gym on Tuesday, I'm still suffering. (Good = stronger muscles; bad = owwwww.) Also, I have about three different essays in mind that I really need to get out of my head and into pixels. They're complex enough ideas that I don't think they're going anywhere, but they need to come out and stop bugging me. Also also, I have been seriously putting off revising the horror novel; it's been something I need to do all week, and I've found all sorts of amusing things to do instead, including watching a messed up movie about teenagers called The Quiet (great performances, showy direction, difficult script) and breaking into the final 150 pages of Infinite Jest. Which I think I might just head on through this afternoon.

But that delay leaves me without much to write about here, despite how much more enjoyable it's been. See? A mongrel good or a mixed bad. No wonder I'm a particularist.