I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year

"I don’t believe in optimism. I believe in optimal behavior. That’s a different thing. If you behave every day of your life to the top of your genetics, what can you do? Test it. Find out. You don’t know—you haven’t done it yet. You must live life at the top of your voice! At the top of your lungs shout and listen to the echoes. I learned a lesson years ago. I had some wonderful Swedish meatballs at my mother’s table with my dad and my brother and when I finished I pushed back from the table and said, God! That was beautiful. And my brother said, No, it was good. See the difference?

Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad—you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year."

Ray Bradbury via Paris Review

One

(At Trafalgar Square, London)

My London Trip

Lunches in parks.
Walks in museums.
Soup in a museum.
Aimless one way roads.
Deserted park.
Picnic parks.
People-watching benches.
Pigeons on the benches.
Glorius buildings. Red buildings.
Victorian houses. Symmetrical houses.
Flower pots.
Wide variety of morning and evening sky.
Moon, often in flesh and blood.
Dark ale. Fuller. Noisy warm pubs.
Metro newspapers. Metro crush.
Play posters.
Scattered theatres.
Angry art. Street art.
In your face art. Subtle art.
Rat art.
Directions.
Photos.
Coffee and lunch at Auntie's Tea Shop.
Cambridge. Egham. Colchestor. Outside London.
Bicycles. Flowers. Posters.
Supermarkets. Cheese. Wine. Green apples.
Sketch in a park. Really bad sketch in a park.
Australian hairdressers.
Blocked metro line. A man jumped in front of a train.
Long drives. Sheep.
A little loneliness. Too many distractions.
Coffee. More coffee. Some more coffee.
Old friends. Conversations.
Dinosaurs. Grills. Statues. Gates. Doors.
Ladykillers movie.
A few scribbles. A few lost lines.
New thoughts.
New plans.
Beautiful city.
Fresh and crisp air.
Hope.
Spectacular. Culture. People. Variety. Fish. Prawns.
Tea. Lots of it. Butter and bread too.  

A Spaceman

(At Southbank Centre, London)