Spelchek wants to change noodges (sic) to noodles and I have to be very firm with it, and repetitive. I have a lot going on right now, almost what you might call stressful but I'm too old for that sort of thing. In my ulcer days, in my Other Life, I used to get a stress pain (building an ulcer) if the cleaning lady didn't show up. Right now, the loss of my wallet has complicated things a bit (a lot), but it will all work out. I hope.

I looked up confluence. It has to do with rivers, as I'm sure you know, but the image in my mind is of several streams coming together. The streams are my various to-do lists, and the mighty river is my trip to Boston at the end of the week. But I will find pauses in the ongoing rush and I will enjoy the large, calm pool at the end of it. I hope.

I saw the film, Lucy, yesterday. The premise is that we all use only 10% of our brain and this poor (beautiful Scarlett Johansson) girl is forced to use all of hers. That has been a myth for as long as I can remember, that we function with such a small percentage of our potential. It's true in this way, that if a person suffers damage through a stroke, for example, and loses some skill or cognition he formerly had, new areas of the brain can be trained to take over to compensate for the loss. It's also true that we are lazy and mostly content to muzzy along doing what is absolutely necessary for our survival and well-being without making any effort to do more, improve, achieve, broaden our horizons - all that stuff you read in self-help books. The brain is ready but we aren't, including me.

This week I'll try.

Hard to believe, that we are beginning the 8th month of this year. It's not where did the time go, it's why was it so prolonged and messy? For all that it was a roller coaster of irritating events, my life, and yours too, I suspect, has been nothing to what's been going on in the world. There are some days when you read/hear/see the news when you want to invoke that imperative: "Wake me when it's over."

I have always been a glass half-full kind of person, even when my life was at its lowest ebb, or so I thought. I have no claim to low ebbs. But I do wish things were better now. You know what I mean by things. All the news analysts and pundits seem to know what our leaders should be doing and certainly their advice sounds good. Why don't they run for office and make good on their pronouncements? The question is, would anyone vote for them?

When TV reporters go out with their cameras and do what they call "streeters", asking the person on the street what they think of current events, most people, even the ones who pass through their newsworthy filters, most people are a-political. They admit they don't pay much attention to the news and they seldom bother to vote. I always vote, not that it does me much good. I have a friend who says I am a-political because I don't go out of my way to buy organic produce, meat or wine, though I do buy free-run eggs, and I do try to avoid Wal-Mart, except I buy long underwear there for my son who works outdoors all year long. Oh, dear. All our decisions boil down to personal reasons. Where was I?

At the beginning of August. Have a good one.