Occupation of Independence

Winter is not just a season of climate, but is also a phase in a person's mind. In 18th and 19th century novels, the rural gentry conventionally retired to London in winter. Can you blame them? It wasn't just the darkness and weather, it was the muddy roads. People living in "normal" places in the modern world forget how frustrating muddy roads can be. Every now and then I run into an Alaskan in the Arizona desert in the winter. They usually curse the darkness in the North more than the cold. Easy to believe. I suppose there is a correlation between northern latitudes and alcoholism. Some of that might be the lack of grapes, and the northern grains lending themselves to hard alcohol. But surely some of it is due to the darkness and isolation. There is something about sinking into the reality of winter - camping that brings a piquancy to a famous quote from Blaise Pascal in his Pensées, probably the only work of his still read today: When I have occasionally se

No doubt the reader is expecting some soft-core porn about mountain bikes of the "+ or plus" type, that is, ones that can use 3" tires. But actually, the lust I had in mind is more vile and swinish. Camping in the desert doesn't seem like the likeliest place for a n episode of earthly lust (unless you are a geologist.) And yet it happened twice on the same day. Odd things like that always make me want to explain them and blog about them . It's not that the two experiences w ere unpleasant. In fact, it was almost a relief. But it was difficult comporting myself with dignity. When an old boy talks to a pleasant-looking woman thirty years younger than himself, it is hard to look into her eyes and not feel transpar ent , which then turns into a type of embarrassment. She has a p owerful effect on me, but I don't want her to know it. If she did , she might walk away, sniggering and mocking me with, "Well, I have made a new conquest...", such as