Today, I read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. Two choice quotes that I want to remember:

The word "sensual" is not intended to bring to mind quivering dusky maidens or priapic black studs. I am referring to something much simpler and much less fanciful. To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. (43)

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprision ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death - ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. (92-93)

And here, I go, ready to confront it. I have spent most of the paycheck I recieved today paying off the last three months of our electric bill. Today was the date that they were supposed to turn off our power. It is Friday, payday. I have electicity still flowing through my house, and caffeine pumping through my bloodstream, good tunes coursing through me also, and I am ready to have fun. I am going to the Tyson Reeder opening, and then I don't know what I will do from there, but I have options before me, and so I will do what I please and will do it with passion.