This ad is gorgeous, isn't it? There is a beautiful dog who has been designated by one lovely and innocent child, as her protector and friend. If this Bloodhound, this being, chose to defile its own personality, ego, self, what would become of this child?

If this dog was anything other than what it is, we would be looking at a completely different ad, and that's why You matter.

You do know that, don't you? Your mama told you that and you believed it and you believed it because it is true and you knew that about yourself.

Then you went to school.

In school you mattered only as far as you could fit into a group, get along with your teacher, play nice with others. How horrifying. How sad that you spend the most formative years of your life learning, reciting, and regurgitating memes that pushed you into a place in a group, but now you are a grown up, and it's time for you to know, for real this time, that You matter.

The person you are, that unique extraordinary person the makes you- all those memes in your head- those matter to the world. And they matter to the world so much that if you continue to force them to disappear, they will be missed. Your memes, the unique way you put information together, the ideas that you carry with you everywhere you go cannot be replicated and they matter to us as a species, and they matter to us as individuals, because here's what happens when they disappear- the individual disappears and you become a shadow of yourself.

We are meme machines. We have the unique ability among all species to process complex ideas and share information and I believe that if you willfully, purposefully choose to ignore the information you are able to share, you are diminishing your self. Forget what you were taught about playing nice with others, you matter and you are to be celebrated.

Greg Swann, on the BloodhoundBlog:

A Bloodhound’s virtues are genetic accidents, but that doesn’t make them less than perfectly admirable, whether evidenced in the dog or anthropomorphized and expressed in thoroughly conscious human behavior. Brought up right, a Bloodhound is a natural alpha, regal and indomitable. The dog will move with a lanky, un-self-conscious arrogance that is simply heart-breakingly beautiful to look upon: This what a thriving organism looks like.

I am steadfastly, philosophically opposed to the idea of humility. I think it is one of many evil ideas foisted off on us by malefactors who love us best at our absolute worst. To say to me, “You’re arrogant,” or, “you have a big ego,” is no reproach. On the one hand, it is a statement of obvious fact. But on the other, it puts me on my guard against you. A healthy, normal human being moves and acts and thinks and speaks with the lanky arrogance of a healthy, normal Bloodhound. When people don’t behave that way, I want to know why. When they affect to preach against healthy, normal human behavior, I go on defense — and not by half-measures.

Let's look again at this extraordinary ad: We would never want this Bloodhound to be anything other than what it is right at this moment- how could we? Its own self is so crucial to the world, that a young girl is depending on this same self.

Here's the thing: I want this for you as well. I want you to be so much your own self, that you would never ever consider losing that self, dissipating that self. I am empathetic, that's part of who I am and it makes me ache for you and it's painful for me to see you when you are less than whole, but, I cannot become less of me, for you. I will not lose myself because you refuse to be yourself.

We are at our best when we are fully freely functioning who we are, and when you see that and believe it, and begin to live your life knowing that you matter, at that moment, we are us, you are you, and that, in and of itself, is the most pure and beautiful thing the world has ever known.

I love music. I love to dance. I'm a huge fan of musicals and as I recently told someone, whatever is happening outwardly, in my life there is often background music running through my head. Sometimes it's apropos to the moment, but often it's simply random bits of gorgeous music that never fail to make me very happy when I hear them.

I adore this song- the melody, the sentiment, it is just perfect and one of the more frequent tunes that accompanies me throughout life. This is Placido Domingo who adds his incomparable passion to a lov-er-ly tune from My Fair Lady.

Sing Sing Sing! by Benny Goodman.
Choreography by Bob Fosse.
In my world, it doesn't get any more exuberant than that.

This was taken from the apartment above an old tavern in South Park Historic District, although, I believe the tavern is not in the Historic District proper, but it is in the neighborhood.

I thought it was lovely- the layers of wallpaper, the old paint, the water stains, rips and tears, all created an interesting textural photo.