What is life? It's nothing, I repeat...nothing...but a series of chemical actions and reactions, some kind of low-level electricity, some physics thrown in, and off we go...living until we stop. Some of us leave a mark afterwards, but most of us do not. Most of us are no more important than a ladybug or a minnow. The most interesting thing about life, to me, is how most forms of life cling so tenaciously to that life. Observe a plant that manages to grow in a tiny crack in a rock, or between a sidewalk and a brick wall. It manages to insert a tiny tendril of root deep enough into the crack to obtain a bit of moisture and nutrient, just enough to live in spite of the odds. I have watched insects fight valiantly to keep their footing and try desperately to crawl out of the sink or tub as I attempt to wash them down the drain. I usually give up before they do, and pick them up and take them outside and release them in the flowerbed. A tiny mouse flees the hungry cat. The injured lion licks its wounds. At every step up the evolutionary scale animals do whatever they can to hold on...until we get to man. Only some humans seem capable of voluntarily ending their own lives. From depressed teenagers to suicide bombers, some of us lose that intrinsic "will to live" and develop a "will to die." They find a way to shut down the chemistry, the electricity, the physics of life. By doing so, they may leave a bigger mark than they would have if they had shut down naturally. But it is an ugly, black mark.

Tonight I'm going to write a poem. Here goes! Are you ready? Wait a minute, you're not even listening. Good! I'm glad! I don't care if you or anyone else is listening. So there!

My words have less weight than a grain of sand on an infinite beach
They matter less than one drop of water in all the seven seas
They make no sound
I have no voice

Time for another missive into the void. I could make terroristic threats, I could blaspheme, I could tell my deepest, darkest secrets, and it wouldn't matter. No one will ever see what I write. I could talk nasty. I could talk baby-talk. I could pretend to be speaking in Aztec. It's 100% safe from prying eyes, because no eyes will pry. My meagre post has no more significance than a pebble in the bottom of a deep underground lake. Then why don't I do it? Perhaps because, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I harbor some small glimmer of hope/fear that someone, somewhere, sometime will stumble onto my small grain of sand on the infinite beach of the Internet, and would report me to the Literary Police. They would stifle my screams, arrest my development, and confiscate my thoughts. Oy veh!

Helllllloooooo....hellllllooooo.... Is anyone out there? Am I all alone in this strange world called the Blogosphere? Will anyone ever hear my thin, tinny voice? Will anyone ever find out that I have nothing to say? If I must notify my friends and family that I am posting my meager thoughts on the Internet, and instruct them to sign on and read those posts, what is the point? I should just send them an email. For now I will conclude that no one will read what I am now writing, so I can say whatever the hell I want to. It is completely safe. Okay, here goes...

I've been thinking a lot about frogs lately. They're so green, so wet, so croaky. Soon they will be extinct. So will I.