That old familiar feeling.

I always wondered how everyone who blogs could say so confidently and proudly, "This is my Xth post!" And now I realize that ye olde blogger keeps track for us, so that I can proclaim, "This is post #50!" Unfortunately, my half-century mark is going to pass by without much auspiciousness, for I have miles to go before I sleep. Everything is clicking along at a fairly good and smooth pace, but it's not all done yet.

For more than a decade, I relished the mechanical feeling I slip into when I'm really working hard: determined, goal-oriented, focused, efficient. Now, I alternate between rueing that feeling's absence, when I'm trying to go easier on myself, and fearing its onset, when I feel it snapping to. There's not much more to be said, frankly--or at least, not much that could be said without threatening the pace I've finally hit today.

source for today's image: the truly strange--perhaps the strangest site I've pulled an image from yet--Limited Edition RS , where one can get stickers not only of this clock's gear mechanism but also of "faux relatives," in case you need them for collages and such. They've got sheets of 1) Cousins, 2) Uncles, and 3) Aunts and Grandmas, a pretty significant distribution, n'est-ce pas?