What can be more beautiful than sharing a dinosaur in the clouds? I'm stunned by the pleasure of that.

I saw a brontosaurus. I pointed it out to a student I passed on the sidewalk. The brontosaurus seemed happy to be itself, for a few seconds, before it morphed into a nameless mass of darker cloud and then disappeared all together. That student seemed happy with it too.

I wonder how many dinosaurs are there to be seen that I don't notice because I'm too busy with ordinary matters to take time to have my head in the clouds.

I don't see many movies any more. I don't have the patience. It takes actors much longer to spek the lines in the script tan it would take me to read the script. I don't like to wait. I do like doing things, but waiting for the actors is tough. I almost 50, and conscious of the passing of time.

The last movie I watched was The Ugly Dachshund--a Disney film from twenty or more years ago. It surprised me. I laughed. When it was over I felt entertained and I want both a Dachshunmd and a Great Dane. The Great Dane in the movie reminded me of my own dog, Max.

Most movies that come out today are movies I don't want to see. I read reviews; I listen to people talk; I commonly resolve not to go to the movies I read and hear about. Unlike some critics, I am not put off by sex or violence. I am put off by films that have little to do with my life.

I've never seen an android. Serial killers rarely visit my kitchen. Beautiful women in skimpy clothes do not flock to my dooor. My friends are not scum. The members of my family are good people.

Most modern movies are not about me. It isn't that I require movies to take moral and social stands on high ground; that ugly dachshund didn't seem to be sermonizing. I people want to watch the movie makers are dishing out, let 'em. Give 'em what they want. They don't have to watch The Ugly Dachshund any more than I have to watch Terminator 13 or Freddy and Jason Do Dallas. We choose how to occupy our lives. I prefer reading.

On hearing of the death of handwritten letters:

Text messaging. E-mail. Chat rooms. Discussion boards. Lots of communicating going on. Lots of soliloquizing too, uttered into a faceless electronic void.

History is being made and forgotten. This is not new. When people moved into huts somebody was regretting the good old days in caves. When ball point pens became common, some regretted the loss of inkwells and nibs.

So, is the looming loss of handwritten letters just another cave or inkwell? The urge to create doesn't go away, so I have no fear of computers reducing the creativity of their users. The poet is always in us, and so is our curiosity about the world and the people on it. Thechnology doesn't replace; it adds options.