Knowing I just have one chance today to post here gives me a bit of stage fright. What if I don't perform well?   Silly goose-me.  My friends are here.   

I wish I could heal faster.  I wish my spine were straight.  There are many things I can change, but my herniated and collapsed discs, not so much.  I'm having a bit of a pained day. I sprained my knee and then reinjured it in the past few weeks, and my spinal nerve pains are layering a caramel sauce of tiny stabbings over that pain scoop.  I shall go get spinal cortisone injections to help ease the sensations, but they won't change the wedged wear on my vertebrae.  

I haven't the wearwithall for art today.  

On such a day, this little sore atheist returns once again to Henley's poem Invictus for the strength and inspiration I need to do the dishes and interact with humans, and see my friend Corprew, who delights me.  

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.