Just finishing up a popular science book Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self by Jennifer Ouellette. It's part of a new scheme for selecting books to read by picking authors whose names are in my genealogy. Paul Doiron is another. So far it's working for me. The best thing I learned from it is that I will never be an alcoholic. The author is, like me, someone who can physically tolerate only one drink. The second one makes me goofy and sleepy. That's genetic apparently. I think it's called the cheap date gene.

We have watched a lot of television this winter, mostly by streaming series on Amazon Prime and Netflix. House of Cards is one the the darkest things I've ever watched, evil as only Kevin Spacey can do it. By comparison, Justified seems lighter and those hillbillies really did need killing. My favorite series, with just one season so far, is Orphan Black, with at least six parts played by one actress. It's a futuristic version of the sisters are doing it for themselves.

In Comprehensive Plan work, committee members made lists of strategies under each goal in the vision. I had a good time with this after I got going. Themes are evident in my list. More citizen group decisions and less calls by one guy. Write the "one guy decides" out of the land use ordinance and write the planning board in; this is especially important in the shoreland zone. More committees for more tasks will spread the work around and increase participation. Create some new traditions for transparency and accountability in the age of web and email. Our non-profit organizations are a strength; partner with them to get things done. Take advantage of our unusual resources, like the college and the park to create identity events and cultural conversations that bring people together and give them something to discuss beyond the potholes. Get creative about small business solutions to things the town doesn't have like taxis and motels.

We are still in the grip of winter, but who cares, the light is back, the world is brilliant and the solar panels are cooking. I have no urge to do anything like spring cleaning, but I do feel compelled to redo every website I own in the new and better way. Hence this new look for the Picayunity. It will look better on your tablet and phone as well as your computer.

At our annual Town Meeting today, the usual impulses balanced to the usual outcomes. Some folks think that the town should not contribute to various agencies that provide services to people in need, that these are actually charities and we should not use tax money to support them. I am not of that mind. Several of these agencies are very efficient operations for getting help to the poor and the sick; they have proven track records of doing so. Allocating a couple of thousand dollars of our tax money is the most efficient way to fund these agencies. The town is really strapped for money. We can't afford the big things like fixing roads, but I like it that we give money to the helping agencies. It is also, however, alarming the way our property taxes keep going up. I hope some compromises can be reached ahead of next year's meeting to bring our costs down.

After the meeting I found myself making lists of subsets of citizens. Those who attend town meeting. Those who do not. Those who are social conservatives but who also support providing for the poor. Those who don't come to meetings because they don't believe in government. Those who don't come to meetings because they have given up on democracy. Those who always go to town meetings. Those who serve on committees. On a couple of snow days in a row recently, I filled out a list of strategies for achieving goals we've agreed on in the Comprehensive Plan. Making such a list gets your mind going. Now I keep adding to it.

"And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic... the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quite frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime."