Took me forever to figure this out:

:but it’s still not good enough, because I need to RETURN  a value, which means I can’t recurse the function.

So,

line = []

def loop(keyword, i):

if keyword in L[i]:

line.append(L[i])

else:

i = i + 1

loop(keyword, i)

Define a list, and make the function add an item to the list.

You cannot save time,
only drift slowly out to sea,
always pulling away from shore.
You’re told that time and/is space moves in many directions
with endless possibilities and potential all happening at once,
but all you see is a single, narrow current
always pulling you away from shore,
a straight arrow fired from the bow that nails the turtle
through the back of the shell.

So we watched our thoughts curl and carry
on the air, but kept them inside the barn,
stuck to the ceiling where they contaminated the ceilings
and lay prints to show we had once sat in our chairs
and thought that maybe there was something we were supposed to be doing,
here, where we happened to find ourselves for a moment,
an old wild person running with skins and spears,
pausing to rub fingers on the walls of a cave,
wondering if this is what he was purposed to do,
and feeling that he was just, just on the verge of understanding a higher, shining light of truth,
about to break it like his mind was cracking open,
a chick thought emerging full-fledged from the skull.

11:36 – 11:51 PM 29/01/2011

Philbert liked to sit on the stumps in the daytime and ponder, muse, and think about life. It was the only quiet place he had, away from school and home, where no one would walk across his path.

He favorite seat was on the largest stump in the dead heart of the garden.

One night Philbert had to get out of the house, away from his fighting parents and siblings. He slipped out the backdoor and ran to the dry garden, but as he approached, he could see that the garden was full of life. He reached the edge and stepped across thick, green grass covering rich sod. Pure white moonflowers bloomed all around. The stumps had sprung tall, old, old trees. In the very heart of the garden stood a tall, tall, thick oak tree that towered over all the growth. Philbert felt miniscule standing among these night giants.

He could hear a song of many instruments emitting from the ground. He kneeled and dug with his fingers, and as he pulled away the dirt, out sprang lively music. He dug holes all around and out burst young saplings of song all around the garden, playing a vibrant, melodeous tune.

He didn’t hear a noise, but he felt something watching him. He looked over his shoulder and low-perched in the giant oak tree sat a nightingale. It ruffled its light brown feathers and turned its small head at Philbert, but it sang no song, made no sound.

Philbert waited, as though the bird might speak, but it only looked at him a few moments, then fluttered away.

Philbert soon forgot about the bird and continued to tend the music garden for hours until the song came to a slow, gradual end. Content with his work, Philbert returned home quietly, without letting his family notice.

Philbert returned every night after. Though most teenage boys snuck out of their houses at night to cause mischief, Philbert went to tend his garden. He still visited the place during the daytime, when he needed the respite. Despite the brown grass and dead look of the growth in daylight, it gave him a comforting feeling to be among nothing but places and nature, sans humans and their things.

Though he had a feeling it watched him often, he did not see the nightingale again until a few weeks later when he returned to the garden. It watched him from the tree as he kneeled and pressed his ear against the earth … but heard no music.

Philbert said to himself, “Where is the sound?”

“It does not flow as easily as when you first discover it,” the nightingale spoke without song. Philbert looked up and it was on a low, low branch staring him straight in the face, “you must dig deeper, but the deeper you dig, the greater the music.”

Philbert dug and dug with his hands to no avail, and the nightingale fluttered away. He leaned against the giant oak and pondered a while, then decided to return the next night better prepared.

He brought shovels and dug, and he dug and dug until he hit a vein of rich music that poured across the whole garden. The melody was sweeter than he had ever heard before.

He kept the digging tools in the garden and returned each night. The hole was getting deeper and deeper, and he dug until there was a great cavern filled with music that rang across his ears and poured out into the night, covering the town and his house and family with a song that made them stop and, as though they were not hearing it but thinking a thought to themselves, step outside in the night and watch the stars, thinking to themselves with a great sense of relief and respite that Philbert often found for himself in the garden.

For every insufferable comment you make to a person who answers the phone at a business, a blog post is written.

Even though we refunded his money immediately after he made a purchase we couldn’t fill, it wasn’t good enough for him because we didn’t have the item he had purchased (which IS our fault because of how it was listed, but I can’t just make a finite item appear out of thin air), so I gave him a free 15 minutes of chewing me out on the phone along with a refund. Even though the mistake wasn’t my personal fault, it’s sometimes my job to take one on behalf of a technical system failure because customers can’t see how inventory systems work, they only see what the web site shows them.

You know the kind of person who stamps their foot and demands something like you have access to a special shelf with anything they’ve ever wanted?

“This isn’t customer service. All you can say is that you’re sorry!”

“Yes.”

Well, the customer IS always right, right? Customer service isn’t my job title, but we don’t have trained customer service reps so I’m the person who gets to listen to you shout belligerently when I apologize and say I can give you a refund about five minutes after you make a purchase. I don’t even remember what his voice sounds like now because all I see are flames and I hear a booming voice emitting from a mouth filled with thousands of snakes for tongues, “THIS ISN’T CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!”

This blog isn’t a journal, but to de-stress myself after having a stranger yell at me, I stole some photos off the Internet and made some artwork, and that is what I wanted to share, since now I can’t focus my brain on any words except these:

I can’t tell you that I’m sorry
My heart is like a katamari
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU

I want to tell you, you mean something sweeter
I want to tell you, you’re more than just another meter

I can’t tell you that I’m sorry
My heart is like a katamari
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU

I can’t tell you that I’m sorry
My heart is like a katamari
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU

You gave me something, I understand
You gave me a star in the palm of my hand

I can’t tell you that I’m sorry
My heart is like a katamari
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU
LET ME ROLL IT
LET ME ROLL IT OVER YOU

So, here we go!