and finally . . .

Dona nobis pacem

pacem*

31 posts in 31 days
hooray for me, and peace to you in the new year
and always



*not my blog language, but latin for 'give us peace, peace'

[image from: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/sikyon/]

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. . .

Looking back before looking ahead, I think that in this past year I have learned that I'm not a one-a-day, or even once-a-week, person. Back when I was writing regularly, "regularly" meant write for 3 or 4 days, then don't write for about the same amount of time, then do that again until I was done. I think this is a more natural rate and method of production for me. Charge, discharge, recharge. With deadlines. Deadlines of some kind are essential. Also through the year, I've also been watching the things that have turned me into a green-eye'd monster. Armed with these two twigs of self-something- or-other (knowledge? awareness?), I'll see about concocting some modest goals for '09.

About a year and a half ago, I went on a retreat built around Soul Collage -- a practice that uses collage (obviously) to create a something like a personal tarot deck. This is the card I made for "working." The general idea is that work is comprised of inspiration, research, the actual working/doing of the thing, and that there must be some joy in the work, and joy is a big part of the reward/award. I think I will meditate on this whilst conjuring goals for '09.

7 of seven

I live in the house I grew up in, the house my grandfather built in the 1930s. My mother, now 83, has lived here for all but 6 years of her life.

this and that

Yesterday, bad: Frustrated trying to start a new Moby Dick Panel.
Today, good: Made a drawing. My local SAQA group is putting together a show with the theme of "Fiber + Thread = Art" and I wanted to do something new, but had not a niggle of an idea. This loopy drawing is an idea. I used to make these kinds of drawings all the time, usually they were h-u-g-e and on the sidewalk in colored chalk.
Yesterday, bad: Worked some more on that story I mentioned glancingly the other day. (That kind of creative writing makes me headachy and cranky and not much fun to be around.)
Today, good: Read it over and it's not half bad. I know what I need to do to finish it and I think I can get it done this week during the hiatus from work. This is a massive departure from 'normal' -- I've barely begun, and haven't finished, any writing since 1999.

As some of you know, I've been collecting the word verification words with the idea of creating a kind of language, or at least some blog slang. I have 67, I'm aiming for a list of 200.
I have a list of interrogatives:
(I may rethink these so that they all end with an "i")
scoli = who
ossesc = what
morti = when
pinen = where
ofierti = why
tayla = how
And a catch-all courtesy word, calat, which I like using to mean please and thank you, hello and goodbye. Dinah asked for a word to mean "blogging buddies" and I suggested eringla -- which she deemed "splendid" and immediately put to use. Beyond that I've been sorting things into categories depending on whether something has the feel of a noun or an adjective, or if it suggests a way it might be conjugated (tosipsyp) as a verb. The challenge has been to avoid sound-alike associations, ersads for ersatz, and thinking of everything as an exclamation: Oboli! One of my students was studying linguistics and she gave me a list of core words, words that express fundamental and necessary concepts across a wide range of languages, such as water, me, you, mother, father, etc that I think will be helpful with this project. So buff up your thinking caps -- when I have 200 WVs it's Rosetta stone time.

no ho-ho

Traditionally, there comes a day in this season of mandatory rejoicing and frivolity when I think that I may die of sadness. Today is that day. Tomorrow -- or the next day -- it will have passed. But today is that day. So not much of a post, but also not a good enough reason to bail on the one-a-day commitment given that the 31st is so close.

Help, please

Does anyone know why this is happening -- and, more importantly, how to Make It Stop?

I have a Dell Dimension E510 with Microsoft XP. I want to save a word file on to a disk. This should be simple -- but I keep getting a message that says I don't have access to the "D" folder and I should "see my administrator for access." There is no administrator, this is my home computer.

There must be a place in the software where I click a box that says: "Idiot machine, I am the administrator and always have been!" But where is it?

6 of seven

My maternal grandparents were married the year I was born.

[shhhhhh. . . my mother would be horrified that I told you this so don't tell her I told you. ]

seasons greetings

Through the years, several friends have
said to me: "When I die, I want to come back
as one of your cats."

Me too -- which would be a very neat trick if I could manage it.

In the meantime, the cats and I wish you . . .
a clean sock filled with fresh nip,

a cushion in the sun near the window
(and many birds flying by),
kind hands to rub your ears and cradle your head,

whole milk,

and heaping bowls of salmon.

[or the biped's equivalent]

5 of seven & my Christmas miracle

First, thanks for the advice and encouragement about my postal travails. (Who knew there were so many postal workers among us?) For the most part, I do admire the service. In general, it gets so much done so well that when things go this wildly awry it's worth noting and, with very few and recent exceptions, the people I've encountered have been smart, helpful, and courteous. There's just something about doing business through 1-inch-thick bulletproof plexi that puts a real damper on things, doncha think?

But it has worked out. I got a parking place this morning directly in front of the building (a major coup in that neighborhood); toddled carefully over the ice to the meter, found that it was broken and so parked for free; had only 20 minutes in line (and used the time to make some notes about a children's story I have in mind*); got my package with no fuss or bother; and left immediately after the person who had double-parked next to me. And was as completely delighted with the moon-leaping bunny when I saw it "live" as I hoped I'd be from the pictures Sara sent. All in all -- some anxiety, but no complaints. A small miracle and a nice way to begin rounding down the year.

[*don't get excited about this -- having roughed out a plot over a grid of 6 pages, I doubt I will go any further. I know how it ends. Hamfisted treacle for everyone.]

Second, the 5/7 part. The only thing I have ever wanted to be is a singer. I have no talent -- as in ABSOLUTELY NO TALENT -- for it, but the yearning for the magic and community of music runs deep and persistents. It's still the only thing I really want to be, everything else is something I can do. Those other skills and talents have their own joys and challenge, but they're not music.

I'm going to tell them I know Katie-Jane

Happy Christmas to me. I ordered a necklace that I saw on one of the blogs that I read regularly and it's coming by . . . post. Yes. The USPS is still doing its best to try to drive me to an early grave. On Friday, I had an "attempted to deliver" message in the mail box. The package is being held at the post office, or I can call to arrange redelivery. The last time I was at this post office, I came out to find three police cars and their various occupants performing some kind of "police action" much too close to my car. So I arranged for redelivery. On Saturday 12/27.

Guess what?

Yes. That's right.
Today, 12/22, when I got home, I had another "attempted to deliver" message in the mailbox. The third time, of course, is the charm. If they again bring it to the house when I'm not there to sign for it, they will return it to the sender. Who is in Wales. And we'll get to start this whole thing over again from the top.

So, tomorrow, bright-ish and early-ish, instead of going to work, I will go the nasty PO in the renowned crime district and sign for it.

But it will be worth it. Don't you think?

Do navigate over to Jackie's blog and or to Sara's web page and see the other things Sara has made. So beautiful.

soup II

For the solstice, a soup with white and green and gold ingredients. Another slight variation on a Sally Nirenberg* original -- she calls for dry mustard, I like it with mustard greens, fresh or frozen. Not surprisingly, fresh greens have a snappier flavor, so start slow if you're shy about mustard's sharpness. You can always add more later, or next time.

Parsnip and Mustard Green Soup

1 tblsp unsalted butter
1 Spanish onion, coarsely chopped
1 pound parsnips, peeld and sliced
1/2 ten-ounce box frozen mustard greens, or 1/3 to 1/2 a bunch of fresh greens (If using fresh: wash, stem, blanch, and chop the greens. Freeze the rest for next time. )
5 cups chicken stock

Step 1
In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add onion and cook until golden.

Step 2
Add parsnips and stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until parsnips are soft, about 25 minutes.

Step 3
Puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Return it to the pot, add the chopped greens and heat gently.

Or, you can add the greens in the last five minutes or so of step 2 and puree it all at once. I like the way the soup looks with the green lacing through the ivory broth so I add them after the power-mashing.


* Also from Recipes from the Night Kitchen.

4 of seven

For those of you who speak astrology:

I have 6 planets in Leo, and 8 in the 11th house.

And a bonus fact: My middle name, Diane, was given to me because in the year I was born there was a hurricane named Diane. Those were the days when you could get more than halfway through the hurricane season and still only be up to "d" in the naming convention. I don't think people should name their children after natural catastrophes. And if they do, they should make up a nicer story to explain their choice.

Enjoy the solstice.

3 of seven

When
I was
in sixth grade,
I read at the 12th grade level.

woo-hoo.

(I'm not quite old enough to have posed for Mary Cassatt. [The painting is at the Hirshhorn in D.C.])

I don't know my own strength

The massive snow that's sweeping across the country and is about to paralyze the entire northeast is my fault. I had scheduled a trip to Massachusetts to take a weekend workshop in Asian brush painting. This is maybe the third or fourth time I've tried to do this. The first couple of times I called and emailed a nearby museum that is fairly well known for its Japanese-style gardens and that was offering a class. No reply to either attempt. Back in August, my trip to Vermont that morphed into a 'studio away from studio' experience started out with me registering for a class in brush painting. Which was cancelled, since I was the only one who had registered. Now, again, I've registered for a class and now there's this massive storm front bearing down. Okay, I get it. It's fate. I'm not going.

In the meantime, I had picked up one of those 'painting class in a box' publications at Barnes & Noble. On brush painting. It has a book, paper, paints, ink, a palette, and brushes in it. This morning, I washed the sizing out of the brushes. On the weekend, I may try them out. Prepare for the apocalypse. Who knew I was this powerful?

[image: William Blake's Ancient of Days, via wikipedia]

2 of seven

When we were kids, my brother and I spent time with our grandparents at their home in Delaware. My brother always favored small furry animals and decided he wanted a rabbit. If he got a rabbit -- he got all the good stuff, of course, and first-- I had to have a rabbit. So on the way back to New York, we stopped at the home of one of the Amish families we knew and we each, naively, picked out a rabbit because we liked their colors. I got a completely white rabbit. He got one that was black and white. He thought my rabbit was trite. I thought his rabbit had to be better because it was, you know, his. Man, it sucks being the little sister.
But I digress. . . oh yes, the rabbits.
Not surprisingly, once we were home, we started having quite a lot of rabbits. So much so, that my parents said we had to give back the rabbits.

Very sad.

Except that -- o! frabjous day! -- we happened to return the rabbits on a day when the Amish boys had been hunting and had killed what turned out to be a mother raccoon. They had tracked back to the nest and taken the kits. Six baby raccoons. So we traded. What a deal. A measly two rabbits for SIX, count 'em SIX, baby raccoons. So adorable they are with their clever hands and those cunning masks. We brought them home in a cardboard box.

Can we keep these? Not in the house, my father said. So we built an enclosure in the yard and kept them there for a while. How long a while I don't quite remember, but long enough for me to take one to school for show-and-tell, and for my mother to make a baseball jacket for another that we took to my brother's Little League games. A friend of one of my aunts adopted one of the raccoons, and the other five eventually made a break for freedom and moved into the park across the street.

A few decades later, there are still raccoons in the park and I can't help wondering -- did I do that?

image from http://www.loomcom.com/raccoons/gallery/jpegs/raccoon1.jpg

mid term slump

My friend Ellen from the book exchange laid down this gauntlet of post-a-day for the month of December and I'm not sure why I took it up. (I'll bet you're wondering as well.) What is my fascination with these one-a-day challenges? In my real life--as opposed to my completely-made-up-in-my-head life -- pretty much the only things I do every day are the things that support metabolism. But every time one of these notions wanders across my sight line I think: "that sounds like fun. maybe I'll try it." And so here I am, up well past midnight during the work week casting about for something to say. And not doing very well.

If I were to take the tagger's "7 fun facts" and spread it over a week, I could begin with: I write, and send, fan letters. Not often, but every now and again. I never expect any kind of reply, although I did once get back an actual letter -- typed on a typewriter that had clearly seen hard use, and signed by hand -- from Eileen Atkins. But collecting is not the point. I enjoy articulating what I appreciate about someone else's contribution to the world, and I send them off with the old-fashioned notion that it's always nice to hear nice things about yourself from strangers. Whether the letters actually find their way to the intended recipient is also not the point, I like the feeling of contributing to well-being. Some of the letters are to everyday folks, others are to famous people. For example, I've sent 2 notes of appreciation to police officers in the local precinct, and I wrote to the now-retired Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina because I was so impressed with the elegance and artistry he brought to his work. This intermittent practice grew out of a New Year's resolution to focus on and acknowledge positive things. New Year's being a good time for reflecting and amending.


[image from http://www.levenger.com/ -- where this handy little pen-holding brownie is For Sale.]

it's like talking to my mother

Need I say more?

verify

Just for the fun of it, I've started a list of the word verification 'words' that pop up. This is what I have so far:

Comegu, Comph, Graticko, Ideribe, Inedlysi, Intlyt,
Kifinsir,Manedef, Mentu, Micior, Mullar, Oboli, Relis
Tosipsyp

I'm finding these almost-words very evocative of epic poetry and wondering if there's something like Spanglish that could be concocted from these things and used to tell a coherent story of some kind . . . Blogwulf, or a Mahablogata. Maybe a Blogessey. The Canterbloggy Tales.

And, no, I haven't been drinking, though maybe I should start.

speaking of books

Over at More Idle Thoughts, Dinah has accepted a tag from m.heart to select the book nearest at hand, open to page 56, and find the fifth sentence, transcribe the next 2 to 5 sentences. She (Dinah) declines the "now tag five people to do that same" bit, but invites players to self-select. So, picking up the book nearest to hand, Moby Dick (what else would it be?), on page 56, five sentences in (plus a couple) we have:

"Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown over upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. But savages are very strange beings; at times, you do not know exactly how to take them. "

How cool is that?
And now: Tag, you are, if you choose to be so, it.

By the way, whilst out acquiring provisions for the resident felions, I picked up The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth. His book Sacred Hunger is breathtaking, if this is even half as good, I'm set for the weekend. Still open to recommendations.

also

Two posts in one day! Hurrah for me! oof.
But I had an afterthought -- Has anyone read anything wonderful lately , or even a long time ago? Now that I suddenly won't be reading homework, I'm suddenly longing for a good book. Or a stack of them. I have a recommendation for Walker Piercy. Anything else?

ho, ho, ho

21st century, this is Melanie. Melanie, meet the 21st century.

Actually the I'm about to join the tail-end of the 20th century. So stand by for yet another great shift in technology because by the time I finally resign myself to having to learn yet another boatload of software for yet another wholesale replacement of perfectly good equipment that has become outmoded, it's time for the new wave of latest and greatest and "must have or hang your head in au courant company" time. To wit: I have bought an Ipod shuffle. This is . . . hang on . . . my first MP3 player of any kind. I was enthusiastic about the switch from vinyl to CD, which was not so great a hardship because I didn't have a lot of vinyl, but now I do have quite a few CDs so I was reluctant to shift to whatever this thing is. But one day at work, almost everyone had a Shuffle on their desk and suddenly I Wanted One. So now I have one, and the young people are very kind about explaining it to me. "You do know that you have to charge it?" Yes. And that part wasn't baffling to the point of maddening and beyond. So far, so good. Now comes the tricky bit of actually putting music on it. I think I'll rest up.

My other new best friend is a smaller, more portable version of my first-ever digital camera. I thought ahead this time and, even though the ones that came in colors were cuter, I got the less sleek, less hip camera that uses The Same Software That I Have Already Sort-of Learned. My momma didn't raise no fool. Or maybe she did. Fooling around with the new camera I learned that my infuriating inability to get the original camera to talk to the computer and upload pictures had a very simple solution: The camera needs to be ON.

Ah, me. Sometimes I really do miss the old days.

And so to bed. That's a technology I understand completely. So far.

transition

It is pouring with rain tonight -- torrential, Biblical rain (just water, no blood or frogs, but a powerful amount of water). And tonight I taught my last class. I am -- or "yam" as an ether buddy would say "berbery sad." I cried for a while in the car on the way home but that's a poor choice in any circumstances and especially so in the dark with all this rain, so I pulled myself together, concentrated on the immediate task at hand, and got on. But I think I'm going to indulge in a good mope this weekend.

Oh, the unfairness of it all.
See? I've started already.

sarcasm

Was listening to the BBC this morning on the radio and all I can say is thank god Zimbabwe got rid of all those evil, venal white people. Really. Because cholera, poverty, torture, corruption, starvation, dehydration, and the constant stress of watching everyone around you wither and die are so much better than hospitals, sanitation, a food supply, a stable government, a robust economy, employment, and one of the highest literacy rates in the world (90%). I mean, really, who needs loathesome colonial overlords when you can have a 1 in 10 mortality rate from an epidemic of an easily preventable disease? This is the 21st century -- there is no reason for anyone to die of chlolera. There is no reason for anyone even to have cholera. You clean the water. Of course, first you have to have water . . . but this is Zimbabwe, once reknowned for its thriving agricultural industry. And agriculture depends on . . . water. Systems of irrigation. For Zimbabweans to be dying from malnutrition and filthy water is just mind boggling.

Doctors without Borders has said

"the problems are long-term. In Beitbridge, 'the water station does not have the parts to properly repair its pumps. Even if it did, it depends on electricity to pump water from the tower to the city. Electricity depends on a coal mine that has not been paid in over a year and can no longer supply coal. There is no fuel to run the garbage trucks; there is no money to pay salaries for people to collect the garbage. There is no equipment, or supplies, to fix the sewage system, nor money to pay personnel to do it. There are no quick solutions.'

And the news from Harare is no better. But thank god that Zimbabwe is free of the jackboot of oppressive white values. Thank god.

And yes I do know that formerly Rhodesia was not a paradise for the majority black population in the way that it most definitely was a paradise for the extremely minority white population. But people were not dying en masse in the mud outside the closed health center. So go ahead, call me a racist, but I think that's better than what they have now. And call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I think there had to have been a better way of achieving equity among the various interests in the country and preserving stability than what was done. In 20 years the country has gone from being the bread basket of Africa to a cholera epidemic and, even absent the epidemic, the lowest life expectancies in the world (age 37 for men, 34 for women) -- and that isn't because satanic western white folks bombed them back to the stone age.

wildlife, redux

Tonight -- an opossum in the yard. I don't know why they're called o-possums, it's the only word I can think of for which the initial letter is silent. But seriously, they are the only marsupial native to North America. And as ugly as the day is long. See what I mean? [image from http://www.iknowaguypestcontrol.com/catalog/images/opossum.jpg]

According to http://www.opossum.org/facts.htm, opossums will "Hiss or growl and show their 50 sharp teeth when frightened; but, in reality, they are gentle and placid — they prefer to avoid all confrontations and wish to be left alone." I think the "50 sharp teeth" is the more noteworthy part of that statement. A couple of years ago, one tried to move into the winter hutch for the yard cats, and it was neither gentle nor placid about being dislodged from it. No "playing possum" for that particular representative of the species.

On the up side, according to the National Opossum Society (who knew?) opossums are more resistant to rabies than are other animals and they eat slugs and snails -- which is a help in the garden. And they're nocturnal, so being hideously ugly (did I mention that already? I'm so shallow) is not as onerous as it might be under other circumstances.

So -- live and let live up here in the northernmost reaches of the mainland portion the great metropolis.

but what are you going to do with that?

Last January, at my local Studio Art Quilts Associates meeting, we discussed goal-setting, and the key to that seemed to be Make a List, keep track of The List, stay in conversation with The List. So I made A List of fairly modest goals, and have managed to squeak all of them in, more or less. Technically, one is still upcoming in the third week of December (but I think it counts) and some I changed my mind about, but basically this is The List:
General goals
LIMIT TIME ON THE COMPUTER
Establish the habit of working
Specific goals
1. Keep record of goals and accomplishments
2. Enter challenges of some kind
a. Cloth Paper Scissors reader's challenge: True Colors, done and sent 3/3/08
b. Northern Star Quilters Guild: sent 3 MD quilts for the May show, agreed to be judged
c. Quilt National, sent disk on 8/30/08
3. Learn new things
a. Acrylic paint and alcohol technique (Denise Aumick, January)
b. Gelatin plate printing (Rayna Gilman, August)
c. Tissue paper collage / collage in general (ongoing)
d. Jane’s ink class (September)
e. brush painting (at Kripalu, end of December)
4. Create business plan? [oh, please -- first generate enough work to warrant such a thing]

All of which is not too shabby, for someone as generally lacking in ambition as moi-self.
Item 4 stills feels like an awkward fit. I'm not
a big fan of the can-do chestnut "do what you love and the money will follow." I think hobbies are too often denigrated when they should be celebrated for the good and honorable things that they are. Fun is it's own reward and all that. On the other hand, I think I might like being a "teaching artist" which would mean first, becoming known as an artist; second, becoming known for something other people want to learn; and third, being available to teach. Maybe that's the focus of A List for '09 . . .

progress 1

A dull but productive day. Did laundry.
Beau helped with the sorting.

Patches folded.

And Halloween could tell I was up to something, so he gave me "that look" and disappeared before I could suggest that he pitch in.

And I made good progress on the next quadrant of the "shoveling out the big room" project, but not enough
to brandish photos. Maybe tomorrow.

pop quiz.1

Ether buddy Katie Jane has posted a lovely photo of her home town in snow -- and the weather prognosticators here are saying we'll wake up tomorrow with snow on our ground as well . . . which, of course, got me thinking about the persistent "Eskimo words for snow" boondoggle . . . which always makes me think: I don't know why it's so remarkable to have different words for different things. Isn't it more interesting that, in American English, the eensy word "run" has more than 100 independent meanings -- and somehow we're never confused? The same word for more than 100 ideas. I think that's remarkable -- yet no one remarks on it. How come?

[image from amazon]

all together now: waes hael!

I was reading one of my favorites blogs, for the garden at the Cloisters, where they discussed making their decorations
for the Christmas season and said that they used songs, carols, and "wassails" as reference for which plants would be in keeping with the Medieval focus of the museum. That got me wondering -- what is "wassail" anyway and what does it mean to "go a-wassailing"?

Over at Wikipedia (I know, but it's so darn convenient) I learned that there are two kinds of wassailing. One is a solicitation of charity which can be benign (serfs reminding the lord of his christian duty to provide alms) or more like the kind of hardcore treat-or-treating that merges with vandalism (feed me or I'll trash your house, tra-la).

The other wassail is a ceremony of sorts that involves serenading apple trees -- yes, you heard that correctly -- serenading apple trees to drive out bad spirits and encourage a good crop. And having the Wassail Queen decorate the trees with cider-soaked toast for the robins "who represent the good spirits of the tree." And banging on pots and pans, and -- oh, yes -- the drinking of cider until the whole crowd is "merry and gay." This formal portion of the ritual ends with a bang: either a single rifle shot or a volley of rifle fire depending on which article you read. Then the cheer-full gaggle moves on to the next orchard. Rest, rinse, repeat. Clearly these folks in the cider-producing West Country of England are people who know how to mix business with pleasure. Except for the rifle part, I could really get into this.

So, this holiday season, remember to bid your neighbors waes hael (good health), feed the birds, and sing to the trees. It's traditional.

Old Apple tree, old apple tree;
We've come to wassail thee;
To bear and to bow apples enow;
Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;
Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs.

[images from the Cloisters "The Medieval Garden Enclosed" blog and Wikipedia: apple]

too short

As in "life is too short to spend time reading bad books." Recently, and twice, I've been suckered into reading things that "everybody's reading." Both books had a spiritual bent - the first is Eat Love Pray, which I found so completely tiresome that I gave up not even halfway through the first part. The second is not The Alchemist, but The Witch of Portobello by the same author -- Paulo Coehlo. I tried The Alchemist and couldn't get past the first chapter. I thought I'd try Witch because it purports to be about "the feminine side of divinity." If so, the feminine face is tedious when not irritating. Maybe a good deal is lost in translation, but the book is larded with the worst kind of pretentious claptrap that I've encountered in along time.

Which led me to wonder: Why is it so difficult to write persuasively about spirituality and the inner life of spiritual people? The best book I know about a spiritual conversion is The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. I think I like it because Maugham doesn't tell the story from the point of view of the converted, a man named Larry, but rather tells a story about how Larry's faith affects the people around him for good and for ill. It's not a treacly, hectoring lecture from A Teacher or The Sage or My Protector filled with hoary exhortations about "unconditional love" and "being true to yourSelf" disguised as a novel. It's a real novel about believable people dealing as best they can with an untenable situation -- and the reader gets it. Why is that so hard?

inspirations

About a fortnight ago one of the blogs that I read offered the opportunity to participate in a shared poem day. Wouldn't it be cool, the suggestion went, if we all posted a poem with words that "pulse in our blood" and posted links so we could blog-hop and read all this great stuff? Yes. It would be. And I expect that it was, but I learned about it too late to chime in. Nevertheless, here is one of my favorite poems. It was published in the New York Review of Books, a few years ago.

Basho
by Cees Nooteboom (translated from the Dutch by J.M. Coetzee)

We know poetic poetry the common dangers
of moonstruckness, bel canto. Embalsamed air, that is all,
unless you turn it into pebbles that flash and hurt.
You, old master, polish the pebbles
that you fling to bring down a thrush.
Out of the world you cut an image that bears your name.
Seventeen pebbles for arrows a school of deathly singers.
See by the waterside the track of the poet
on his way to the innermost snowland. See how the water erases it
how the man with the hat inscribes it again
preserves water and footprint, capturing the movement that has passed,
so that what vanished is still there as something that vanished.

I love that last line: "so that what vanished is still there as something that vanished"

a bit much, even for me

There's a skunk in the yard.
It's very beautiful. Mostly white, all fluffy like a persian cat, with a sleek alert pointed face. And, no, it's not a cat. It's most definitely a skunk. This is the second time I've seen it. No fool, it shows up on the night the trash goes to the curb. I'm glad of the local wildlife and try to support and encourage it as much as possible. But life in the Bronx is not a Disney movie, especially for small cute fluffy mammals with good hearing, poor eyesight, and a bad reputation. What to do? What to do? (Although . . . the issue may have just resolved itself. My cat, Halloween, came in with me after I took the trash out and he smells faintly -- if you can imagine "faintly" -- of skunk.) Helloooo, parks department.
[image from I-love-Disney.com]

words to live by

One of my college professors -- this was back in the early 1970s -- was famous for his rambling lectures. I was in his office one day before class and he started jotting down notes. I asked what he was doing. He said: "Making a lesson plan." And I blurted out: "What are you doing that for?" And he smiled and said:

"You can't have total chaos.
You must have something from which to depart."

God bless you, Professor Young, wherever you are.