It's a tall order but we're taller

• 23:18 Don't want to jinx it but M seems to be falling asleep, unaided, in her basket. Major win. #

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All the news services offer BREAKING NEWS ALERTS sent to my email or phone. I am a sucker for these things, because I think they will provide only the real zingers, and right away.

Unfortunately they never work. What I want is JAPAN INVADES AGAIN or PRESIDENT REVEALED AS FREDONIAN AGENT or AIDS CURED.

What do I get? The resignation of athletic coaches, the leaked possibility of the announcement of some politician's retirement, some celebrity did something, someone who has been decrepit for a decade dies, Christmas occurs.

With a moment's thought it is clear how this happens. Someone says "we shall have breaking news alerts" and everyone knows what this means; it means the big stories I want. There are not very many of these. Maybe none for months! Meanwhile they notice that each one of these alerts creates a crapload of traffic to the website.

Eventually the marketing people will lobby for more frequent alerts, and they will start adding less shocking stories, and it will get more watered down. Finally there will be an "alert cycle" that is nearly a schedule, and someone will sell ad packages including the alerts. At this point not as many people rush to the site after an alert, but it's still more than typical traffic, and that is what counts.

And that is also why someday Christmas will last six months.

In better news, I had a hell of a good plate of brown rice with saffron tonight.

How are you all?

• 06:59 :: #fb This goes out to Audie, who is the fave in our fantasy hoops match-up, this week. ♫ blip.fm/~iqn8x #

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After four wonderful days in Atlanta with old friends, Alex oniugnip and I got home yesterday to discover that a pipe had frozen and burst in our upstairs bathroom, causing water to collect in the space between the first and second floors directly over the kitchen and eventually burst through the kitchen ceiling and cabinets and drip down the walls.

The good news is that the damage is limited entirely to the kitchen -- all of our other stuff is okay, and the cats are a little freaked out but otherwise fine -- and that our landlord's insurance will foot the $2800 bill for repairing the water damage. The bad news is that the kitchen is basically destroyed. State Farm sent over some guys who specialize in water damage restoration, and they ripped out the drywall and insulation from the kitchen ceiling yesterday. When we left today, they were removing the cabinets on one wall and doing something with the floor. It sounds like the kitchen window and surrounding drywall and insulation will have to come out, too. I'm not sure exactly what is going on, but it's safe to say we won't have a kitchen for a while. The living room is also unusable at the moment, because it's filled with industrial drying and dehumidification equipment, and in any case it's not too pleasant to be in the house right now because all of said equipment is currently on and roaring at full blast. It remains to be seen whether the music stuff in the basement -- Alex's drums and my keyboards -- are okay or not, because they were probably dripped on. Those things are replaceable, though. Mostly, I'm just glad that the water didn't get on any of our books, furniture, papers, computers, or art. I'm rattled about the fact that, you know, it's 20 degrees outside and there's basically a hole in our house, but it actually doesn't feel cold in the intact part of the house. And the silver lining is that I guess we might get a new kitchen out of the deal. Our landlord is already speaking of recessed lighting.

If you live in a place with below-freezing weather and you're planning to leave the heat turned down for an extended period of time, please, please make sure you leave your faucets running a trickle of water. This will keep the water circulating and prevent pipes from freezing and bursting. I was raised in the frozen northlands and should know these things, but apparently I hadn't learned my lesson yet.

For now, we've got Alex's trusty toaster oven set up in our bedroom, and that worked pretty okay for toast and peanut butter last night. But, you know, if anyone feels like inviting us over for food any time in the next few days, we would appreciate it more than you know.

Way
what is this road that separates us
across which I hold out the hand of my thoughts
a flower is written at the end of each finger
and the end of the road is a flower which walks with you
—Tristan Tzara




Voie
quel est ce chemin qui nous sépare
à travers lequel je tends la main de ma pensée
une fleur est écrite au bout de chaque doigt
et la bout du chemin est une fleur qui marche avec toi

(traduction par Lee Harwood)

I'm suffering a lot, trying to cut someone I love very much out of my life. I'm requesting poems that have to deal with letting go, not because of death, but because of all the other reasons why we have to let go of a love. Thank you.


( and a poem by Adrienne Rich )

• 18:13 :: #fb heels...noooooo! #

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• 07:54 @Todd13214 sweet! Good to see you have that game too. It's your turn now :P #
• 07:55 @Todd13214 I started a chess game with both IDs so play back whichever one you can #

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Strings
by Ruth Stone


We pop into life the way
Particles pop in and out
Of the continuum.
We are a seething mass
Of probability.
And probably I love you.
The evil of larva
And the evil of stars
Is a formula for the future.
Some bodies can
Thrust their arms into
a flame and be instantly
cured of this world,
while others sicken.
Why think, little brother
Like the moon, spit out like
A broken tooth.
"Oh," groans the world.
The outer planets,
The fizzing sun, here we come
With our luggage.
Look at the clever things
We have made out of
A few building blocks—
O, fabulous continuum.

• 14:44 At the GP, M weighs nine lbs even. #

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That is all.

Comment here or on the original Dreamwidth post using OpenID. comments on Dreamwidth.

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin

OK Triangle folks, I need some help. I have this wedding dress. It’s brand new, gorgeous, never been altered, etc etc etc and I am looking to sell it. I’ve tried ebay, and a ton of wedding-specific classified websites to no avail. I’m guessing most people would want to try this on prior to buying it, seeing as it's a big purchase and all.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch.

What I am looking for are the names and numbers, if possible, of shops around here that you think will buy/ consign higher end dresses and clothing. Yes, I’m looking to recoup some of my costs. Unfortunately wedding gowns are non-returnable so that option was out the second I left the shop.

Thank you!!

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out
into playing fields, the factory, allotments
kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men,
the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan,
till you came at last to the edge of the woods.
It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.

He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud
in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,
red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears
he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!
In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,
sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink,

my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry.
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,
away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,
my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer
snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes

but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night,
breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.
I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for
what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
and went in search of a living bird – white dove –

which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.
One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,
licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back
of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books.
Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,
warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.

But then I was young – and it took ten years
in the woods to tell that a mushroom
stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds
are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf
howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,
season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon
to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf
as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw
the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones.
I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.
Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.


- Carol Ann Duffy

• champagne cupcakes with sweet champagne buttercream frosting | gimme some oven
  (tags: food recipes)

• 23:23 Let's play Words With Friends on the iPhone! My username is 'Myfriendjohnny'. bit.ly/2qbpQ #

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Anyone know if there are any groups for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers in the Triad? I plan on returning to the area after my PC stint is over, and would love to be a part of a group.

I've come to a bored pause in my experience of the worldwide web. Might be time to read a book, eh?

• 07:57 :: #fb 57 pages into 'Inside of a Dog', Horowitz does it: conflicts with Cesar Millan's dog-view. Rut-ro, Raggy..let's see where this goes. #
• 14:52 :: #fb. After 14 years, the Dos Coyotes salmon burrito endures as one of my all time fave meals. #

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• 11:13 Anyone up for Avatar @ Regal on Front St. at 3:15 and then dinner at Applebees or Cracker Barrel after? #

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