Lederer quote

Why do "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing? ... You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where a house can burn up as it burns down and in which you fill in a form by filling it out. English was invented by people, not computers . . . . That is why when the stars are out they are visible but when the lights are out they are invisible and why it is that when I wind up my watch it starts, but when I wind up this poem it ends.

[Lederer, R. 1990. CRAZY ENGLISH. New York. Pocket Books.]

home again

ah, nothing like being away to make me appreciate being home again. (and telephone, television, & video games too -- yay!)

---

some nights falling to sleep were a struggle. dreams fragmented their way into my consciousness; and too often i found i was fighting against something, pushing or pulling, until i would wake suddenly, bristling with fear and adrenaline.

other nights were more calm, and i would drift away into forgetful bliss.

---

[more bliss these days; not so many struggles (which were years ago and seem like a distant memory now).]

yule tree & 'if we want to'

[heh, more snow this morning; they'd better not close school tonight -- i have a final!]
---
madness and insanity -- they're really not that far away from us at any time; instead, they exist in close parallel to our sanity and rationality, and it doesn't take much to nudge some of us into them.

indeed, we can sometimes pass into those worlds, live in them for a time, and pass back into sanity again. sometimes not unscathed; and almost never unchanged.

but we *can* come back, usually. if we really want to.

ice & sun

A rainbow-fringe-producing wisp of cloud in the winter sky,
and i don't have my camera;
instead i must capture it with my heart.
Over the years, i've fared far better with clouds and moon
than with romantic love and fellow humans
whose art i never mastered (and seldom felt).
Ice-clad branches glow white in the morning sun,
and i sometimes feel the frozen sheath
around my love (and possibly melt).
---
[the above pic was from my back window in the late afternoon, not from Starbuck's where i watched & wrote about the wisp of cloud in the morning. and don't click on it -- it won't enlarge much. :-) ]

snow flash

heh, deploy the flash, Sulu. What do you think, Mr Spock?

at least no traffic jam today. am slightly tempted to slog through the woods down the hill and over the reservoir to Starbuck's this morning on foot, but only slightly.

very pretty out the window.

snow morning

yester my heart went out to all the drivers stuck on the roads in the midst of the mess. (heh, and this morning i'll try on bicycle to get to Starbuck's and the gym -- wish me luck.)

maybe the storm was for the best: i couldn't get my Java homework to work (something about the way i was passing arrays to a method), but there was a snow closure at the school and i was off the hook.

'The Piano' again

wow. just watched 'The Piano' again after a long time of not having seen. remembered why i liked it so much in the first place, why i identified so closely with. an old friend. sad, but made me feel good, sorta.