William Butler Yeats said “We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
Archive Page 3
You embarassed me when you said things that made you seem ignorant or shallow.
I embarassed you when I said things that made me seem mean, selfish and uncaring.
Does that make us even? Are we coming apart at the seems?
- The Curmudgeon.
Foreseeing by Sharon Bryan
Middle age refers more
to landscape than to time:
it’s as if you’d reached
the top of a hill
and could see all the way
to the end of your life,
so you know without a doubt
that it has an end -
not that it will have,
but that it does have,
if only in outline -
so for the first time
you can see your life whole,
beginning and end not far
from where you stand,
the horizon in the distance -
the view makes you weep,
but it also has the beauty
of symmetry, like the earth
seen from space: you can’t help
but admire it from afar,
especially now, while it’s simple
to re-enter whenever you choose,
lying down in your life,
waking up to it
just as you always have -
except that the details resonate
by virtue of being contained,
as your own words
coming back to you
define the landscape,
remind you that it won’t go on
like this forever.
From the song “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake
With fingernails that shine like justice/And a voice that is dark like tinted glass.
Just viewed “The Painted Veil” … the 2007 version with Ed Norton and Naomi Watts, not the 1934 version with Greta Garbo. I generally do not gravitate toward ‘period’ movies or classic literature screenplays, so I don’t know what led me to add this to my Netflix queue… unless it was Naomi’s creamy deliciousness. Suffice it to say, I feel guilty for my possibly low-brow motivations because the movie was truly spectacular. Spectacularly provocative visually, and spiritually. Of course, if I wasn’t such a simple Cretan I would have already been familiar with the novel by Somerset Maugham. I generally find Eddy’s portfolio to be smug but he and the rest of the cast do a swell job as well. Highly recommended.
Well, not exactly years…. but just a few months shy now of being a year since my last post. In the decades long effort to get a handle on my migraine headaches, October of last year I had a sleep study done by a legitimately certified clinic and neurologist. The study revealed classic narcolepsy and mild apnea. I have never exhibited the symptoms of narcolepsy such as nodding off at my desk, or at a stop light. Nor have I ever been one to fall asleep while watching TV or a movie. I was skeptical but agreed to try a CPAP machine and some sleep meds.
I couldn’t tolerate the CPAP machine, but after a little bit of tuning the meds seem to be pretty good. I take 125mg of Lyrica and 1/2 of the typical Ambien prescription. The Ambien puts me to sleep and the Lyrica keeps me in good sleep cycles for a good four or five hours. I have had dramatically fewer headaches and I am feeling over all considerably better than I have felt in many years. A couple months ago I began a moderate morning exercise routine that I have been able to stick with, expand upon, and really, become addicted to.
Since the weblog was traditionally a late night angst ridden journaling effort, it has suffered in the healthier me times. But its more than just the fact that I don’t stay up late. I’ll try to elaborate soon… Or will I? <diminished chord on shlocky organ>
Simi-likes
Published November 7, 2008 Simi-likes Leave a CommentTags: "A Piece of News", "Jo McDougall", "On Catalpa Street", Eudora Welty, light, storm
At dusk, when kitchen-window light
settles on the grass like a picnic cloth …
“On Catalpa Street” “by Jo McDougall from Towns Facing Railroads
>
It was dark and vague outside. The storm had rolled away to faintness like a wagon crossing a bridge.
“A Piece of News” Short Story by Eudora Welty
Deere John Letter
Published September 9, 2008 jurinal entry Leave a CommentTags: Cotton Farm, Dew Point, John Deere, Olympus
Cut Corn Field
This morning was one of those wierd end of summer phenomenons in Texas where there is both fog and blue skies. It has something to do with the “dew point”, whatever that is, and is an early indication that it will be an incredibly muggy afternoon. Even though the temps have ‘plummeted’ to the low 90’s the humidity makes the afternoons like a Russian steam bath and by afternoon I mean after 10am. By now most of the cotton is picked and setting in giant bales the size of mobile homes in the cotton fields. Another week and they’ll be on their way to the gins. It doesn’t matter what price cotton prices are its always regarded as a ‘loss’ by the farmers. I have asked a few of them about this and they give me these long stories about the price back in aught two or fuel prices soaring or interest on their war bonds or whatever till my eyes glaze over. Anyway, I’m driving down this farm to market road where there’s a straggler still baling cotton in his field. His green and yellow tractors and big bales of white cotton are on top of the brown cut field like decorations on a cake. The image is made more magical by this rain-forest like mist or fog or whatever it is. Because of the good rain we’ve had the past weeks everything else around these fields is orgasmicly verdant. And in this mist the green shimmers like precious emerald. I round a bend in the road and this field comes into view. It appears to be corn that has been cut and will be plowed into the ground. I have heard from the farmers that none of the corn fields made it because of the drought, but I don’t think farmers are to be trusted. This one is shimmering gold in this wierd misty light. It struck me so that I decided to turn back around and take a picture of it. I used the old 3.2mp Olympus and in this light I couldn’t really even see through the viewfinder. I guessed on a couple of shots and stitched this photo together. I confess I amped up the color saturation a bit, and added a little glow to it to make it more match what I remembered it to be like.
Prologue: Sorry for the lack of posts. I have been wallowing in my depression for a few weeks now. I actually have become quite capable of carrying on what appears to be a functioning life that completely belies the dread and despair underneath. Only my wife occasionally glimpses beyond the veil and she is not prepared to admit that side of me exists – and I can’t blame her. I will now recount the annual pilgrimage of the family to “the beach”. I was depressed before I left and depressed upon my return. But nary a friend or kin was aware. Thank thee beer and thank thee vodka.
What has been going on? Family vacation at the beach. The Beach vacation is first observed in the reading of the list – and checking provisions against the lists – and double checking the provisions and the list lists and – if absolutely necessary – after the vacation is consummated – and a proper council convened – modifying lists for next years trip. Glob Bless the reading of the list. Then the vacation is observed the arrangement of the sacraments in the processional vehicles. The sacraments are all assembled around the holiest of holy sacraments – the cooler holding Glob’s own true manna – beer – and meat – and vodka – and meat – and more beer.
Upon arrival at the temple, there is always battle with the priests regarding one’s the reservations of one’s sanctum. “Yes yes, I know you requested a view of the beach, and the 1st floor” but many of Glob’s people are here to honor his Sun”. “No, no, your sanctum is not available yet because the sanctum must be cleaned and provided with freshly blessed towels and linens” etc. Once the priests are properly satisfied with your offerings, one begins the unloading of sacraments and vestments from the processional vehicles into the sanctum. One is immediately aware of the awesome power of Glob’s Sun is begins to infuse your cranium and shorts with his spirit. When the sanctum is properly provisioned then observation of beach vacation begins in earnest.
As an elder, my primary responsibility from this point on is the nap so that Glob may give me visions of revelation for my tribe. This year marks the second year that the 3rd generation of my tribe has joined us at the beach. She is too young to really understand the observation of Glob and his Sun, but it occasionally falls on me to walk her through the rites and rituals. She calls me “Bampa” or sometimes “C’mon Bampa . None but her can disturb my meditation naps without incurring curmudgeous wrath.
The elder woman of the tribe, “Mammy”, bravely disturbs me each day to assist in the preparation of the ice cream sacrament and I shower her with grumblings and mutterings. None the lest I comply. The list is painstakingly followed in the preparation of the ice cream. It is a noisy affair all but insuring no napping, but the resulting nectar is joy to the tongue.
Another of my responsibilities as the elder of the tribe is the grilling of the meat. The sad truth is, Bampa has lost his passion for the grilling of the meat and it is nigh growing time for that mantle to be passed on. In fact, the ingesting of even small portions of the meat already causes Bampa much passing on. The meats are many that are grilled and they come from land and sea. They are all properly pre-prepared according to the holy instructions of the list. However, Bampa, now pre-marinates his stomach with a beer batter before ingesting the sacramental meat. The ingredients for that recipe are 12 to 48 oz’s of beer and – well – that’s all. The beer can be chugged or swilled. Bampa actually ingests very little of the sacramental meat leaving that to the younger and stronger members of the tribe.
Speaking of the younger members of my tribe and the others who have joined us for this pilgrimage, they all where as little clothing as possible so that they may properly be molded by Glob’s Sun. This can at times be very distracting to Bampa’s naptime visions and at times his naps are fraught with distress as he wrestles with his temptation to meditate upon the female tribe member’s more bumpy offerings to Glob’s Sun. Mammy sometimes helps him focus his meditations by bringing him a beer and ritually smacking his head. This is all so confusing to Bampa and he looks forward to the day he stands before Glob so that the reasoning for the persistence of this desire can last so long into Bampa’s life. The younger one’s in the tribe frolic in the water, and toss discs about, and bounce a ball back and forth over a net as they invoke Glob’s Sun to take their bodies and bake them in his likeness. Bampa can only participate in the ritual frolicking for brief and only symbolic times. Some of the young will prostrate themselves hoping that Glob’s Sun will hear their pleas. I look upon them in their prostration and no that Glob will soon deliver my beer and smack in the head.
Eventually the time comes when the temple priests demand that you make way for other pilgrims. The sacraments are either packed or hastily ingested and the vestments are likewise packed away and the pilgrims return home. Upon returning home, some of the pilgrims will stand before the mirror and behold the work of Glob’s Sun upon their flesh. Other’s of us, will stand and ponder that suspicious mole. All will praise Glob and his Sun and thank him for his blessings.
