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cvirtue

Subject:	Dust on your lens = angels, apparently
Time:	5:30 am.

Oh my. This lady is convincing people that the bright blobs in photographs which are caused by dust on your lens are actually angels captured by the camera.

http://www.dianacooper.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=738&Itemid=203

for many examples and her analysis.

The spiritual hierarchy have been indicating for some time that they would soon show themselves physically to humanity. And now they have done so! The angels connected with certain technologists who were working with digital cameras to ensure that the vibration of the photographs matched a frequency the spiritual hierarchy could access, so that their light bodies could be captured on camera. As a result you can now see spirit with your own eyes. The technologists would probably have been surprised at the role they had played in this divine project!

There are several guesses circulating about what the dust specks are (you'd think someone might try cleaning their lens and then compare the results.)

"When I was a teenage we used to go down to the cometary and take pictures of everything. Those orbs were everywhere, and quite random. Turns out the gasses coming off the rotting bodies produces the orb on film."

and

"A friend came back from visiting his mom, years after his dad had died, and all of his pictures had those little flashes you get from dust on the lens. He said, "The ones I took where Dad hung out all the time [garage, workroom] are the only ones that had those sparkles," looking at us significantly, clearly implying that his dad was somehow speaking to him through his camera. And I'm thinking, "It's because your mom doesn't go in there, and it's dusty as hell."

Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

rivka

Subject:	Colin at five months.
Time:	10:28 pm.

Take a look at today's milestone! Colin sat by himself several times this evening, supporting himself on both hands or even, for a few seconds, one hand. He has great core strength. He's also been flipping from back to front this week, so it's been a busy time on the gross motor front. Hmm, maybe that's why his sleep has gone all to hell.

He's not quite as preternaturally easygoing as he used to be. He really wants to be held in a standing position a lot of the time now. Or walked around so he can see things. If we fail to satisfy these urges he whimpers and cries. When I put him on the floor, he twists himself around or flings his body sideways after a toy. He likes to grab onto the toy basket. Or this morning he managed to maneuver himself around until his feet were on the swing, and then happily pushed it back and forth. He's an ingenious little guy.

He is still very happy, just in general. He has a full-force laugh that breaks out at the slightest provocation. I've never known such a laughing baby. Alex has the easiest time making him laugh. (This morning, all it took was his first good sight of her, and he was cackling with glee.) He likes it when we make silly sounds for him. He likes to play peek-a-boo.

The cutest thing he does these days: Whenever I hold a glass to my mouth when he's in my lap, Colin puts up his hand and pushes the glass, as if to help me drink. He is very serious about this and puts in sustained effort.

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redbird

Subject:	The wonders of bureaucracy*, and a good workout
Time:	6:36 pm.
Mood:	happy.

I'd gotten tired of schlepping up to Westchester for mammograms, so I have made an appointment with a place on the West Side of Manhattan. Unsurprisingly, they want me to bring my old mammogram films, for comparison. This will require me to schlep to Yonkers one last time (it's three buses in each direction; all covered by my unlimited Metrocard, but still, that takes time, especially if the connections are bad). I need to do this tomorrow. When I called at the end of June, it was "sure, just tell us how far back you need, and give us a couple of days' notice."

So, I called them Tuesday. The person who answered took my name and other identifying information, and said I would need to talk to Terry to finish sorting this out, and transferred me. To someone's voicemail. I left a detailed message on Tuesday, asking her to call me back. Thursday morning, I tried again and got the voicemail again. So, I called back and explained that to the person who answered, who said she would check to see if Terry was in—and then put me through to voice mail again.

This morning, I called, and asked the person who answered what their hours were for this purpose. She told me I needed to call ahead. So, I explained the saga of the multiple messages left. I had lucked out and gotten the token competent person allowed near the telephones, who explained that the reason I hadn't gotten a call back was that Terry had been out all week. In what universe does "I'll check to see if she's there" mean "I will put you through to the voicemail of someone who is out this week"? Fortunately, said Competent Person gave me her name, told me when she will be at the office tomorrow, got my information, and promised to call me back. An hour or so later, I checked my phone and found a message: she has pulled my films and they will be there for me to get tomorrow morning.

I finished the page proofs I was working on about 2:30 this afternoon, and went in to my boss's office to tell her this, and that while I'd checked with the supervising editor for math before I left, she hadn't had anything for me right then. (She will on Monday.) My boss told me I might as well go. This meant I got to work out when there were very few people at the gym.

( The usual gym numbers )

As a side note, I would like to know whether the IRT division of the NY subway system talks to the IND. Both the trains that come to my neighborhood are being replaced by shuttle buses this weekend. The information on the 1 explains that the buses will connect to the A at 207th Street. They do not mention that the A is only running as far as 168th Street, so the connection is actually to another bus. (The shuttle bus is often considerably slower than the subway would be, though usually faster than walking.)

*Discordian calendar notwithstanding, I am coming to think that Bureaucracy is a cleverly arranged subset of the season of Confusion.

Comments: Add Your Own.

gfish

Subject:	Electromechanical Sunglasses V
Time:	3:05 pm.

After an annoying number of attempts, I finally got a good set of mounting holes drilled and tapped for the sunglass gears. I'm now about 40% through cutting the frames out using a #2 jeweler's saw blade. (Hard to make out on this crappy pic.) It's slow going, but I'm enjoying the process. The delicacy and precision really appeal to me. I'm pretty happy to be gaining the skill. Unfortunately the supply store didn't have >3" saw frames in stock, so I'm forced to keep coming in from different angles.

I won't have time to work on it any tonight, but I should get this done sometime this weekend. Remaining to be done: Drill and tap holes for the lens gear restraint clips (which after this much effort put into a single piece, will be nervewracking work), ear piece attachment, servo mounting and driveshaft issues. The last bit there I have yet to figure out in any detail...

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solipsistnation

Subject:	Building a tube amp kit.
Time:	1:09 pm.

The board, stuffed., originally uploaded by solipsistnation.

For my birthday I acquired a K-12G stereo tube amp kit from s5electronics.com. It's a pretty basic little kit, and from the research I did beforehand is about the best tube amp you can find for under $200 (kit or otherwise. A read a couple of reviews that said they thought it stood up to $1000ish amps but I guess we'll see). Since this is a second amp and I'm not quite sure where it'll live (either in the bedroom for lounging and listening or on my desk at work as part of the most ridiculous computer speaker setup ever) I don't really need anything too fancy, just something that'll make noise come out of my iPod or whatever.

So, here's the board. It's a cute little kit. The case is about the size of 2 kleenex boxes together. Some of the hardware is a little cheesy-- in particular, I'm replacing the wires they give you to run between the board and the banana jacks for the speakers with something a little heavier and I'm replacing the banana jacks themselves with something a little less likely to short out on the case.

Of course, when I finish I will no longer be able to use this image.

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fengi

Subject:	Turn The Beat Around
Time:	12:23 pm.

This week is the 30th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park on Chicago's South Side.

The Chicago Reader recognizes it with a story on a new exhibit of photos taken by someone who was a teen in the bleachers. Her camera ran out of film before things turned violent. This turns out to be significant, for while the article details some historical and class context, it doesn't mention questions about racism and homophobia, even though they were raised at the time. It comes up in the comments, resulting in some strong denials centering on the assertion conscious intent is all that counts.

The best response is by John Dugan, who also wrote an essay about Disco Demolition nostalgia for Time Out Chicago . Excerpts from his comment:

( Cut to skip to the key quote )Had disco's boom gone on too long? Probably, but the DDD wasn't about embracing new music, it was about rejecting it for hard rock...which had been around for ten years already and was still packing stadiums and radio playlists. If there was a point being made at DDD, and I'm not sure there was, it was that we prefer male oriented monoculture to a pluralistic culture. Decadent individualism but not for everyone.

( More musings on disco, Chicago and the politics of nostalgia. )

The folks memorialized in Costello's article as "south-side rock ’n’ roll youth culture of 1979 on the verge of pandemonium" put on a somewhat different display when Harold Washington took his campaign to white neighborhoods a few years later.

I have some experience with Disco Demolition culture of Chicago. When I did exit polling on the white south side during Harold Washington's second mayoral run, their racial resentment was open and normalized. After he won again, I overheard more than one conversation in restaurants bemoaning this with barely concealed racism. When he died, I sat next to some guys at an all night diner who declared it was the last time a n***** would be elected mayor. And so far, they were right.

I'm not saying there's a direct connection between these two things, but there's something. And all these years later, you'd think essays in the alternative press would be willing to explore that.

Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.

krasota

Subject:	So mad.
Time:	10:47 am.
Mood:	angry.

Without my machine, I don't have photoshop. Tom's old laptop doesn't have any photo editing software (not even iPhoto). So I've been using his new laptop to store and upload pics to flickr, then I edit them with picnic. I just need to resize and do some basic levels, some cropping. No big deal.

So, when you use iPhoto 09 to upload directly to flickr, it creates these annoying little sets in a drop down bar on the side. I wanted to neaten up the view, so I deleted them.

And it deleted them from my flickr account with no clear warning. Said something about "do you want to stop publishing these sets" which made no sense, because I'd already deleted the sets it generated in flickr--I don't need date/event sets unless I want them. Besides, flickr already has date sorting if I want to view by date.

Anyhow, I'm pissed. I lost almost two months' worth of pictures because iPhoto freakin' deleted them off my flickr account. Picnic isn't exactly a picnic, either. It's a pain in the ass to wait for it to load for each pic. I could batch edit in photoshop, which was nice, then I'd just upload en masse. Looks like I'll just be using preview on here to figure out which pics I want, then pulling them directly into flickr from here and still editing them with picnic.

What the hell was Apple thinking?

Off to see if there's a way to deauthorize iPhoto from my flickr account so that it doesn't do any more damage the next time Tom opens the damn program. Maybe I'll just change my password. That might work.

Also, need to remember to install freakin' editing software on this machine.

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

cvirtue

Subject:	One man's blasphemy is another man's religion
Time:	5:17 am.

Ireland Makes Blasphemy Illegal
There's a 25,000 Euro fine (currently about $35,000) for "thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of [a] religion,"

* Atheists can be prosecuted for saying that God is imaginary. That causes outrage.
* Pagans can be prosecuted for saying they left Christianity because God is violent and bloodthirsty, promotes genocide, and permits slavery.
* Christians can be prosecuted for saying that Allah is a moon god, or for drawing a picture of Mohammed, or for saying that Islam is a violent religion which breeds terrorists.
* Jews can be prosecuted for saying Jesus isn’t the Messiah.

Links to the law and so on in the comments. I'm not sure what is wrong with this particular site, because almost all the comments are helpful and advance the discussion.

Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

ecogryff

Subject:	gah!
Time:	2:12 am.
Mood:	annoyed.

okay, so i've been really into my knitting recently. the yarn tour thing in April is probably part of that, but i've also just been getting a lot of enjoyment out of my yarn and needles. even the blanket i (rather belatedly) made for my friend's baby - miles and miles of stockinette - was nice. i'll post some pictures of that some time soon. i free-handed an >a href="http://www.imaginationmovers.com/website/">Imagination Movers</a> stocking cap for Zoe.

i've also been very excited because the cabled hoodie i've been working along is coming along nicely. i finished the body and started the first sleeve last week. i was a little worried that the sleeve was a little big where it joined the raglan, but figured that it just looked that way 'cuz i hadn't done any decreases yet. i had a moment of panic when i realized that i probably wasn't going to have enough yarn. panicked a little more when i discovered the yarn i'm using is only sold at WalMart...in Canada! solved that by contacting the manufacturer who is going to send me some directly (awesome, huh?). so i've kept on knitting. the sleeve is about half done now, so i tried it on tonight to see how it looked.

yeah..the sleeve is mutant. it's huge and baggy and bubbles out at the raglan line when my arm is relaxed. this is just further proof that cute sweaters become ugly when sized up. i'm pretty sure i know why the sleeve is all huge and mutant. in the raglan sleeve construction (top down), you increase on each side of four lines which go out diagonally and then meet in pairs under the arms. the two sections on the sides become the sleeves and the sections between them become the front and back of the sweater, now joined at the armpits and worked in the round (or straight if it's a cardigan and the front is split in two sections). i'm pretty sure it's those even done increases along the raglan line that are causing the problem. the number of increases required to get from the number of stitches cast on at the neck to the number of stitches needed to get around my chest, is too many increases for the sleeves. my upper arms are chubby and flabby, but they're not that chubby!

i think the solution will be to cast on more stitches in the front and back sections at the neckline so that fewer increases are needed. except the neckline is actually pretty nice...and i'm not sure what that will do too the fit of the hood. maybe just redistribute the stitches taking them out of the sleeve sections and distributing them into the front and back sections. any way i do it is going to mean me, some measuring, some math, possibly some raglan making directions, and frogging the entire sweater.

it's like the universe doesn't want me to make sweaters.

or it just wants me to make them multiple times.

or it just wants me to go batty. % P

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whumpdotcom

Subject:	2012 Idiots
Time:	9:16 pm.

fengi nails it:

My first reaction to the 2012 prophecy is that it's a crazy appropriation by privileged white "spiritualists" and: a) has an underlying attitude which can't accept an ancient culture's math and science skills without framing it in "magical primitive" crap; and b) despite living evidence, imposes simplistic and selective reading on a religion which, like most, ritually combines the symbolic, philosophical and literal in ways where intent and interpretation has shifted and evolved over centuries.

If you are giving any consideration to that nonsense, ask yourself:

"What critical infrastructure systems use the Mayan Calendar for date calculations?"

Good luck with that one.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/15313.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

rivka

Time:

10:12 pm.

I just read an interesting article by a mathematician, lamenting the way his subject is tortured and murdered in schools. (Article is here, in a PDF.) Here's his basic thesis:

All this fussing and primping about which "topics" should be taught in what order, or the use of this notation instead of that notation, or which make and model of calculator to use, for god’s sake— it’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic! Mathematics is the music of reason. To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion— not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense and you still don’t understand what your creation is up to; to have a breakthrough idea; to be frustrated as an artist; to be awed and overwhelmed by an almost painful beauty; to be alive, damn it. Remove this from mathematics and you can have all the conferences you like; it won’t matter. Operate all you want, doctors: your patient is already dead.

The saddest part of all this "reform" are the attempts to “make math interesting” and "relevant to kids’ lives." You don’t need to make math interesting— it’s already more interesting than we can handle! And the glory of it is its complete irrelevance to our lives.

He's passionate, furious, despondent, and very funny, producing gems along the lines of:

All metaphor aside, geometry class is by far the most mentally and emotionally destructive component of the entire K-12 mathematics curriculum. Other math courses may hide the beautiful bird, or put it in a cage, but in geometry class it is openly and cruelly tortured. (Apparently I am incapable of putting all metaphor aside.)

The article is long, but I found it a quick read. It's worth reading to the end, if only to get his truth-in-advertising summary of the K-12 math curriculum ("TRIGONOMETRY. Two weeks of content are stretched to semester length by masturbatory definitional runarounds.") I was one of those people who was very good at plugging numbers correctly into formulas but never felt like I had a good conceptual grasp of math. This article makes me feel sad about what I missed.

Comments: Read 14 or Add Your Own.

ginny_t

Time:

9:53 pm.

Feminist rage: activate!

I forgot something! So, the new guinea pig movie that I can't take seriously because of its name? (C'mon, G Force is something else entirely!) What the hell?! There are four guinea pigs on the billboard I saw this morning. Three were all kitted up for war: weapons, tough sneers, take action stances, &c. One was posing à la Mae West. *snarl* Fuck you, filmmakers.

Also, I fell into a wiki-tangle about the Japanese Imperial family. There's a frikkin' law that says that daughters of the Imperial family give up their ties to the family when they marry. Grr. Now, you might wanna claim it's the culture. Don't. It's not a good idea. You don't want to give me a focus for my rage. (Also, the constitution was re-written by the ~~Americans~~ Allies.)

Oh, Wikipedia, I love you! *falls back into wiki-tangle*

Comments: Read 11 or Add Your Own.

ginny_t

Subject:	Emperor, Empress, and ant*
Time:	9:34 pm.

Wow, day, good work!

So, the Emperor and Empress of Japan are visiting, and they visited. No, seriously--they visited the LG and the Speaker (and that D-something-or-other guy). So, of course I was totally out in the yummy sunny day to watch them arrive. A motorcade! A real, live motorcade! We were pretty far, and ohmy security!, so all I really saw was a tidy Japanese couple (and the hat! *_*). Still, nifty!

On the other hand, 15 minutes into writing my final exam this evening (kilt it! I kilt it ded!), a single small brown ant landed on my paper. I kind of shrieked. Fortunately, as I was writing the exam with fountain pens (as one does), I had a napkin handy (as one does). Then I freaked out about where it came from. Dear Labyrinth: Okay, yes, I neglected you for a good two years, and after we'd had such a dedicated summer romance, but was it really necessary to drop an ant in my hair when I visited you? *cries* Also, out of two exams in this course, I had two concentration-shattering incidents (the other of a girl-related nature *twitch*). What the spork?

In other news, operation: get your shit together, you lazy git! has begun. I took major steps yesterday and… wait for it… bought groceries. Yes, Ginlandia's cupboards were in a shameful state (especially for someone with a year of cooking school under her belt--how the mighty have fallen). They are somewhat improved. This is good. Now I just have to keep them that way.

I guess I could say o:gyst started on Sunday when I finally got around to dyeing that bunch of silk. Y'know, the silk I've had for four years now. Using the dye I bought at least two years ago. Lalala!

You see how necessary it is for me to get my shit together.

In strange news, I stuck around for a few minutes after quitting time today because I got into a conversation with mini-boss(male) about Tennant vs. Eccleston. (For the record, my doctor of choice is Eccleston. It's just a shame he never met Martha. *_*) Earlier discussion touched on Tanya Huff's Blood and Smoke books (I might've mentioned the hawtness of Henry Fitzroy *fans self*) and just how much of Buffy is worth watching. I love my job! *tears up*

*Doesn't that sound like a great title? Whoever writes me a story with that title will get a cookie. Maybe even a real one. ^_^ "Empress, Emperor, and ant" would also qualify. :-p

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

cpip

Subject:	Baa IV: A Voyaging Gnome.
Time:	8:19 pm.

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you. (Please note: If you simply wish to comment on something I've said but don't want to participate in the meme, that is fine. I will only give you five words if you specifically comment you with 'Words!')

From

dame_wilbur:

penguins (sorry, had to)
Well, I've previously answered this one, but I shall approach it from a new angle, because, well, I like penguins and don't mind talking about them.

In addition to my previous love of penguins, I have enjoyed a stable of fictitious anthropomorphic penguins, mostly three that I have used over the years.

a. Fritz von Waddle, the Prussian Penguin of Destruction, who was my "pet" on a MUD long since past that made the mistake of allowing rangers to have birds, and indeed thanks to a certain suitably twisted admin, you could summon a penguin companion. Mine therefore was a small penguin with a large pickelhaube and a pince-nez, who saluted snappily as I dispatched him hither and yon, and was Very Upright And Proper In All Things.

b. Shaka Fritz -- when Fritz went down to Africa, perhaps; he took to wearing grass skirts (for no logical reason), riding elephants, and waving a spear about his head. I was once threatened to write a story about Shaka Fritz, mostly to tell a story of him fighting the Legio Anas, possibly during World War II in Ethiopia. (It's a "little known fact," of the Cliff Clavin variety, that Mussolini experimented with using Ducks In Wartime, and Shaka Fritz, having gone native back during the Prussian days, aided the Ethiopians in battling said fearsome Legio Anas.)

c. The Unnamed Veteran Of Her Majesty's Royal Penguin Commando Auxiliary, who often would regale people with his tales of fighting the Argies in the Falklands, and later certain mercenary work best left undescribed, save to say that perhaps he knew a Headless Thompson Gunner in his day and certain Generals in South America have posted bounties for this little penguin.

statements

I joined

statements as part of the Stategate movement in March of 2008, where the response to the Global LJ Strike that was protesting ... something or another, I can't remember what it was that was so ridiculously important, but I seem to recall it was Very Silly. (Ah! Encyclopedia Dramatica has the scoop to refresh my memory! Ah, right, it was The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!) Then I really didn't much bother with the community after that flareup of antiactivism.

kind

Ye gods. You're not saying ... oh my. In an effort to save my reputation lest people begin associating that word with me, look! Michael Hutchence! ("...You're One of My Kind!")

bosses

I haz them. Most everyone does, to one degree or another. It's the way of the world. For me it's a fairly clear chain of command, which I rather like. I've previously held jobs where there were conflicting chains and it doesn't do anything but render matters muddled and confused. So I am in favor of logical and sensible command.

ladders (I doubt you'd get this one from many people)

I do not get ladders! I like ladders reasonably well, although I do not much like going up them. I do not like heights, you see... but I have climbed many. Fallen off a few, been knocked off one or two in my life, mostly when birds hit me in the head -- which used to happen with considerably more frequency than it does nowadays, given that I am not in close quarters with raptors. Ah well!

Comments: Add Your Own.

troubleinchina

Subject:	Recaps
Time:	9:43 pm.
Mood:	contemplative.

We'll find out the results of the biopsy on July 20th. (That is also my birthday.)

But. Don thinks his symptoms have more in common with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which his research indicates has links to Marfan's Syndrome. (I have not looked into this myself, so I have no idea. I didn't even read the wikipedia article that closely.)

There were two incidents of

accessibility_fail at the hospital - the first was that the waiting room for ultrasounds is not wheelchair accessible, being too narrow and crowded with chairs to allow a wheelchair in it. Thus we had to wait in the hallway around the corner. The second was that Don wasn't allowed his wheelchair in the room with him. The second may not seem like a big deal, unless you consider that the wheelchair is how Don gets around. "Hi, we're just going to make sure you can't leave, and we're going to do this without talking to you about it or the implications first."

Anyway. Counting down and all that.

Comments: Read 24 or Add Your Own.

godorion

Subject:	N'Awlins...
Time:	5:37 pm.

I like the heat, really I do... but this is just too hot. I did a couple of errands this afternoon and was pretty much wiped out by the time I got home. Hibernating in the airconditioning the rest of the day is in order. I also noticed only one panhandler out on the street corners while I was out... and he looked dead. Really. He was on the opposite corner from me, with his back to me. I never saw him move once. I tried to get back around to his corner but traffic was just stupid, so, like a bad person, I didn't.

We're leaving at dawn in the morning heading for New Orleans. A couple of days taking in the sights and tastes of the French Quarter, spending a little time alone with my sweet Goddess. Photos, of course, will be had and posted upon my return, though it might take a few days...

We get back in time for the opening of the new Harry Potter movie, so, with luck, I'll finally really be busy. It would be nice to start getting some hours again. I've heard through the grapevine that I am most likely NOT getting the Bowling Alley job, so I also need to start looking for something else come this Fall. Maybe something not food? We'll see. It would be nice if I could get a paying acting gig that would last a few months, but then, it would be nice if I won the lottery - which is just as likely. I guess I'd need to PLAY the lottery... *grins*

'k... need to go check on the meatloaf... see you guys in a few days.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

fengi

Subject:	It's a day for reaching
Time:	11:56 am.

Caveat: this is another observation which might be come off as another simplistic, overstated stretch without seeing the entire film involved.

I see a small connection between a private pool club blithely admitting to kicking out a majority black group for racist reasons and Transformers 3 2.

I mean, it's the twenty fucking first century and a major blockbuster got through an entire production without anyone - at least anyone with power - objecting to minstrel characters (voiced by a white guy) so overt even typically anti-PC bloggers say WTF (this blogger bothered to include images of the characters). Meanwhile a liberal white blogger acknowledges the racism (without showing the characters) then still writes: "I am with the people, not the critics. "Transformers 2" is a fun summer blockbuster." instead of suggesting there's other fun which doesn't involve giving money to a hack who dismisses his racist material by saying "I purely did it for the kids".

While there is no direct connection, I will say as a white guy these both reflect how white guys will continue not to give a shit about what comes out their mouths until held accountable about a billion more times. When some self proclaimed asshole is more willing to say don't support this shit than a major lefty blogger, well...it continues to be stuff white people do.

Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

tamnonlinear

Subject:	Poem: The Place I Want To Get Back To
Time:	11:18 am.

I know I already posted one poem this week, and that I've posted Mary Oliver's work before, but this one just hit me in the center with Oh. Yes, that's it. so hard it brought tears. So I'm sharing it.

(lifted, as always, from The Writer's Home Almanac)

The Place I Want To Get Back To

by Mary Oliver

is where
    in the pinewoods
      in the moments between
        the darkness

and first light
    two deer
      came walking down the hill
        and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
    this one is okay,
      let's see who she is
        and why she is sitting

on the ground like that,
    so quiet, as if
      asleep, or in a dream,
        but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came
    on their slender legs
      and gazed upon me
        not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
    and look and look
      into the faces of the flowers;
        and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
    bring to me that could exceed
      that brief moment?
        For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
    not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
      Such gifts, bestowed,
        can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
    come to visit. I live in the house
      near the corner, which I have named
        Gratitude.

On the best days, the walks I take in the woods are like that; not that moment, but that feeling, like the moment of the best stretches in yoga when you feel something popping with the stretch to expand and loosen. It's like that at the breastbone, when the woods are empty of other people and I can just feel the world around me, like my chest has opened up, as if my ribs were the wings of a bird that had never flown before, and I'm alive and I'm here and the world is so wonderful.

On a walk not too long ago, I went off the path to wander up one of the hills, up to a region where I've seen the deer resting. I knew the path well by that point, having walked so often, so I thought the little dip of the woods between the known sections was a small one. It would be an interesting shortcut to take.

It was huge back there. There was distance folded up, hidden under the leaf litter, caught in the tree roots, resting under the shade, and swirling in the little eddies of the stream that went through a section I had never known existed. There were rises and falls of land, and trees that had fallen and left a cathedral of roots. There were seasons of twigs and leaves, saplings and small plants finding patches of sunlight. I wandered there for a while, like I'd wandered in the woods in my childhood (though I didn't climb the vines, since I've too much weight to stress them with, now). This place I'd, at best, glanced over and, more likely, never guessed at, went on in more complexity hiding out between the developments than I would have thought possible.

It took me a while to find my way back to the path, and when I emerged it took me longer to figure out where I was, as the familiar walk was rendered strange by my experience in the gaps between. Nature was quietly violating the laws of physics, and this is why I was convinced, as a child, that the right path through the woods would lead me to a place of magic.

As an adult I've finally grown up enough to know I was right, but I just didn't know what magic looked like when I was little.

Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.

fengi

Subject:	Potentially Bogus Thought
Time:	8:47 am.

Warning: This notion is an impression based on the most cursory look at the topic. It may be dramatically off base or misinformed.

My first reaction to the 2012 prophecy is that it's a crazy appropriation by privileged white "spiritualists" and: a) has an underlying attitude which can't accept an ancient culture's math and science skills without framing it in "magical primitive" crap; and b) despite living evidence, imposes simplistic and selective reading on a religion which, like most, ritually combines the symbolic, philosophical and literal in ways where intent and interpretation has shifted and evolved over centuries.

My first metaphorical impression is the 2012 prophecy is like saying Gregor Mendel had some correct theories, so it only makes sense to read Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God as a warning of our coming transformation into spider creatures by enraged superbeings for the purpose of dropping us into a galactic bonfire.

Comments: Read 12 or Add Your Own.

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