It Snowed Today

Snow

Yes it can!


Now you know what they say about snowflakes
How there ain't no two the same
Well, all them flakes look alike to me
Every one is a dirty shame


My ears are cold my feet are cold
Bermuda stays on my mind
And I'm here to say that if winter comes
Then spring is a ways behind




Jesse Winchester

I Am So Bad

I got a new computer this weekend - a Sony Vaio K45 laptop, in case you're interested. My old Sony laptop seemed to be dying. Every time I logged on it wanted to check my "C" drive for about 10 minutes. I'm not sure what it was checking for, but at one point it gave me a message to promptly remove any programs I had recently installed, and never be so rude as to add programs again, or something like that. Some times the computer just apologized, and shut itself down.

My husband had recently installed a program that allowed him to completely back up my hard drive. He said, "Wow, I backed up your hard drive just in time!" I said, "It was your stupid program that messed up my computer!" So he removed the program, and the computer was still pouting, and I decided to get a new one.

Once the new computer was out of the box, my husband turned on the old machine, and it seems to be working much better. It's not right, though. There is still the occasional blue screen of death, but it did allow me to download my files, including my outlook address book and other vital information, and transfer them to my new computer. My husband has this magic aura that makes computers behave better when he's around. He could make a living with it, I'm sure.

My new computer is beautiful It has 3 USB ports instead of only one, and it has a wide screen. I didn't think I'd care about the screen width, but it does make it easier to be in two programs at once and still see both of them.

I have finally transferred everything I wanted, installed a new Photoshop Elements program, registered on-line (just to be sure I get lots of junk mail), and sent in for my rebates. The salesman at MicroCenter was so proud of his rebates. He thinks I bought this model computer because he offered me good rebates. Actually, I bought this model because the USB ports were on the correct side to allow me to plug in my printer without rearranging my office. Men are so clueless sometimes about what women really want.

I finally finished printing out all my poetry collection. If the end of the world comes and the power goes out, I will still be able to read and enjoy my favorite poems.

Here is one that is not really related to anything, but I love it. Where else have you ever seen the word "alnage"?

E. A. Robinson
The Clerks

I did not think that I should find them there
When I came back again; but there they stood,
As in the days they dreamed of when young blood
Was in their cheeks and women called them fair.
Be sure they met me with an ancient air, --
And yes, there was a shop worn brotherhood
About them; but the men were just as good,
And just as human as they ever were.

And you that ache so much to be sublime,
And you that feed yourselves with your descent,
What comes of all your visions and your fears?
Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time,
Tiering the same dull webs of discontent,
Clipping the same sad alnage of the years.

Earthsea

I finished the Earthsea books this week, and I liked them.
I liked that Tenar and Ged got old.
I liked that they didn't have sex the first time they saw each other, but only after they were both older and wiser.
I liked that Ged lost his magic, but got over it, and proved to be strong and courageous without it.
I liked that Tenar went from being a high priestess to marrying a farmer and having a couple of kids (one of whom disappointed her) to being a widow, and finding love at last with Ged.
I liked that the shadow Ged let lose was really the dark side of his own nature, the jealousy and arrogance, and he was only able to control it after he recognized it, and that made him a better person.
I liked that Tenar saved the little girl who became the Archmage, even though they'd never had a woman Archmage before.
I liked the idea that if you never have to die, you never really live.
I liked that living isn't always magic. Sometimes it's just herding goats.

Ursula K. Le Guin is about so much more than good vs. evil. I'm glad I didn't see the miniseries before I read the books.

Of course, I was reminded of a poem or two:



Tess Gallagher
I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.




Wendy Cope
Being Boring
“May you live in interesting times.”
--Chinese curse

If you ask me “What’s new?”, I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it’s better today.
I’m content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is.
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.

There was drama enough in my turbulent past;
Tears and passion – I’ve used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last,
If nothing much happens, I’m thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you’re after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.

I don’t go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don’t need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I’ve found a safe mooring,
I’ve just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

Interior

He said—

The Garden

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piecemeal,
of a sort of emotional anemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like someone to speak to her,

And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.

Ezra Pound


She said—

Interior

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom
And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat
And set in decorous lines;
And there are posies, round and sweet,
And little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.


Dorothy Parker