Random Musings from a Somewhat Orderly Mind

So, I'm finally getting around to posting about my NYC trip last week, and will be posting in three parts, one for each day I was there. When I was telling my best friend about this trip it took about an hour to give her a run down, and I'm sure I'll be a lot more wordy here than I was with her, since she has no idea who Janet or Harriet are.

( Tuesday, day one )

There ends day one of my New York Trip. Day two should appear soon, even though it seems to be taking me forever to get this typed up!

'Resignation'

I love you
because the earth turns round the sun
because the North wind blows north
sometimes
because the Pope is Catholic
and most Rabbis Jewish
because winters flow into springs
and the air clears after a storm
because only my love for you
despite the charms of gravity
keeps me from falling off this Earth
into another dimension
I love you
because it is the natural order of things

I love you
like the habit I picked up in college
of sleeping through lectures
or saying I'm sorry
when I get stopped for speeding
because I drink a glass of water
in the morning
and chain-smoke cigarettes
all through the day
because I take my coffee Black
and my milk with chocolate
because you keep my feet warm
though my life a mess
I love you
because I don't want it
any other way.

I am helpless
in my love for you
It makes me so happy
to hear you call my name
I am amazed you can resist
locking me in an echo chamber
where your voice reverberates
through the four walls
sending me into spasmatic ecstasy
I love you
because it's been so good
for so long
that if I didn't love you
I'd have to be born again
and that is not a theological statement
I am pitiful in my love for you

The Dells tell me Love
is so simple
the thought though of you
sends indescribably delicious multitudinous
thrills throughout and through-in my body
I love you
because no two snowflakes are alike
and it is possible
if you stand tippy-toe
to walk between the raindrops
I love you
because I am afraid of the dark
and can't sleep in the light
because I rub my eyes
when I wake up in the morning
and find you there
because you with all your magic powers were
determined that
I should love you
because there was nothing for you but that
I would love you

I love you
because you made me
want to love you
more than I love my privacy
my freedom my commitments
and responsibilities
I love you 'cause I changed my life
to love you
because you saw me one friday
afternoon and decided that I would
love you
I love you I love you I love you

-- Nikki Giovanni.

"My Mom and Dad"

My mom and my dad are not what they seem.
Their dull appearance is part of their scheme.
I know of their plans. I know their techniques.
My parents are outer space alien freaks!

They landed on earth in spaceships humongous.
Posing as grownups, they now walk among us.
My parents deny this, but I know the truth.
They're here to enslave me and spoil my youth.

Early each morning, as the sun rises,
Mom and dad put on their earthling disguises.
I knew right away their masks weren't legit.
Their faces are lined - they sag and don't fit.

The earth's gravity makes them sluggish and slow.
They say not to run, wherever I go.
They live by the clock. They're slaves to routines.
They work the year 'round. They're almost machines.

They deny that TV and fried food have much worth.
They cannot be human. They're not of this earth.
I cannot escape their alien gaze,
And they're warping my mind with their alien ways.
For sinister plots, this one is a gem.
They're bringing me up to turn me into them!

-- Bill Watterson

"Those Who Love"

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deidre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing.
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

Sara Teasdale

"I Look Into My Glass"

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, 'Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!'

For then, I, undiscreet
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

Thomas Hardy

"The Green Lady"

A lovely Green Lady
Embroiders and stitches
Sweet flowers in the meadows,
On banks and in ditches.

All day she is sewing,
Embroidering all night;
For she works in the darkness
As well as the light.

She makes no mistake in
The silks which she uses,
And all her gay colours
She carefully chooses.

She fills nooks and corners
With blossoms so small,
Where none but the fairies
Will see them at all.

She sews them so quickly,
She trims them so neatly,
Though much of her broidery
Is hidden completely.

She scatters her tapestry
Scented and sweet,
In the loneliest places,
Or 'neath careless feet;
For bee, or for bird folk,
For children like me,
The the lovely Green Lady,
No mortal may see.

Charlotte Druitt Cole

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live along in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will rise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

William Butler Yeats

"The Mower"

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

Philip Larkin

"The Old Gods"

Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long
Through time and never found eternity,
Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill,

You should have fled our ever-dying song.
The mound, the well, and the green trysting tree,
They are forgotten, yet you linger still.

Goddesses of caverned breast and channelled brow
And cheeks slow hollowed by millenial tears,
Forests of autumns fading in your eyes,

Eternity marvels at your counted years
And kingdoms lost in time, and wonders how
There could be thoughts so bountiful and wise

As yours beneath the ever-breaking bough,
And vast compassion curving like the skies.

Edwin Muir

"I Wish I Could Remember"

I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to forsee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand - Did one but know!

Christina Rossetti

"Not Waving but Drowning"

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Stevie Smith

So, I missed the beginning of poetry month, and will be catching up this evening for the past ten days, plus today.

First is a poem from one of my favorite poets who I discovered thanks to an upper level British Victorian era poetry class.

( The Pedlar )

So, I think after New York, I'm heading to Dragon*Con. Eddie, Mary, and a whole bunch of other cool people I've wanted to meet for a long time? So there!

I'm so excited! I ordered tickets and everything for Mary Stuart today. I'll be seeing the sublime wonderfulness that is Harriet and Janet on June 3 in the evening. I even got into the Belvedere Hotel, my home away from home that has been booked solid the last two times I was out to New York! Plus - a direct flight for the same amount of money as one with a layover! And my tax refund covers all of this trip but $165. I'm so blessed in the fact that I've been squirreling a little money away, and have plenty to cover that short fall. I cannot wait to be home once again!

Harriet and Janet, here I come!!!

One of the great things about Facebook is that it's great for connecting with family and friends.

One of the downsides is finding out how bigoted your family is. I received this note in my inbox from my cousin, and I have no idea how to respond to it without telling her to frak off and stop being such a racist homophobic asshat.
( racism/homophobia for the lose )

So, I've just realized, for the first time ever, I have a canon OTP.

X-Files? Skinner and Scully
Sailor Moon? Mamoru and Setsuna
Devil Wears Prada? Miranda and Andy
Star Trek DS9? Kira and Sisko
Star Trek Voyager? Janeway and Paris
Harry Potter? Severus and Petunia, Sybill and Gilderoy, Molly and Remus, Harry and Ron

But BSG? Roslin and Adama all the way, from the very first time I saw them on screen together. And it's so canon.

So, Battlestar Galactica. I need links to good fanfiction from this series. I'm just getting into the fandom, and totally loving everything about it. I'd prefer Adama/Roslin fics, but anything works as long as it has caught your imagination. Thanks so much!

Something that has been bothering me at work lately is one of the girls there trying to find any way to get her husband out of going to Iraq and serve his 14-month stint of...laundry duty. Not front line combat zone duty, but laundry. And I say girl on purpose, because she is acting so immaturely about how to get him out of this.

Now I'm not for this war, I've never been for this war, but I feel that if you sign up for the military and promise to protect and serve whenever we go into war, you have to go when called. She knew when she married him that he had been in the Navy when he was younger, and that he had been in the National Guard ever since he decommissioned(?) from the Navy. So, at work, she's asking us to suggest ways that he could legally get out of duty - like what the best way to injure one's self is without doing too much damage, or if he can really go, since he won't be sent out until May and his enlistment is up in April, and on and on.

And then she says this crap in front of a mother whose eldest son is getting sent to the front lines in Iraq. He will be leaving his young son for at least 15 months. And while the action in Iraq has quieted down some, there is still the chance he could lose his life in this awful war. I can tell she gets upset about what's being said by our fellow co-worker, but I have no idea how to turn the conversation when she gets like this, since there are many who agree with her trying to get her husband out of his duty.

And does it make me a bad person for disliking her greatly, not only for this, but also for the fact that her hygiene is atrocious - she's fat and very obviously does not take care of herself - and that she disgusts me by the way that she eats - mouth open, talking with food in mouth, showing off rotting teeth because she doesn't brush them or go to a dentist ever- and that even her voice is starting to get on my nerves? I want to say that I like everyone and try to be friendly to everyone at work, but I'm getting to my wit's end here. It's like this military situation has just put every reason why she rankles me under a high-powered magnifying glass and intensified it ten fold.

Christmas just got a little bit greyer for me, I just read this: http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/12/majel-roddenber.html

I had no idea Majel was even sick, let alone close to death. Time to pull out TNG DVDs and watch her episodes in memoriam.

First of all, Obama for the win!!! I'm still so incredibly, ebulliently joyful over my vote finally being meaningful (though I was one of only 1700 in my township that voted for change, 3400 voted for more of the same, blech!)!!!

The only downside is that while we resoundingly spoke out for change that we so desperately need, we also told a portion of our population that equal rights are only for those who were privileged to be born heterosexual. How Prop Hate could have passed in liberal California and here in Michigan, Prop 2 gets the go ahead boggles my mind. Seriously, peoples, we need to wake up and love our neighbor as ourselves. As a Christian, this pervasive attitude of hatred coming from those who profess Christ with their lips and deny Him with their actions truly sickens me. Though, on the plus side, this has pushed me to fight harder and stronger for tolerance and diversity and the meshing together of all peoples so that we truly can be a united country. A house divided against itself cannot stand, as we have seen from the disastrous eight years we are coming to an end of. I will do everything in my power to ensure that my children will be love and cherish whomever they choose and not have to worry about second class citizenship. From this election, a "bleeding heart liberal" has been born, and I shall not be kept silent.