Thursday, January 06, 2005

Under any circumstances this poem is total brain truffles. It's sublime and fabulous. It's like eating the perfect piece of chocolate when you're really hungry for it. But right now it seems like Yeats was a great prophet. I think this poem completely sums up the political climate in America right now. And the references to the Middle East? The Desert? How could he possibly have known?

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


I just found out that somebody is teaching a class at Emerson called: Deconstructing TV's Buffy. On the one hand, I'd so love to audit this class. However it's nearly 4 hours per week, and there goes my lunch because I need to drop off and pick up The Boy most days so, it's not like I can get to work or leave early most of the time.

Also, would taking a college course on Buffy ruin the mythology of it, or would it enhance it? I've been so lamenting Buffy's demise lately and would like nothing more than to be the BIGGEST DORK EVER and spend a few hours a week reliving one of my favorite entertainment experiences to date. However, would we make up words to analyze episodes, words like "synergy" and "problematization?" Or would I see things in my favorite show that I've never seen before. My beautiful and wonderful (can you tell she reads my blog?) friend Kimberly is going to see if the professor would be in to letting me audit. So, we'll see where this goes.

Boy is on the mend, and Rich just called me from home to tell me that out of the blue Eric started blowing kisses. I blew them both one was I ran out the door this morning. Then six hours later, he started doing it himself.

He's just SO dreamy.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005


Everybody, this is totally a lego. Got it? Posted by Hello
Eric is still sick. It's pretty heartbreaking. He's fine for a few minutes, then he starts to cry for no apparent reason. This is coupled with the fact that he's figured out that he's a lot shorter than us. His new thing is to stand by the bookshelf and point to all the stuff on the high shelves that he can't reach *for a reason*. And then he cries when we won't give him the book, the DVD, the set of steak-knives, steaming-hot branding-irons, or whatever is up there.

I left work today at two to hang out with him so Rich could work on his jobsearch. But it turned out that Eric had gone down for a second nap right as I got home, so I had two hours to read. I suppose I should have done my laundry, but I was really into my book. I just finished a more recent book by Mike Gayle called "Dinner for Two." It's much better than the one I finished yesterday or the day before. Have I outgrown books about twenty-something angst? How can this be? I love chick-lit and most of it is about twenty-something angst! I'll have to ruminate on that for a while. I guess I love reading about 20 Something angst, when it's well written. I've been reading a lot of first novels lately, and that may be part of the problem.

Rich and I are watching House Hunters. For some reason we find people looking for starter homes in Southern California fascinating. I have decided not to over analyze this because I'm afraid the answer will be too disturbing to contemplate. This guy had a pot bellied pig for a pet. Not a little miniature one, but a great big hairy pig. After he got his house, he talked about finding a wife. Dude, you need to get rid of your giant pig before any self respecting woman is going NEAR you. I mean women like pancakes and bacon in bed, not running around the frigging back yard.

Other than that, I've mostly been watching the death tolls rise in Asia and feeling sad for the parents and the children.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

I got a ton of books for Christmas. It's the easiest thing to get me because I have dozens of them on my Amazon wish list, and I LOVE to read.

I just finished reading "Dress your Family in corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris. I accidentally purchased his last book "Me Talk Pretty Some Day" on tape, and it was a fortuitous accident. I've decided to purchase all future David Sedaris stuff on tape. After hearing him read his work, the books are a bit of a let down. This one seemed much sadder than the other ones, like he's more reflective about his past -- instead of making constant fun of it. It's weird knowing so much about this random dysfunctional family. It's even stranger, because one of his sisters apparently lives in my neighborhood.

I also read a completely unremarkable chick-lit book called 32AA. I've got to stay away from the chick-lit books that are published by off-shoots of romance novel publishers. They're just not as good. They're entirely predictable and they focus on the wrong plots. This one was totally set up to be an ex-boyfriend revenge novel, and instead it focused on the relationships of the protagonist and her friends. Not nearly as interesting as it could have been. Her ex was her boss, and forced her to keep being his secretary after he dumped her. There are laws about these things, and it was annoying to read about Doormat Woman who never got this guy in trouble.

On the T this morning I finished "My Legendary Girlfriend" by Mike Gayle. It wasn't as much fun as a different book by him, "Mr commitment." But I enjoyed it and I was very happy to have it when the T took 45 minutes to go from Davis Square to Park Street. It was about this sad sack of a man who bumbles through his life mooning over a woman who dumped him three years before the story started. A major con of the book is that he's alone for 99% of the book except in flash-backs. There's only so much action that can happen in somebody's head in a crappy apartment in a dodgy area of London I've never heard of. But he pulls it off more or less. I wouldn't read it again, so I'll probably give it a C+. It will end up in the box bound for the Salvation Army.

In other news, Rich took Eric to the doctor this morning. They sent him home from school with a fever yesterday. Argh. I had really hoped that the fevers were over. Like me, the doctor was really worried about him wheezing. I think yesterday we SO wanted him to be better that we sent him off to school and we should have known better. But Rich really wanted to get back to his jobsearch and this is one of my busier weeks at work, so Rich took him in a little late. He cried at the drop off, which is unusual for him these days. He actually cried from the moment Rich put his shoes on, and Eric continued to cry until after Rich left him at school. How totally heartbreaking.

So, the doctor gave us some oral albuterol (I know, who knew??) and some steroids to help him breathe. He didn't want to say it was asthma, but I'm asthmatic, so I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I just don't want him to be like me and go undiagnosed until he's 12. I remember gasping like a fish while my well meaning family offered me sudafed tablets and endless cups of herbal tea. I COULDN'T BREATHE, PEOPLE. WHEN YOUR KID IS GASPING FOR BREATH, YOU TAKE THEM TO THE DOCTOR. SHEESH!!! Sorry about the rant. Not sure what happened there!!

I'll bet he's much better by tomorrow. My extremities are all crossed.