Cursor

Damnit, yes, it is a curse-er. Curse this little line that stands so tall, so mighty, so self-important. Curse it's tiny self - diminutive cur!

A binary blinking - on off on off on off on.
Off.
Forever on.
You either have it or you don't.

A cursory beginning, quickly refined, redefined and shortly denied.

(You know the English word 'delete' comes from the Latinate destroy.)

Chasing, coursing-
Consistently ahead, consistently dissatisfied.
The expansive expectation - Damoclean

A hasty little thing-
Always rushing
Spry and never tiring

Avatar of Mercury
Mini courier of meaning
Curious and inquisitive - insatiable it is

Curses. You have terminal control.

if end-of-cursor-yes
display 'no more amts'
end-if

Northern Winds and Whistling Pines

The northern winds have found their home

High above the timber line

But you and I were born to roam,

To wander through the whistling pines

This refrain, from the opening lines of Harper Simon’s Shooting Star, has been pulsing through my brain, stuck on loop, for days.

Its cadence is superbly matched to its imagery. A downward-sloping rhythm falls from lofty heights to settle on the ground: each line begins with an upbeat and ends in a downbeat. The traditionally guttural consonant, mm or nn, creates phonetic weight that pulls the cadence downwards. Alongside this moving imagery is a dropping melody: pretty and simple, its lilting beat slowly descends through notes as the cadence carries the imagery from mountaintop to forest floor.

It is the idea of movement, or lack thereof, in the passage that grips me. Everything in this passage is in motion or has, significantly, stopped moving. Winds, the very epitome of change and movement, of transient displacement, have found a home – a place of roots and a place of stability. They have stopped their intrinsic motion for unnatural permanence.

Conversely, below the timber line where we expect to find consistency, stability and immobility in the forest’s trees, we roam and wander. We are born to indecision and move with passivity so at odds with a forest’s endurance and strength that the whole endeavor is left sad, deflated and disappointed.

The winds have found roots but the displaced trees whistle with movement.

It is, of course, a metaphor for a relationship. In a thing of supposed support and stability, you ostensibly find yourself adrift and directionless. The winds may stop and find a home, but you, surrounded with the means to settle yourself, continue aimlessly.

The dichotomy of such opposites is the gem of this passage. Caught between steadiness and restlessness the verse moves me. Over the past days it has tucked itself into my life, finding permanence in an ever-shifting mind.

Click to listen

A Nice and Awesome Week

I woke up early this Saturday morning with a start.

What time is it?!

Convinced I was late for work/school/reality, I blindly groped for my cell phone, which doubles as my clock and alarm at night: 7:23 SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, it told me. And with that I flopped (somewhat delicately  but we'll get to that later) back down into the deliciousness of my warm bed and uttered a word of relief, awesome.

Here are some events leading up to my relief this morning:

• In the middle of Monday night, I wake up to sounds of Housemate's dogs. I can hear one snoring and shuffling. Just the dogs, I think and begin to settle back down. That's when I clearly hear the high-pitched ha-ha-ha! of a child's laughter coming from the room above me. I stop mid-roll. OMG. That's not the dogs. And Housemate and her kids were absentee that night. So, there's only one explanation here. Yup. We have baby ghosts. Which is awesome.  

• Throughout the week, I have had multiple games of Words With Friends waiting for me to make a move, but most of them have less-than-awesome tile racks. Thus, I put them off and piss off four friends. 

• Thursday morning and I wake up early-ish to prep for a big day. I begin to mentally list all that has to be done while I shuffle from the bathroom to the kitchen to get my coffee. I stop on the way to the shower to scoop the litter box. As I'm bend over, groggy and uncaffeinated and scooping litter I hear the unmistakable sounds of water gushing. I abandon the task at hand and run back into the bathroom to see sheets of water pouring out of the toilet and onto the bathroom floor. That'll get ya going faster than coffee, lemme tell ya. Mentally groaning I splash into the inch of toilet water flooding the floor to inexpertly fiddle with the water tank. I get it to stop running and stand there as the water trickles to a stop, the bottoms of my pants waterlogged. Nice, I think, and go fetch extra towels.

• Nearly dressed that morning, I get a call from a coworker to announce that The Big Thing at work that day has to be delayed due to the weather; no one will be arriving on time since the world has frozen over. Ooohhh, this is awesome, I think, and begin to remotely direct the office on the interim what-to-do's until I can arrive after class.

• Reaching my car that morning, I find that it is entombed in a quarter inch of ice. As I toil at uncrusting my car, I think, This is just awesome. I run out of time and steam after the windshield and leave the rest of my car looking like this:

Those weren't rain drops, it' was ice and it was like that everywhere.

• The drive out into the world that day was harrowing. I drove 20 mph on ice sheets as I passed 14-car pileups. I slid into place at my destination, and congratulated myself on thankgodfully not inflicting any injury to myself or others.

• Friday morning I'm walking to the car, woefully ignorant of the black ice blanketing the driveway, when I slip and come crashing down. I land squarely on my tailbone, and I think my wrist, and lie spread eagle in the driveway.  Winded and bruised, I groan and wonder how it is I've come to be on my back. Aaaaaawesome. It was just like a cartoon character, whose body slips and begins to fall before the head moves. There was a yard sale of my belongings across the driveway and I had to pick through the snow to recover my keys. I still can't sit straight on a chair.

• But, at the end of the week, there was this. Which, is indeed, just awesome.

Epic Lentil Fail

Sundays are my my day to play Domestic. I get caught up on chores, tidy, putter, clean and cook. This routine has become quite enjoyable and I happily plan my lunches and breakfasts for the coming week. I've begun to enjoy cooking, which may come as a shock to some. I know, I know, we'd better check the temperature in Hell.

I've discovered I'm not half bad at it. Yes, I need a recipe and yes, I pour over it numerous times before diving in. But, I've learned what I like and what I don't and have become more daring with just winging my measurements and eyeballing the cooking. I'm happy, and relieved, to say it generally works out. Take, for example, the pumpkin pasties.

Which is why I felt I could easily handle the delicious-looking lentil curry you see below. Lentils, curry, rice, yogurt. All things I enjoy and all things with which are easy to cook. And the fairly straightforward recipe from Whole Foods gave no indication that what lay ahead would be anything less than yummy.

Looks delicious, doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so too.

I've got this one in the bag, I thought. How's that saying go? Oh, yes. Pride goeth before the fall.

Admittedly, I altered it. I didn't cook that rice for an hour (what kind of rice needs an hour to cook?), I didn't soak those lentils overnight (my package said "ready to cook"), I also decided to skip the stove top and went to the CrockPot because it's, supposedly, more fool proof.

So, in went the lentils, the tomatoes, the onions, garlic, curry powder. I improvised with coconut milk.

When I came back some time later it all smelled wonderful. Then I lifted the lid. "Oh," I said. The looks of it? Not so wonderful. And the smell, lid once lifted, wasn't so bueno.

But I divvied it out into bowls, on top of rice, and told myself it would be great. Fantastic even!

Nope.

This doesn't look tasty, does it? It wasn't.

I have never successfully cooked a lentil recipe. This is about the fourth that has failed. I like lentils, really! And I happily eat them.  Just anywhere other than my own kitchen. Me and lentils? I've decided that we'll agree to disagree. I'm throwing in the lentil towel.