Poem for Tuesday

February: Thinking of Flowers
By Jane Kenyon

Now wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound.

Nothing but white--the air, the light;
only one brown milkweed pod
bobbing in the gully, smallest
brown boat on the immense tide.

A single green sprouting thing
would restore me...

Then think of the tall delphinium,
swaying, or the bee when it comes
to the tongue of the burgundy lily.

--------

...how did it get to be after midnight? I got up early. Had an early dentist appointment. Posted Sunday's articles before leaving now that the database is fixed. Waited for the hygienist, then the dentist after she cleaned my teeth, then went to Borders after leaving the dentist to get a couple of gifts. Discovered this, which is just my kind of dorky television-watching activity (I miss coloring books and am sometimes sorry I grew up...had a mandala coloring book for awhile but finished it years ago). Also discovered that the Suncoast in White Flint Mall is closing and has all used DVDs for 40% off marked prices, bought Highlander: Endgame for under $5. *points at with love*

Came home because the kids were out of school at 12:30, hung out with them, took them to the other local mall for Dippin' Dots because apparently they did not get enough at the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Expo on Sunday, hung out in the kids' play area talking to them about politics -- had brought younger son's friend who spends half his time at our house along, his father is military, had a very different perspective than my kids have -- particularly the older one who goes to middle school in a very liberal area, and has us as parents. It was very interesting.

Came back, finished transcribing Harve Bennett to post, chatted with , husband came home early for dinner because older son had fencing in the evening. While he was out, younger son took a bath and watched The Simpsons and I did lots and lots of tagging that I feel really good about, both in a "wow this writing is going well" sense and in a "wow this is hot" sense. *g* And now it's after midnight and I don't know how so much of the day got away from me! I owe about a thousand comments and a perusal of my flist. I would like to marry blame . Here is Remus a National Zoo wolf for her!








Happy Mardi Gras! So after years of making ancillary profits off The Da Vinci Code, which brought Holy Blood, Holy Grail (and The Woman With the Alabaster Jar and various other books) back onto bestseller lists, Baigent and Leigh have decided to sue Dan Brown? Should've thought of presenting your work as fiction rather than historical research, folks -- clearly lots more money to be made there! I don't understand the basis for a lawsuit about a novel based on nonfiction research at all. If I'm writing historical fiction about George Washington, do I have to pay every biographer whose book I cite in my bibliography? Either they made up the whole theory about Jesus out of their arses, as hundreds of churches have claimed, in which case they can argue plagiarism of the idea, or they wrote a historical study that Brown both cited and adapted, in which case I don't get the basis for a suit unless he took actual words from their research and put it in the mouths of his characters without having the character say, "As Baigent and Leigh wrote..." (And didn't Baigent and Leigh notice that The Black Chalice borrowed from them too? But wait, that book didn't make seventeen gazillion dollars so I guess they don't care!)

Celebrities need to stop dying. Octavia Butler, Dennis Weaver, Don Knotts, Darren McGavin. That's enough! And I need to find more articles about how chocolate can supposedly make us live longer. Because I refuse to believe in a benevolent universe where chocolate is bad for us. That is all.