Poem for Tuesday

An Astronomical Question
By Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

What
Would
Happen if God leaned down

And gave you a full wet
Kiss?

Hafiz
Doesn't mind answering astronomical questions
Like that:

You would surely start
Reciting all day, inebriated,

Rogue-poems
Like
This.

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I have very little to report from my Monday except that four loads of laundry have been washed and folded, various photo and computer chores have been completed, and various overdue packages are ready for mailing as soon as I buy more address labels to put on them. My schedule for the rest of the summer is still up in the air, and I stumbled across some online status updates so revolting that they made me feel more embarrassed to have been a Trekkie than I've felt since 2000. Media fandom often seems constructed to make all fans feel like the ugly kids in high school who know the beautiful girls are only pretending to be their friends so they'll get votes for Homecoming Queen. The situation is really sort of hilarious, and also pathetic.

On the other hand, Due South is so awesome that I have moments of weakness where I actually want to go look for other fans. We're a quarter of the way through the second season and I'm both enjoying every minute and dreading the switch in Rays -- we just watched "Bird in the Hand," "The Promise," and "Mask," and though the writing is a bit uneven and the gender issues go on and on, the characters are so delightful that I don't much care. I am so glad the Ray K fans I have known did not convince me to watch backward on the grounds that Callum is hot, because 1) Ray V is one of the greatest characters on TV ever and 2) Callum is just not hot enough in my book to compete with Fraser/Vecchio.

We got lucky while we were at the National Zoo last weekend and got to see the orangutans leave their enclosure in the Great Ape House via the O Line to the Think Tank, where they have computers and other interactive activities, and where they can sleep if they choose not to go back to the Great Ape House. In all the times we have visited the zoo, we have never seen them overhead before!