Poem for Friday and <a href

b o d y
By James Merrill

Look closely at the letters. Can you see,
entering (stage right), then floating full,
then heading off — so soon —
how like a little kohl-rimmed moon
o plots her course from b to d

—as y, unanswered, knocks at the stage door?
Looked at too long, words fail,
phase out. Ask, now that body shines
no longer, by what light you learn these lines
and what the b and d stood for.

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Thanks so much, everyone who came through with beta offers. Have sent the ficlet (which I was seriously considering hiding away somewhere, as it's so not my usual style in a bunch of ways) to the first few people whose fic in this fandom I have actually read; I suppose I shouldn't have sent it to but given it to her as a present with a "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT" card attached. Will post anon. I think I don't want to know what made Bud White move into my head.

The New York Times disliked Hidalgo and really disliked The Reckoning. Given my current lukewarm-at-best enthusiasm for the full of himself esteemed Mr. Mortensen -- who was all over the Style section of yesterday's Washington Post if anyone here is interested in reading that, and whom calls V-mort, which just pleases me immensely -- I'd been thinking I should make seeing Paul Bettany my priority, but if he's really mannered and annoying in The Reckoning as the review suggests, then perhaps it's better that I wait. Besides, my kids really want to see Hidalgo so it means no babysitting issues. I doubt I'll go this weekend anyway, because unless the weather is intolerable, we're busy most of Saturday with sports practices and I want to go to Baltimore on Sunday.

Also, I must see Starsky and Hutch at the earliest available opportunity. The Times review says: "The TV show featured a pair of apparently plainclothes fuzz — who were they supposed to be fooling? — played by Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul. When they weren't tumbling into each other's arms, they were sliding over the roofs of cars or over suspects' Miranda rights." Bwahahaha! The Post called the movie a romantic comedy starring Stiller and Wilson. (Oh, and the Post Weekend reviewer, Michael O'Sullivan, is in love with Viggo and went on about the sound of the wind in his hair! That's funnier than the Starsky and Hutch reviews!)

Friday Five, a study in regression:
What was...
1. ...your first grade teacher's name?
Miss Paris at Cannon Road Elementary in Silver Spring. After we moved in December, it was Mrs. Ramsberg (who had just gotten married weeks before, and had been Miss Sneden, which much of the class continued to call her) at Lake Normandy Elementary in Potomac.
2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?
I was not allowed to watch them. My mother was trying to protect me from television violence.
3. ...the name of your very first best friend?
Jennifer Currie from across the street from K-1st grade before we moved. When she wanted me to do something, her standard bribe was, "I'll be your best friend! And I'll give you a popsicle!"
4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal?
Cocoa Krispies. Not that I was allowed to eat it, except on very rare special occasions.
5. ...your favorite thing to do after school?
Read.

I know I am a horrible person because as soon as I read this about John Ashcroft, my first thought was, "Please, let it be serious enough that he has to resign." I'm not wishing the man dead or anything -- I hope he recovers and moves to the Caribbean and falls in love with a studly young man and renounces his homophobic ways -- but I didn't feel one iota of "Gee, what a shame that he's so ill." And now you all know this about me. Am looking at my "women's bodies, women's lives" button and reminding myself that in fact this is not a petty or nasty concern, but it's still pretty evil.

I might be seeing and/or today, or I might be lonely, depending on whether they want to be around me when I honestly can't say whether I have allergies or something contagious making my throat so impossibly sore.