Poem for Thursday

The Ideal
By James Fenton

This is where I came from.
I passed this way.
This should not be shameful
Or hard to say.

A self is a self.
It is not a screen.
A person should respect
What he has been.

This is my past
Which I shall not discard.
This is the ideal.
This is hard.

--------

introduced me to the poet and the poem. I love polls.

Had another domestic day. came home at lunchtime so we could go together to our son's school conference. Report: he's very bright, extremely creative, an avid reader, good at drawing connections across many areas of interest, but careless and sloppy with work when he doesn't feel like doing it, which is how he feels about anything involving rote repetition. Since that is the only way to learn to spell and to do certain mathematical processes like long division, someone needs to sit on him and make sure not only that he's doing his homework but he is doing it neatly and carefully and getting things right the first time. None of this is really news. *g*

Then we took both kids to the same store we had gone to the day before to get the pink bracelet, because they called to say they had gotten blue bracelets to raise money for autism. Lovely people running this store. My older son looked like he was going to die when we walked in and there were teenage girls everywhere, though. Now he is afraid to wear even the blue bracelet, though younger son is wearing pink and blue side by side and urging me to find one of the yellow ones. Since hubby was home early, he made white chocolate brownies to serve my father who came over to have dinner with us, as my mother is in New York visiting my sister and her brood.

Otherwise I did some cleaning, brushed the cat and engaged in other thrilling activities of that nature. Tomorrow hubby has decided to take another half-day since he has one left even with the days he'll take off for the winter holidays, so we are going to go do some family activity in the afternoon, though older son has Hebrew school despite the afternoon off school. I will rush through chores and work in the morning. (, I know I owe you a beta! I've read it and thoroughly enjoyed it -- can you wait a day for notes?)

I have been bitten by a very dark HP bunny with a somewhat happy ending, am trying to see if I can write it without distressing myself. And I'm trying to drag the rest of the way into the fandom. Meanwhile, and made me howl in delight with one of my favorite things -- gay Ken dolls! In this case it's Aragorn-Ken with Alec Trevelyan. And then there was tonight's Smallville, which was bad, bad, bad, but so so GOOD! Made a mockery of witchcraft trials, made a mockery of Wicca by extension, shameful use of history. That said, I like Lana so much better with an evil witch personality. Not to mention Clark playing Risky Business with his Princeton recruiter. And I could not help but smile at Clark in chains...plus how Harry Potter and the Book of the Pah-wraiths it all was.

But I am so disappointed to learn that Lana and Clark are both still virgins! Though Lois is not -- looking forward to that story, since why tell us the fact if they don't intend to tell us the details? Jason sets off my gaydar with his football boys, and his interest in a chaste relationship with a high school girl really does not alter that situation -- loved that scene where he goes flying and Clark rescues him, Jason playing damsel in distress, whoo! Still, I am sorry to receive confirmation that Clark has never had sex, unless we're using Bill Clinton's definition of "sex", in which case Lex could have gotten lucky in every way but(t). So, shallow Charmed chicks in Hot Topic faux goth attire ridiculing historical witch trial horror = bad, but show = highly enjoyable anyway. Spank me.


Since I wrote fic set in Glastonbury earlier this week, a photo of the Tor and the tower at the top, taken from the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey.