Poem for Friday

Sex Without Love
By Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health -- just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

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Torvill and Dean made me think of that poem. Which is not fair to them, but I was young and impressionable. Cohen got lucky to get what she got, I know, but she was so much more graceful than Kerrigan in getting it that I cannot hold it against her. It wasn't a superlative field at the top this Games -- well, I felt that way last Games, maybe I am just old -- and it might have been Kwan's turn had she been healthy, but Kwan has never been Yamaguchi for me and Yamaguchi has never been Witt (who admittedly is also not a fair comparison, as I am remembering how good she got after her win in '84 rather than how she skated on the night, which I scarcely remember). Remind me to write something some time on T&D, The London Times and RPF.

I didn't watch all the skaters anyway as I was watching "Journey To Babel" for reviewing. This led to some discussion of Legilimency vs. Vulcan mind melds and wicked RPing with the wonderful , whom I would worship like a fangirl if there was not already such a long queue to worship her. Now I am projecting Sarek and Amanda as Snape's parents, too, which is just insane.

Earlier brought yummy burritos over and we watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith because she had not seen it and wanted to. I actually might write up a review of it just because the Wealthy Suburbia Kills Marriage Especially For Women theme plays out in such interesting ways. Jane is always two steps ahead of John and can do everything he can do backward and in high heels. She knows Sexy Woman is as much a performance as Perfect Housewife -- and something easier to pull off with a team of assistants. John does not buy into his bitter friend's misogyny and looks for ways to undercut him even when he is, by macho standards, totally whipped in every regard. I need to meditate on this further because while there were a lot of things in this film that might have pushed my ranting feminist buttons in another movie, they did not in this one because of other things that mitigated them.

Star Trek news for the day was the upcoming Q DVD set (I have the book collecting the scripts for the episodes in the set but I don't have any TNG on DVD, maybe it's time) and the possible return of the Star Trek Communicator, which is one of those fannish things I don't get as you can get the same stuff online for free. I still have not transcribed interviews from the convention last weekend as I have had too much other work to do, and Friday I am interviewing Jennifer Cutting for GMR! At her studio! I am trying to keep my inner fan girl under control.

Two people tagged me last week for this meme and I don't even remember whom, so I feel badly! But here it is...the Guilty Pleasures Meme! Ground Rules: The first player of this "game" starts with the topic "5 Guilty Pleasures" and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their 5 Guilty Pleasures as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names. Mine:

1. CHOCOLATE. Too damn much of it.

2. Collecting decks of cards. For awhile it was only inexpensive tourist decks from zoos and gardens and stuff, and then it was only reproductions of historical decks and contemporary transformation decks. Now it's anything that strikes my fancy and that I can afford at the moment -- lighthouses, Elvis, funny cats.

3. Dawson's Creek reruns. Because yes, I know how bad it is and between the soundtrack (even the replacement soundtrack on the DVDs) and the shots of the Outer Banks, I can't stop anyway.

4. Going back to sleep for an hour on days when I don't have a lot of work after I've sent my kids to school.

5. Amoral incestuous slash couples (Lionel/Lex, Lucius/Draco) and very occasional privately circulated RPS. Because thoughts are free. *g*

Tag: I am so bad at singling people out! If you haven't done it, do it. Yes, all of you!

Speaking of collecting cards, was given the Golden Tarot as a gift -- I had seen the cards online, where the deck had its genesis (the images are collaged from Medieval and Renaissance paintings) -- it is quite lovely and the little book about the artwork is fascinating.


The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, built in 1787 on the site of the 1741 Conewago Chapel in Hanover, Pennsylvania. The land originally was given to Lord Baltimore, the Catholic leader of the Maryland colony, though the church later received a patent from the Penns. It's the first parish church in the Americas dedicated to the heart of Jesus and the oldest Catholic church building in the US built of stone.