Poem for Saturday

I Am Vertical
By Sylvia Plath

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

--------

Ended up having a slightly less neurotic-insane day than it appeared that I would have this morning, though I got almost no work done and wrote a review of "That Which Survives" which I would call embarrassingly brief had it been about any episode with a modicum of quality, but we're really at the bottom of the third season barrel. My parents decided it made more sense to have dinner at their house than to go out given that they had time constraints at one end and I had time constraints at the other, so we had leftover chicken soup from Rosh Hashanah and the same chicken and potatoes we had, too...not the most exciting meal but it was good, and since I had taken younger son to the orthodontist in the afternoon, where he had to have two brackets glued back on, thus necessitating that he eat soft foods which would have made a restaurant a pain for him anyway.

Before that, however, I had lunch with the wonderful , who listened to me bitch and moan and brought me presents: a purple goddess pin and a pair of earrings made by women in Asia. And , in addition to sending me a book that has been on my wish list for months (The Last Witchfinder), also sent me a card with a build-your-own pirate ship! My other book news for the day is kind of amusing: I had reserved a book to pick up through bordersstores.com for for Chanukah, some paperback Batman graphic novel anthology that cost $16.99, but when I went to pick it up, they couldn't find it anywhere, even though I had a confirmation e-mail. The manager looked high and low and finally came down with the $40 hardcover DC Comics Encyclopedia and a hopeful expression, and when I said no, the book I had reserved was $16.99, he offered to sell me that one for $16.99. So I have gotten my husband a really lovely comic collectible at an absolute bargain price, and now I must hope he wants it and doesn't already have it. *g*

: Too much of the bickering
1. Last person you told to shut up: Younger son, who was singing "Feliz Navidad" at the top of his lungs in the car.
2. Do you drink wine? In very small quantities, and only when it's white and very sweet or red and very woodsy.
3. Ever fly on a plane? Yes.
4. Do you yell at your friends? Very rarely, but I have done so with a couple of them.
5. What have you quit? My very first job, in a travel agency; trying to finish my PhD; and trying to keep my house clean.

: Big big stars
1. If you could, would you be a movie star or a rock star? Which one, and why? I have absolutely no desire to be that famous, but if I were going to be successful as an actor or musician, I'd rather be an actor, because I have some minor skill at acting and next to none as a musician.
2. Have you ever been in the media (TV, radio, papers)? Yes.
3. Do you know anyone who's been on a reality TV show? Not unless being on one of those world poker shows counts.
4. Have you ever met anyone famous? Yes.
5. Who would play you in a movie? If Gilda Radner were alive, she'd be my first choice to play me now. I have no idea among young actresses who'd make a good young me. Suggestions welcome. *g*

: What five characters would you want working for you if you were a supervillain plotting world domination?
1. Kai Winn from Deep Space Nine
2. Severus Snape from Harry Potter
3. Madeline from La Femme Nikita
4. Eleanor of Aquitaine from The Lion in Winter
5. The Marquise de Merteuil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Evening entertainment was, naturally, "Love and Monsters" and "The Passage", both of which were excellent. I think "The Satan Pit" will be hard to top, and an episode with a bare minimum of Doctor and Rose wasn't going to do it for me, but this one was still great fun and had Moaning Myrtle, too! If nothing else, I would have loved it for the Scooby Doo opening, when the monster was chasing Rose and the Doctor in and out of all those doors. And for "My name is Elton...not to be confused with..." and the cut to the clip of archive footage of Elton John singing "Daniel"! And "the other thing you can't beat is the Electric Light Orchestra" and LINDA with its potlucks and novel readings performing E.L.O. songs, and "a Mr Skinner" investigating the Doctor and the X-Files opening music and Elton being totally dense when Jackie is hitting on him and then Elton really digging Jackie, though he realizes Ursula is his true love, and "Unbreak My Heart" in Spanish on the radio, and the fact that Ursula kept her glasses when absorbed by what the Doctor calls the Absorbatrix, and Rose is less worried about the alien than the fact that Elton upset her mum! The ending was quite sad really, though kind of redeemed when Elton announced that he and tile!Ursula have a bit of a love life and she ordered him not go into that. I liked BSG so much better than last week's that it was almost like a different show, and this despite the fact that I knew almost nothing about Kat from prior seasons. Can't talk about it much as there are too many holes in my knowledge of the show but both the Cylon storyline and the Galactica storyline engaged me so much more than the boxing and flashbacks.


Rosie and Cinnamon lounge on the bed.


Cinnamon, however, cannot help letting that pesky paw creep forward...


...until it is actually petting Rosie, who usually considers this outrageous pesking and chases her off the bed.


Yesterday afternoon, however, Rosie was apparently too tired to care!

And may I just say Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman in Sweeney Todd makes me *thud*. (Can Helena Bonham Carter sing? As well as Patti LuPone?)