Poem for Friday

Distinction
By Claire Bateman

CONGRATULATIONS!
You, (insert name here), have just won A UNIQUE &
FABULOUS PRIZE.

Within the next 24 hours, you are GUARANTEED to receive the
   one & only COMB OF THE WORLD--authentic, conveniently
   pocket-sized, the distance between individual teeth measurable
   only by Scanning Electron Microscope (complimentary cathode-
   ray vacuum tube & fluorescent screen included).

Yes! With THE original fine-tooth comb, you can finally bid
   farewell forever to those armies of predatory dust mites
   rampaging through your carpet, the pseudomonads clinging to
   your dishtowel, the fungi burrowing through your plaster walls.

And by simply combing the air around you, you can obtain
   ongoing relief from bronchial congestion & occular irritation
   due to such unseen atmospheric impurities as volcanic ash;
   pulverized bone, hair, & skin; magnetized iron filings; residue
   of feathers & spider eggs; all varieties of catalytic powders;
   ammoniac, sulfuric, & phosphorescent gasses; chimney soot;
   fish scales; anthrax powder; floating ink & gold dust.

Romance, finances, or career in knots? THE COMB OF THE
   WORLD's ever-efficient micro-filtrating action is guaranteed
   to loosen & release the psychically constricting clove hitch,
   timber hitch, bowline, & slipknot, as well as all varieties of
   syntactical & epistomological entanglings, irrelevancies,
   obfuscations, & infelicities.

THE COMB OF THE WORLD works wonders with phobias
   & existential misgivings--YOU, yes, YOU will now be able
   to separate wave from particle, fact from inference, truth
   from prevarication.

No more shadowy rustlings in the soul's undergrowth. No more
   tough little colonies of unregenerate sadnesses, or ragged
   ambiguities scuttling just out of reach. And those nearly
   imperceptible holes migrating through the rippling fabric
   of your etheric body?--you can comb them all out even as
   they rise!

And last but not least, though we possess only ABSOLUTE
   CONFIDENCE in our product, for your additional security
   & peace of mind, THE TWEEZERS OF THE WORLD will be
   included for free.

--------

Went to Barnes & Noble where I expected to meet my mother for lunch, but she was on the phone all morning and running so late that we ended up not meeting. Since I was there, though, I bought a collection of Irish poetry and a book on digital photo editing off the bargain table as well as the book I went there to get in the first place: Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name after the rave review in The Washington Post this morning (second rave I read, The New York Times loved it too). I've only read about 20 pages but it's magnificent...heady sexy dreamlike storytelling about first love and nostalgia, one of my favorite genres. He writes about romantic-erotic obsession as well as anyone I have ever read, except perhaps Shakespeare and Margaret Anderson (note: I hate talking about books I love, grad school did that to me). Anyway, the first chapter is here if anyone's interested.

Had a relatively low key day otherwise...felt like I was getting a migraine but then the rain arrived in the evening and my head cleared. We had to take Rosie back to the vet to get her mouth checked, which so far looks good, and I had the very great pleasure of writing up a Shatner birthday article about the renewal for a fourth season of Boston Legal. Watched Smallville, which I have pretty much nothing to say about except that the ending to the Lex-Lana baby storyline was so predictable as to be ridiculous (and given their situation, I would think she'd be as relieved not to be having Lex's baby even if she was attached to the idea of motherhood or the fetus), and the WWE Snuff from the Phantom Zone...ugh! I might have forgiven the episode a teeny itty bitty tiny bit if Lois had for once saved Clark -- I thought she might wake up and deliver the final blow somehow -- but nooo, it had to be all about Clarkie and his supahpowers, though as younger son said during the fight sequence: "He has super-speed! He could punch a million times a minute and get away from the guy before the guy punched him back!" It's pretty sad when a ten-year-old does a better job than the show's continuity people.


A goose braves the high waters of the Potomac River after the snowmelt at Great Falls last weekend.


Water was coming hard over the dam...


...and there were big logs and entire trunks caught in the currents.


Two weeks earlier at Meadowside Nature Center, in what we expected to be the last of the snowmelt...


...the Rock Creek crest was still relatively low.

I feel awful for John and Elizabeth Edwards but I also find him rather disturbing. I had so much respect for Al Gore for pretty much disappearing from politics when his son was nearly killed, when Gore might have challenged Clinton for the nomination in 1992 but instead he didn't even run so that he could spend the time with his family when they needed him there...the Edwards family has two young children, and even in a best-case scenario, if she goes into remission again, they are going to need their father when their mother is just too tired or needs to take care of herself. He wasn't my first choice or likely even my second choice candidate anyway, and I feel pretty icky about him now, which may be silly because when have we ever had a great president who loved his family as much as his career -- Lincoln supposedly avoided his wife and the Roosevelts and Clintons both seem to be better allies than partners in passion. I remember when Paul Tsongas said he was leaving politics because no one ever thinks on his deathbed that he wished he had spent more time at the office, no matter how important his job, and I wish I felt like this was about Edwards truly believing he could make a difference for the country, rather than about his ego -- thinking this might be his moment, with Barack and Hillary dissecting each other.

Amazon.com delivered my inexpensive, decent quality headset earlier, and now has taken my Skype virginity, heh. Am waiting for my first time on Google Talk. And I'm still so excited to have discovered gizmosms.com so I can send text messages for free from Europe!