Poem for Saturday

High School Senior
By Sharon Olds

For seventeen years, her breath in the house
at night, puff, puff, like summer
cumulus above her bed,
and her scalp smelling of apricots
--this being who had formed within me,
squatted like a bright tree-frog in the dark,
like an eohippus she had come out of history
slowly, through me, into the daylight,
I had the daily sight of her,
like food or air she was there, like a mother.
I say "college," but I feel as if I cannot tell
the difference between her leaving for college
and our parting forever--I try to see
this house without her, without her pure
depth of feeling, without her creek-brown
hair, her daedal hands with their tapered
fingers, her pupils dark as the mourning cloak's
wing, but I can't. Seventeen years
ago, in this room, she moved inside me,
I looked at the river, I could not imagine
my life with her. I gazed across the street,
and saw, in the icy winter sun,
a column of steam rush up away from the earth.
There are creatures whose children float away
at birth, and those who throat-feed their young
for weeks and never see them again. My daughter
is free and she is in me--no, my love
of her is in me, moving in my heart,
changing chambers, like something poured
from hand to hand, to be weighed and then reweighed.

--------

I tried to sleep late Friday to regain my equilibrium because I have to be up very early Saturday for Breakfast with the Penguins in Baltimore, but I only succeeded in giving myself one of those all-day-sleepy headaches from lying in bed too long. I was supposed to have lunch with but stayed home to work on a review of Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Home Soil" and edit some stuff with (old stuff, not new stuff; will try to manage some new stuff next week, hopefully!)

In the late afternoon we took the kids, my parents and younger son's best friend to The Simpsons Movie which made us all laugh a great deal. Some of the jokes were a bit over the top especially layered on at the beginning (they even had a running "Watch Fox TV!" banner ad across the bottom), but once the storyline got going it was hilarious and quite pointed both in its sniping at the government (despite being a lazy doofus, President Schwarzenegger still comes across smarter and less nasty than Bush) and its promotion of family values at the same time it's ridiculing popular notions of same is rather touching. Then we came back here and all had pizza, though I blew off parents and kids both around cake time because Doctor Who was on. Can't talk much about "Daleks in Manhattan" as had too many distractions going on...great visuals, not the most compelling storyline for me.

: Beyond the pale
1. Favorite pastry? What's that Swedish stuff with marzipan in it -- stollen? Preferably with chocolate sauce.
2. How do you like to waste time? I'm doing it right now on the computer.
3. How would you describe your complexion? Pale and blotchy.
4. What do you hang on to that you should really get rid of? The belief that I can do things without putting my full focus on them.
5. What is the last thing that made you hurt? My sinuses.

: Possessions
1. What item would you be embarrassed for people to know you own? Depends on who I'm talking to. With some people it's a Thomas Kinkade calendar. With others it's the double-headed apple-and-worm vibrator.
2. What is something you splurged on just for you? Most recently a sterling silver Chalice Well pendant. The one I bought in Glastonbury was pewter and I wanted one I could wear on a silver chain.
3. What is something that you own with no real world value that is priceless to you? My grandmother's jewelry, mostly engraved gifts from Deborah Hospital for which she volunteered for many years.
4. Do you collect anything? *snickering* Oh dear. I collect Barbie dolls, Tarot decks, eraser animals, Star Trek action figures, books on King Arthur, news clippings on celebrities I like...I really should not get going as I could be answering this question all night.
5. What item belonging to a friend/family member do you covet? A working laptop computer.

: Who are your five favorite fictional parents?
These are probably not my very favorites as my brain is rather sluggish this evening but they were the first who came to mind.
1. Calvin O'Keefe and Meg Murray O'Keefe, The Arm of the Starfish etc.
2. Mackenzie Allen and Rod Calloway, Commander in Chief
3. Martha and Jonathan Kent, Smallville
4. Sarek and Amanda, Star Trek
5. Joseph and Nora Bloom, VR.5

: Deathly Hallows
1. What was the biggest surprise? That there were no inferi.
2. Which would you rather have, Hermione's neverending beaded purse, or the Elder wand? Oh, definitely the purse!
3. What was your favorite quote? "But this is touching, Severus...have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"
4. Whose death struck you the hardest? Hedwig's, believe it or not.
5. What is one theory you had that came true? That Snape did it all for Lily. Unfortunately.


This was the sight down the street when we came home from the movie.


says the rainbow was brighter over the parking lot at the pizza place, but we have a lot of trees in our neighborhood so this is about as intense as it got.

I keep meaning to link to things here and sticking them on Digg or del.icio.us instead, then forgetting about them. This week it's been lots of Harry Potter and science and I'm mostly thinking of it since I spent some time trying to get the bookmarks in order. Since I have to get up so early, I think I shall leave this at that!