Poem for Wednesday

Embers
By Henri Cole

Poor summer, it doesn't know it's dying.
A few days are all it has. Still, the lake
is with me, its strokes of blue-violet
and the fiery sun replacing loneliness.
I feel like an animal that has found a place.
This is my burrow, my nest, my attempt
to say, I exist. A rose can't shut itself
and be a bud again. It's a malady,
wanting it. On the shore, the moon sprinkles
light over everything, like a campfire,
and in the green-black night, the tall pines
hold their arms out as God held His arms
out to say that He was lonely and that
He was making Himself a man.

--------

Tuesday got away from me and I'm not sure where. I had lunch and did a bit of shopping with -- hummus and Pink Sugar deodorant for me, clothes for her -- picked the kids up at camp, did a library run to get one of the Ga'Hoole books for the kids and a CVS run because the kids obviously needed different sunscreen (we sent them with rub-on SPF 40, they came home very tan because they pretty much didn't use it, now they have spray-on SPF 60 and orders to reapply twice during the day).

My father has found us a place near where we stayed last year at Bethany Beach, so it seems that we are indeed going the first week in August. The place looks very pretty online; the only drawback is that my parents will have the big bedroom with the hot tub, and both other bedrooms have twin beds -- the one easiest to push them together is much smaller than the other -- so I don't know exactly what the sleeping arrangements will be. *g* I asked about wireless internet before I asked about the bedrooms!


Since it's July, I'm sure that myself and everyone else are in need of some penguins. These are fancy European-made stuffed penguins at Boyds Bear Country-- I'm thinking Steiff, but I can't remember.


And these are Boyds' own models, some of which we got to vote on last year when they were trying to decide what to introduce to the Christmas line.


The snowman penguin with a carrot nose was one choice then, and younger son now owns one, after having voted for it.

Your Score: Cheezburger cat
72 % Affection, 56 % Excitability, 51 % Hunger

Sure, you deserve one. You helped popularized lolcats from a running gag to an online sensation. Now mainstream media writes asinine columns on this 'phenomenon', students write theses on the topic, programming languages adopt the grammar, and losers write tests about them on dating sites. Now take your cheezburger and never touch the internets again.

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

tagged me for a music meme!

List seven songs you are into right now, no matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LiveJournal along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

"Enjoying" being relative...I tend to obsess over songs and it tends to be cyclical based on my mood/interests, so while I love all of these songs, the middle five are all pretty high on the angst content. You have been warned!

1. "Waves" by Jennifer Cutting --
"I send a wave to you, you send it back to me
This is how we shape reality.
Somehow I know that the world we see
Is only just one possibility."

I recorded this song on my phone when we went to see Ocean Orchestra a couple of weeks ago and Jennifer and Lisa Moscatiello would both probably kill me if they knew it, but Jennifer said she thinks it will be several years before the next album is out and I did not want to live without it for that long.

2. "Always a Place" by Marina Belica --
"There was always a place that I held in my heart
Where I knew you were safe.
Far away from the darkness you had to escape,
There was always a place."

I first heard this song right before I read HBP and thought that if I vidded, I would do a Dumbledore-Harry vid to this song. Then after HBP it became irrevocably a Dumbledore-Snape song for me. What's depressing me at the moment is not so much the possibility that it could become a Snape-Harry song but the possibility that I may not give a shit.

3. "Nothing Without You" by Vienna Teng --
"All my books are lying useless now,
All my maps will only show me how to lose my way.
Oh call my name, you know my name,
And in that sound, everything will change.
Tell me it won't always be this hard.
I am nothing without you, but I don't know who you are."

I can't even begin to go into all the buttons this song hits for me right now.

4. "Exile" by Steve Knightley --
"Still a thousand miles lie between us
And I'm waking up alone.
What if I could cross a hundred borders?
There's no going home, no going home."

I have two versions of this song, Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts' and Lisa Moscatiello's, though I've never heard the original. This was a Doctor Who song for me even before I saw 's vid, and now it always will be.

5. "See With Different Eyes" by October Project --
"There's an actor standing with a painted face
In a dark and unfamiliar play.
Tear away an old disguise,
Turn around, turn around and see with different eyes."

Okay, that's a HP vidding song for me too. Look, it's that kind of week. Come back in a few more weeks and I will explain why Russell Crowe's "I Miss My Mind" is a Jack Aubrey song.

6. "Souvenirs" by Mary Beth Maziarz --
"Isn't all this feeling why we reach for love at all,
Isn't it the reason that we hear the call
For more than all these souvenirs?
They keep me here.
You're really somewhere down the road, I know
But I'm still stranded here
Holding on to all these souvenirs."

Yes, I am feeling maudlin, why do you ask? (And yes, this is a Dawson's Creek song. My love for that series' soundtrack knows no end.)

7. "Momentum" by Vienna Teng --
"Forgive me the confusion,
Forgive me as I realize my thought's betrayed.
You are the answer,
Cry and smile the same.
Overcome me baby, overcome me baby
Overcome me baby, overcome me...
All I'm asking is to be alive for once."

I am seeing Vienna Teng on Thursday night so I am allowed to have two of her songs on this list. The story behind this involves an RPS fantasy that is not getting described here.

I hate having to tag people because I never know who has time and inclination and lots of people I know are away this week. Let's try if her cable is working, while she's waiting for me, because we basically did not discuss music, because whatever things she may have to do this week, waiting for HP is not among them, because she is always listening to cool music, because I don't know her Die Hard songs and because I trust her to have classical music, musicals or both.