Poem for Saturday

Instruments
By Madeleine L'Engle

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.
Circle me with your arms. I am made
So tiny and my atoms so unstable
That at any moment I may explode. I am unable
To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver
With the shock of living. I endeavor
To hold the I as one only for the cloud
Of which I am a fragment, yet to which I'm vowed
To be responsible. Its light against my face
Reveals the witness of the stars, each in its place
Singing, each compassed by the rest,
The many joined to one, the mightiest to the least.
It is so great a thing to be an infinitesimal part
of this immeasurable orchestra the music bursts the heart,
And from this tiny plosion all the fragments join:
Joy orders the disunity until the song is one.

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My cable was out for over six hours -- I can't say exactly how long because we had Shabbat dinner with my parents and stayed there to watch Doctor Who in case it wasn't on yet at home -- so my afternoon pretty much sucked, in part because I couldn't get a damn thing done and in part because Adam was distraught not to get to play Runescape now that it's finally the weekend. So if I owe you mail, comments, etc., please be assured that I am not neglecting you, but had to post about Madeleine L'Engle via dial-up when I went to post my review of "Skin of Evil", and Google Docs has no interest in loading over a dial-up connection. I did enjoy "The Family of Blood" a lot though was somewhat distracted by background chatter from parents...Tennant marvelous playing the reluctant Doctor, and Agyeman as good as I've seen her, even though I don't like Martha's crush being so explicitly girly-romantic when she's older than Rose was and more sure of who she is professionally.

Came home to one of those "be careful what you wish for" moments...the cable was up, went to boot his computer, and...nope. Have had hell night ever since -- Adam beside himself because he couldn't play the game he'd waited all day to play, Paul grumbling and ranting and trying to get the thing fixed (no luck), me cursing silently because this means that until the computer is either fixed or replaced, I am going to have to share mine potentially with three other people and there goes ANY chance I had of getting my own laptop instead of begging to use Paul's work computer on vacations and never being able to take it myself if I want to sit in an internet cafe somewhere. Hey, does anyone out there have an older wireless-compatible laptop that you have recently replaced with something newer and are looking to sell for not a lot of money? I can't afford the $600 for a minimally loaded new Dell and don't care in the least about not having Vista...prefer XP since all my current programs work with it. Am thinking these evening posts are going to dwindle quickly if my son is on my computer till 10 p.m. doing homework.

: And maybe I should do the same
1. Have you ever run away? Not from home. Though right this moment I am tempted.
2. What is the longest you've dated someone? I dated my husband for almost four years before we got married.
3. What don't you like to think about? How much I've wasted my college degree.
4. What was your last illness? An icky cold/flu a couple of months ago that left me with clogged ears and dizziness.
5. Do you like to get revenge? I never plan revenge, as it just leaves me feeling nasty and rotten. I do, however, derive a certain satisfaction from karmic revenge -- when I hear that someone who did something crappy to me has had something nasty happen to them, and I had nothing to do with it so I don't even have to feel guilty. Don't think I believe I'm a nice person or anything.

:
1. Who is your best friend? This is such a second grade question. *g* My oldest friend, Linda, I see only a couple of times a year even though she lives locally. has been a good friend for the most consecutive years. My college roommate Tracey probably knew me better while we lived together than anyone else has ever known me. I tell my husband most things -- I don't want to say "I tell him everything" because there are some things that just don't interest him, like my pagan stuff.
2. Why did you become friends? With Linda it was when we sat together in fifth grade and were more interested in science than designer jeans, though I had met her in first grade. With it was, among other things, a shared love of Star Trek. With Tracey it was that we really got each other right at that point in our lives. With , we were friends before we ever dated -- we edited each other's work.
3. How did you meet? Linda on her first day of school -- she was "the new girl" after me. I'm not sure how and I met because I have recollections of sitting in front of her in a class she tells me she never took, so my memory is obviously faulty. *g* A mutual friend introduced me to Tracey in the dining room at Hill House at Penn. and I met on The Daily Pennsylvanian.
4. Why have you stayed friends? With Linda because we have children the same ages and a great many years of shared history. and I still have our old fandoms in common, plus kids, spouses who know each other, similar politics and also many years of shared history. Tracey and I have seen each other through a lot. I married so it would really suck if we had not stayed friends.
5. How long (realistically) do you think you'll be friends? Given the longevity of each of these relationships, I would hope indefinitely.

: What are your five favorite costumes/outfits worn by fictional characters?
1. Elizabeth's sailor boy disguise in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2. Janeway's Arachnia costume in Voyager's "Bride of Chaotica"
3. Anya's bunny costume from Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Fear, Itself"
4. Salmoneus and Autolycus disguised as female dancers named Autolyca and Salmonella in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys' "Men in Pink"
5. Jack Aubrey as Hamlet's Ophelia in The Surgeon's Mate
Honorable Mention to Captain Kirk disguised as a Romulan in "The Enterprise Incident"


Maximus peeks around in the afternoon sunshine.


And the bunnies come out in the evening to eat.