By Albert Goldbarth
The sky is random. Even calling it "sky"
is an attempt to make a meaning, say,
a shape, from the humanly visible part
of shapelessness in endlessness. It's what
we do, in some ways it's entirely what
we do—and so the devastating rose
of a galaxy's being born, the fatal lamé
of another's being torn and dying, we frame
in the lenses of our super-duper telescopes the way
we would those other completely incomprehensible
fecund and dying subjects at a family picnic.
Making them "subjects." "Rose." "Lamé." The way
our language scissors the enormity to scales
we can tolerate. The way we gild and rubricate
in memory, or edit out selectively.
An infant's gentle snoring, even, apportions
the eternal. When they moved to the boonies,
Dorothy Wordsworth measured their walk
to Crewkerne—then the nearest town—
by pushing a device invented especially
for such a project, a "perambulator": seven miles.
Her brother William pottered at his daffodils poem.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance: by which he meant
too many to count, but could only say it in counting.
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Paul was having a relatively quiet day at work and the kids didn't have much holiday homework to do, so we decided to go to Minerva for Indian food for lunch. It was yummy and I ate way too much -- hey, there is no point in being careful till this weekend is over, we have too much junk to get out of the house and I have plans Sunday! When we got home, the kids played Wii Sports and I wrote a review of "Final Mission". Then we went to my parents' for dinner and I went through my old piano books, looking for things Adam might like to play -- Billy Joel, the theme from "The Young and the Restless," and something called "The Penguin March" were the best I could come up with.
The North Carolina Monument at Fox's Gap, South Mountain, from our visit last fall.
Nearby is the Reno Monument, where Major Gen. Jesse Lee Reno fell commanding the U.S. 9th Army Corps on September 14th, 1862.
The tea house at the top of High Knob, Gambrill State Park.
And this is the view from behind the tea house, looking toward the mountains.
The Washington Monument at Washington Monument State Park.
From the top there's an even longer view, all the way into Pennsylvania.
From the base at the rear, the view down the quarry.
And the memorial at Gathland, which straddles Crampton's Gap. The museum had always been closed when we visited, including this fall, until we finally got to go inside during Frederick's Museums By Candlelight tour.
The Friday Five: Wasting Time
1. What is your biggest waste of time in your home? I'm sitting typing on it right now.
2. When at work, what is the activity that you find wastes the most time? I work on a computer. Therefore, wastes of time are one bookmark away.
3. When getting busy with a date or significant other, what ritual could you do without? Lifting and dumping the cat out of the way.
4. What is the biggest waste of time on the Internet? I wouldn't presume to speak for others, particularly gamers. For me at the moment it's Facebook...now excuse me, I need to feed my Superpoke penguin.
5. What do you do at a restaurant to waste time when waiting for your meal? If I'm alone, text and read the internet on my phone. If I'm with someone, we generally partake in that old-fashioned activity, conversation.
Fannish5: List your 5 favorite unrequited love stories.
1. Damar's for Kira, Deep Space Nine.
2. Ares's for Xena, Xena: Warrior Princess.
3. Chakotay's for Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager.
4. Tony Blair's for Elizabeth, The Queen.
5. Judas's for Jesus, Jesus Christ Superstar.
I expected to be annoyed that the second-to-last episode of Stargate: Atlantis was wasted on an AU where whatever happened to the characters wouldn't have impact in the "real" universe, but I must admit that I really loved "Vegas" in almost every way. Spoilers: CSI is not my thing, but the discussions of forensics were minimal and I loved the characters-we-know-but-don't -- I even liked Jennifer, considering that she wasn't hanging off Rodney and she was entirely calm and professional. I loved the film noir touches ("I don't know where you're from, but out here, anything's possible") and the vampire movie aspects -- Goth Wraith are even better than Goth vampires -- and it has the best music ever in a TV show, "Sympathy for the Devil" and Johnny Cash's version of "Solitary Man"!
Plus I heartily approve of Rodney's telling John, "I suppose it all sounds like science fiction to you," and John's retort, "I'm not really a fan." And later, the mocking, "He probably got a job as a Klingon at Star Trek: The Experience" inspiring Zelenka to say he wanted to see that! Which is even more fun with Robert Picardo around. I wanted more from Rodney's might-have-been speech -- he just doesn't seem to care enough how much this Sheppard has lost, not being on the Atlantis we know. But still, this one is a major keeper, and the ending (parallel universe gives away location of Earth to real Wraith) is awesome.
We also watched Sanctuary, which had the delightful surprise of Peter Wingfield in Sherlock Holmes mode as Iron Man -- how very steampunk! I was less impressed with Invisible Girl and the X-Men storyline, but what the hell, it's a fun cast and keeping my attention so I'm sure I'll be back next season.What I'm really sad about is that Crusoe apparently will not be returning -- we finally watched the crocodile initiation episode, and as much as I will miss Sean Bean, I will miss all the rest, too!
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