Poem for Saturday

Moth
By Katha Pollitt

Matthew 6:19

Come bumble-footed ones,
dust squigglers, furry ripplers,

inchers and squirmers
humble in gray and brown,

find out our secret places,
devour our hearts,

measure us, geometer, with your curved teeth!
Leaves lick at the window, clouds

stream away,
yet we lie here,

perfect,
locked in our dark chambers

when we could rise in you
brief, splendid

twenty-plume, gold-
spotted ghost, pink scavenger,

luna whose pale-green wings
glow with moons and planets

at one with the burning world
whose one desire is to escape itself.

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I am a bit pissed off at the world, so this may be a chaotic entry. I don't understand why a Bar Mitzvah must involve so much teeth-gnashing stress that I passionately regret raising my kids in this synagogue, and why, when I try to compromise to defuse some of that stress, I then get MORE grief for not standing my ground and ruining my son's Bar Mitzvah morning for me and him both. And I don't understand why certain people insist on taking my statement that I don't want to see a movie as a personal insult and calling me a snob when they have no idea why I don't want to see the movie.

I DO understand why looking at job listings in other cities is so much more appealing than looking at the garbage available locally, even assuming I could get one of them in the current economy. Meanwhile here is my review of "Redemption, Part One". The big events of my afternoon were writing that and having lunch with Gblvr, with whom I finally, finally found a top that I may be able to wear to the event that is giving me an ulcer.

Mediocre photos from McCrillis Gardens:

















The Friday Five: Myself in History
1. If you could live in any period in history other than now, when would it be? I'd have died in childbirth -- twice -- if I had lived in any era much before now. Even apart from that, since as a Jew I wouldn't have been allowed to marry my husband in most eras so it wouldn't have been an issue, I can't think of an era when as a woman I'd rather live than now.
2. What knowledge or skills do you think you'd have to learn to be able to fit in your chosen period of history? How to pass for a man. See above.
3. If you could take just one thing from the modern world back with you, what would it be? A time machine.
4. What period in history would you hate to have lived in? Nazi Germany probably takes the prize, with the Inquisition a close second.
5. What thing from the past would you like to see make a comeback? Optimism about the future.

Fannish5: List the 5 essential items (fic, vids, canon episodes, etc) that all newcomers to your fandom should see.

In honor of the fact that no one who cares is reading this...
1. "The City on the Edge of Forever"
2. "Amok Time"
3. "The Enterprise Incident"
4. "The Devil in the Dark"
5. "Mirror, Mirror"

Evening television after dinner with parents was Horatio Hornblower: Mutiny. Which is just as wonderful as the first time I saw it. As much as I like the first four, this series really comes alive for me when Paul McGann's Bush shows up. I need to rewatch the Eighth Doctor very soon.