The Temptations just came on the player, singing My Girl... "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day..." Which is rather fitting at this moment, for it is raining and the sun is shining through the clouds, lighting up the drops as they fall. There must be a rainbow hiding around somewhere.

So now that I have the page sitting open before me, full of potency (wait can something actually be full of "the ability to become something"... *shakes head* sorry, philosophy paper still taking its revenge)
What was I going to talk about... oh yes, peanuts... wonderful things those. Salty, full of good stuff for you, paritcularly the ones who talk...those are especially beneficial because they increase the practice of charity (eg. not tick'ling them to death) and patience (eg letting them continue to full up one's comments with randomness). All in all, they are rather pleasant and tolerably good to eat. The southern ones are particularly nice... so I think I will continue to associate with them.

I think my roommate and next door neighbour will live...it's a good thing too. Things would get so quiet and deadly dull without the two of them... I might even get ahead with my homework (how awful ;-) I have missed them, all they do is sleep (which I seem to recommend in great quantities, being the way to cure all physical evils).

Hmm, I think I am wondering off to the beach...I know I had more to talk about, but it will just have to wait.

I wandered up toward the commons in the pouring rain last night, having just turned in the paper that had been consuming my life essence (ok, so now that it is done I am allowed some exageration...) as I was saying, I wandered up to find the promised jam session. And I did. They were playing in the small room that houses the ping pong table (the accustics are good in there...) I paused for a moment, after I had passed through the door. The small group looked complete, Toque leaning on the table bleeding music from a 3/4 classical guitar, Dz intense and radiating life, seemingly unable to be still for more than a moment, a few other making up the circle. I felt the briefest flash of- not alienation, but something akin. But it was music and I needed the sustinence. We sang 'til just before cerfew, and I walked back to the dorm in the still pouring rain, musing over the eveing with Toque.
I am ambitious for music of my own. Someday I will hold my own place in that circle. But until then, me thinks I will not be with out that twinge of "withoutness" at such gathering...

Remote publishing!! Wireless internet!! No, I have not managed to make the leap into the 21th century. I am simply stealing time on a friend's computer while he is not looking...
So some good news: my paper is nearly finished. After five hours of making myself sit in one place, though surrounded by books and all the music I could want (well, for about 10 hours at least), I got to a point where I could say "yes it is as done as it is going to get without someone else going over it and shredding...uh, er...proofing it." Nah, it is not all that bad (I don't think) and it may even be some good. But I am immensely relieved and I can feel the stress level dropping as I type. There really is no feeling like accomplishment.

The owner of the stolen laptop with the remote internet connection (and sole possessor of all the books and music as well) has returned. I'll get him to proof my paper and perhaps wander around in the rain. The next two hours are all mine, to do with as I please. No paper worries, no homework to speak of...

I am going to wander off now...

"...but if sensation, then also imagination and appetite. For wherever there is sensation, there is also pain and pleasure, and wherever these are, there is necessarily also desire."
Not that I know what Aristotle is actually saying here, but it sounded good and so I thought that I'd share it with y'all. Which rather sums up the state of my philosophy term paper...
Not good...
Believe me, I had every intention of getting my usual three week head start and having it done last weekend and ready for proofing and revision. But somehow all of my time went the way of the prodigal son, without the heartening reassurance of repentance and return home at the end of the story. So now I am looking at a deadline 72 odd hours away (minus class, work, homework, sleeping and eating hours...wait, do I really need those last two? I wonder...).
Not good...
This evening was spent with the Sprit. I wanted to make a quick supper and start on my homework as soon as the occupant of my computer haunt had departed for the evening's activities. The Sprit has not been well (see account for details), so I was going to make her some supper as well. "If we start the movie now, it will be done in time for you to write when Katarina has left," quoth she. Looking at her, all bundled up and still cold, regaling me with stories of her doctor's appointment, and how good everyone has been to her today (note: I had not seen her all day, and she lives next door), how could I possibly say no? And we were going to be done by 7, 7:30 at the outside. So we sat and watched the Dark Crystal (a cult classic well worth seeing at least a dozen times) while I made food on the coffee table and tried to forget about the homework that was not yet done, and the paper that was not yet finished. It was almost made worth the time spent on it by the Sprit's comment at the end, just as the end credits music was beginning to swell, and the hero and his love are standing together..."And it's an even better movie than The Princess Bride because there is no kissing in it!" ...how can you top that one?

so here I sit venting, well over an hour past the time I wanted to be in this same seat, without having gotten anything scholastically significant done. However, I have fed the hungry, and visited the sick, and practiced (some) patience, so perhaps it was not all for a loss...and besides, I do have those 72 odd hours...

How I would love to have the time to go on about the absurdities this campus has witnessed this past week-end, the glories of the sunsets of the past several days, the beauty of the valley in the twilight of yestereve, the hilarity of walking (or perhaps "tripping" would more accurately describe the activity) down the hillside in the dim moonlight after having quaffed a bottle of rather good chardonnay in the most wonderful company in the entire world - but I am simply too hard pressed for time and must needs be off this very minute to attend to a very important something or other...

At the request of my lady, Queenie...

The sound of waves washes over
gentle and even as my breath
hazy light slowly growing
chasing shadows to darkling corners.

~blink~

Thoughts of the day memory of the night
counting hours between the now and time
when my love will take me away
to what or where is unknown, but...

~blink sigh~

A low grey over the hills hints of a chillness in the air
through the door, a breeze brushes my cheek
up the walk past a lamppost
buried in green, buds, and hidden sent.

~blink sigh blink~

Chapel doors of dull brown belie the glories within
new dimness beckons, welcomes silent prayer
small bell rings, eyes raised to the Cross
my daily fast is broken on the Bread of Life

(I do hope this fits the bill...)

Reflections on Ash Wednesday

My mind's eye
wanders across a snowy barren field
seeking the solid shadow we'd left behind.
A grave yard cold somber
lone on the plain with the pines standing guard.
Grey head stones, white piled snow,
they lie alone, so alone with their end.
All end here, with the stone, snow, and tree.
The dust of my frame recognizes its kin
mortality weighs with the silence of years.
Often I return here to this cold shade
Bearing the marks of my ancestral fate and doom
Alone this is my end, the dust and snow.
The Light calls beyond the cold and shade
freeing from the cling and grasp of the dust
A Cross in the road, born on my brow, engraved in my heart
whispers hope of an end beyond the grave.

"Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return"

I've seen W again. After five months of nary a word he appeared in the afternoon light. I wondered at it, the immidiate flush of pleasure at seeing his familiar form, then hearing his voice. Five months, longer if you want to count from our last conversation. Does it matter? I wonder...
I've been wondering much about the nature of friendship. We all ask about love, trying to figure out what it is, why it is. But somehow friendship is lost in the betwixt and between.

"Why are you still my friend?"

Twice now I've been asked, many times I have wondered. With some people I take it forgranted that there is enough common ground, a shared interest that allows for conversation and companionship. With others though, there is nothing and no matter how much I'd like there to be, unless something changes, there will be nothing.
The Sprit and I had a symposium of sorts on friendship last night, lasting long past the time I was supposed to start homework. Love, duty, trust, converstion, time, respect, interest, all of these go into a friendship, but is there something more, something that takes it beyond the sum of these parts? I want to know, perhaps so that I can mend friendships I've broken, or build on friendships that are (hopefully) becoming...

Randomness for the day...

To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers - or both.
-Elizabeth Charles, writer (1828-1896)

To my afternoon class

heavy eyes
clouded skies
sleep lingers, nibbles my toes
dances in the corners of my vision

peeled eyes
heavy sighs
sleep stuffed into my pocket
voices now making a bit of sense.

Jeremy Fisher...

Sleep is a great big fish
waiting to swallow me
as I sit fishing on the
pond of knowledge.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher(1844-1900)

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life - the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
-Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)

I fear me that our government has failed the first portion of this test, and will all too soon fail the latter portions as well.

(disclaimer: this event is being recounted to the best recolection and taste of the narrator...any departure from the reality of history is either accidental...or not.)

I was sitting in the chair that is now under the window of my room this afternoon, reading, when I hear a random yelp from the Sprit who is sitting on the floor, with her homework scattered across the majority of the remaining space. I look over and she is laughing...
"What?"

-deep breaths-

"I read the note on your file cabint and saw, under once a week 'Bailey' and 'Wiskey'. Now I knew you wanted to start drinking a bit more often, but I was still a little shocked, and I thought "Why hasn't she told me and why haven't I been invited along???" Then I read it again... andI saw that it really said 'D******** Bailey' and I***** Wistey' which suddenly made SOOOO much more sense!"

My turn to laugh, sans intermission for a good five minutes...


I do need to start drinking more often...

I was looking out my window this afternoon, trying to ignore what appears to be poison oak on my arm, and I noticed that spring has, for all intents and purposes, arrived. The sycamore tree is sporting small leaves, all soft and pale green. I was reminded of Laura Ingles' Farmer Boy and the old farmer's saying that the time to plant wheat was when the maple (or was it oak??) leaves were the size of a baby's squirrels ears... I remember Alice wondering to her brother how they knew what size baby squirrels ears even are. I am rather happy that it is basically spring already, but I wouldn't have minded a month or even a month and a half more of winter. I've found that (as long as I am properly dressed) I like the cold (or perhaps it it because it gives me a reason to dress for the weather...). I like the occurrence of real weather here in the land of nearly perpetual sun. I will miss the fogs and mists more than I will let myself notice...
~ ~ ~
I was sitting at lunch today with one of our tutors and a rather random assortment of fellow students, listening to them discuss deep and weighty philosophical matters. I think the conversation began with a discussion of the "where," "whatness," and purpose of music... I did not say much, if anything, but then I never do. I sat and listened, going over what was being said, comparing it to what I've heard from others and what I think myself. All the while, in a back corner of my mind, I was wondering at how much we take conversations like this for granted. I'll wager (with all of my years and experience to back me up) that you'll find few other places where such discussion is an everyday affair. I wondered too that the ache, which I usually associate with beauty and love, was slowly being drawn out. Per'aps I am meant for the philosopher's life after all...

I wonder how true this is...
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
~Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Resignation

run, run away little girl
away from this battle you cannot fight
this battle you've no chance to win
no chance without the loss of your heart
lost and yet so full, so torn
the pain of refusal of that same heart
now weeping tears of helplessness
helplessness at knowing you can do nothing
to make it right.

I just got this from my uncle (always a good source of random ways to waste time). Anyway, it is rather interesting and amusing. I don't know how it is done, but if anyone figures it out, I'd be interested in hearing...

Proud Refrain
What are you dreaming, soldier,
What is it you see?
A tall gray Gothic tower,
And a linden tree.
You speak so sadly, soldier,
Sad and wistfully . . .
I cannot hear the tower bell
In the swirling sea.
What meaning has it, soldier,
A tower, bell, and tree?
Nothing, nothing - only once
It meant my life to me.

-- Fr. Thomas Heath, OP

I found this on the site of a friend and couldn't resist. Read more about Fr. Heath
Requisat in pacis.

This originally wanted to come out as a poem, but when I sat down to write it, there was too much there so it will remain prose...
We came up here to drink in the candle lit darkness. You to one, I to another, we two unbeknownst to ourselves to a past that would no longer continue to be. We sat looking at the others through the dimness that was so like the future, vague shadows of things we thought we knew. Already on that night, the rains of change were falling, changes that would obliterate all that we had shared over the past year as surely as rains washed away the prints of all those who have so often walked this path. I looked around today for that familiar track, known so well as to be able to walk it blindly. It was gone. The whole place is as changed as you seem to be. Nothing recognizable, it is all gone, washed away by inexorable change. I may as well have been looking for a sign of recognition in your eyes, this area was foreign. I wept as I looked at the new sprung beauty around me, tears for you and the pain I have caused yet again. But my tears will mean nothing to you. I could not give what you sought, and you have rejected all that I offered. No, my tears will go as unheeded by you as they were by the river they fell into. And yet, I would not exchange the beauty I have found, with all its pain, for the shadows of the "what-may-have-been." I will rest content in my loves and pains, thanking God for what He saw fit to bring.

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That man is truly good who knows his own dark places.
-Beowulf