Friday, January 17, 2003

Curses!


...foiled again [oh, yeah, like I'm gonna resist that line -- dream on, friend].

In lighter news, Diane Duane has a weblog, which I didn't know until today, and in even less-weighty news, she links to An tInneal Mallachtaí, the Irish Curse Engine.

So, if you ever wanted to know how to curse someone, saying,

"May a pitiless bureaucrat gnaw at your good reputation",

it's
"Go gcreime maorlathaí míthrócaireach do dhea-chlú.".


Now you know. You lucky dog, you.

Phonetically: "guh GREH-muh MWEER-lah-hee MEE-hro-kwih-ruhkh duh YAH KHLOO"

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

A Note On Grief


Grief is a deep pool, clear and sharply cold. When thrown into it for the first time, we flail, panic, and struggle to reach the surface and air. Sometimes you can't even see the light, you get thrown down so deep and so dark.

That very first dunking results in complete destruction, or, a gasping breaching of the surface.

Gradually, flailing about, we learn to tread water, a little, though the cold never stops pricking at your skin.

The water in the pool is salty, like tears, but not buoyant, and there is only ever a little numbness from the cold. The pool is refreshed with each new tragedy, each new loss, layer upon layer of new waters.

Over time, the deeper, older griefs grow dark and still upon the rocky bottom of broken hearts and promises, and are only rarely disturbed by our passage through the fresher waters.

When thrown in, there is no telling from the surface if the deeper waters have been disturbed this time, that time, until we breach once more, gasping for air and tasting old salt on our lips, or feel the deep, deep cold curl around a naked limb, a dark weed from the heavy places.

The pool never goes away. In time, perhaps, we become better swimmers.


If you think this addressed specifically to you, you're only partly right.

Monday, January 13, 2003

Covetcovetcovet


Someone, give me William Rubel's book as a gift! C'mon! *whine*whine*whine*
I could write a really long review, but I won't


I just can't do it justice. Do what justice, you ask? Sidra saw LOTR: The Two Towers on Sunday.

My mind still isn't sitting right inside my head.

There is, however, one moment that I'll share, that shored up my faith for a while in the basic goodness of humanity. Everyone in the movie theater held their breath -- every single one of us -- when Treebeard stepped out of the forest, carrying Merry and Pippin, and saw what Isengard had become.

That was a truly visceral and personal condemnation of blind progress for progress's sake, and one that completely stopped the audience in its tracks.