“Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or like the like of this.”

-Henry David Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Journal XII, March 2, 1859-November 30, 1859

My heart goes out to all my friends who are mourning the loss of Alex.

If I can help anyone, well, you know where to find me.

Yes. It's true. I've joined Twitter, Zod help me.

My username there is newbabel.

Follow me, eh?

My uncle confirmed flights for us to Columbus Ohio today: 11-15 December & 4 appointments with the parasite specialist there. My aunt made Indian food (which I helped spice) and Kot came. My cousin wasn't there, but called from his girlfriend's when I was already on BART: My mom said you're not coming over anymore, where are you going? And I said No, it's only for two weeks, because of my grandma's birthday and our trip to Ohio. He was so relieved. I love that kid so much. My mom says he's like my baby brother and it's true.

The fog is settled and thick tonight. It's been as cold as Aarhus when I wake up and since I stopped taking flavon last Thursday or Friday, my allergies have lessened and my head's cleared. I've done some reading and more hiking. It always amazes me how quickly my body readjusts to being in the hills. csn and I had tea two weeks ago and decided we'd like to hike. I didn't want him to come so soon; I thought after a month of indoors and such strong allergies I'd need more time to gain hiking strength, but already tomorrow I'm thinking to climb Eagle Peak.

John and I spent last Friday together driving north. I was an hour late in 15-minute increments and when I finally managed to arrive, he was gentle and had tea. I wore his fleece on Salt Point and was so impressed that I could move, at the fact of movement itself or at all, that I barely noticed the dramatic Pacific rocks, windswept beach or high swells. I did notice the wind, which kept picking me up and blowing me down, and which turned my fingers white like the day I went walking with Ricky on the pier. We visited John's grandparents' friends and took rugbrød starter from them. In exchange for the visit and chance to reminisce and recommend Aarhus, they gave us tea - delicate green from Japan - and played matchmaker for 5 hours while we laughed. Later, John said he was impressed, and I said: Well, but I've just had two years of that in India. Outside of ashrams, it's all anybody asked.

I'm leaving January 10th, and the days are already filling up so fast:

Dec. 6, Brunch & makowiec
Dec. 8, Grandma's birthday
Dec. 10, hiking with csn
Dec. 11, Exploratorium with Draven and Ace (?)
Dec. 11-15, Ohio
Dec. 18, brunch (?)
Dec. 19, Nutcracker, etc.
Dec. 20, Revels, etc. & makowiec
Dec. 21-22, rugbrød making in SC with John
Dec. 23, Tomek's birthday
Dec. 24, Wergylia
Dec. 25, Christmas
Dec. 26, SC
Jan. 4-10, packing & preparing exams


Today I sat in Jupiter for a long while with the Cog Kids at Cal. It's nice when I can be there, anchored and present, and nice to stand afterwards for a long while talking to Josh.

... what if it were my husband?

dancingshaman aka Alex, my friend of many years and married to one of my best gal pals of many years, died tonight while I was out.

Thank God, I called him last week. Thank God, he was lucid and laughing and made me laugh, too. We had such a good talk. It wasn't a good-bye talk. It was a "I'll talk to you soon" thing but stuff that needed to be said was said. We had plans to talk next Monday. I was going to teach him to Skype.

I don't know what's going on now with the funeral and stuff. If there is one, I'll be flying down for it.

I'm pretty tore up with conflicting thoughts and out-of-control emotions.

Godspeed, Alex. I'll miss you.

Hello, hello! Mid-week blues got you down? Figuring out the hard way why it's called "Hump Day?" Lucky for you, we've got the cure for what ails you. It's another special mid-week episode of LINGO. Take only as directed and do not attempt to operate heavy machinery.

Here's what's on tap:

Just Stand Up - Mariah Carey, Beyonc, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, Fergie, Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Natasha Beddingfield, Miley Cyrus, Leona Lewis, Carrie Underwood, Keyshia Cole, Leann Rimes, Ashanti & Ciara

Polvo de Estrellas - Jorge Drexler

-

That's What You Get - Paramore

[podcast format="video"]http://media.libsyn.com/media/hellolingo/LINGO_20.5.m4a[/podcast]

Thanks, as always, to the great folks at LanguageCast for sponsoring the show! And don't forget, folks! Get in your suggestions for the Joy show this Sunday!

Originally published at Madman's Mutterings.

Alex, known on LJ as dancingshaman, died this evening.

The world is a poorer place for his loss.

• 09:03 Bibliophile Stalker interviews Lethe Press: charles-tan.blogspot.com/2009/12/interview-steve-berman-and-craig-gidney.html #
• 09:05 @chrisafer So you have thing for Tim Exile, eh? #
• 09:52 My Imogen Heap concert experience: ethereal-lad.livejournal.com/543997.html #
• 10:20 @otberbur I don't like cellphone filming *during* the performance. I could care less before or during intermissions. #
• 10:52 asthma issues.... #
• 14:11 My interview with editor Philip Clark is now on The New Gay: thenewgay.net/2009/12/philip-clark-the-new-gay-interview.html #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

"prelude iter. iii"

the sign is intuitively the mass
inside form and philosophers such as Plato--

any information about an outside observer's
arbitrary, i.e. there was by shining a light source

apart from slow-time, whereas Three Kings found
three stars known in the tropics each year, the

real world from the same point, plausible because intuitively
its gravity becomes stronger— the space around it becomes deformed.

humans in outside contexts slow time, real world process the Three Sisters set
and therefore no stars are visible or, in the language of forms

given meaning in any organism's apprehension, the cooperation of three subjects of the world.
Orion's Belt is below the horizon even at midday, this sets him in action,

or influences which receives a reflection, involves such a sign--
its object seems more a region of space:

This is the point where I politely announce that Seanan McGuire has joined the TEoP team and I am politely pleased about the whole thing. But I'm not feeling all that polite. In fact, I'm feeling just a wee bit smug because Seanan McGuire is writing for me. Na-na-nana-na!

Abstract Thoughts has been updated with OryCon 2009 Report - What it says. There are some changes coming. Keep your eyes open. ( Read more... )

The interview I conducted with editor and researcher Philip Clark (co-editor of Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS) is now posted at The New Gay.

Добрая, умная и талантливейшая художница gellada сделала небольшой тестик со своим мурррчащими кошечками. Как же мне нравятся ее рисунки! Вот бы книжку для детей с ее рисунками издать.

Марина Котофейская Машина открыла ваш истинный облик! Ты – бесстрашная кошка, которая неожиданно может выкинуть все, что угодно. Хотя по виду о тебе такого не скажешь – но в тихом омуте… Какая ты кошка?

Прочитала до конца. Да, набралась терпения и продралась через все бредовые построения.
Мысль как всегда одна-единственная на всю книжку.

Мир создается Словом. Есть писатель, который мир создает-пишет, есть читатель и есть герой. И на самом деле - они все едины. Все. Как только понял, что сам творец, - спасен.
Сам себе Бог.
А мешают человеку прийти к этой мысли - Эго-ум, "ложные личности", которые фантомами возникают в сознании и порабощают его, отвлекая, завлекая и совращая.

"... безграничная вечность забыла себя, отчаялась и плачет..."
Да, уж.

"I shall hate those Miss Alans!" Mrs. Honeychurch cried. "Just because they're old and silly one's expected to say 'How sweet!' I hate their 'if'-ing and 'but'-ing and 'and'-ing. And poor Lucy - serve her right - worn to a shadow." Mr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the tennis court. Cecil was absent - one did not play bumble-puppy when he was there.

A Room with a View - E. M. Forster

"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill. "Yes, sir, a clown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off." "You got it backwards, Dill," said Jem. "Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them." "Well, I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks." ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22

This is the third time I've seen Imogen Heap. She didn't disappoint. She's so full of energy, she's borderline ADD. She sprints between piano, looper, keyboards and various odd instruments singing the entire time. Sometimes she'll just sing, and make quirky dance movements before skittering off to mess about with some electronic whirlagig or doodad. Her hair was in a Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd) hairdo, crowned with a feather. She wore a bubble skirt and a sparkly top. The set was dominated by a white tree made of some poster board and draped with purple Christmas lights. In-between song banter mostly consisted of her muttering and mumbling to herself or her instruments.

The opening acts were two cute electronic musicians, but only the first one was really memorable, IMHO. Oh, the audience was full of Nature's Bachelors. (A quick hop on Grindr confirmed this).

A word about concert ettiquette: I officially hate the trend of people filming the concert on their cellphones. It seems that no-one can actually enjoy a show. It must be posted to Youtube, Twittered, Flickred, texted immediately.

Disused call-box turned into world's smallest lending library!

This goes out to everyone who works in retail:

'Hey?' said the crone.

'Twenty-five dollars and fifty cents, please.'

She looked amazed, like the last thing she had been expecting was to have to pay for the groceries. I knew what would come next. She'd burrow into her bag for her purse, which would be right at the bottom. She'd pull out bus passes, framed photographs of her grandchildren, a prosthetic leg and a packet of surgical bandages and each item would be placed carefully on the counter. Finally, when she had accumulated enough material to fill a wheelie bin, she'd find the purse, count out the sum in five cent pieces and painfully repack.

Trust me, I've been there. I've known glaciers that move quicker than some of these people.

Barry Jonsberg, It's Not All About You, Calma.