Greetings from the snowy cornfields of central Illinois! It finally snowed sometime during the night, but nowhere near the predicted levels.
it was now fine music
the frogs and the boys did
in the towering illinois twilight make and into dark
in spite a shoulder’s ache
a boy’s hunched body loved out of a stalk
the first song of his happiness
and the song woke his heart into the darkness and sadness of joyandrew bird "first song" weather systems
I got quite the surprise this morning! My son called. He wanted to tell me that he’s been selected for promotion to Sergeant First Class. This is to the rank I retired as. He’s done it in half the time it took me! He’s also getting a new job which will require a lot of travel. I didn’t tell him his mom had already told me. I was able to give him my news about another degree. We talked for a good long while. But just as we were getting into our "issues" my phone’s battery ran out. I told him that I’d write and try to explain how I feel about things. How, for example, my issues with him going to war are between my country and me, not between him and me. I told him I love him very much and that I am very proud of him.
He supposedly has a CD out and is going to send me a copy. It is hip-hop and rap. He has also written a lot of songs that he hasn’t recorded yet because of his circumstances. It is hard for him to be as publicly political as he’d like being in the Army. It isn’t a good idea to publicly dis the Commander in Chief while your still in uniform. And some people wonder why I do not like being told I can’t say certain things….
I spent a large portion of the afternoon indexing the first quarter of my book for class. I can tell you now, I do not particularly like book indexing. I had to go out and buy more 3×5 index cards after using well over a hundred on the first quarter!
After picking up the index cards, I went to the local caffeine pusher and got a pastry and a cup of coffee and sat there and read the last chapter and epilogue of Auerbach’s Mimesis. It seems very odd to be finished with this book seeing as we’ve been reading it for over 3 years now. I still need to finish To the Lighthouse, but I had already read past the scene Auerbach recounts so decided to finish it as it is more important to the discussion than Woolf even.
My sister just called to discuss my daughter’s graduation. She was not happy to find out the actual graduation is on Monday (Memorial Day). I have to say, "I agree!" They have a whole damn Monday holiday weekend, yet they have the commencement ceremony on Monday morning. That has a serious impact on how people can travel to, and particularly from, Oberlin in a timely manner.
Rib pain is back to a mostly dull ache today, for which I am very grateful.
When I’m done with this, I think I’ll watch House of Flying Daggers. When I returned the previous movies I got 3 more. I’ve already watched Layer Cake and The Baxter. Layer Cake is a British gangster movie. It was fairly good, but the ending was a definite surprise. The DVD actually has alternative endings, but I didn’t watch any of them. The shock had already occurred. The Baxter ended quite sweetly, and darn that Michelle Williams is a cutey. [Cripes! She's younger than my son. Nonetheless, she is a cutey, particularly in this movie.] But in the end, sweet or not, the movie just left me feeling all alone and depressed. Luckily, it was time for bed.
whenever paul thinks of snow, soft winds blow round his head and his phone rings just once late at night-like a bird calling out, "wake up, paul. don’t be scared. don’t believe you’re all alone."
andrew bird "don’t be scared" weather systems
I do try to believe. Belief is not enough though, as I learned during the early depths of my depression a few years back. One must also feel. To truly know that one is loved and is not alone, it is far more important to feel it than to believe it.
