(no subject)

What an unpleasant week this has been, and it's TUESDAY. I demand an explanation for this bullshit!

Unfortunately, as Stephen Crane says, when man tells the universe that he exists, the universe replies "That has not created in me a sense of obligation."

Yesterday I was so barely-functional by the time I left work that I ended up taking a taxi home because I didn't think I could cope with the stairs down to the El. I managed to perk up a bit when I got home, because there were really good painkillers, and I even made conversation with one of R's friends, up for the week from Iowa to see him and go to all the really filthy blues bars in town (he's kipping on our couch, but he brought steak and beer, so that's okay). Then the pain STRUCK BACK -- it was like having a two-hour ice cream headache. But it did make me go to bed early, so I got caught up on sleep, which is probably the reason I had it in the first place.

This morning things are insane, but not for me; we have room double-bookings in rooms I don't control and people who aren't me running late and caterers who need someone's signature other than mine, so I'm hiding out and enjoying the dizzy euphoria of feeling normal and eating Muscut gummies.

Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me locate older episodes of SGA online, or for that matter in torrent, I ended up torrenting all four seasons, about a week ago, and the download finished last night. This morning I watched the people in charge of a large military operation make an executive decision, after saying to each other that they weren't going to take a potentially one-way trip back to Earth, to take a potentially one-way trip back to Earth. Leaving their base without its commanding officer, military leader, head of scientific research, and Random Pretty Alien Chick. And what base can survive without its Random Pretty Alien Chick?

Seriously, you guys. I know you think McKay's brain is sexy and Sheppard's hair is certainly...something, and the fanfic might be great, but seriously. I'm pretty sure that a crack team of five or six reasonably intelligent and fast-moving chimps could conquer Atlantis and enslave her people if they timed it right.

(no subject)

Still poetry month!

Today's is a sampling of the works of Piet Hein, his "Grooks". I don't recall who introduced me to them, but I get a lot of joy out of short, pithy poems like this. They take a remarkable amount of skill, as I discovered when I tried to write some.

This is a small selection, but you can find the full collection and some of his artwork here.

SIMPLY ASSISTING GOD
I am a humble artist
moulding my earthly clod,
adding my labour to nature's,
simply assisting God.

Not that my effort is needed;
yet somehow, I understand,
my maker has willed it that I too should have
unmoulded clay in my hand.

HINT AND SUGGESTION
Admonitory grook addressed to youth.

The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts;
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports.

PRAYER
Sun that givest all things birth,
shine on everything on earth!

If that's too much to demand,
shine at least on this our land.

If even that's too much for thee,
shine at any rate on me.

CIRCUMSCRIPTURE
As Pastor X steps out of bed
he slips a neat disguise on:
that halo round his priestly head
is really his horizon.

THE TRUE DEFENCE
The only defence
that is more than pretence
is to act on the fact
that there is no defence.

OUT OF TIME
My old clock used to tell the time
and subdivide diurnity;
but now it's lost both hands and chime
and only tells eternity.

THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION
Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days.

(no subject)

Holy crap, it's seriously raining out. And the purple lightning and all. Good times!

I asked R what he said to piss Mother Nature off this time, he said he's been sitting in his room playing Workin In The Graveyard for the past three hours. Apparently Mother Nature doesn't like the blues. He also said he's going to smoke a bowl to appease her, though, so Chicagoans take heart, the rain will soon be gone.