long weekend

The last three days dragged by, as I was without an ISP. Apparently, there was a problem with the billing address, yadda yadda yadda; I got it all worked out. So I'm happy. :)

Considering that I'm unemployed, I managed to get together a collection of Christmas gifts. This is the first year I've given gifts in I don't know how long. (However, I was not successful in getting Christmas cards mailed out. I'll have to try harder next year.)

Much of my money was spent on little gift bags, mainly because I can never find any little gift boxes. Doesn't some major store chain sell little gift boxes? Jeez, it would have made my life a lot easier. I look for them every year, too; no dice, ever.

During this long weekend, I filled much of my time looking over the beginning of I and Thou by Martin Buber. Wow. That's all I can say. The simplicity and clarity makes the message just shine through. This is the kind of theology I like to read!

Also, I took in Adaptation Saturday. I really liked it. It was funny in ways I hadn't seen a movie be funny before. There were a lot of literary/writer's jokes in there (it being a film whose main role is a screenwriter). Nicolas Cage was surprisingly good. It was hard to believe that he wasn't really two people.

Lastly, which in real-time happened firstly, I had the most dramatically amazing DXM experience ever. I'd given myself a fortnight of sobriety, and had kept myself from viewing the copy of Baraka I'd borrowed from the library that week until the day I'd dose. Also, I took in the pilot of Firefly, which I hadn't had a chance to see before then. I was blown away. After I saw the entire pilot, I seriously considered organizing a letter campaign to save the show. I still might, actually. Anyone know how to get one started?

Looking Back Upon the Crags of Time and Space

Poetry is best with perspective. For the last three years or so, I haven't had a chance to unpack boxes from my three last moves. Also, I haven't had space to seriously devote myself to the writing of poetry. So when I retrieved my purple binder of personal poetry from the basement of my sister's house, I looked forward to seeing poems I hadn't seen in years.

Now, though, with all the rest of my errands done, where I have nothing standing between me and getting into that binder, I find I'm filled with an excitement, kind of like what I used to feel the night before Christmas, the day before my birthday, and the night before the first day of school.

A few weeks ago, I ran across a poem I actually happened to write in the depths of my most recent depression, sometime last February. It was like looking at a stranger. This poem came from these hands? The estrangement was surreal, yet very real.

Just a few feet away, I have poems I've not eyed in years. These poems, they are written snapshots in time. When I read them, in the periphery I can see the reality I was living when that paper bore the pen.

(Funnily, it's the editor in me that is leaping with glee. My metaphysical red pen will be happily uncapped this evening.)

Okay, I have a mission....

I can't find, through Googling, one cookie recipe that uses sour cream, semi-sweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. I wonder if I can divine such a recipe before Christmas....

Elegy

I'm left to wonder. Many days have passed,
dark days when I knew brilliance, spices, scent,
the curl and curve of your hip, and the last
long stretch of your skin. Your hands never meant
to slip inside, to make me so complete,
but nothing we did could stop my descent.
We mingled, intertwined, our mouths discreet,
and pressed until, at last, the days were spent.
Now, as nightfall smothers even night,
I close my eyes, remembering our grace,
our sensuous and sinister delight.
I shut my eyes against this empty space
within my arms; I ache to cradle your
resplendent nudeness, as I did before.