(no subject)

Just to calm myself down, I think I'll repost this.

"Brilliance" by Mark Doty (go buy his book, "My Alexandria")

Maggie's taking care of a man
who's dying; he's attended to everything,
said goodbye to his parents,

paid off his credit card.
She says Why don't you just
run it up to the limit?

but he wants everything
squared away, no balance owed,
though he misses the pets
he's already found a home for
-- he can't be around dogs or cats,
too much risk. He says,

I can't have anything.
She says, A bowl of goldfish?
He says he doesn't want to start

with anything and then describes
the kind he'd maybe like,
how their tails would fan
to a gold flaring. They talk
about hot jewel tones,
gold lacquer, say maybe

they'll go pick some out
though he can't go much of anywhere and then
abruptly he says I can't love

anything I can't finish.
He says it like he's had enough
of the whole scintillant world,

though what he means is
he'll never be satisfied and therefore
has established this discipline,

a kind of severe rehearsal.
That's where they leave it,
him looking out the window,

her knitting as she does because
she needs to do something.
Later he leaves a message:

Yes to the bowl of goldfish.
Meaning: let me go, if I have to,
in brilliance. In a story I read,

a Zen master who'd perfected
his detachment from the things of the world
remembered, at the moment of dying,

a deer he used to feed in the park,
and wondered who might care for it,
and at that instant was reborn

in the stunned flesh of a fawn.
So, Maggie's friend--
is he going out

into the last loved object
of his attention?
Fanning the veined translucence

of an opulent tail,
undulant in some uncapturable curve,
is he bronze chrysanthemums,

coppy leaf, hurried darting,
doubloons, icon-colored fins
troubling the water?

It's my week to be annoyed, apparently.

Although these count as "mildly annoyed" as opposed to the head of steam I got worked up after reading that housing article last night.

UPS *never* rings the doorbell. Ever. They swing by long enough to leave a note on the door saying "your stuff is at the rental office", which of course never gets found until after business hours when the office is closed. Just leave my fscking package on the doorstep, or at the very least ring the doorbell and wait 30 seconds before you run off.

Anyway, now I have the book for my XML class (there's a new edition coming out in a couple of weeks, but I still had to buy the old edition). I get online to access the homework assigment, and find that I don't have access to that folder anymore. The only thing that shows up is my PHP class that starts next week. Kind of hard to do the work when you don't know what the work is.

Ah well. It's after 5 on Friday, I don't think the admin is going to deal with it anytime real soon. I'll just email the instructor and let her know what's up. And a bunch of us are going to go see the sneak preview of "Jay & Silent Bob" tomorrow night, which will be fun (and less of a zoo than the press screening on Monday).

(no subject)

I think it's time to get out the NADH and the 5-HTP again. I've got some stuff that I think could net me a decent amount of cash on eBay, but I've been procrastinating for months about putting it up. Part of it is that I don't really want to sell my big stompy boots that I won't be able to find again (although seeing as how I've worn them maybe three times since I bought them more than a year ago, and not at all in the last 10 months, I doubt I'll miss them as much as I think I will). Mostly though it's just that I can't get up the freakin' motivation to do it. Ugh.