The thin ice of modern life

So, after my walk today, I was 100% convinced that it was time to buy a thing I heard about from a hard-core runner from the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for those of you who aren't Michiganders) in one of my MSW classes: Yaktrax. Why is this so important? Well, the driveway to my cottage is so thoroughly glazed with ice, I almost did a full slide down it when I got to the top of the hill, found myself sliding, and had to move with hands AND feet toward the side of the road to avoid falling completely. A neighbor on her way into the subdivision in her car seemed to be having a good laugh at me. I was a little irked.

Well, I've started salting the driveway, I've been parking at my neighbor's for the past few days, and I've ordered my Yaktrax over the internet. Now, it's time to see about getting snow tires. As a Californian, I'm a bit clueless about this stuff. Smart Michigan friends, do you have any suggestions?

waiting for persephone (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens)

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I run into David in the entryway of the Social Work building and he tells me he is writing villanelles, and I am reminded of the artistry of Sylvia Plath, and her Mad Girl's Love Song.

. . .

It's hard to convey the import of the gift of a blue sky to those who see one daily.

The light is so unexpected, it makes the world look iridescent.


Still, it doesn't exorcise the sense of abandonment here, like a resort emptied of its vacationers.





I feel oddly drawn to the desolate beauty anyway, the vastness of the space of silence, the heavy linger of death, or hibernation.




somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence. . .
(e.e. cummings)

Tony Kushner documentary airing on PBS Wednesday

Hey (American) folks with TVs, there's a new documentary about the astonishingly wonderful playwright Tony Kushner, Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, that is airing tonight on PBS. He talked on NPR's Talk of the Nation about it today.

It's times like these I wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to foot the cable bill. And then there are the rest of the days of the month . . . :)

Graffiti Removal Verité

this is intriguing.