So much snow in one winter. The amount of snow we've had since November is the amount we normally get in three or four winters. You would think we were in Canada or something.
Vancouver is ill-prepared for snow: the roads clog up and the infrastructure shuts down. People get stranded.
On letting go: Partitioning enables selective reformatting, which is very useful. Archive files...Back up to CD...Burn, baby, burn...Data dump...
I know how to deal with disappointment, it's the less negative stuff that I find a bit baffling. I saw someone named Seth Meyers on Conan O'Brien one night not so long ago. He said that he'd been approached by a foot fetishist, and said "No." To which the Foot Fetishist replied, "Is that a "No" no, or is that a "Persuade me" no?" I like the idea of different grades of yes and no, just because of my own personal indecisiveness.
...I should have been a pair of ragged claws,
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas...
Looking through some old papers, I found this parody of "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" which I wrote when I working on the BA (and studying the poem). I recall it was a lot of fun to write.
If you are unfamiliar with the poem, you might want to read it (http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/5616/prufrock.html) before you read my version. If you read my version, be patient.
The Swan Song of V Rupert Gumbear
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized up on table:
Let us go through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
I have seen the students come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow girl that runs her fingers along the window-pane,
The yellow girl that presses her nose against the window-pane,
Licked her lips while standing wide-eyed at the counter,
Lusted after the bears that cry in vain,
Took up a bag, and opening it methodically,
Picked up the tongs, made a sudden pounce,
And chose thirty-three bears, yellow, orange and green,
Dropped them in the bag, and danced off with a bounce.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow girl to waltz along the street
Pressing her nose against the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To consider the colour of the best bears to eat;
There will be time to go out and come back,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop the bears into the sack;
Time to look and time to see,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before she eats the other bears and me.
I have seen the students come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
For her to wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
Without buying candy, not even one bear--
(They will say: "How she is growing thin!)
Her grampa's coat, the collar standing firmly 'round her chin,
Her shawl rich and modest, but asserted by a single pin --
(They will say: "But how her arms and legs are thin!")
Will she dare
Disturb my universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have sung the songs already, great and small--
Have sung the duets, trios, chorale songs,
My life is measured out with sugar-tongs;
I know the voices dying in a dying fall,
That fall from tong to bag, so long.
So how could I go wrong?
And she has eaten bears already, as they sung--
The yellow bears entice her with their formulated charms,
Oh, how I am lemon-flavoured, and terrified of tongs.
When I am caught, held singing on her tongue,
Then how could she go wrong
To swallow all the butt-ends of my legs and arms?
And how should I escape?
And I have known the hands already, known them all--
Hands that take up tongs, that seize the bears
(But at Easter only milk chocolate hares!)
Is it song from a sea-girl
That makes my head whirl?
Hands that can hold sugar-tongs can also hold me thrall.
And should I then escape?
And how should I begin?
* * * * * * * * * *
Shall I say, I have looked at night through narrow slats
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, sitting in the concourse?...
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas?
* * * * * * * * * *
And the gum-maids and the bears all sing so mournfully!
Frightened by long fingers,
Ever there, the fear malingers,
Stretched along the counter, between the maids and me.
Should I, after being bought and paid for,
Have the strength to face the fate that I was made for?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my friends (grown slightly pale)
bought by girls who natter
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the light on the sugar-tongs flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman grab my guts and snicker,
And in short, I am afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the toast, the winter soup, the tea,
Among her friends, among some gossip of society,
Would it have been worthwhile,
For her to have bitten through my life-line with a smile,
To have chewed my universe into a ball,
To roll it toward some overwhelming traction,
For me to sing: "I am Lazarus, shall return from the dead,
Return to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If she, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I wanted, not at all.
Bear song is not it at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worthwhile,
After the classes and the seminars and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that
trail along the floor--
And this and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in pattern
on a screen:
Would it have been worthwhile
If she, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"Bear song is it, after all,
Exactly it, after all."
No! I am not Swiss Chocolate, nor was meant to be;
Am a humble gum-bear, one that will do
To make a mouthful with another bear or two,
One-a -penny; no doubt we make girls drool,
Brightly coloured, easy to abuse,
Addictive, tasty, but superfluous;
Full of empty calories, able to seduce;
At times, indeed, almost mellifluous--
Almost, at times, too cruel.
I grow old...I grow old...
I shall dry up with the others until I am sold.
Shall I cleave to those behind? Dare I make such a breach?
I shall hide against the jar walls, where I am almost out of reach.
I have heard the gum-maids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them lying sticky in their box
Drying in their carton with the flaps torn back
When the heat blows on the counter white and black.
We will linger on the counter in our jar
By the gum-maids made of sugar red and brown
Till human mouths devour us, gulp us down.
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