Tuesday, December 31, 2002
"Marius Begs"

''PLEASE! Just One Word,
Just One Word, Silent Queen!''

Meanwhile . . .
Marius is not aware
how impatiently his 'Amadeo' waits back At Home
for time moves quite differently for a 1500 year old vampire
than it does for a 17 year old mortal boy.

Wednesday, January 1, 2003
With Great Style

The wheel of the year revolves again and we are new again. Of course, each day we are new. But this day we get a few more new numbers to the date. We celebrated it in grand style. I give Julia all good credit for initiating it, for most of this day earlier I'd lain on the sofa, slug like.

We went to Red Lobster and had their all you can eat shrimp special. Breaded and fried, scampi style with the garlic butter, and over richly sauced noodles, we truly had ALL we could eat. For 'the last meal of the condemned woman', or the last meal before getting all 'vamped', this is the way I'd want to go. Wow!

AND we finished the evening off with a movie! Star Trek: Nemesis wasn't as bad as the reviewers said. The special effects were not cheesy. The re-uniting actors were having a grand time. You could see it. Their familiar comaderie must have made the new actors, such as the one who played Shinzon, Jean Luc-Picard's young clone, feel very much outsiders. Of course, this just added to the effects of Shinzon, possessing Picard's DNA, but none of his life experiences.

There was only one glaring inconsistency. And really, it would have taken SO LITTLE to fix it. This movie is set well after the era of the Star Trek:TNG TV shows. They would have already encountered Data's 'evil' (um, POORLY PROGRAMMED) brother Lor. So, why, when they find the positronic android pieces on the desert like planet, WHY didn't they acknowledge Lor's existence and make sure this 'brother' wasn't similarly programmed? It would have taken so little.

But, other than that, it was a grand re-union of old friends. Captain Janeway even made a brief appearance.

Speaking of 'old friends', we were delighted to have a brief visit with Carol, an old friend who was Julia's roommate ten years ago, back in Trinidad, Colorado. Those of you who are veterans of the 'Trinidad experience' will well recognize the significance of THAT!


Carol and Julia

And New Year's eve, we were pleased to visit with a new friend, Carli. We had delightfully stimulating conversation and fellowship.

So, indeed, the new year has been brought in with great style.

Thursday, January 2, 2003
Fascinating

The weird effects of the sinus medication have mostly wore off, leaving me feeling almost normal. Leave it to me to attempt a ramble in this condition. Dear readers, you have been warned.

When reading a link from a link, as I often love to web-wander, I stop and think of the life laid bare there. Tonight, an autobiography was my fascinating entertainment. 'Entertainment', what a crude word, entertainment by someone's sometimes agonizing life path. Yet we humans are so crudely amused. We stack the similarities and differences with those of our own and our loved ones, compare notes, and say ''Fascinating!''

'Fascinating', it is, and we often live in a fascinating world. I've left 'Lestat' depressed for the moment, contemplating saying his 'goodbyes'. I know when I return to ''Tales of the Body Thief'', we'll get him past this. But for now, he's left in stasis.

A fiction is possibly inspired by things in reality, or at least the emotions in reality. Still, 'Lestat' will have to wait it out. Meanwhile, here, another day is almost done. Done in a daze, it was, under sinus medication. I came home from work and went straight to bed. 'Michael' will soon get busy again. He's got some ambitious plans.

But, for now, they all sleep, we all sleep, and soon, I shall return to that nice dark womb of sleep. Will there be dreams, perhaps, to give birth to something new? Ah, but the active mind is the interesting mind.

I do not bore myself, at any rate.

Friday, January 3, 2003
Not So Much

I'm not so much of an egotist as I thought I was. An interesting article on writing the LIVING web advises each page tell:

  • who you are, what you want, and why you’re writing
  • your email address
  • where to find your latest writing

    • I'd not noticed it, but the vast majority of my pages haven't been plastered with my name. The readers have had to go to my main index page to find out 'whodunnit'. I'm writing with the assumption that you all KNOW who I am, which is not the case for those who enter via search engines.

    Though I've always observed the cardinal rule, Never make a page without a link back to SOMEWHERE else in your site, I've never considered the NAME. Furthermore, I took out the email on every page, for when it changes, it's just too hard to change what seems like 65,000 pages.

    Julia, however, solved that problem with a little image of the email address. She made one for me, as well. I've not been taking advantage of it. Now I shall.

    Saturday, January 4, 2003 A
    Maybe Much

    I found two quotes while out wandering web-land:

    "Therefore, my dear sir, I know no advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside."

    - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet

    "Try to raise the submerged sensations of that ample past; your personality will grow more firm, your solitude will widen and will become a dusky dwelling past which the noise of others goes by far away.--And if out of this turning inward, out of this absorption into your world verses come, then it will not occur to you to ask anyone whether they are good verses. Nor will you try to interest magazines in your poems: for you will see in them your fond natural possession, a fragment and a voice of your life. A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgement of it: there is no other."

    - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet

    Curious to learn of Rilke, I've discovered Rilke, (1875-1926), was born in Prague, and is considered one of Germany's ''greatest lyric poets''. (I, half Czech myself, ask 'Wot happened to the Czech boy? German??? Hmm-m-m? Ah, well, I suppose it is a more widely known language than Czech.') Also, you may have noticed his middle name is 'Maria'. That's not all. The brief bio states: ''A crucial fact in Rilke's life was that his mother called him Sophia. She forced him to wear girl's clothes until he was aged five - compensating for the earlier loss of a baby daughter.''

    In his early works he ''imported mystical elements in his poetry, but later Rilke dealt more with the role of an artist, who must 'speak and bear witness.'  ''

    This 'speaking and bearing witness', without thought of 'outside' 'recompense', letting only the 'necessity' of the artistic creation being one's motivation is most instructive. I say this to my weak ego self, who dreams of 'fame'. It may dream of such things, but it is better not to feed it. It is better to feed on this wonderful transcendent communication 'from the divine',and be thusly rapt, giving birth to what comes from that. As I said in an earlier post, ''leave it to God to determine the fate of such things'', for whatever is MEANT to be of one's creations WILL happen, and all that is necessary in that regard is TRUST.

    See, still, what EGO I have! The untrammeled, pulsating thing! The DARING, annoying thing! But without it, what writer ever has the temerity to put their efforts out there? Big thing, needs tamed, but it's necessary. Maybe I shall name it, at least introduce him formally, ''Here, then, meet my EGO!Is he not a fearsome beast! Mind those teeth, but if you speak to him softly and pet him, he will purr with the satisfaction of the innocent.''

    And then he shuffles off to the dark, where in the shadows, he waits and dreams.

    Saturday, January 4, 2003 B
    Jewelry Delight


    Julia's new filigree pin

    We've extended our Christmas fun, we have. When we passed the Yuma County fairgrounds earlier this week, an animated flashing sign promised a ''Gem, Jewelry and Craft Show'' this weekend. This was something we could not bear to miss.

    It was not a huge gathering of displays, but enough that we had great fun looking at everything. Julia saw the pin, pictured above, and it called her early on, but I suggested we look around and see everything first.


    Cloisonné globes and elephants of jasper and onyx

    Jewelry of every type and quality was there: junk jewelry for a dollar apiece, loose jewelry findings to make your own, and nice pieces ranging from pleasing to exquisite, with cooresponding prices. Mineral crystals, both raw and polished, in all sizes were available. No doubt, the exhibitors here came early to Arizona in preparation for the big shows in Tucson.


    Joan's new lapis lazuli and moonstone pendant

    I found a table of many beautiful pendants for reasonable prices, and after we'd seen everything, we went back to the first table, where Julia had seen the antique pin. Then, we returned to the table of pendants. I had a hard time deciding. Julia suggested an assymetrical one with a lapis and two garnets. But the symmetry of the other lapis piece was more enticing, so I settled for that one.

    I also got a few agate beads to add to those beads I bought years ago. Later today, while at Michaels getting a poster frame to protect the picture of my Michael and his brood, I got some beading needles and some thread. That necklace may see materialization yet!


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