The sky is high. The Czar is far.
My boss might think that Chelsea are “just like the Yankees now,” but, if anything, my soft spot for the boys in blue has grown even more considerable.
He has not had a sparkling season, but my lad Andriy was in top form today, as Chelsea found itself at the top of Champions League Group A. He’s a healthy distraction, as the world closes in around me. Better than heroin, is what I always say.
Matching my mood, word-for-word:
Mr. Flood’s Party
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:“Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird.” He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: “Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will.”Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland’s ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben’s eyes were dim.Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!”
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
“Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.“Only a very little, Mr. Flood–
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do.”
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang–“For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below–
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.– Edwin Arlington Robinson
I was flipping through a magazine a few days ago and, lo and behold, here is another one of these inane “I Am African” ads.
The sentiment is, ostensibly, good: let’s raise awareness about AIDS issues, whilst remembering that we are all “out of Africa.” But the way in which these people have gone about expressing their message is beyond bad. Oooh, let’s slap some green paint and “ethnic” jewerly on a sexed-up celebrity, it will be “meaningful” as opposed to demeaning. And let’s keep perpertuating the myth of “Africa” as a monolithic nation while we’re at it.
Somebody save these people from themselves.
Yesterday, we were watching “America’s Next Top Model” (yeah, I know, I know) and getting sloshed, and it dawned on me that you are your own best photographer, really. I learned that both in front of the camera, and behind it. And I have been known to combine the two pursuits.
Like this, for example (picture taken senior year, on Central Campus, of all places).
Sallie Mae is playing mind-games with me, and I am tired. First they say they’ve “denied” my forbearance after I press them on the subject (they didn’t even tell me that it was denied, I found out all on my own, oh, clever, resourceful little me), now they’re saying that they had no idea why it was denied and are “sorry” and are trying to “remedy the situation,” and meanwhile, I have heard nothing back concerning consolidation, and am terrified, terrified, terrified. The debt is huge, and I’m so small.
There was much wailing and lamentation today at the office.
This is the second time my boss has seen me cry in the space of two months, which is embarrassing.
Am self-medicating with Yuengling and Return of the King, and the fact that I am, according to some, loved.
Natalia A. 