I have a great hanging basket in the back of my house, and Bryan noticed a dove lingering about quite a bit. I have a bird feeder, so it's not so unusual to see lots of sparrows and several doves at any given moment. Yesterday, however, I went by this basket of plants and apparently spooked the dove, who flew away chortling. I looked into the basket and on top of one of the ferny plants was a rough-hewn nest with two perfect white eggs fairly glowing in the late afternoon sun. I'm going to have grandbirdies!

Great quote from Christina Ricci's character in The Opposite of Sex:
"My mother was the sort of mother who always said she was her daughter's best friend. I thought: Great! Not only do I have a shitty mother, my best friend's a loser bitch"

OK: I'll bite. If you think it's mercy to starve another creature to death, whether it's a dog, a horse, a goldfish or a person incapacitated to the point of not producing a taxable income, and yet you oppose the death penalty for confirmed murderers, you are a hypocrite. If you believe in euthanizing people who can't choose AND you support the death penalty--I can respect your consistency. If you're enough of a jerk-off to abandon a critically ill spouse and start another family with someone else, at least have the dignity to relinquish power-of-attorney to your spouse's loved ones who are still devoted to that sadly altered individual. Terri Schiavo was not being kept alive by extraordinary means-like a dialysis machine or something to keep her heart going-and in this case, it was irresponsible to starve her to death, regardless how much she was or was not aware of.
I'm sure you know that Bubonic Plague is spread by fleas. The bacterium which causes bubonic plague--Yersinia pestis--causes the entrance to the infected flea's stomach to swell shut, preventing blood from entering, and the flea can suck blood till the cows come home drained, and never sate their increasingly ravenous hunger. They then jump from host to host hoping to alleviate their suffering, biting everything and making more filthy pathogenic contacts than a toilet seat at Madison Square Garden. Now, if a mere flea with its infinitesimally small brain can be driven mad with hunger--what of the suffering of a human being when starving, even if they are in a vegetative state???
The human brain-- states of consciousness-- is a complex thing, and we are not even remotely close to unraveling its mysteries. Anti-death penalty activists cite the dozens of tragic executions of people later exonerated by DNA evidence, etc., as reason enough to discontinue the practice. Well, conversely, I argue that if there is a chance that a person may have a degree of awareness which we can't be assured of, isn't it better to continue to sustain that person if it may be done so simply as a food and water supply? It is sheer arrogance to say definitively that she can not possibly have any degree of awareness--it's hubris, sheer human folly to state otherwise. The degree of her ability to perceive is unknowable, and to act otherwise speaks volumes of a desire for taking the easy way out and getting rid of a person other people consider to be a nuisance. It's a slippery slope, and we're not wearing the right shoes--we are soleless. Today, it's people in a coma. Tomorrow it may be ALS sufferers or people with Multiple Sclerosis, and then it won't be much of a stretch to justify getting rid of groups of folks. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson should be mandatory reading for everyone pondering this subject. You may not give a shit about Terri Schiavo, but you may give a damn when it's someone you love who is deemed expendable by society. Ask German Jews, circa 1940.

Being a lifelong Roald Dahl fan, I am ecstatic that Charlie & The Chocolate Factory is being remade, and I saw the new trailer at cinema yesterday, and it looks to be worthy of my rapt anticpation. *Giddy*

As far as moles go, I don't have a tremendous number, but I've had one that is rather prominent in locus, if not in dimension. One small brown mole has been on the apple of my right cheek since I can remember, and it's always been flat, only slightly darker than my skin, and mercifully free of spirals of black evil hair flapping in the wind. I generally have good skin, and a light layer of foundation diminishes even this minimal appearance. I rather fancy the mole may go unnoticed by friends, acquaintances and toll booth clerks as they are transfixed on my captivating eyes, my heaving bosom or my soul patch of dark hair that happy trails on down below my bottom lip.
About a year ago, I noticed something peripherally sitting on my cheek, and I reached up to brush it away, only to find it was attached to me. This mole turned out to be a sleeper cell, finally rearing its ugly head after nearly two fifths of a century had elapsed. My attitude on my moles is much like the fighting philosophy of the ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal - one of the most ferocious creatures in the universe, and the stupidest: if it can't see you, it reckons you can't see it, and will not attack you, thus the intergalactic hitchhiker must carry a towel to cover the beast's head so it will remain docile. Anyhoo, if I can't see a mole, it doesn't exist.
I'm not particularly fond of this mole, but if it had remained flat and smooth, I would never have interfered with it. However, about a month ago I noticed the texture had changed dramatically, in addition to jutting up like Ayer's rock above the plains of the Outback. This was not bad enough. The mole, she slap me lak zees wees 'er glove, and shallenge me to a duel. A molelet had erupted and sat flipping me off in the mirror. So, I brought it.
Today I went to visit my world-renowned dermatologist, Dr. Alan Menter. He's so amazing that he always has young interns like ducklings trailing around after him eager to learn from his vast knowlege. This must be why his examination rooms are so large.
I prepared for this insanely early 8am appointment, and got my shit together. I checked my look in the mirror, and reasoned I don't need make-up - I look much younger than most women my age - Dr. Menter will prolly even compliment me on how great my skin looks in comparison to others. Lookin' Good! Feelin' Good!
I get there, and the Dr strides in, followed by a new batch of young doctors apparently culled from a Banana Republic catalog. Smug gits! Dr was so focused and serious that my comment that my twin was erupting on my cheek falls utterly flat. Ho hum. I described my problem, and he looked through a magnifying glass at the offending growth, and proceeded to talk about my "crusty mole" to the young men, repeatedly mentioning the "crusty mole," as if anyone might not have heard the first 40 or 50 times. By the way - did I mention I have a "Crusty mole?" This was not enough, he insisted they all take a look through the magnifying glass and when that carnival of horrors was over, he insisted they step right up and cop a feel. Yes. My "crusty mole" has been felt up by hot young doctors. I'll bet they'll be fantasizing about this for weeks, seriously. [There must be a porn fetish site devoted to petting crusty moles, but I digress.] So, I feel like I'm sorta not in the room, and this bitch on my cheek is getting all the attention. I finally got to axe a question, and I asked if this thing will get bigger, and if it will keep tossing out appendages. He said yes, most likely it would get larger, and most likely the little tags would continue to erupt. Dr grabbed a metal cylinder thermos-thingie and asked if I want to keep the mole, or if I'd like to freeze it off--after all I would have a scabby sort of thing on my cheek just in time for Christmas. I asked if it would leave a scar and he said no, so I said "we're definitely removing it today." So he zapped the little devil right then and there and I'm waiting for it to turn black and fall off.

Arthur O'Shaughnessy. 1844–1881

Ode

WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Recently on the news I heard a man home on furlough from Iraq. He said the trials and pressures of everyday life now seem so trivial, and that he was eager to be back there, fighting with his fellow soldiers. There is nothing new under the sun.

Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter.
Hamlet ACT II, SCENE 5

Latonia was in town debuting as Micaela in Carmen last week at the Dallas Opera. I think she debuts as Mimi next season at the Met. Her voice is more spectacular than ever - much prettier than I even remembered it,and the crowd cheered more for her than for the other stars. We went to lunch a couple times, and she kept saying that I need to pursue my singing. I admit I feel wistful and heartsick about opera. It generally makes me blue to go see one. She told me something I remember hearing a long time ago, which is that you don't see singers of my voice type really working before they are 40 anyway, because opera companies don't like to hire a Queen of the Night(magic flute) or Constanze(seraglio) with young chops - dense orchestration with tattoo-needle stratospheric vocals - a young voice doesn't have the steel to cut through it all. My coloratura still works well, and obviously I still have a powerful hankering to do it...

In retrospect, the electronica on the radio in the early 1980s was brilliantly prescient. Gary Numan's "Cars" is simply a great song, its iced-laser symmetry of tones and beats a primer for the dawn of an age of wires and wirelessness. Here in the 21st century, we're not all dressed like Spock or Seven of Nine, but our lifelines are comingled with machinery in ways only Sci-fi ever anticipated. One of the great things about leaving one's home used to be getting away from the telephone. That is now an obsolete mindset with the advent of cellular technology. Caller I.D. is the ultimate in passive agressiveness - we always look before we answer, don't we? We feel we've lost our tether if we drive away from home and leave the cell phone on the desk or in the bathroom. We rushed headlong to meld with our machines. And it's no wonder--people feel alienated from those around them - via the internet, there is some hope of finding one's tribe. Ah, blessed be.

"Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars..."

If mediocrity is one's only option, best do nothing.

Ponder the popping weasel.

Coming home from dinner Friday night I sat at a red light, watching the convo between the skinhead in the vehicle ahead of me and his date. He was speaking in an animated manner, maybe trying a little too hard, and she had sorority girl hair--wondered how on earth these two hooked up. Then I noticed the bumper sticker on his vehicle: 'Join the Army. Travel the world. See exotic places. Meet unusual people, then kill them.' He was driving a Jeep. Irony, anyone?

I can now say I have sat in my pajamas, bowl of oatmeal in hand, watching dawn spreading across quaking Mount St Helens, updated every five minutes, all from in the cozy confines of my studio. The internet and webcams: good shit.

When times are good it is easy to be blissfully ignorant and casual about life and not tally the moments our daily joys string together like a garland of flowers. It is when things seem bleakest that time leaps at us in bold relief and each tick of the clock holds censure and menace. At those moments, the triumphs of life seem as remote as light seen from the bottom of a well, its impassable curve shooting upward toward an arctic pinprick of light, tauntingly hinting of illumination no longer attainable, of sun that will never again warm the chill of bones who understand the grief of living. Grace is easy when things are good, but perhaps the only moments of true grace and nobility are times that seem bleakest. Much of life is mundanaity punctuated by brilliant highs and stultifying lows. Maybe the trick is splitting the difference - limning our agonies and joys with the knowlege that most will balance out, and appreciating that giddy pleasures can only be fleeting. I fritter much of my time, but my mind is always working, shuttling the warp and weft of ideas and seeking patterns to explain all. The one assured pattern I have discovered is this: though we may crave the daylight, we would never see the stars if not for the blackness that night affords.