Another Year

Another year is almost out. Do I have any summarizing words for 2010? Yes: Meh. That's about how I feel about this past year. A lot of time was spent bothering with things that weren't worth bothering; a lot of time was spent doing things that weren't worth remembering. There were some good times, of course, and some great ones: there always are, if you know where to look.

I'm sorry if this isn't the kind of year-ending ra-ra-ra you were looking for. I'm feeling rather Ecclesiastical tonight.

One thing that seems to be eternal is books. It looks like I'll be short last year's count by about 35, but I think I've read more longer tomes this year than last year, and not being on a 100-book challenge I have not bothered to read everything to completion, and I only put books I read completely, or almost completely, on the list. A decent list, though, if I do say so: soon after the 1st I shall republish it with added commentary.

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, along with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”

Editing

Editing NaNo is usually a terrible thing; one is always much less brilliant than one thinks, even when one KNOWS one is writing crap. However, occasionally there is a moment that is worth it, a paragraph that makes one almost understand why one subjected oneself to this month of Hell. I don't know that it's brilliant, but I rather liked this paragraph.

There followed several more meetings: Owen’s reunion with his younger sister Julia, who could see the truth in the things people said, and his reunion with his twin sister Minerva, and with his brother Patreus, and Eleanor’s introduction to all of these people. They sat down to supper then, and in the evening Artemis’ sister Tatiana and her husband James joined them, and they commenced an evening of storytelling, which was an old tradition in the Avalon household. James was a professional fiction writer, but it was the story Patreus told—a story of a time in the far future when all the world had lost its color, had become black and white, in which two lovers saw in each other all the colors of the rainbow—that was unanimously voted the best.

Thinking Aloud, In Metaphor (AKA: Poetry)

In the Window


Two-headed man, in the window
Smiling-frowning on my rambunction
As you stare down the barrels
Of my silver-handled shotgun,
You frighten me.
It is not the way your eyes move,
Blazing straining blaring blinking staring,
Struggling to track my rambunction
As you stand straight, stare straight,
In the window.
It is not the way your hands reach,
Gripping convulsively and fighting
Each other off,
Scoring themselves and scarring themselves
Training themselves for a day
When unity would be most important
And when,
At a crucial moment,
They would come up empty.
It is not the way your heads loll,
Rolling like moon-calves and rambling on
About nuclear physics and Pindar's odes
And the beauty of Nefertiti and Locke's
Psychology of the Self.
No.
It is none of these things.
It is, two-headed man, the way
You think you own me.
The way you feel that because
Of your lolling heads, your moon-calf eyes,
Your lascivious officious gendarme sighs,
Because your brains form a negative
Image of mine, because you have read
All of the ancients who also thought they knew
The perfect code of morals that man should follow,
You think you know all things.
Two-headed man, you are wrong.
And so as you stand in the window,
Staring down the barrel of my
Silver-handled shotgun,
I pull the triggers. I destroy you.
I close the blinds.
I have no regret.