i have found what you are like

i have found what you are like
the rain,

(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned

newfragile yellows

lurch and.press

-in the woods
which
stutter
and

sing

And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
your kiss


ee cummings

Un-reality

I've been working on my grant application all weekend. I was up until 2 AM both Friday and Saturday. I think I've lost track of reality. It's not much fun doing only one thing, and nothing else, especially when that one thing is difficult and stressful. Your eyes get bleary, your brain doesn't function well, and you wonder what the world is about, anyway. It makes one realize how important it is to have pleasure - however you may take your pleasure. Without it, life becomes dreary and a chore.

Or, to quote a line from the film "Blue Velvet", "It's a strange world".

But there are some things I would not mind doing for days at a time, to the exclusion of everything else. These activities, however, involve pleasure, and for that reason and would not cause the same symptoms as grant-writing for days at a time. On the other hand, they would probably have me wishing for un-reality.

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new


ee cummings

Grant?

It's 10:17 PM on Tuesday night. I'm supposed to be writing a grant. It's a big one; the future of my lab depends upon it. But times are hard, and money is scarce. Even if it's great, it might not fly.

So I'm making an entry in my blog. Go figure.

From "Modern Love", NY Times, Sunday, 19 February 2006 (written by Veronica Chambers):

"I didn't want to get married. I'd never been angling for a ring. What I had wanted all through my 20's was a really great boyfriend: someone who called when he said he would, who would get up early and go running with me over the Brooklyn Bridge and who would jump at the chance at weekend getaways in the Berkshires. I wanted someone with whom I could read the Sunday paper in bed, who would sit next to me during foreign movies, who would bring me chicken soup when I felt ill, who would send me flowers on Valentine's Day and sometimes for no reason at all."

Back to work now. Well almost....one more bit of fun writing to do.

Predictions

Tonight I ate Chinese food. Here is my fortune:

"You will always have good luck in your personal affairs".

And while we are on this sort of prediction thing, here is this months Capricorn horoscope from Vanity Fair:

"After months of feeling like a total troglodyte, you have regained your social confidence and are back in the race. You actually feel beautiful again. You're still a Capricorn, however, so you can't spend too long just looking gorgeous. It's time to look squarely at your finances and not shove the checkbook, unpaid bills, and statements into a drawer. Your stock may have gone down, but it's not hopeless. Just find a new angle. You're good at that".

Hmm. It's true, I haven't paid much attention to the bills lately.

And my stock has certainly gone down lately. So I'll find a new angle.

And it's always nice to have good luck in personal affairs.

Isn't it interesting how these impersonal predictors sometimes ring true?

Morning

I usually don't have any morning issues. No matter how late I go to sleep, I can get up if I have to. I take a shower, have a cup of strong coffee, I wake up. I don't ever mind getting up. It's particularly nice to get up early, and sit alone in the kitchen, sipping coffee and looking to see whether the sky will be blue or gray that day. It's always better when the sky is blue.

Lately I have been drinking Illy caffe, which is an Italian blend intended for espresso machines. In fact it works very well in drip coffee makers. It has a wonderful taste, much better than the French roast I usually have, and very little acidity. Grazie mille.

Yesterday, I didn't want to get out of bed. The first time in who knows how long. I'd like to think it was because there was no school, and a lot of snow, and cold, but these things never stopped me before.

Pleasures of the text

I bought a new cell phone back in December, and for the first time began to use 'text messaging'. I have found it to be both useful and fun. Therefore I was glad to read an article by Charles McGrath in the Sunday's Times magazine two weeks ago called "The Pleasures of the Text: Text-messaging liberates communication from intimacy and substance. No wonder we love it".

Here are some interesting quotes from the article:
"...you can conduct your entire emotional life just by transmitting and receiving messages on the screen of your cellphone. You can flirt there, arrange a date, break up and - in Malaysia at least - even get a divorce".

Apparently, America is lagging behind the rest of the world in text-messaging, because we don't have a single, national phone company. Here, voice calls are still far cheaper than text-messaging, unlike in the rest of the world.

Chinese lends itself very well to text-messaging, since in Mandarin, the names of the numbers are close to the sounds of certain words. To say "I love you", just press 520. For "drop dead", it's 748.

Furthermore, in China, people think it is rude to leave voice mail, and it's a loss of face to make a call to someone important and have it answered by an underling. Text messages preserve everyone's dignity by eliminating the human voice.

In the following week's Times magazine, there were letters about this article. Here are a few I found amusing:

"I recently dated an avid texter. Initially, I didn't see this as much of a problem. But the texting was used far more than calling. I liked the sound of this man's voice. I liked getting calls. Soon it became ridiculous. I'd get the 2 AM drunken text and the midday nonsense text, but, alas, no sweet evening call in which we could discuss our days. It got to the point that if I texted him and didn't see a response within 15 minutes, I would worry: Is he breaking up with me? Is he with another girl and can't text in front of her?"

"As a single woman, I notice that dating communication these days is often via text. As your writer noted, texting forces you to be haiku-brief, and therefore, to flirt, you must be very clever".

Venezia

I just finished reading "The Thief Lord" by Cornelia Funke. It's a childrens book, written slightly below the books of JK Rowling. Nevertheless, I find it fun to read. This book takes place in Venice, where a group of wayward children live in an abandoned movie theatre. They get by on the thievery of the Thief Lord, also known as Scipio, who steals from wealthy homes to provide for the younger children.

I like the book because of its dreamy portrayal of Venice. It made me want to live there, either in the old town, or on one of the many islands just surrounding the city. However, I have been told that Venice is not an ideal place to live. During the summers, when the weather is nice, the city is overrun with tourists. There are fewer tourists in the winter, but then again, many of the residents also leave.

I had imagined living in a flat overlooking the water, with large windows. Spending the days leisurely, writing, reading, or walking through the town, perhaps meeting friends in obscure cafés. Drinking grappa late into the morning. The typical Hemingway dream, I suppose. But shattered by reality.

Have to find another fantasy, I suppose. Perhaps warmer? I'll let you know what I come up with.

Tonight at Noon

"Tonight at Noon" is the name of a book written by Sue Mingus, wife of jazz great Charles Mingus, about their improbable love affair, marriage, and his death. I have always thought that their story is special. Here is a description of the book:

"The widow of the legendary bassist, band leader and composer Charles Mingus tells the story of their improbable love affair and marriage. They were an unlikely couple, a debutante from a proper Midwestern family and an antiestablishment maverick from the Watts section of Los Angeles, "jazz's angry man." When they met in 1964, she was puzzled by his anger, outrage and tempestuous life, so different from her own, which had been founded on order and decorum. Yet she was not intimidated by his volatility and ferocious temper. Together they organized a small mail-order record club to market Mingus's work, his way of getting back at the major labels that had cheated him. The author was soon "trapped in the middle of his vast appetites and imagination, his sexuality, his angry intelligence, his nonsense and his pain." After years of an on-and-off affair, they were married in 1975".

And some words from the book:

We walked for a few blocks and caught a cab in front of the Plaza Hotel, where he said it was easier to find a driver who overlooked the color of your skin in favor of the green inside your wallet. In the middle of our ride, Mingus changed his mind about dinner and said there was something important he needed to show me first. He ordered the driver instead to Grand Central Station. When we arrived, he jumped out of the cab and swiftly led me downstairs, hurrying through the halls and corridors until we reached a corner that echoed our voices along a wall. I waited at one end of the long wall while he spoke in a low whisper from the other side, unexpected words of tenderness that roared across the room, shy words of love that slid along the grimy walls of Grand Central Station as distant and unreal as the graffiti they swept past.

"I love you," he was saying. "I want you to be my woman." I laughed off his words. They were sounds in a station from a man I hardly knew. Still, I went on listening.


As I related earlier from John Cassavetes work, you never know what life is going to do. And you should always believe.

Hawks

Sometimes I can see hawks flying outside my office window in New York. I have been told by bird-lovers that these are red-tailed hawks who live in the structure of the George Washington bridge. They hover at the level of my window, which is 13 stories from the ground. It is quite beautiful to watch them, hovering with their wings extended, moving not at all as they ride the thermals, the rising waves of hot air. They are usually looking for prey on the ground - rats, squirrels, and other small rodents. Amazing that they can see the ground from so far up!

This morning, when I went down the driveway to fetch the newspaper (in a very long coat, so no one can see my pyjama bottoms) I saw a hawk flying down the street, carrying a squirrel. I'd never seen a hawk with prey before, so close to the ground.

Sometimes I see hawks along the New Jersey Turnpike, sitting high in trees at the side of the road. They sit there patiently, waiting for prey in the meadowland grasses. So incongruous, a beautiful piece of nature next to the roaring mechanical vehicles.

Cassavetes

This past weekend, I read a review of the book "Accidental Genius: How John Cassavetes Invented American Independent Film". Reading it made me remember how much I like Cassavetes' films, which I have not seen in years - my memories of him are from my post-college years. Cassavetes died in 1989, but only now are his films receiving critical acclaim.

I was particularly fond of the film "Minnie and Moskowitz", which is about a museum curator who falls in love with a crazy parking attendant. In this film, two average people try to find love in a world where relationships are very confusing. A great line from the film is from Moskowitz, the parking attendant: "I think about you so much, I forget to go to the bathroom!"

Of course, one cannot think of Cassavetes without appreciating his role as an actor in "Rosemary's Baby". Fabulous movie.

The review of the Cassavetes book stressed how he changed filmmaking to be more spontaneous, less planned. Here is a memorable line from the review:

"...this director's chief legacy was an astonishing set of films that invite a different relationship to being in the moment, and in which the mystery of human behavior dictates that anything can happen at any time to anyone."

I really like that last part: anything can happen at any time to anyone. If you do not live by this mantra, life will be very mundane.