Ephemera & Tales

passover is over! which means i can have bread again. :D the holiday felt weirdly short tho, maybe because i spent four days of it in atlanta. and i have A LOT of matzo left. >.<

I’m sorry I’m taking the car to the airport that is closer to,
rather than farther away from, the oncoming hurricane.
In the parking garage of my love for you, I circle around
quietly, looking for a space to put the day’s best guesses,
one not too far from the kiosk of you, standing mute and
ready to hand me a small slip of paper that reads I’m sorry
I can’t tell you what I want. So we’re both mildly apologetic
all the time, which is a small courtesy, two pulsars fanning
light at one another in bursts detectable years later. Why
won’t you take this bundle of daffodils. Why have the
daffodils turned into dirty forks. I’m sorry about my socks.
See, there I go again. In the backyard, a vine from next
door has crawled up and over the fence and has flourished
there, a great nest of green six feet off the ground. I’d
trim it, but you’re holding the hedge clippers against your
hair. You’re saying that your hair is morning glories and
you’d like to keep the morning glories if possible. I don’t
even know what morning glories are exactly; my mother
is an excellent gardener but I have neither her memory for
color nor your cataloguing tendencies and it’s late in the day
and I’m sorry for that. It’s difficult to hold you in this
shaft of light when you keep taking three steps away and
sitting down in the nearest chair, one hand on each knee
like a monument. It’s difficult to feel your body against
my side in sleep, the desires it holds distant and tired,
like an animal that has walked too far in an inhospitable
climate. I am full of water but as thirst is a form of
suffering, I would not wish it upon you. Instead, I will
work my way through your dreaming, which I know is of
endless snow fields. I will wait in this puddle of melt.
Perhaps, one day, you will come to me with your skin
near to brittle from the cold you love so much. Perhaps on
that day we can begin to think together about the seasons,
about how spring can also arrive in precision, if you let it.

--"Poem in Which the Poet Ventriloquizes the Beloved", Kimberly Quiogue Andrews

because you all need an update from last night's post. :D

so artemis ii, huh? halfway through its turn around the moon and on the way home! the four astronauts having gone farther from earth than any humans ever! the first people to see the far side of the moon! (other moonshots having crossed the far side when it was dark on the surface, so the astronauts couldn't see anything.) we got the first woman going to the moon! the first black astronaut in deep space! and, uh, a canadian! and the mission commander asked for and received permission to name one of the craters after his late wife! (she died of cancer in 2020. is that love, or what?) they have five different hot sauces aboard (but also only five canadian products)! you can even watch live! or check out views of orion in space! and read the updates here! (that should be a guest link. we get the new york times at work.) have some photos!

*gets a grip* i just think the whole thing is extremely cool.

in less nationally important news my mom will apparently need surgery - her elbow is, and i quote, "smashed" - and work offered me a position as one of the new team leads that are replacing the admin manager and i'm going to say no. i'm just not prepared for the extra responsibility and i don't want to be put in the position of mediating between admins (i trust my ability to be fair among people i work with and like but it would be awkward and i don't want to do it) or between admins and faculty. it's a senior admin position, just with some extra responsibility tacked on, and while i do want to apply to be a senior admin eventually - it's more money for one thing - i'm not ready to do it now. tomorrow morning i get to figure out how to explain this to the executive director in a way that sounds professional and thoughtful and isn't just "i don't want to".

i finished paradise and i think i understand the ending but i'm not sure i could explain it to someone else so maybe i didn't. i really hope it gets a third season tho because i desperately want to know what happens next.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

--"High Flight", John Gillespie Magee, Jr

so it's been a while, huh. can i blame it on the fact that it might finally actually be spring out here? a week ago i woke up and there was snow on the ground and then it was cold and then it warmed up a bit and now i think it's spring for real. yay.

also i caught a cold last week but seem to be on the mend which is good because i'm going to atlanta on wednesday to spend passover with the cousins and the last thing i want to bring with me is a headcold. i mean, just having to get on a plane with all that congestion is bad enough, nevermind potentially giving it to someone. my cousin with the twins who are old enough to be adults, the boytwin is in a band - have i mentioned this? boys go to jupiter, highly recommended - they played around here on thursday and i did not go because a. i felt crappy but more importantly b. i did not want to feel crappier. it was sold out! which is very exciting but at the same time i'm bummed i couldn't go.

also also my car is still in the shop because they fixed it and then something else went wrong and they're trying to figure out what it is. sigh.

other things worth mentioning:

went to a book fair with one of the admins m and one of the admins a (plus admin a's hubs) from work and bought a couple of bookmarks and a magnet of tomatoes making faces. and a book, ok (the space between worlds, by micaiah johnson). sunny, warmish, a good day to hang with some of my fellow admins under non work circumstances.
watched the immortal man, the peaky blinders movie, which felt oddly detached from the series (altho there were a bunch of returning characters) but i think you kind of needed to have seen the show to fully understand what was going on. not sorry i saw it, also not sorry i didn't see it in a theater. ( spoiler! )
attended approximately half a million meetings with my fellow admins over what we want to happen now that the admin manager's gone even tho it's not actually our decision. we just kept chewing on the same ideas over and over until finally one of the admins n pointed out that we can talk all we want but if hq wants [whatever] then we're getting [whatever]. they're going to replace the admin manager with three "team leads" - all admins - and we've seen the job description but no one's been asked to do it yet so who knows what's going on.
saw how to make a killing with my sister and it was fine mostly because i like margaret qualley (altho she played an awful person) and some of the killings are inventive. i think glen powell is overrated tho.
watched the first couple episodes of wonder man and liked it! super curious about the super powers.
watched the entirety (minus the last episode) of paradise which i also like! altho it can be a really hard watch and i have a lot of questions about the worldbuilding.
met tamalinn for lunch and had mac&cheese which was yummy and extremely comforting but could have used more cheese. altho let's be honest - even the cheesiest mac&cheese could use more cheese.
curled a lot, made some decent shots (last week my last two shots were perfect) and more not-so-decent shots, as per usual. last night was the last game which means i need something else to do with my sundays besides talk to the family unit and go to the grocery store.

because it's almost passover i must share the story of the house of maqswel haggadah for the jewish trek fan(s) in your life. it's less a haggadah and more the klingon flavored story of one. (there's an excerpt on amazon if you're curious.)

japan has an interesting way to combat loneliness for folks who live alone - yogurt delivery women. yes, really.

there's a world championship cheese contest which honestly should not surprise anyone. this year's winner was a dutch gouda. a goud gouda. :D

400k kitkats were stolen in europe en route to poland from italy. the whole truck just... vanished. poof. someone is going to have an absolutely insane crispetty chocolatey easter.