the ten thousand things
Thursday 14 December 2006 | I like a cookie
Exhibit A: The List, Redux.
email big-deal poet referrer #1
email big-deal poet referrer #2
email big-deal poet referrer #3
come up with new referrers (Friday)
mail forms to referrers in event they agree (Friday)
finish sample, stmt, supplemental info (tonight)
mail everything to Hawaii (Friday)
request transcripts (MHC, Cambs, BU)
pay bills (phone, water, gas/elec)
make cherry pie for landlords
sell wedding rings (Friday w/Brujo)
call Cool Psychiatrist for more samplesfill out NEW assistance forms (tonight)
drop off new forms at SSDI, HHS (Friday)
fax Bristol Myers Squibb 2005 tax return
call SFEP to make sure all info received
email glossy SF magazine for comps/clips
call Dad (Mom away for business) (tonight)
email Zen Priestess, Ex-Sikh Wife (tonight)
write book on care of the dying
EMAIL MANDARIN (tonight)
packing, grocery shopping (Friday)
ask neighbors to water plants (today)
ask other neighbors to collect mail (today)
[Key: bold = must do before leaving, italics = will do after return.]
Exhibit B, from the Tao Te Ching:
Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.
In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace,
But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.
Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Others are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Others are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.
Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.
•
Now admittedly, I’ve misused this bit of dear old Lao-Tzu (from §20) many times over the years (I specifically remember copying it out and putting it on my dorm room door just before dropping out of college in 1989) the same way I’ve used Eliot’s justifying the poet’s “necessary laziness”—to get away with academic murder. And now here I am, two days away from leaving the country, just now requesting references when I won’t even be able to contact anyone—! It’s madness! And still I seem to be packing to go to Mexico, so I guess that’s what’s happening, as Mandarin would say. And I seem to be applying to only one school, which is…”dim and weak,” did someone cough? Of course, to be fair, I only applied to Mt. Holyoke; I only applied to Oxford and Cambridge; and I only applied to Boston. So far it’s worked out, rather. Ulp.
Speaking of our beloved Mad Traveller, she has sent us the cutest pictures in existence of straw-colored fruitbats, and we’ve reproduced them so you too can tilt your head to one side and go awww….we love the darling dangling fruitbat with his tongue sticking out, as cats sometimes forget and leave theirs poking out after a wash. (Pyewacket in particular often leaves hers protruding just a tiny bit.) She’s also been writing some kickass posts lately, magazine-caliber and illustrated with brilliant photographs; don’t miss her heart-opening description of being toured round a cathedral by the duende one evening, the hilarious admission of what can happen in your brain when you don’t read thesis comments carefully, or her attentive observings of Salamanca graffiti, like these cheerfully political carrots.
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