A very happy birthday to two of my favorite people, moonwolf and circuit_four. Enjoy your day! :-)

Stars fall every time a lover has to face the truth
and far too many stars have fell on me
and as they trail the skies
and burn their paths upon my eyes
I cry...

These are the haiku texted on my phone while waiting in line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (a small roller coaster at the Magic Kingdom), now preserved for posterity. ;-)

So many people.
Maybe Tokyo feels like this
with island breezes.

Yes, I will likely
write many haiku for you.
In line, boredom reigns.

Torrential angst pours
with sweat drips into this phone
...still your silence grows.

I will die here with
visions of small choo choo trains
burned into my eyes.

Bury me under
that red rock around the track.
Let my son go twice.

I lost my phone. I'm bummed out about it. It has so much contact info in it that I haven't bothered to duplicate anywhere else. And some haiku I wrote while in line at Disney. (Don't ask. :-) ) And pictures.

I know I had it at swim lessons this morning; I think it might have fallen out of my bag (which does have a hole in it--d'oh!)

We do have insurance, so we're only out $50 and we can get a replacement, according to Dave.

I've been working really hard to be more organized lately and it doesn't seem to be working.

I'm a lot more down about this than I arguably objectively should be.

Anyway, I likely don't have your contact info, if I ever did. If you want me to have it, feel free to leave it on this post. Comments screened for privacy's sake.

eta: I called the swimming pool place, the last place I'd had it, and someone did find it and turn it in. I'm very relieved. Thanks to everyone who gave me your info - I actually think I came out ahead in that regard. ♥

My mom works for a state academic tournament as judge, reader, and question writer...and Disney is one of their sponsors. She gets free tickets and often doesn't use them. She had one ticket with two days left on it and one from a friend (also with two days left). Both tickets were Park Hoppers. They expired on June 18th. I received them in the mail on June 13th.

There was an interesting little logic problem there: if you have two tickets expiring within a week and two adults and two kids and two days to be used on each ticket, who goes to Disney with whom, when, and how?

We decided to buy one more ticket - a three-day Park Hopper.

( how we solved the puzzle )

Me: You know, usually kids wait to do the "Geez, Mom, you're so lame," thing until they're fifteen or so. You're eight. What are you going to do when you're fifteen?

Daniel, giggling: Well, maybe you should be cooler.

Me: I've had thirty-six years to develop this particular brand of geeky non-coolness, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.




Score one for me. :-) Bonus: I like being anti-cool.

Droplets on thick leaves
shine holy in sunlight's kiss,
quenching insect thirst.


My dream ship sinks but
everyone reaches safety.
Metaphor for what?

ganked from madcaptenor, with apologies to any Republican supporters on my f-list. I enjoyed the deadpan sarcasm far too much. :-D

I think there are some typography fans on my flist...this could be fun or maddening, I'm not sure which: http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/

Daniel's created his own RPG (mechanics are basically 'roll d20) that he GMs, using Imaginext figures for the PCs and NPCs. I think it's taking place on both the pirate ship and the castle.

(No, I don't work for Fisher Price. I just think it's cool. :-) )

eta: Back in the day, when we got these (maybe five or six years ago?) they came with a bunch of figures and were sets you can actually build with. The parts are interchangeable, so sometimes pirate ship parts make it into the castle or vice versa. We have a caveman set (that apparently is no longer made by Fisher Price) too - the cavemen, knights, and pirates are all used as PCs/NPCs).

So...I was decluttering today and I found some old notebooks, and I was looking through one (to determine if it was empty or full) and I found notes toward a poem.

I'm pretty sure it's recent, like within the last couple of months...and I vaguely remember writing this, trying to get the poem to come...but I have no idea of the context and, thus, what I was actually trying to express.

( warning - this is not even bad poetry; it's notes toward bad poetry )

This both resonates strongly with me and helps me to feel better about myself. Quoted with permission from porcelain72's entry here.*

I am not interested in perfect, unmarked people, inside or out. Our bodies tell our stories; the scars and the flaws we bear are their chapters and sentences.




*She's also in the top four of LJ Idol, so if you read and like the entire post, consider voting for her, if you're so inclined.

Babysitting this afternoon (so we were childfree) and a leisurely lunch with Dave, a nap, and time reading while Dave worked on a painting was just what I needed. I feel much better now.

Happy birthday to birdbard today! I doubt he's reading LJ over the weekend, but if you know him, leave some celebratory messages on his LJ for him to come back to tomorrow. :-) Or feel free to do so even if you don't.

Go here and read until you find five quotations that speak your truth. Post them.


The older I get, the more I feel
almost beautiful...
Sharon Olds


To find fulfillment...don't exist with life - embrace it.
Jim Beggs


Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD)


Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
Cecil B. DeMille (1881 - 1959)


As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)


(This is reminding me that my word for the year is gentleness. I think that some of these quotes reflect it.)

geeky romantic comment of the day:

"You make me want to learn binary."

To me, you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny...
Won't you tell me, is it healthy, baby?

I think this one should definitely be filed under, "If you have to ask..."

Fortunately, I like SEAL's voice quite a bit more than his lyrics.

I need things in my life that lift my soul.

(It's just an observation so far - I haven't yet fleshed out exactly what I mean by that. But feel free to point me in interesting directions. :-D )

quotes from Honey from the Rock by Lawrence Kushner

***

The path I take to the synagogue winds through a small park in the center of town. And in the middle of the park is a tree that blooms with thousands of white clustered blossoms. The branches droop with the weight of their flowers. And if you walk under the tree, you must bend down and wend this way and that to avoid the foliage. The tree and the blossoms are everywhere. You only see a few inches ahead of you. As if on wheels you glide through the lush spring. And then you are out of it and it is gone.

But more than anything it is the fragrance that envelops you. For maybe a minute or so there is only the sensation of smell. You cannot see or feel or taste or touch. If only you could bask in this air forever. Join the tree in her seductive perfumed holiness. But you cannot. You are only a traveler. And then you are out of it and it is gone.

But you cherish the affair and yearn to walk that way again. What began with the mystery of fragrance has become a gateway.

***

The memories of a place become a part of it. Places and things never forget what they have been witnesses to and vehicles of and entrances for. What has happened there happened nowhere else. Like ghosts who can neither forget what they have seen nor leave the place where they saw it, such are the memories tied to places of ascent. Temples. Trees. Melodies. Objects. Words. Whatever they have witnessed is chiseled into their substance.