To Parking Lot

    After luncheon with the awesome Ms. Amy Holleman yesterday, I ran many errands, then decided to take advantage of the weather to go hiking. It wasn't the kind of weather one would normally take advantage of, as it was highly overcast and not really a beautiful day unless you like pewter. But it was cool and comfortable, rare in these parts this late in the year. So I went to Peachtree Rock.
    Peachtree Rock is about all we have in the way of scenic wonders in these parts. If you could see it, you would laugh to hear it described as such. It's a big rock, shaped vaguely like a peach tree (surprise!) or possibly an inverted pyramid. It's maybe 15 or 20 feet high, capped with granite probably and tapering to the base. In the same heritage preserve, there is also the only natural waterfall of any height in the Midlands. As that height is also 15 or 20 feet, it isn't a particularly electrifying sight either, but we take what we can get.
    The last several times I visited Peachtree Rock, six months or more ago, there was one little problem. You hike down from the highway on a link trail, then the rest of the trails in the preserve make a number of loops. The little problem was that the link trail wasn't marked, so finding it in order to leave was a bit of problem. Yesterday, however, it was marked, and clearly so, and throughout the preserve there were "To Parking Lot" signs with an arrow pointing back. I wondered if anybody had gotten badly lost during the unmarked period. Regardless, things are certainly better now.
    Peachtree Rock is one of the more dangerous easy trails you could ever visit, because it gets so damn hot back on the sandhills. That is also why it was a good idea to go yesterday; I never felt the least discomfort. I visited Peachtree Rock, the waterfall and then looped around to Little Peachtree Rock, another rock formation, this one looking more like a battleship on a pedestal than any manner of tree. But I still think it's neat.
    And I tell you all this because... well, if anyone in the Columbia area is reading this (which I doubt), know that Peachtree Rock is a lot safer to visit. (Also the little yellow-jacket-looking zeebs are no longer patrolling the trail, which is a plus.) And if you're somewhere else, always remember when hitting the trail that you should always know the way back out before you go particularly far in.

The Boys of Sumer

with apologies to Don Henley, the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia and the entire human race, really. Most of the words are still Henley's and thus the rights to those stay with him.

Nobody down in Ur,
nobody up in Kish.
I feel it in the air,
that Sumer's out of reach

Empty lake, empty streets,
the sun goes down alone.
Took my auroch by your house
though i know that you're not home

And I can see you
your brown skin shining in the sun
you got your hair combed back
lapis lazuli on baby

and I can tell you
my love for you will still be strong
after the boys of Sumer have gone.

Up on the ziggurat
I heard a priestess singin' 'bout Gilgamesh
a voice inside my head said don't look back
at the bronze-toned flesh

I thought I knew what love was
What did I know?
Those days are gone for ever
I should just let them go and...

I can see you
your brown skin shining in the sun
you know you're walking real slow
cuneiform for everyone
I can tell you
my love for you will still be strong
after the boys of Sumer have gone.

I never will forget those nights
I wonder what was the deal
remember how you drove me crazy?
I still have the cylinder seal

now i don't understand what happened to our ox
now baby gotta get you back
like the Tigris needs the Euphrates

I can see you
your brown skin shining in the sun
you got your potter's wheel
put glazes on baby
and I can tell you
my love for you will still be strong
after the boys of Sumer have gone

So hungry for good news I figured I'd make up my own

    ...and in other news, seven billion people didn't die today. Most of them seem to be getting along all right, though unsurprisingly all of them feel like they could be doing a little better.
    Many, many babies, as well as puppies and kittens were born today. Whole lotta cute going on out there. Granted, the vast majority of the babies are crying, but we like to think that that's just because they can't talk yet.
    Uhhhh if things keep going the way they're going, and if the Rapture in fact happens on May 21st, at least it'll be a relief. (Also, I never have to worry about turning 49.)
    The kitty loves me. A lot. This is a fair consolation prize.
    Egypt at least demonstrates that not everyone on Earth has lost their minds. I hope.
    Either Butler or VCU will be in the NCAA final. In only one of these cases will headline writers universally run with "The Butler Did It Again."
    Silver linings department: if gas prices go high enough, we might eventually start focusing on conservation and on developing different approaches to energy. Ideally, safe ones. Similarly, if the economy doesn't recover its strength, maybe we'll start to appreciate the simple life. Or a simpler one. Which isn't funny, but it's still true.
    It finally stopped raining.
    And on a more personal level, I no longer have the problem with... well, that would be TMI, wouldn't it?

Gluten nightmares

    "Nightmares" is putting it strongly, but "Weird gluten dreams" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Last night, I just fainted fully dressed, complete with sweater. I have no idea where all this exhaustion is coming from unless it's the pollen. They do call it good sleeping weather when it's cool and wet, so maybe that's it. Regardless, when I woke up in the night I had a kitty on my legs and decided to stay there.
    Eventually, around 4 I had a very queer dream with the usual temporal anomalies. In this one, I returned to my parents' house from a long time away. In the dream, my mom was still alive, but my parents were still out even though it was very late at night. (This never happened in real life.) I was worried because I couldn't get the lights on in the back yard so they could see their way in. And I was even more worried that I wouldn't be able to find gluten-free food in their house. (In real life, I didn't find out I was celiac until 5 years after my mom died.) Then I realized that I have my own apartment and didn't have to stay there, and was boundlessly relieved. (Only in the "safe from gluten" sense, I might add.)
    After I got up, shed some clothes, turned out the lights and went back to bed, I had another gluten dream. This time, I was at KFC and got a big plate of breaded chicken strips and was all set to eat them, then went uh-oh. I think that dreams about food that you can't eat are supposed to indicate frustration in your life. I wonder what that's all about?

Nice, actually

(Too tired to bother with third person conversion.)
    Long ago, as I probably have mentioned, I did a Junior Year Abroad at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. Owing to culture shock or to my inability to speak actual English, I didn't actually make friends with too many British people during the year. One fellow whom I got to know pretty well was called Tony. He was from Hounslow in suburban London, which he said was best known for being on the flight path of the Concorde from Heathrow. Tony was a blond, friendly fellow with a lot of useful touristic suggestions.
    Tony told me that the place all the English people visit is Pembrokeshire in South Wales. Most exciting and beautiful is the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Now I had already learned what "nice, actually" means in Britain. (It means, for instance when applied to food, "disgusting.") He didn't say "nice, actually" a single bit. If he was winding me up, he wasn't doing it halfway; he was flat lying. Or maybe I just had an unlucky visit.
    In Pembrokeshire, I stayed at the youth hostel in St. David's, the smallest city in Britain. It's a city because it has a cathedral (bet you can't guess to which saint it's dedicated!) though it only has about 1,000 people. Pretty cool... city. Unfortunately, shortly after I got on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, it started raining. Out of some kind of foolish doggedness, I stuck it out. Out of some other kind of foolishness, I wasn't well equipped for bad weather. (Though as I recall, it was wild and windy, so an umbrella wouldn't have lasted long, and wind would have whipped the rain under any hood or hat anyway.) I no longer remember with any confidence how far I walked or for how long; it seemed like years. And for years, in my head, anything awful had to compete with the rains of Pembrokeshire, especially anything meteorological: "This may be bad, but at least it isn't Pembrokeshire."
    I also don't remember for sure if I ever asked Tony if he had been winding me up, or even if I ever told him that I had less than a superlative time. I suspect that I at least did the latter. Anyway, I'll always have St. David's.

21st century comedy

    A couple of years ago I was on Netflix and I asked my friends on Democratic Underground to recommend some comedies. They did and I put them in my queue. Then I became fed up with Netflix and suspended my account. Fast forward to the present, or nearly. A few weeks ago, I got an offer from Netflix of a free month, presumably for having been POed enough to keep my account suspended for two years. So I took them up on it, and my long-ago recommended comedies started coming in the mail. Boy!
    "Little Miss Sunshine" is a little bundle of joy. About loneliness, desperation, suicidal depression, heroin, the pointlessness of all hope and aspiration and the uselessness of being America's leading Proust scholar, it is indeed a ray of sunshine only equal to that shed by Miss Anita Bryant all those years ago. At least it ends cheerfully, so there's that.
    "Happiness" is probably in fact a late 20th century movie, but I don't feel like looking it up. It's about all the same things except for heroin and Proust, but with child rape added. It is actually marketed as a comedy-drama. I'm not sure that "funny-peculiar" really qualifies something as comedy, but there you are. The best I can say about it is that I keep thinking of Ms. Jane Adams as Joy, so I guess that means that her performance conveyed something. Mainly I'm just glad there isn't a shotgun in this house, or I might not be here to be typing this.
    The "Badder Santa" edition of "Bad Santa" didn't exactly inspire me to want to watch the less bad edition, so I can't say what the difference is. I'm wild-guessing that the original may have slightly less potty-mouthed. This was just a tiresome example of stringing together a lot of cusswords in place of, I don't know, jokes. Ms. Lauren Graham was largely wasted in a cartoonish part, while Mr. Billy Bob Thornton used his considerable charm to turn a total wart into-- almost a total wart.
    What do we conclude? Asking the lovely people of the Lounge at Democratic Underground for comedy recommendations might not be the best idea. Or we might conclude that I am still powered by bitterness and envy. After all, I should be writing screenplays in Hollywood! Or we might conclude that I like pretty women with dark hair. But I think we knew that already. Tonight: Bowfinger. If Eddie Murphy is a Proust scholar, I'm sending the damned thing right back.:)

And what the hell was THAT all about?

    Generally, I don't much worry about insane dreams. Most times I regard them as a signal to wake up (i.e., "you need to go to the bathroom, stupid"). But this one was fairly baroque.
    Since the advent of the all-night mockingbird in my yard (which I guess makes him a nightinggale), I have to listen to sports-talk radio all night to be able to sleep. So the first odd thing about the dream is that it had nothing to do with sports. I'd expect to dream about March Madness or the NFL lockout or something like that. Instead it was a different kind of March Madness.
    Paul and I were in a Viennese-themed restaurant somewhere else in Europe, or anyway somewhere where English wasn't necessarily spoken. And Paul didn't get something he ordered, or was bitterly disappointed by something he ordered, and wanted it taken it off the bill. And somehow it fell to me to try to convey this to the not-necessarily-English-speaking waitress, as he had gone catatonic for some reason. And what was funny about it was that when I woke up I was actually mad at Paul! Had it not been 3:30 in the morning I probably would have phoned and blessed him out. So I asked the mockingbird to go do it instead.