Another Quick Post
Okay, so I said I was back, then disappeared. I think you (the Royal You), may expect to see me here from time to time, but only as time and life allows, which may be few and far between, or obnoxiously often. Time will tell.
Went to NYC this past weekend, had to use up a plane ticket credit before it expired in April. May I just advise you, reader, wherever you are: DO NOT FLY INTO OR OUT OF LA GUARDIA AIRPORT!!! It is the most run-down, dilapidated, dirty, disgusting, poorly-located airport I have ever seen or can imagine.
In looking at the Cold War-era architecture, with ancient rusty hangars with broken windows sprawling across a huge area, I was reminded of Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome (the silly one with Tina Turner). Everything remains in disrepair. To understand what it looks like today, imagine the skeletal insides of the Air Traffic Control Tower below being exposed, with nearly every hanger and terminal looking like their about to fall down:
That shiny white tower is nearly gone, left with merely iron bones which will soon be sent to China to be melted down and re-s0ld to America as Steel. Such is the way of the world, I suppose.
Ah Hell
Things are not as I remembered. Perhaps some things are better left in the past to rot.
But then, as I've learned with my newfound passion--homebrewing--patience is the key. Sometimes things need to ferment, and then be conditioned over time to perform at their best.
I have a green barleywine, just bottled, which is now flat and boring, but will knock my socks off in several weeks (or months). All good things in all good time...
Labels: T
The Photogenic Kitty
Child #3: The Ever-Alluring Smokey Bear
Child #2, Sweet Little Zooey
My angel...
Child #1, The Short Man
I Am, Again...
Oh how long it has been. Do I dare to start this once again? I feel I must, to see things in a new light, to visit long-lost friends not forgotten, to reflect upon the good old days, and to move forward despite all that's changed. Many edits need to be made, but all good things in all good time. Old links to forgotten blogs still mean something to me, if no one else.
I had intended to keep Re-Inventing The Wheel on life support, but that didn't work out. I left the blogosphere to recreate myself, and that is exactly what I did. For my friends of old, know now that since I last posted I fell in love, got married, got a good job, and recently was promoted (though the pay could certainly be better, I'm happy to have a job in this economy). Life is good. I have a dog and two cats, a loving wife, and perhaps a child on the way someday soon...
Oh so much to talk about, but that will come later. I just found out that an old friend is gone--for damn near three years now--sweet Jenn See--and that she has been gone since shortly after I left this place. I'm sorry I wasn't there for my friends during that time of loss. Loss is something I understand, and I wish I were there to offer some words of comfort, whatever the value, to Mysfit, Old Ben, and Jenn's family. I'm still agnostic, but somehow, I feel her presence here as I think upon her. May her soul rest in peace, and may her friends know that she made a difference in this world.
I shall return, but for old times sake I thought I'd post a poem to enjoy (not one of my own, of course, but one for the ages). The Hollow Men, by TS Eliot
MISTAH KURTZ -- HE DEAD.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us--if at all--not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer--
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
and avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
