Spring Break

One of my favorites.

Which leads me to reflect upon the fact that I have, in the past, had rather lengthy internal debates, in excess of 8 hours if I may ashamedly confess, about whether I would prefer to have Tom Paine or Thom Yorke over for dinner.  For the record Tom Waits was never in consideration.  I suppose it doesn't really matter though...

I mean, they don't even spell their names the same way.

It's been a great week.  Tomorrow I will return to an academic establishment for some more education.  C'mon, edumucate me.

Which makes me think of this great thing about my elementary school librarian.  But first there's this other thing.

When I was young, I had this super sweet Sesame Street bubble bath.  Hoping to decipher any secret wisdom it's label might have had to bestow upon me, I asked my mom to read it to me.  She did, and I promptly made up a song, the majority of which I have long since forgotten, save for the refrain, which went something like, "Clinically tested, milllllllllld.  H-Y-D-R-O-X-Y-E-T-H-Y-L-C-E-L-L-U-L-O-S-E."  Actually, that part of the song is still stuck in my head.  I thought 'hydroxyethylcelluose' was kind of a neat word, so, naturally, I went to school and asked the librarian about it.  She, in turn, was happy to discuss big words with me.  We started on a mission to discover the longest word we could that was not a chemical or medical term.  We came up with 'antidisestablishmentarianism.'  Kind of neat anyway. Thanks, Mrs. Thompson!

The anachronisms, among other things, of this weird and tangled web between my ears make it a beautiful place to explore.  I hesitate to say it, but maybe Goldfrapp puts it best:  I'm wired to the world.  I will not post a link to the song, because although the thought interests me, I do not actually enjoy the music that illustrates it.  Of course, we're all enmeshed in wireless technology now too...but that's getting away from what I'm trying to say.   If the right person wanders into that magic and gnarly little forest at just the right time, they're likely to catch a weird trace of bioluminescence.  Really, there's probably a place like that within everything that's alive.   But, as is usually true of these kinds of places, I must advise against going in without an excellent map, or at least a cord of some kind with which to find your way back out.  It's always worth the risk.  But a risk nonetheless.  Is that possible?

Anyway.  I am very, very happy.  Even ready to return to a neat and angular little desk tomorrow and take some notes, for a few more weeks, until the next break.

...when I hope to have a Salvador Dal(a)i Lama party!  Wherein I will feature the wisdom of the two, artfully intertwined.  We will spend an evening on the deck among the garden gnomes and deer, under prayer flags and lights, sipping cocktails and tea, listening to Mazzy Star, who is endlessly and hopelessly confused with Gala in my head, juxtaposed with Tibetan chants, and trying to tease apart the wisdom in each of these strands, which, although I hope it is not sacreligious to say, I suspect we will discover to have a great deal in common.

But first I'm going outside for a hike, where I will attempt to air out that musty web a little.  Alongside, of course, my favorite company.  It feels a little like this to me: