What Irrational Number Are You?

You are √2 You are in good company, many other square roots are also irrational numbers. Just by being a square root you have been branded a radical. You are considered very attractive, especially by Europeans (at least on paper.) You fear that a relationship with another √2 may somehow end up complex and ultimately imaginary. In reality, only another √2 will make you whole. Your lucky number is approximately 1.41421356

Shiny Lemur Straif's Blog

You taught like Burke when I first met you - you still do. We all have our good days.

Damnit! This didn't register as a post last night. Here it is, in honor of the high feast day of Pope Gregorious Constantinus LXIX - back at you, kiddo.

Are you tired of all those sissy, mushy "Friendship" words that always sound good but never actually come close to reality? Well, here is a series of promises that really speaks to true friendship!

1. When you are sad, ...I will get you drunk and will help you plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.

2. When you are blue, ...I'll try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you are scared, ...I will rag on you about it every chance I get.

4. When you are worried, ...I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be and to quit whining.

5. When you are confused, ...I will use simple little words to explain.

6. When you are sick, ...stay away from me until you're well again. I don't want whatever you have.

7. When you fall, ...I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.

Remember: A friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.

Three.

Horace, Ode 1, 5

Who's that slip of a boy, lotioned and soaped, who'll urge

Love on you in the cool grot by the rambling rose?

     Who've you tied back your golden

          Curls for, Pyrrha, in just your own



Simple elegant way? Oh what a shock in store

For him! "Count on the gods? Never again!" he'll groan,

     Dazed, ungainly, engulfed in

          Pitch-black hurricane-swirling seas.



Now he glories in you, thinking you purest gold;

Trusts you, "Always my own! Always my own true love!"

     Trusts you, never suspecting

          How torrential your summer air.



Those your glitter allures, put to no proof—beware!

I? Just made it to shore, hung up my storm-drenched clothes,

     Votive gifts for the shrine of

          Neptune, lord of the turning tide.

-- John Frederick Nims

the S-word!

...SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA 1137 AM EDT WED OCT 22 2003
... FIRST ACCUMULATING SNOW OF THE SEASON IS EXPECTED FOR SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE AND THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF INTERIOR MASSACHUSETTS TONIGHT AND THURSDAY MORNING...

RAIN OR MIXED RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS ACROSS SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE AND THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF INTERIOR MASSACHUSETTS WILL CHANGE TO SNOW LATE THIS AFTERNOON OR EARLY THIS EVENING. THE SNOW WILL LIKELY INCREASE IN INTENSITY FOR A TIME AROUND AND AFTER MIDNIGHT. ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 2 INCHES ARE LIKELY OVER MUCH OF SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE... AND THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF WESTERN AND CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS. A COATING TO POSSIBLY AN INCH IS LIKELY ACROSS THE REST OF INTERIOR MASSACHUSETTS... NORTH AND WEST OF INTERSTATE 495... AS WELL AS ACROSS THE HIGHER TERRAIN OF NORTHEAST CONNECTICUT. LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS OF 2 TO 4 INCHES WILL BE POSSIBLE TONIGHT AT ELEVATIONS ABOVE 1000 FEET IN SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE. SINCE THE ACCUMULATING SNOW WILL MAINLY OCCUR DURING THE OVERNIGHT HOURS... UNTREATED ROADWAYS AT THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS SHOULD BECOME SNOW COVERED AND TREACHEROUS.

THE COMBINATION OF AN INTENSIFYING LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OFFSHORE AND AN UPPER LEVEL DISTURBANCE WILL SET THE STAGE FOR THIS EARLY SEASON SNOWFALL. COLDER AIR WILL BE FILTERING INTO SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND LATER THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT TO ALLOW FOR THE CHANGEOVER.

RAIN SHOWERS MAY EVEN MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO WET SNOW IN BOSTON AND PROVIDENCE TOWARD DAYBREAK. HOWEVER... TEMPERATURES WILL REMAIN ABOVE FREEZING IN THE CITIES... SO LITTLE IF ANY ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED. THE SNOW SHOULD TAPER TO FLURRIES AND SPRINKLES ACROSS THE ENTIRE REGION DURING MIDDAY THURSDAY.

Two.

Rememberance

Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
slope of my cheek. On the
occasion, you press
above me, glowing, spouting
readiness, mystery rapes
my reason

When you have withdrawn
your self and the magic, when
only the smell of your
love lingers between
my breasts, then, only
then, can I greedily consume
your presence.

-- Maya Angelou

One.

Marcel at the Station House

     If you find yourself being questioned about a crime you
did not commit, resist at all costs the impulse to be helpful.

         -- social psychologist Richard Ofshe


   Where were you the night of July 10?

I am unable to say from what place, from which dream, anything comes.

   If you were to commit a crime . . .

I would prepare the hundred masks that must fit a single face.

   You would plan it?

How many persons, cities, or roads does jealousy make us eager to know? I'd think about details.

   Like hair and fibers?

Like boeuf à la mode, like water lilies, like Vermeer's View of Delft.

   You went out to dinner that night?

I observe, I speak with servants, I remember.

   But sometimes you do the things you think about?

Nothing is so satisfying as the imagination's rendering of it.

   Because you have a bad memory?

Hours go by and I remember the tremors in my thighs.

   So how do you . . .

I like to watch famished rats clawing and biting each other.

   Are you kidding?

The day my mother died she took her little Marcel with her.

   And how did it feel when you first put your hands around her neck?

A slight ripple, like sipping linden tea or feeling a fingernail trail against a taut stomach.

   What was she wearing?

A Fortuny gown, pleated red silk, and diamonds. Red shoes, of course. Everything of those days has perished, but everything was born again.

   Did you love her?

I prefer to remain closeted with the little person inside me, hymning the rising sun. He would make me happier than she.

   There's a lot of evidence. We have a lot of evidence. We have your hair.

I'd curl it to face the photographer. I'd wear my velvet jacket, and the apple trees would expose their broad petals of white.

   You were nervous? You stuffed the body in the trunk?

No, I would have laid it on an old satin coverlet, after which I would have consoled myself, if I felt well enough, by walking along the avenues. I would have taken my walking stick, I would have sung at the top of my voice. I would have taken a few grams of Veronal.

   Are you sorry?

Ars longa, vita brevis.

   Which means?

I am acquainted with sin, in one form or another. Dostoyevsky writes about murder, but did he commit it? Laclos was the best of husbands.

   But you?

I don't invent things. I've become braver, thinking of my journey into the self like climbing down a well without a rope.

   You used a rope?

O! The trinity of braided strands, the coarse erotic fibers.

   I'd like to try a polygraph, If that's all right with you.


--Natasha Sajé
The Paris Review
Number 166, Summer 2003

100 days.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

-- W.S.

the angles and the corners

Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.

-- F.N.

Sleep is still most perfect, in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in its healing.

-- D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

"Write to save yourself," said Athos, "and someday you will write because you have been saved."

-- Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

*

Rock Bottom

So this is what it comes down to in the end: earth and sand skimmed, trimmed, filleted from rocky bone, leaving only solid unshakeable bottom, what doesn't in the end give in to the relentless hammer, whoosh, and haul-away of tides but stands there saying "Here I am here I stay," protestant to the pin of its absolute collar, refusing to put off the sheen on its clean-scoured surface, no mourning weeds in spite of loss after loss – whole wedges of the continent, particles of the main plummeting from one element to the other and no going back to how things were once, but to go on ending and ending here.

-- Eamon Grennan

*

The Grand Hotel in Cape May

When news comes on the radio
you wake up, think of eggs and almost
love your country. Maybe the road back
to yourself begins with common courtesy,
the Please on the sign advising where
to throw sanitary napkins, the neutral tone
of the newsman designed to offend no one—
you used to mind this, but now you see
there are people in hotels everywhere
and what they need is clean sheets,
heat in the winter, coffee in the morning,
so wipe away the fog, shave your face
and become human again. They don't
know you here, and they forgive you.

-- Douglas Goetsch