Arcadia Est Imperare Orbi Universo

I've been fighting off the onset of a migraine for a couple of days now.

It feels like a tightness in the back of my head, where the skull meets the spine, and it waxes and wanes in size and strength. Usually, if I pay attention and notice these symptoms, I can fend it off with my handy green bottle of Excedrin Migraine® before it engulfs my entire head.

If I fail to do this in time, there's no turning back. At that point, I'm done.

The weird bit the past couple of days has been that, while I have not had a migraine, neither have I managed to shake the pre-migraine symptoms.

This had done some rather peculiar things to my brain chemistry, I fear. My dreams have been both vivid and macabre. I wore a bow-tie to church on Sunday (yes, because "bow-ties are cool"). Yesterday, I wrote pages and pages of very odd connections and trains of thought.

It's back today. Ho hum. Time to hit the Excedrin again.

During a full migraine, I once wrote a Shakespearean sonnet off the top of my head with no edits - it tumbled out of my head just as fast as I could write. Reading it later, I thought it one of my better poetic efforts.

While this level of ability often eludes me on a normal day, I really don't think it's worth the pain. Perhaps I'm just not committed enough to my art. Or perhaps I'm entirely too sane.

Anyway, bow-ties are cool.

Edited to add: It's screwing with my vision, too.

Feast of Saint Theresa of Avila
Seattle

Dearest reader,

During my morning commute, I usually do the crossword puzzle in the venerable Tacoma News Tribune. It's usually enough to wake my brain, though they are not so difficult that I can't use a pen to fill them in.

This morning, one of the clues was "Ragamuffin". This immediately put a silly children's counting rhyme into my head:

Ragamuffin, ragamuffin
Hovel for a nest
Tell us now
Who is the best.

It's the sort of thing children use to determine sides or captains for ad hoc ball games and the like.

Except that I don't know whether it actually exists or I made it up.

Has anyone heard of this before?

The experience was made slightly more surreal when the words "hovel" and "nest" proved to be answers in the puzzle - answers I hadn't yet filled in when the rhyme occurred to me.

In other news, today is the feast of Saint Theresa of Avila, one of the great Doctors of the Church. In college I was once called upon to write three essays about her, one from a Marxist perspective, one from a Freudian perspective, and one from a Kierkegaardian perspective.

Needless to say, the sum of the essays was no where near the total of her life and work. I think the Kierkegaard one was the most ridiculous of all. I wrote it without notes from the top of my drunken head on an electric typewriter the night before it was due.

It was my best grade in the class.

Friday the 30th
Work

Gentle Friends,

A sure sign you're not yet awake: pouring coffee in your oatmeal.

Fortunately I caught myself more or less in time.

I shudder to think of the consequences had I not.

Once again it be time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

So avast, me hearties, and keep to the Code - and be sure you don't confuse your chumbucket with your rumbucket.

Wow. LJ has gone completely mad today.

Posts are vanishing and then reappearing. Timestamps are changing to the point where posts are switching positions on my friends list.

Mad, I tell you! Mad!

(... and therefore I believe the President and Vice President of the United States must be impeached.)

...The Suspicious Cheese Lords!

And now for some eXtreme croquet and silly hats.

Snow haze gleams like sand,
And half-starved foxes shake and paw,
And beyond, the same sound of bees.
So you can watch me watch uplifted snow
Bronze the sky, with no
Perfection, only absence.

A trainer flips young alligators over on their backs,
shortcake, waffles, berries and cream
Sculpting each tree to fit your ghostly form.
Swaying in unison beneath the snow,
Bronze the sky, with no
Symmetry, only absence.

This third day of our January thaw,
And piled up at the base of the columns
A salamander scuttles across the quiet
Set on that tomb in the eternal night;
Homeward into the howling woods, although
She stretches a hand toward the toothy sleeper
With its lament, it often sounds, instead, with no
absence.

Taking a quick break for breakfast. Thought I'd better post this before I forgot again.

So last night in a bout of insomnia, my brain wandered freely and wide over the internets, and I came upon the site of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. Now why can't we have political parties like that in this country? Or are the established parties already so insane as to defy parody?

From here, I came (eventually) to the 1999 policies of the McGillicuddy Serious Party of New Zealand. Now here's a party! The core of their philiosophy is Funism - the most fun for the most people - and their governmental program is based on accomplishing this through The Great Leap Backwards™.

Again, why can't we have political parties like that in this country?

Darn it, I think it's time to resurrect the sadly defunct Whig Party and start writing a manifesto!

(Why Whigs? They were a major party, once; their name is really kind of silly; it's time to reclaim the letter W.)

While I very much admire the McGillicuddy Serious Party's basic philosophy, we will need to make some changes to account for American insensibilites and to bring it up to date for these trying times.

Frankly, that's way more work than I want to do right now. That will require, I suspect, a new barbeque, much beer, and a select group of Whigs. So I'm thinking Spring some time.

For now, I'll simply propose a plank for the platform, as it were, on a minor issue.

Proposed Plank 0001: Male Head Covering

Hats are a civilizing influence on the male of the species, therefore the Whig Party will seek to enact local and national laws strongly encouraging men to wear hats in public. This may include such enforcement provisions as tax exemption for haberdasheries and for television and film productions where all male characters wear hats in public. Men shall not be compelled to wear hats, but they'll look pretty silly if they don't. For the purposes of these laws, baseball caps are not hats. They are appropriate only when actually playing baseball or golf, or perhaps while gardening.

I can hardly wait for somebody to write the plank on the reinstitution of duelling.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This just in: The Great Pumpkin is a Cannibal!

The only reason "Business Casual" made it is because "Teenagers who leave dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them into the dishwasher RIGHT NEXT TO THE SINK" wouldn't fit on the sign.

Ciao!

Having promised to explain Pod Parishes, not to mention the whole bears and hoops of flame thing, and bearing (ha!) in mind that my office is roughly 85°F right now and my brain has decided that this means it's time for it to go on holiday to Portugal and leave me gibbering at my desk, I decided that explanations were in order, my lack of brains notwithstanding.

To begin with the questions:

Do Parish Pods involve aliens or mind control? Only in the best case scenario.

The phrase was coined to refer to what is more properly called a Parish cluster. The Parish that sponsors the school where I work has (as of July 1) been assigned to such a cluster. Previously, this particular cluster was called a "triad" by the three Parishes involved, so of course now we are a "quad". It's just one slip of the consonant to "pod".

In the interests of dispensing with the alien takeover and whaling scenarios, we've begun using the proper term now. If mind control were actually involved, my job (in the words of a noted miserable failure) would be a heck of a lot easier.

Bears: Someone asked whether it was a grizzly bear or a polar bear. The answer, of course, is both. And no, that does not make it a "pizzly bear" because that would just be silly. It's a Grolar Bear, of course. Duh.

Well look at that - I'm all out of time. Thank you, you've been a wonderful audience.

Next time we'll get to the part with the bears and the hoops of flame. Promise.

Remember, Deus Carnitas Est: God is shredded pork. Peace.

Edited to add: I note with some vague disappointment that Amazon has fixed the text on their page to the correct title. Fear not, intrepid Meatist heretics! An image of the original page may be found here.

Cheney commercial

Osama

Stategic Thinker

Cover up

Glory to God; I woke up this morning.

What with the school commission meeting and all, yesterday was a fourteen hour day of hectic madness. After five or so hours of sleep, my brain is not firing quite correctly.

On this morning's bus ride, with a Tuvan lament playing on my iPod, I found this poem in my morning crossword puzzle:

Habitat Granola

Defrost Agra's plumage:
Nefarious pedicures
Emir stewed Nehru cabaret moose.
Assay wiser ivies, retard ions and doubt
Nefarious pedicures, nefarious pedicures.

Ahead, Antarctic schisms.
Nefarious pedicures
Taint fiestas, detract irate mêlée.
Mêlée? Desks ajar, Polynesia!
Nefarious pedicures, nefarious pedicures.

Muesli kegs oasis,
Blonder cabaret
Depot elope broods omni-stump.
Mosey pleasant, using zag davits.
Nefarious pedicures. Nefarious pedicures.

Edited to add: I've gotten several e-mail messages from LJ about replies to this post that aren't actually online here. Wacky.

Celebrate your inner Cretaceous herbivore!

This morning, I found on my desk a poor quality photocopy, obviously multi-generational and enlarged at some point. This is what it said:

20B. - History of Philosophy - Mr. Matson

a. About seven short papers will be required, both in and out of quiz sections. There will be a final, but no midterm and no term paper.

b. GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND SOUVENIR PROGRAM

1. THE AMAZING MONSIEUR   D E S C A R T E S   will pull HIMSELF out of HIS OWN HAT, and then SAW HIMSELF IN TWO! The Same Performance as Presented BY ROYAL COMMAND before H. M. THE QUEEN OF SWEDEN!

2. SEE in our GIGANTIC TANK the Monstrous LEVIATHAN! Supported AT ENORMOUS EXPENSE, he is GREATER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE PUT TOGETHER! (The Audience is Kindly Requested to Maintain a Reverent Attitude.)

3. SHUDDER IN HORROR at THAT FAMOUS ATHEIST   S P I N O Z A   and his HIDEOUS HYPOTHESIS!

4. The Gorgeous Musical Extravaganza, "IN THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS!" Gottfried   L E I B N I T Z   and his Pre-established Harmoneers.

INTERMISSION. Mr. John   L O C K E   will pass among you with a Plenteous Supply of REAL OLD-FASHIONED SIMPLE SUBSTANCES. Guaranteed PRIMARY QUALITY and CHOCK FULL O' POWER. (Secondary Qualities may be obtained at reduced rates after the performance.)

5. LAUGH with those Lovable Irish Clowns, HYLAS AND PHILONOUS, as they Abolish Matter and BRING DOWN THE HOUSE!

6. THRILL to the Death-Defying INDUCTIVE LEAP! THE GREAT HUME uses ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSTRATUM!

7. GRAND FINALE. Professor IMMANUEL   K A N T,   BLINDFOLDED, will Deduce TWELVE CATEGORIES and Solve THREE TRANSCENDENTAL PROBLEMS While Simultaneously Juggling FOUR THESES AND FOUR ANTITHESES.

* * * * *

I consider this a good omen for today.

Packed. Re-packed. Took some more stuff out of my bag.

One carry-on and one laptop bag or purse. Each.

And that's it for our luggage.

I'm not checking baggage for it to be lost somewhere between Philadelphia and Rome.

Quickly the last list items are being crossed off.

Got to be up at 4AM to catch a bus to the airport.

Mi dispiace, io non capisco l'Italiano.

Whee!