What kind of place is this, anyway, to let such things occur in silence?
Surely there must come a time toward the end when an old man gets up
and says what needs to be said?

what surprises me is not the sudden october cold. i mean, we're in rhode island for cripes sake. that it is 40 degrees today (although topping out at fifty) doesn't blow my socks off. it might chill them a bit, that's all.

what surprises me is watching the young people walk around with coats and scarves and hats, arms crossed tightly across their chest to preserve heat. like it's winter.

which i guess is no big surprise at all, really. really it's only a surprise in the context of the next big surprise -- that i'm not one of them. that i'm walking around, sleeveless dress and sweater, thinking, how lovely and crisp, today.

i'm not saying it's a completely successful migration -- i still flinch in the freaking cold -- but i am just a little impressed with my adaptive powers.

siberia, here i come.

science news, 9/31/03

elephants in Borneo inbreed and dying out, neanderthals and modern humans make love and big teeth, search for the fifth dimension by a girl who built wings and timed her descent, the ocean like climate but waterier, two boys with two heads and one big vein ("one goal: two lives"), ladies die from heart disease too, the world gets hotter, try not to faint, we're still trucking.

The mind is a shameless thing.

~

not only are the squirrels gaining mass and multiplying, they now have violence. 1 a.m. a great noise of animal suffering brought me to my window where I bore witness to a brutal murder in the branches of a large tree. many squirrels against one squirrel. they bit into his live wriggling body. they did things i never thought squirrels could do. in the end, the largest squirrel picked up the dead squirrel in his mouth and ran down the tree. do squirrels scavenge? do they have deals with crows and cats?

why are acorns no longer good enough?


Half man, half fish, half bird, half ghost: there is always one half of him which ecapes the hangman.

last night, a bath. a bath bomb. i put it in the water, knowing the fizzy thing that would come about and fill my tub with scent but this bomb had surprise. this bomb fizzed and turned my bathwater a perfect pink color (not baby, not hot, just pink) and as it disintegrated, a small pink rose emerged. not a real flower, mind you. a soft spongy non-scented bath rose that, oddly enough, fell into petals with saturation. i picked up a petal and tried to rub it into my skin, but it just crumbled up and so clearly it was not a soap substance. then i place two petals on my out-of-water nipples (i always thought nipples looked a bit like upside-down flowers) and i loved them there and they stayed there for the rest of my bath -- through two poems and an article about turkish pistacios.

today i walked to school. crushed acorns and touched the leaves (as i always do when i walk alone), and sang fairy tale songs. rounding my last pre-campus corner i reached up to scratch my head, and became overjoyed. my arm smelled like roses. perfectly rose, my skin.

i can only hope this lasts the day. i feel that no one can help but love a rose-scented girl.