they got some Crazy little Women there

It gives me great pleasure to report that my mother-in-law is, practically speaking, ready to arm wrestle or drink you under the table, but kindly enough in her spirits to offer you the chance to get beaten at scrabble if you prefer.

Abbie has a new haircut! Get excited:

She would probably prefer that I mention that this photo was taken directly after the fact, when her hair was still full of exotic chemistry, and that she has since soaked her head many times.

Abbie has been entertaining herself by going through her boxes of precious keepsakes. You should know that Abbie has (truly) dozens of these. Often content to be alone, today she got the urge for us to do this together. So she pulled out a box of college stuff and we got to work on the floor of her mom's room. Some of it, of course, is bizarre or embarrassing. Some of it does not ring even a faint bell for either of us. And then Abbie pulled out a manila folder... full of all of our old phone bills. All of them. If you know any mental health professionals in the Kansas City area, please leave a comment.

And the show is Friday. It promises to be the funnest experience anyone has ever had. This despite all of the death, surgery, air travel, and general upheaval of the past week. In fact, historically, there seems to be a direct correlation between those things and the quality of music. Especially if you replace "surgery" with "the drugs they give you after surgery."

If I had to pick a poem blah blah blah forever, it would be this one. I hope you also are electrified by it. Or else just that you have a good day today and get a good night's sleep.


Aubade


I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.



Philip Larkin