Memory

The aquamarine- or turquoise-colored rock that,
as a child, you picked up and pocketed and kept
tucked away: no longer there. You can check;
your fingers will encounter nothing
except the nothing you don’t expect.

Not the nothing-special bit of brick you chipped
off the old broken-down wall back home, or
that accepted-offering shard of sea glass,
or even any of the indistinct pebbles that did
or did not sometimes wake sleeping windows.

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Order

Remember that night on that beach when you leaned closer to me and
whispered, I can draw perfect circles (but only in the sand)
and then you stood to enclose my lying body in just a one?
I was delighted. I always took you at your word, remember?

Me, I was your other shaky hand. From what remains
of my memory, I can only draw a crooked but unbroken
series of accidents: a motel-room conception, an ugly-duckling adolescence
(but at least I was smart), meeting you in university,

growing up and apart and me powerless against the drift and the pull
into an endless succession of lovers and jobs, one after the other bringing me
inevitably here. Sometimes you would send me letters, remember,
in your meticulous handwriting all about your meticulous exploits

in your rarefied, ivory-tower air, and if you didn't know I loved every bit of it,
even though I was lucky to understand every other word. Many times I tried
to write you back, but the husband or the kids or the boss or the dog, well,
I was sure you didn't want to hear about it. So you never did.

But on this bright night with its perfect-circle moon, I'm in a looking-back mood.
I remember your coffee smell, and the slight trembling of your arms when
you would tell me about the latest tiny bit of order you've found and brought
into the world.

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Testing Posterous

Hey, this post-by-email-to-everywhere thing seems pretty cool. (If a little risky.)

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This feels really weird.

Hello, social networks I used to frequent, how have you been? This is a cross-posting test.

A life regimen?

The workout regimen has been progressing nicely, and I've been getting encouraging comments from people saying that I'm losing weight pretty well.

Jumping rope is beginning to become a habit, something I look forward to and enjoy doing regularly; I've recently managed to beat the 200-consecutive-squat challenge, and am now working on getting strong enough to do one-legged squats; The situp and pushup programs are moving along slowly.

I'd have to agree that I need to develop my arms, though. Losing fat from my limbs is slowly exposing my underdeveloped muscles. For that weightlifting would have to be the next thing to incorporate into my workout regimen.

I should take heart from these developments, and realize that, hey, changing things is as simple as starting to do new things and sticking to them!

In that spirit, in the next few days, I'm going to seriously try to identify several more habits that will gradually improve myself in all the other ways that matter to me. A tentative list: critical thinking, expressing opinions articulately, writerly craftsmanship, programming/ software development, one-to-many/one-to-one social interaction, general organization, time management... Oh wow, I guess I could go on and on, I'm going to need to narrow these down into the most important ones, first.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

A modern take on the Little Mermaid tale, told through the eyes of five-year-olds.

It's a simple story (perhaps too simple for some), which nonetheless unfolds with Miyazaki's trademark charm and lovely, hand-drawn animation. The opening scene, in particular, was joyous, a celebration of the color and diversity of (marine) life.

And so the story continues, with our hero Sosuke meeting the baby-faced and wholly adorable Ponyo as a fish. Triggered by a taste of his blood from a cut on his thumb, and Sosuke's attentive care, Ponyo unwittingly unleashes powerful magics in her quest to become human like her beloved. The ocean rises, Devonian sea creatures come back to life, and ruin threatens the planet... but of course pure-hearted love overcomes all.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Manhattan (1979)

My favorite Allen film yet.

Shot in beautiful widescreen black and white, the visuals are simply excellent. I don't have the technical terms or knowhow to describe it. I'll just say that I found the cinematography consistently excellent, with some truly outstanding scenes (Isaac and Mary at the planetarium springs immediately to mind). Combined with the (to my ears) somewhat old-fashioned score, a very dreamy Manhattan is evoked as a backdrop and medium for these people struggling with their relationships.

Woody Allen plays Isaac, the nervous, vaguely immature, relentlessly articulate, twice-divorced lead, and is paired this time with stunning, 17-year-old Tracy (played by a subtle, fragile Mariel Hemingway) who is too precocious for her own good. Three more characters complete the main cast, Yale, Isaac's friend who professes to being happily married to and in love with Emily, but is having an affair with Mary, another beautiful woman too intelligent (cerebral, in fact) for her own good. Meryl Streep plays Isaac's now-homosexual ex-wife who writes a book about their separation.

Character development and interaction in this movie is wonderful and very convincing. These are flawed characters (though Tracy's only flaw might be her youth) who don't quite know how to, or don't have the emotional courage to deal with their relationships. The relationship between Tracy and Isaac, in particular, was pulled off without any big hitches, despite how awkward it might sound in concept (I mean, a 42-year-old and a 17-year-old? Come on!). It helped, of course, that the actors gave good performances.

The dialogue, of course, was pitch-perfect, as was the pacing (of the shifts between romance and comedy, for example). I feel envious and almost inadequate, seeing these bright, clever people interacting with one another! For all their intelligence, though, they still make mistakes in love, like the rest of us.