Sorry folks, I had to write a small addendum to today's rant - not related to the previous post, but in answer to a message left in my guestbook.
'Yes, Andi - and all the other moms (and dads) of all our little girls (and boys, if need be) - Sam WILL kill him if he tries anything.' *
Guaranteed.
I just - not ten minutes ago - had to have a little 'word of prayer' with a local creep who will not quit macking on one of my little Saluda girls. I was immeasurably proud and pleased that she came to me to ask for help, and I managed to make the situation clear to him without crossing any lines or doing anything to risk my professionalism. This time.
(NEXT time, I'll call in Bri-Bro, and we'll hit 'em Boondock Saints stylie! hee! ;)

And I'm glad I made you laugh, too, Andi-mom!
xoxox
-s

*this is one of the very funny threads that runs through 'The Very Secret Diaries' and
'The Very Secret Journals'. see 01/03's Tolkien Rant.

with winter settling back into the world - and my own heart, head and body* - after a few blissful, t-shirt/open-window warm days, today's Writer's Almanac poem seemed almost ironic. it is also my very favorite robert frost poem. i hope i never forget it, because it reminds me of something very important. something dangerous to forget.
another important thing to remember:
the alamo. no, really. a week and a day from today, i will be with my siblings in san antonio.
*******************************************************************

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no _expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.


******************************
much love and hopefully patience, too.
-s

*my pain has been badbadbad for the last couple of days - since it started getting cold again...

hello, schweet schmookies. I wrote a bigfat rant full of links celebrating Tolkien's b'day (and happy birthday to Linda, too! woo!) but for some !@#$ reason, it is taking its !@#$ sweet time publishing, so... sorry. it will be there eventually - and for some reason, it is already showing up in the archives. if you want to go ahead and read it (kaysha, there's a spaschul message for you there...) please do. otherwise, sorry for the delay!
xoxox
-s

Kaysha, this one's especially for you, Love.

The Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter IV:
"And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness."

Greetings, Denizens of Middle Earth! Today’s rant has Tolkien- AND “yellow-” fever (LOTS o’ links!)
For those of you that didn’t get my e-unbirthday card this morning, today is the one-hundred and twelfth birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien!
So, to celebrate, today’s rant is full of links and pics and quotes to delight the most hardcore (URUK-HAI, URUK HAI!) Tolkien fans.
The Tolkien Society has a great webpage, and tonight everyone is asked to toast the same thing at the same time…
So at 9pm (local) join me in raising a glass to “The Professor”!
There are LOTS of happy sites that celebrate the Professor’s great works.
This one is fatly rich with art, mmmm! (and do NOT miss the excellent flash MAPS under the ‘Artwork’ dropdown, Wetrats! Oh, and there’s a great “Beat Gollum” Riddles in the Dark quiz, too! Whee!)
There’s all sorts of fun stuff here…
and this one has a nice “Tolkien Timeline”.
Here’s a very SERIOUS (and nice) fan site, and Hamilton, you’ll love this one – songs and poems! And lots of good links, too!
On this one, I can’t read the text, but MAN, is this some lovely art!
This GREAT “Gandalf” pic is from Ian Mckellan’s own site, where he posts photos from all his sets…

Here are a couple of typical Geek-Queen miscellaneous tidbits…
Why does this pic make me think of Very Secret Diaries and Very Secret Journals? :)
(sorry. Had to make the joke, but this is BEAUTIFUL art… :)

And who EVER thought that THIS guy
could play OUR (mmmm!) Aragorn (ohhhh!) King (ahhhh!) ? Puh-lease!
oh, sorry, 'don't know how THIS got in here! :D

If you ever start feeling like you might be going too far over the edge, just check out this site, and you will realize that you’re a perfectly healthy, normal geek like the rest of us. Heh heh heh…. (despite some bad Elvish wigs* this site is pretty dang cool – for a buncha !@#$ costume freaks. :)

And finally, some quotes that I think help to sum up the whole of how we, Geek Nation, feel about the gifts that J.R.R. – and now P.J. and Crew, have given us.

The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, Chapter 1: Many Meetings
“Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that [Frodo – and we] had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. Swiftly he sank under its shining”

From The Return of the King -
Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Elrond
"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

Celeborn, to Boromir on the subject of old wive's tales.
"But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know."

and the words of the bard, himself:
J.R.R. Tolkien - On Fairy-Stories
”Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted. The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beast and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is a dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.”

And on the lighter side, just from the whole "Sam, UrukHai-practical" viewpoint...
I’m not sure who this girl is, someone on the film production crew, I believe, but I like the way she thinks!
Christy M.
”In matters of money, it is better to be mistaken for an Orc than an Ent.”
:)

Much love, Geek Nation!
-Magpie the Uruk-lo!


*”Uhh, thankyouverymuch. Dang, this toadstool is cold! TCB!”

Lovely day yesterday, perfect way to start the new year. Big gathering of friends at Bruffy's for games and gossip, adult beverages and a wonderful dinner. I will say it again and again (sorry if you get tired of it), I am so blessed and grateful to be a part of their family.
Tomorrow night, X comes home (!!!), Sunday night, back to Bruffy's for yet ANOTHER big gathering, THIS time to celebrate HEATHERNESS!!! Yes, that's right, the elusive red-headed spinner and High Priestess Extraordinaire has been cornered and is coming to play! ALL the boys will be there, too, so they can geek out and play Magic (or possibly ANOTHER game*... :) and carry our refreshments up and down the stairs so that we don't fall and bruise our delicate heinies. :D Also, Heather and Ken will finally get to satisfy their curiosity about my fabulous beau...
In other words, "YAY, US!!!"
Ok, I will shut up and go away now, but before I do, I will leave you with two good poems to start off your year. They are both about subjects that mean a lot to me...
Books and pragmatic love.
Enjoy!

xoxoxoxoxoxox
-Miss 'Pie

*i can't tell yet! it's a secret!

*****
Books

From the heart of this dark, evacuated campus
I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language.

I picture a figure in the act of reading,
shoes on a desk, head tilted into the wind of a book,
a man in two worlds, holding the rope of his tie
as the suicide of lovers saturates a page,
or lighting a cigarette in the middle of a theorem.
He moves from paragraph to paragraph
as if touring a house of endless, paneled rooms.

I hear the voice of my mother reading to me
from a chair facing the bed, books about horses and dogs,
and inside her voice lie other distant sounds,
the horrors of a stable ablaze in the night,
a bark that is moving toward the brink of speech.

I watch myself building bookshelves in college,
walls within walls, as rain soaks New England,
or standing in a bookstore in a trench coat.

I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves,
straining in circles of light to find more light
until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs
that we follow across a page of fresh snow;

when evening is shadowing the forest
and small birds flutter down to consume the crumbs,
we have to listen hard to hear the voices
of the boy and his sister receding into the woods.



*********************
Any prince to any princess

August is coming
and the goose, I'm afraid,
is getting fat.
There have been
no golden eggs for some months now.
Straw has fallen well below market price
despite my frantic spinning
and the sedge is,
as you rightly point out,
withered.

I can't imagine how the pea
got under your mattress. I apologize
humbly. The chambermaid has, of course,
been sacked. As has the frog footman.
I understand that, during my recent fact-finding tour of the
Golden River,
despite your nightly unavailing efforts,
he remained obstinately
froggish.

I hope that the Three Wishes granted by the General
Assembly
will go some way towards redressing
this unfortunate recent sequence of events.
The fall in output from the shoe-factory, for example:
no one could have foreseen the work-to-rule
by the National Union of Elves. Not to mention the fact
that the court has been fast asleep
for the last six and a half years.

The matter of the poisoned apple has been taken up
by the Board of Trade: I think I can assure you
the incident will not be
repeated.

I can quite understand, in the circumstances,
your reluctance to let down
your golden tresses. However
I feel I must point out
that the weather isn't getting any better
and I already have a nasty chill
from waiting at the base
of the White Tower. You must see
the absurdity of the
situation.
Some of the courtiers are beginning to talk,
not to mention the humble villagers.
It's been three weeks now, and not even
a word.

Princess,
a cold, black wind
howls through our empty palace.
Dead leaves litter the bedchamber;
the mirror on the wall hasn't said a thing
since you left. I can only ask,
bearing all this in mind,
that you think again,

let down your hair,

reconsider.



*************************************************************
Poem: "Books," by Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room (Random House).
Adrian Henri, from The Loveless Motel (Jonathan Cape).