I want the noise to go away.

I lounge on my bed, and I hear the keys clicking. The clock ticks behind me next to my foot. Emily experiments with the harp. Cars roar past. There is a low hum of computer machinery, and in the background is the irritating itch of some televised game show. It is not all bad. I don't mind the sound of my own typing, because it is a cause-effect that I have grown accustomed to. I no longer really hear it. While the clock is present, I have always heard clocks, consciously and not unconsciously, and it is to some degree soothing. Harps are lovely by nature, though five minutes' tinkering can rub on the nerves and hiss like an angry cat. The cars, the television, the hum - I do not like them. I do not like this piled heap of random sweepings called noise.

Make it go away.

I've been reading up on wolfdogs, because I can, and I'm bored. They're rather more interesting - and also difficult - than I'd thought. I think if I ever want one I will probably get a husky or malamute first - not to mention move somewhere with a lot of land far away from massed people (five square miles, Joy?)

For now, though, the only creatures I'm likely to buy are finches and tiels - and possibly a Bourke's parakeet, since those aren't as aggressive as budgies.

Somebody told me, once, that I would get more responses if I wrote and posted something outrageous. After thinking about that, I have to agree. That's probably entirely correct and a far-too-accurate portrayal of human nature. But you know, I don't believe I agree with it. I'm not a terribly outrageous person, you see, and even though I don't write everything on here, I try to write the truth when I do. And if that truth's not outrageous - well, then I cannot do anything about commenting or not. One of my birds died. I wrote a long paper. That's not stunning. It's not sensational. It's just the way I happen to live.

I walked down to my aviary today with a cup of birdseed in my hand. The tiels shrieked and the finches chattered, and when I got through the door they rattled their wings, then flew to my hands. Hisie was first, today, my lovely little grey girl, and then Angrod. Proud Niquesse perched on my left hand with Hisie and proceeded to bully her until she hopped, with an indignant squawk, to my other hand and settled down with Angrod. Aegnor circled a few times, not quite confident enough to actually land, and then drifted to the ground to peck at the seed there with the finches. I looked down.

One of the finches was lying there. It wasn't cocking its head at me or skittering about. I didn't move. The tiels weren't finished eating.

I set it out under the tall grass when I left.

Seashore. The edge of a forest. Dusk, when the sun has set but the sky is still light.

Some cultures held these as holy places, where two things could dance at each other's edges and peer beyond. In the between places, black and white swirled and twisted, and, every so often, fused together into seamless silver-grey.

I find the notion more comforting than a simple doorway. When there is a threshold so narrow and rigid, one must step over it all at once - granted, one might retreat in uncertainty, but there is no comfortable space where one might choose both outside and inside. I'm not fond of doorways. I'd rather wander along the edge of the sea, sand and shells and foam about my feet, before slipping farther out into the waves. Light's gentle fading into darkness is sweeter, to me, than a switch being flipped by a casual hand.

There is the danger, there, of course. Some people, entranced, might never leave the between places, choosing both one and the other and, perhaps saddest, never fully experience either. There are some who would not even venture out that far, keeping a wary guard on the unknown.

And yet for myself - for myself - I will take the seashore.

What do reality, illusion, truth, deception, persuasion, seduction, helplessness, humor, love, stillness, and metis have to do with each other? - that is indeed the question. Now if only I could somehow compress the resultant ponderings into seven double-spaced pages.

One of these days I need to learn not to take on a topic like this.

FATHER, Mother, and Me
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But - would you believe it? - They look upon We
As only a sort of They !

We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
Are horrified out of Their lives;
And They who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn't it scandalous?) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun.
They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They !

~Kipling

"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love."

So why is it that we always focus on the last? It may be the greatest, but the two others are also needful for the continuation of our very existence. Faith as small as a mustardseed, we are told, can move mountains. We're taught about it; we know that we only need to "have faith" in Jesus and we will be saved. Though most of our attention is devoted to the last, the first does come under some scrutiny. But that one in the middle...

Pandora was created to ruin mankind by Zeus in revenge for Prometheus' gift of fire. She was given a box and warned not to open it, but curiosity has always been noted for killing the cat, and all of the evils and sorrows escaped when she took a peek. All but one, that is. While death, old age, sickness, war, famine, poverty, greed, and despair were loosed upon the unsuspecting world, she slammed the lid shut quickly enough to prevent hope from fluttering out. The world was very bleak, for a time, until she chanced to return to her box and let the last of the evils out.

There is no future without hope, and no hope without the concept of a future. Hope is "the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent." It's the idea that there could be something beside the Now that you're trapped in, that something else could exist beside the things you can see right now. Without hope, it's hard to have faith, or to love, or really to function at all; hopelessness is a special kind of despair, one that makes people not quite human and strips us of whatever spark separates us from a dog or a lizard.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

It's worthy of more thought than it gets.

The Host of the Air by W. B. Yeats

O’DRISCOLL drove with a song,
The wild duck and the drake,
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.
He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face.
The dancers crowded about him,
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine
And a young girl white bread.
But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,
Away from the merry bands,
To old men playing at cards
With a twinkling of ancient hands.
The bread and the wine had a doom,
For these were the host of the air;
He sat and played in a dream
Of her long dim hair.
He played with the merry old men
And thought not of evil chance,
Until one bore Bridget his bride
Away from the merry dance.
He bore her away in his arms,
The handsomest young man there,
And his neck and his breast and his arms
Were drowned in her long dim hair.
O’Driscoll scattered the cards
And out of his dream awoke:
Old men and young men and young girls
Were gone like a drifting smoke;
But he heard high up in the air
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.

It is dark and warm in my room, a haven of wavering shadows. The candles whisper to each other - they are glad, I think, to be bright again. Outside is grey and cold; here the colors are enriched by the warmth and play of fire.

Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean's roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night
Bruce Cockburn

Jim came and talked to me yesterday about getting a stove. Apparently a full-sized one won't work, for a number of reasons, but he can get us a countertop one and a hot-plate to use in place of burners. Now I'm writing a shopping list...

(Take that, Ada!)

I have discovered that incoming wisdom teeth hurt. I have also found that ibuprofen does absolutely nothing for the pain caused by them.

On the other hand, my professor has a point: pain isn't really all that bad if you can focus on the moment, or, better yet, ignore it, instead of focusing on the future pain that will exist. Too much of pain is anticipation, the thought that it will still be hurting some time in the future, and it's easier - and yet so much more difficult! - if one turns to other sensations instead.

Oh, Alasse, I found a little tea place you might like in Turlock. They have rather good loose leaf tea - they don't even carry the bagged stuff - and something called white tea I picked up. Have you had white tea before? I hadn't, but I wound up buying some. The propietress is a wonderful lady. I may have to go back and sample some more.