apropos of anything

Dear spammers,

My post titled “Searching for the elusive cookie” is actually about the kind of cookies you eat, not the kind of cookies that Web browsers use to record personal information. If you’re trying to sneak a comment by me by making it look “legitimate”, perhaps for that post you should lead with something other than, “Thanks for writing about this. There’s a bunch of great tech info on the internet. You’ve got a lot of that info here on your site.”

Obviously you don’t read my site. It’s far more about the kind of cookies you eat than the kind of cookies you code.

Thanks for the laugh, though.

I came home from the office about 45 minutes ago, and in that time I’ve eaten, changed into pajamas, and tried to figure out where I’m going to pick back up again. And also how I’m going to stay awake because despite sleeping approximately 30 hours this weekend, I am so, so tired.

That’s why I didn’t post much last year: Every post would mention somewhere, I am so, so tired. It would get redundant and boring, and not even the occasional I am so, so angry would do much to break up the monotony… so I didn’t post at all. I meant to do better this year, but… I am so, so tired. I’m not sure it’s going to get any better anytime soon, even though I promised myself that this year would be better, that this year I would see my friends and eat lunch and make time to pee.

Perhaps this is where I make myself stick to that promise because here it’s in black and white, and if I don’t post much, well then I have to do better. For me.

“Does anybody READ poetry anymore?”

Last Saturday, as we made dinner at Alicia’s after finally seeing Sherlock Holmes, I asked this question rather cavalierly without stopping to think that her houseguest Becky is getting a graduate degree in something related to literature and creative writing. I don’t remember much of the context of the conversation at the time (I think it had something to do with making a living as a poet), only that I felt rather bad about my comment, especially after Becky replied, “Well, I hope so.”

And really, I hope so too, very much, if only for the sixteen-year-old version of myself who devoured literature and poetry and was, in general, I think, a happier person… but I honestly don’t think I know anybody who reads poetry. I have many friends who read prose, but I can’t really think of the last time somebody’s called me up to discuss a poem they’d just finished. I also can’t think of the last time I came across a poem at all. I never was much for “modern” poetry in high school, so yes, I don’t go out of my way looking for it, but I don’t go out of my way looking for prose either, and yet I find new and interesting prose all the time.

Freshman year of college, Zara sent me a letter about the happenings at BU, and she enclosed a couple of photocopied Maya Angelou poems, including “Phenomenal Woman”. I loved the something extra those poems provided, in that even though I’d finished reading her letter, I still had one more thing of hers, from her, to read and understand. You can’t stick books into a letter. Magazine and newspaper articles would be easier, except for that tiny snag where nobody reads actual physical magazines and newspapers anymore… it’s all on the Web now (thank goodness for the trees at least).

I read books. I read blogs. I read magazine articles, both long (sometimes) and short (far more frequently). If I ever get a Kindle or any other e-reader, it will be exclusively for the purpose of reading periodicals, should they survive the next few years. I do not read poems… but I probably should, if only so that I have something to fold into a letter, or stick on my cube wall.

I’ve missed these.

Reading something that reminds of where you are, and where you should be. Sameera has been using this poem by Hazrat Inayat Khan as her Gchat status for over a week now, and it’s so beautiful I can’t stop reading it every time I sign on:

I asked for strength
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom
and God gave me problems to learn to solve.

I asked for prosperity
and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.

I asked for courage
and God gave me dangers to overcome.

I asked for love
and God gave me people to help.

I asked for favors
and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted.

I received everything I needed.

There have been so many days lately where I am angry and sad, and perhaps that is because I have been pushing myself so hard and therefore have always been hovering right around exhausted, or perhaps it is because I forgot that things are bigger than me, and while I may not understand why God does things, He does, and I should trust Him.

I am looking for a place that will print and mat this for me, for my office and for my home. This, and the dua that Dave made at Mansoor and Ayesha’s valima… am wondering if Papyrus or Sam Flax would do it for me.

Waking up when it’s cold outside and realizing your toes are toasty warm. There’s a line in Richard Adams’s Watership Down about how people who say they like the cold don’t really like the cold so much as they like the knowledge that they are secure against the cold. At first I took offense — I do like the cold, I do! I have so many more fashion options when it’s cold outside! — but with time I’ve come to acknowledge that he’s at least partly right. There’s such a lovely, drowsy feeling about curling up under blankets and being perfectly warm when it’s below freezing outside, like perhaps I was meant for hibernation and it’s just by accident that I’m a human and not a bear.

Funny little tidbits that pop up unannounced. These are the things that keep me going, especially on the tough days. My Twitter feed is a great reliable source, like when @shawnamama tweeted, “Noah: Mom, you said if I was good at the library, I could watch Dora. Me: I did. Noah: I was very good, except I ate my boogers sometimes” or when @poniewozik posted nothing with a hashtag that said #WorkIFeelLikeDoingToday. And even moreso, the people around me every day are full of hilariousness that make me laugh quietly to myself weeks and months later. I appreciate them, and I very much appreciate the ones who indulge my inclination for the occasional ridiculous and keep up the running jokes. It’s a small thing, but especially on the tough days, it means the difference between pushing through and hiding under my desk in the fetal position.

Photo credit: Tea.