Hello, my angels. (You know, I'm getting quite fond of you, my imaginary readers. I've exchanged e-mail with some of you (who have all been unfailingly nice/interesting) and I have this mental image of you all now. Quite a conglomerate. :-) So I've figured out a way around this keyboard/ connection problem. I will type to you in the early morning, before the rest of the hospital starts using the net and the connection slows down to a pitiful rate. (This may be slightly harder on days when we have patients first thing in the morning. We'll see). The keyboard at home seems sometimes better, sometimes worse. Think good thoughts at it. (I remember fondly from the Wizard In Spite of Himself series by Stasheff that he had a saint of mechanical devices (can't remember which one or his history right now, but it was funny. Something to do with TV reception for the Pope...).
The weather is beautiful. This thought is worth repeating. The weather is beautiful beautiful beautiful. It is amazing how much this impacts on the human soul -- here in my office the doctors are smiling and not as frantic, the secretaries look longingly at the door leading outside, the patients are more patient...it makes me wonder what it must be like to live in a climate like this all the time (to be specific, it's something like light sweater weather now, and will probably be long-sleeve or short-sleeve weather by lunchtime. I love my jeans, I do, but there's something so joyous in being able to wear a short skirt and t-shirt to work. (I suppose guys get approximately the same feeling from shorts, but it's not quite the same, believe me.)
Daily new crocuses push their way through the moist soil, and
A fall of ivory petals sheathes the swooping vine-like
Feathered branches of the old tree along the walk. Song
Fills my throat and aches to burst free; villanelles and
Odes dance in my brain, whispering, chanting spring.
Do you feel it, my dears? Do you feel the blood racing
Its sudden course? If you do, you will find a sweet body and
Lay yourselves down in the grass amid crushed daffodils,
Singing silently with every inch of sun-touched skin.
Have you thought how dull it would be, to live on a planet of perfect climate? While I could do without the worst of winter's dreariness, the dance of rain and sun and thunder and wind is so essential -- without it a chapter of poetry would disappear, vanish into sameness. IDIC -- all you Star Trek fans will recognize it -- what a perfect symbol (I wrote symblom and stared at it a long time before I realized I was merging symbol and emblem) for Vulcans and the Federation in general (did you all realize I was a Star Trek fan? I swear, I was in love with Spock for several months (still am, in a way -- it's embarrassing to admit to being in love with a fictional character -- on the other hand, I'm a bit in love with all my characters, even people like the unnamed narrator in my "Radhika and Matthew", who exist for little more than a page...)
I hope you don't mind this rambling of mine -- it's an apology in part for all those days of silence or scantiness. I'm finishing up my novella for Puritan right now -- having a desperate time trying to cram a ten thousand word story (condensed and butchered from a many many thousand word novel) into 8500 words, as requested by the editor. Arghhhh! (On the other hand, you know as well as I that I love this work, I do, even the butchering and the blank panic of staring at an empty screen and sometimes I count myself so fortunate, so blessed to have figured out what it is I love so early and life and have the luxury to be able to do it (not that I don't think that a lot more people couldn't do what they should be doing if they were a little braver (or foolhardy??), but some just can't and that's a terrible thing. There's a goal for a civilized world, if you like -- a place where everyone has the freedom to do the work they love -- and the guidance to find that work -- and the help with their other responsibilities (family, esp.) that they need. Is that so far out of our reach?)).
Missed dance class last night because my eye appt (getting contacts) ran longer than expected (2 hrs!). Very sad. I also seem to have mislaid my keys somewhere, so I had to impose on my poor upstairs neighbor to use her phone and drag Kevin home from the office to let me in. Watched a little too much television last night (I swear, when I go to grad school, I'm tempted to not have a tv at all), but otherwise everything is very well with me and I hope with all of you.
Off to do some office work and then I have piles of e-mail to answer...