Today I pull myself back a little bit from that vortex, that sweet spinning, dangerous as song, whirling like flurried bursts of snow inside my head.

daylight licked me into shape

Instead, I let everything settle, like a quiet snow globe, outside matching inside, tricky conversions of weather set aside for the meteorologists to ponder. I make lists to keep from dancing myself dizzy, I swim through an avalanche of e-mail--breast-stroking up toward the promise of sunlight, I make tiny sharp checkmarks, and write sobering unspun words such as: exemplary, interdisciplinarity, rigorous and evaluative. Words with pinch, like clothespins, to grip noisy white flapping sheets in place and keep them from cycloning off into the wind and sun and snow.

strange as angels

This weekend I took a photograph of the photographer taking photographs of the crowd at the bar, in which I was one of the people being photographed, which means that perhaps the photographer has a photograph of me taking a photograph of him taking photographs.

why are you so far away?

Another flurried burst of snow, like a smattering of goosedown shaken loose. Light too bright. Strong coffee. Stop spinning. Wake up, wake up, wake up . . .

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Whoot! First comment! Let me be the first to let you know that, being a Cure fan of obsessive proportions, your post made me jump up and down and start singing at the top of my lungs. Well, not really, but if I were not so depressed and morose and maudlin and if my shirt was not as black as my sould, I very well may have. Oh, yeah, the content of the post is engaging and challenging as per usual. "It doesn't matter if we all die. Sitting in the back of a black car..."

If you have not seen the Festival 2005 DVD yet, I suggest it.

That is soul, not sould....

I love the myth about baby bears being licked into shape by their mothers. Thanks for reminding me.

Imagine the little shapeless cub before it gets licked!

Babblecat

Thank you for correcting my misheard and constantly mis-sung lyric!

I always sing: "Then I licked me into shape."

Let's just say I would if I could...

Hee. Preaching to the choir, Katy. And you know what . . . I always think that misheard lyrics are better than the real thing. For example, for years, I thought that Pearl Jam's "Glorified Version of a Pellet Gun" was really "Cross-Eyed Virgin on a Pelican." Imagine my disappointment!