It was sunny today
for a moment,
but moments pass.
Quickly now, be careful,
or the rain might hit you,
hurt you,
beat you back against the door.
Run!
Splash past puddles, slick sidewalks.
If the drops can’t catch you then nobody can.
Gene Fowler once said, “Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” When that happens, I’ll let you know. Until then, of course, you will have to content yourself with what others have written. Neil Gaiman recommends this poem by Hugh Sykes Davies. Why not start there? There’s also some nice poetry over at this week’s Writer’s Almanac. Go on, stretch your legs a little. It’s good for you. I’ll still be here when you get back.
So Neil Gaiman has a weblog, and Wil Wheaton has a weblog. Who’s next? Julius Caeser, that’s who. But does he have his own personalized action figure? I mean, come on. Don’t we all wish we had patented kung fu grip?
The Economist writes:
In the issues of December 16th 2000 to November 10th 2001, we may have given the impression that George Bush had been legally and duly elected president of the United States. We now understand that this may have been incorrect, and that the election result is still too close to call. The Economist apologises for any inconvenience.
I am reminded, naturally, of the corrections page at the now defunct Might:
“On page 111, in our ‘Religious News Round-up,’ we reported that Jesus Christ was a deranged, filthy proto-hippy. In fact, Jesus Christ was the son of God. We regret the error.”
Ever have one of those days? I have fourteen large packages, filled with about forty pounds of books apiece, that need to be shipped back to the publisher to be rebound. Only, it’s anybody’s guess how I’m supposed to get these boxes to UPS, since the publisher wants them sent via ground delivery, but you can only arrange a pickup through UPS if you’re sending your packages by air. And even if I had a car, I don’t think I could fit all of these boxes into it so I could drop them off myself. Apparently, if I leave the packages with their new shipping labels in the mailroom downstairs, whoever picks up our US Mail this afternoon will take them to UPS, but the emphasis here, I think, is on the apparently. And the UPS website, where I would print these new labels, will only allow me to prepare shipments of five packages at a time. And all of this trouble (which is, of course, dumped on me, the new guy, who until this morning had never even had reason to see the mailroom) is due to the publisher sending us soft instead of hardcover copies and writing “co-editors” instead of “editors” on the front cover. If only there weren’t so many boxes, or if only we had a regular UPS pickup time when they would come for packages going ground. Oh well. It will work itself out in the end. These things invariably do.