zirconium

The subject line's from a Willow Branch Song by Ch'ien Ch'ien-yi (1582 - 1664; translated by Irving Yucheng Lo). The full verse:

A crescent moon hangs on the tip of the willows,
New leaves are like eyebrows, the moon's like a hook.
Wait till the moon is round and reflected in a mirror
To lift from my eyebrows ten thousand layers of grief.

I generally try not to be around people the week of St. Patrick's Day. It's the anniversary of my mother's death, and today is the anniversary of Mama Nancy's death, plus even years outside of pandemics it's mid-term and not-quite-close-enough-to-the-end-of-the-quarter and almost everyone is so tired of winter and more than a little frayed.

Taking the whole week off wasn't feasible this year; to stay logged off on Wednesday, I worked until 4 a.m. that morning, and I'll be marking 40+ pages of proofs this weekend as well. But it did feel good and right to do some deep cleaning that afternoon, which included tossing out scraps of paper with topics I'd meant to blog about, but the moment(um) had faded (George Clooney's love of writing/receiving letters, contemporary songs about dementia/memory loss, the Megan Rapinoe/Sue Bird feature in GQ . . .).

Nashville journalist Natasha Senjanovic has an invitation for y'all:

It's been ages since a Diary Collective update, but I'm starting back up again, and want to know what people are proudest of about themselves in this incredibly difficult year. But @tedtoons turned the tables, like the emotional ninja that he is. https://t.co/fvQTpQraAn

— Natasha Senjanovic (@nsenjanovic) March 14, 2021

You can hear me talking about bao and Duolingo and reading "Climb" at https://www.bestofpossibleworlds.com/audio.

Also recently published: "Truth and Dare," at Autumn Sky.

Finally - written ten years ago, and published the following spring:



Measured Extravagance is out of print, but if you'd like a copy, send me proof of a donation ($6 or more) to NAPAWF, Tupelo Pres, or Postcards to Voters, and I'll beam a PDF to you.