a weed by the wall...

visit from my da today. we sat in the yard and talked about the news, the weather, the usual. bresson. my father told me interesting things about him. that he joined the french resistance. that he loved the 35mm camera to begin with. which, i guess, wasn't especially fashionable. while we talked, the bluejays descended. they sat on their tray in the pine tree and talked to me. my arrival means only one thing to them: peanuts. any other form of visitation is incomprehensible. i may as well be a peanut. but i forgot to grab a handful of peanuts before walking to the shade of the plum tree. so, jays sat and stared, puzzling. and when they left the tree to poke at their various caches under the pine, a rather impressive magpie also came to visit. the magpies come and eat cat food. they even frighten the cats away. oh, and the starlings flew high into the pine, up into the branches where the grape vine has climbed, and began eating grapes. starlings sound positively prehistoric. and they arrive in mobs. i'm glad they prefer grapes over people.

and now, i have to quote emerson some more. i can't help it. i found a ratty old book of essays when i was at a thrift store. i read it when i'm bored at work. you must endure. reap the whirlwind, kids.

in no particular order:

"let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years."

(yep, i will join my friend someday. yep, i'll be content until then.)

"every man alone is sincere. at the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins."

(mmmhhhmmm)

"it is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. but the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited."

(yeah. or the great will call it stalking. what do you, the viewers at home think?)

"men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. they are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged. in the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals."

(can i get an amen?)

"the sign and credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no man foretold. he is the true and only doctor...."

"our moods do not believe in each other. to-day i am full of thoughts and can write what i please. i see no reason why i should not have the same thought, the same power of expression to-morrow. what i write, whilst i write it, seems the most natural thing in the world; but yesterday i saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which i now see so much; and a month hence , i doubt not, i shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages. alas for this infirm faith, this will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! i am god in nature; i am a weed by the wall."