Left-Handed

I remember that Dogger Gatsby used to say he had heard somewhere that Arabs disfavor the left hand because they wipe their behind with it. It is the “other” hand, not the right hand to eat with! Some say that's what originally made the left hand the "wrong" hand.

Maybe Arabs still think of it that way. Maybe everyone does, except for left-handed people who, rumor has it, wipe with their left hand, too. Dogger was left-handed and seldom thought about it at all. Being a "lefty" in the late seventies in America, he was more inclined to think with favor about wiping his ass with an Arab than to worry about which hand he did it with. Had he lived until the 911 disaster in 2001, his opinion would probably have remained the same.

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Regret

Sidney J. Harris: "Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

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Madness and Argument

Henrik Tikkanen: "Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence."

G. K. Chesterton: "The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion."

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Didactic On The Cruelty Of An Old Friend

JILL’S SONG

By the uneven tongue taught, from the fraught
wound torn, through hot and cold slow scenes,
the drumbeats in your blood have brought
the anger-stone, the emptiness, the thorn.

For what waste-hope
did the small sister pray?
By what deep way
did she fall, turn, sway,

that you should be now, as before,
this heedless, thrashing beast;
be imprisoned in the vein now,
denied the human feast?

Toward what end these ruined moments
you produce when the pillared fires
rise in fierceness,
burning the flesh from our eyes?

Now when will meet the hands held back
by hope-in-careless-tears,
where touch the hearts charred black,
turned back, by flaming blood and swift drumbeats?

The pulse that takes the dart beats slowly
in the still, torn breast,
in the small sister's heart--and I am torn
in two to see your love worn down to this.

By the untaught tongue unleashed,
from the caught tongue's ire,
from the birth to the kiss to the wire:
your life is artful anger,
slow death played out in scenes.


For what waste-hope
dare the small sister pray?
By what dark way
will she fall, turn, sway?

In the still, worn beating
of my sister's heart I hear
words still fraught with love
for you, hopeless words of love,

and that will be, I think,
when they screw our coffins down,
what turns the screws the tightest
as your soul goes down.


rcs.
4th draft: 02/22/03
©1983 Ronald C. Southern

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SYMPATHETIC LOVERS

I was perusing like a drunken fool
The sweet fat thighs of youth
When all her voices shrill and cool
And much more than disturbing cried,

“C’mon, cowboy, climb on and ride!”
Well it was something like that—I mean,
Something weird yet just the raunchy
Come-on that I longed to hear,

Thinking that surely in such fierce embrace
We might these pierced and harried hearts forget,
That in these coy considered copulations
We might discordant souls forget,

And so on and so on until, in no time again,
I was flaccid, torpid, silent,
Withdrawn without a trace,
Yet cocky there atop her face to face.

She coughed, then pushed me off and sighed.
“We are lying in these dank tangled sheets,” she intoned,
“Like any two wretched things cast up by the sea,
We are gasping the air and gasping the sea,

And if our dry tears be the measure of drowning,
If our lax limbs be the limits of flying,
Then we are in fact no more than voluptuaries
Caught at the end of our act—

Only that
And nothing more
And God must know
We hope for more…”


rcs.
3rd draft: 03/14/06
©1985 Ronald C. Southern

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Killing A Wild Blog

The other day I had a strange experience. That "Blogger Help Group" I’ve mentioned before often has someone asking for help, but one girl was going rather far! No, not offering to barter sex for template help! She was begging somebody to let her email them her username and password so they could Delete her blog for her!

After my trying a couple of times to inform her how to do it herself, she just sent me her username and password! She wanted to wash her hands of the whole dirty thing, it seemed! I quickly figured out the reason why she couldn't log on herself was that her username WAS the same as her blog name but DIDN'T have a dash in the middle of it like the blog name! Should I rush an email to her and tell her I’ve saved her blog? Or should I just put it out of its misery like it was an injured dog in the highway, as she seems to wish?

I decided not to worry about her lost posts or her puzzling life. I just did what she asked and blew her blog straight to hell! When it's deleted, it's gone for good, Blogger says. I suppose it’s true. She didn't have all that many posts, so her loss is minimal. I didn't bother to read it all, so she may have had stuff in there she considered embarrassing. It's gone now, whatever the loss or the damage.

Onward through the fog.

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Shakespeare and Dorothy Parker

William Shakespeare: "Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance."

Dorothy Parker: "I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true."

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Recommendation

Good Tips

Though it's new, something that looks worthwhile is Blogger For Dummies They give some handy tips on being lost in the Blogger ozone.

p.s. There seems to be an environmental blog associated with this that looks interesting, but I haven't had time to explore it much. Look for yourself at the link on the first blog.

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More Dull Blog Mechanics

Some of the dull blog mechanics that has entranced me of late is checking out the questions and answers at Blogger Help Group. People ask about Blogger templates and other such mysteries. Sometimes it’s interesting and sometimes not. Lately, I’m afraid the long-term downtime of certain Blogger servers has a lot of new bloggers asking the same things and making the same angry statements and demands. When that happened to my server a couple of years ago, I admit I was the same. I was furious. I wanted to kill. Wipe Blogger off the face of the earth! I couldn’t be calmed down if you ran over me with a truck.

This time, I tried to make a few calming statements with humor, but the new bloggers were in no humor to hear it! They seemed to think I was trying to stifle free speech. I had tried to get them to lighten up a little, forgetting how furious I was when it was happening to me. Nonetheless, when I was having all that trouble and swearing off of Blogger forever, the fact remained that Blogger’s price is right for me, and I’m still toiling away in the same old trenches as before. I did what the new guys can't even imagine; I made friends with The Great Satan.

Even if I had some money, I wouldn’t spend it on this. If I had money and no option, only then would I spend for a blogging system! I’m so cheap that I squeak when I walk. It isn’t the shoes, it’s my tight ass scritching! When I’m a billionaire, I'll buy what I need and hire my own repair people! Til then, I pray for Blogger and all their technicians. Go ahead, Blogger, crap on anybody but me! I gave at the office. It’s not my turn. What’s more, I don’t deserve it! (Does Blogger care about that? Not bloody likely!)

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Erratum again

I regret that these days I am the only person who stays up late. Of course, even I don't stay up as late as I used to! Ha! Old age just beats you down.

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