Monday, December 19, 2005

Cacoethes scribendi

I will be in Texas later today.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Snow storm

Maybe it's because I grew up in Texas, but there's something about snow. Right now flakes are falling deliberately and quickly, but earlier it was sparse puffy flakes floating down. And these little mercurial messengers always dance to the music. Liszt's Liebesträume plays softly in the background as the white dots slowly and softly paint the street in choreographed harmony.


Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the northwind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of snow.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Wintry

I had forgotten what illness was. I feel always cold, but sometimes hot; my throat aches; my head is clouded. I couldn't sleep yesterday. I was up for 20 hours before I finally collapsed, but at no point was I tired.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Oh the past

This blog started as a LiveJournal blog in early 2003. My username there was txaristocrat. Then earlier this summer I set up jgarrett.org specifically so that I could have a rather permanent, personal e-mail address. As an added bonus, in moving my blog to the new machine, I now had complete control over it. So for example, I could choose the style more freely than at LJ, or include polls, or whatever I so desired...

When I did this, the computer on which all of my site was hosted was one a friend of mine had set up at his job (at a web hosting company). Near the end of the summer though, he left that job under somewhat questionable circumstances. And he left quickly...

The computer was soon taken down, so what little information I had stored there I lost, including those blog entries made after moving away from LJ, as well as some e-mail, and perhaps a few other things. I later set up my site again at a web hosting company where I had substantially more control. I never moved my archival blog entries though, the few ones from the LJ days.

The point of this is: now I have! So you can now see all the blog entries (excluding those from this summer forever lost) since I've ever had a blog.

Friday, December 9, 2005

Tuesday, December 6, 2005

Grr

To people who set off car alarms at 6 am:

Don't. It's really annoying. It's your own car. Learn how to enter it without activating the alarm. If this is too hard, don't try to leave for work at 6 am.

Friday, December 2, 2005

Today's high in the middle 20's

Tonight's low in the middle to upper teens.

Brrr

Thursday, December 1, 2005

Nival beauty

Learned a new word. No need for a thesaurus today. ;)