I Got a New Camera

this week. And I'm working on a "my commute" series. Here's a preview found at 4th and Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. You can see the Capitol from there.

A Poem

Miracle Ice Cream
by Adrienne Rich

Miracle's truck comes down the little avenue,
Scott Joplin ragtime strewn behind it like pearls,
and, yes, you can feel happy
with one piece of your heart.

Take what's still given: in a room's rich shadow
a woman's breasts swinging lightly as she bends.
Early now the pearl of dusk dissolves.
Late, you sit weighing the evening news,
fast-food miracles, ghostly revolutions,
the rest of your heart.

Find a poem that speaks to you this week. And Shabbat Shalom.

Interviewed by Blue

The game:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog (if you have one) with the answers to the questions OR you answer them here in the comments if you don't have a blog.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

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The most redundant institution of modern times?

There are too many to choose from, especially when I begin to think of religious ones. But I'll select the one that is annoying me the most currently. Television "news." You know, that news that isn't news, runaway bride news, Scott Peterson Michael Jackson news that keeps so many anxious about things that have nothing to do with their lives and mask things that are important like war and starvation and fascism.

The best-ever one-liner?

You probably thought that this was easy. Well it is for most folks, but for me? Killer hard. I don't remember jokes. When I hear one I like, I immediately pass it on knowing that I'll have forgotten it in 20 minutes. So please be patient. And kind. Ok, Ihe best I can do, probably reflecting my mood, is George Carlins "If you can beat 'em, have 'em beaten."

Everyone deserves one chance to try again. How would you do it differently next time?

I am tempted to cheat and say I would select different parents, but I am much too honest for my own good.
I'd grow up and learn to take care of myself before hooking up with somebody else. I spent much too much of my life trying to satisfy other folks before I genuinely learned that take care of yourself first thing.

What absolutely MUST be included in the curriculum?

Logic. Reason. Thinking. But first we must have teachers who can teach it, and that is not a trivial problem.
I want to take this time to point out that I just restrained myself thereby saving all of you from a three page rant.

You get to do this with anyone from recorded history. Who, and what five questions?

Ack! Blue, these are killer hard. I only get one, eh?
Ok, the late Barbara Jordan, toward the end of her life.
1. You seem to have spent much of your life in study, always excelling in school. What do you feel that you gave up to be such a good student?
2. What made you believe that you could run for public office, much less win when no black woman had ever held so many of the offices you held.
3. No matter what happened, you seem to have maintained an unerring faith in our instutituions. What do you think is the source of that faith?
4. You were very ill for a long time. What kept you going?
5. What makes you blissfully happy?

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Don't forget that if you want to be interviewed, leave a request in the comment section.

My Nerd Score

"All hail the monstrous nerd. You are by far the SUPREME NERD GOD!!!"

I knew it would be bad, but this is ridiculous.