(no subject)

today i'm a bi-poster. because for some reason i don't want to lump everything into one post.

1) i spent the morning programming good songs into my head, hoping they might get stuck there. Breakfast in Bed by Dusty, Timothy's First Day of School by DecoderRing, Very Best Years by the Grays, Ana Ng by TMBG. but it all went to HELL when I read my lj friends page and Legalmoose mentioned Janet's "all for you". damn him!! ;)

2) i have bad bad news in the form of scheduling issues -- the brief that I thought was due on Monday is due on Tuesday. Tuesday is the day Shana is in town. there's a 75% chance i can't take a personal day. (i made up the percentage myself, based on short convo with boss and past experience with brief filing in the office...) argh argh argh argh argh. i mean, it's not the end of the world as far as being able to make alternate plans for her layover. i'm just mad as hell i won't get to spend 4 hours with her!

3) survived therapy, of course. it was fine, of course. i love my therapist, of course. and yet...even though it was a good session and i felt accomplished regarding the issue of my parents, there's still so much missing. this is linked to the second post of the day. but felt necessary to remark of my actual therapy session.

4) tonight I'm going to have dinner with La___ at her new apartment. i love her so much. she's a low-maintenance friend (and that's a high compliment by the way). though must of my good friends I would deem low-maintenance in general. she's particularly someone i feel completely comfortable being any way and know that she still loves me and likes me. i'm sure it helps that we've known each other awhile, yet we don't spend tons of time together. so we don't necessarily have a deep or involved intimacy with each other. so things are simple and direct. it's hard to explain, i guess.

5) i was going to reply to comments directly but i decided instead to just put in a new entry -- thanks to everyone who left comments, sent e-mails, or called (or who i called!), in regards to the isht going down with my dad. it's complicated stuff, esp. since i know him best, and i'm not even sure how to interpret it. so it makes it hard to talk about it with others, without going into hours of backstory. but despite that, i still appreciate every offer of support, listening, etc.

6). that's all for now.

that is not what I meant...at all.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot

S`io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys.
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: ``How his hair is growing thin!'']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: ``But how his arms and legs are thin!'']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
        So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
        And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
        And should I then presume?
        And how should I begin?
                             
.   .   .   .   .
Shall I say,
I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
                             
.   .   .   .   .
And the afternoon,
the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep. . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Woud it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
        Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
        That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
        "That is not it at all,
        That is not what I meant, at all."
                             
.   .   .   .   .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

they're bastard people.

Westlaw, that is. I'm trying very very hard to do cite-checking, and I was doing a very very good job earlier today (I need to be proud of my high productivity -- it's so rare), but for the past 45 minutes I hate them! and I hate their a$$-faces!! Why do they keep disconnecting me? ugh.

So I go back to my old friend LJ. And e-mail where I have messages waiting for me. Funny how writing to people will do that.

Today is a very fall day, as far as the sun and the lighting. I feel in some ways that I've been in a casino, because I didn't leave the building for lunch. So I haven't been outside since 9 am. Now I'm a bit antsy. But looking out my boss's window (I work in an "open-air" desk area, i.e. cubicle with no walls, that's right outside her office. She can't see me from her desk, nor I her, but when her door is open (which is most the time), I can look out her floor to ceiling window and see the Palmer House hotel across the street), and the sun is setting and casting long shadows on the brick, and it appears warm, but I know I'll need my coat when I step outside. Fall is here. Scary. Exciting. Always the mixed blessing, that pesky season. Maybe why it's my favorite. I do actually love winter, too. Though the part of winter I like is November and December -- not as much February. So techinically, according the equinox, it's mostly fall until after xmas.

Why am I rambling right now?

tonight i will attempt to not go to bed before 10:30 pm. i've been so exhausted lately, probably because of emotional distress, mild depression, etc. But it's cutting into my productivity at home. Which is probably more important to me than productivity at work. Tonight I want to do some laundry and unpack all my books -- after I get home from dinner with La___. Where the hell will I put all my books? I don't know. I must hide them around the apartment like easter eggs. Perhaps I'll construct a desk made out of them, and put my computer on it.

I should attempt Westlaw again, see if I can get a few more pages done before 5 pm.