We are now almost two weeks into Lent.  Things change slowly for creatures like me, and movement forward is at times imperceptible.

I hope to write more of my New York experience this weekend.

I hope all here are blessed in whatever ways they need to be. Read full post »

I wrote three lines to the boy today, mostly in his language.  His tongue has several ways of saying goodbye.  I knew I was choosing one that seemed final.  I sent him kisses, and told him, simply, goodbye, and that I would always love him.

He responded, again in his own… Read full post »

I am not actually under the impression that anyone out there is waiting with bated breath to hear of my exploits, but I did feel I wanted to say here that my office moved a few days ago, and I am in rehearsals for a play and have had various other… Read full post »

I came back three days ago from a devastatingly hard two weeks of scene work with my acting teacher, and a rich and sweet two weeks with the boy.

I will write.  Soon. Read full post »

Sometimes I will open my eyes or turn my head, and it will hit me quickly and hard, he appears so clearly; as if my father or someone else long dead had walked into the room, and smiled at me. 

***

What is it?  Shave-and-a-hair-cut, two-bits.  Two bits is twenty-five cents in/… Read full post »

I am thinking about this.  About opening that door.  And the person who will be standing there.  And I am thinking about writing about opening that door and beholding the person who will be standing there.

Tonight I will write, I think. Read full post »

Samuel Pepys on marriage: 

Christmas Day 1665:

“To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding in the Church, which I have not seen many a day, and the young people so merry one with another, and strange, to see what delight we married have to see these poor fools… Read full post »

If all goes well--and to me that is never just a figure of speech or a convention; I do not expect things to go well, ever--I will see the boy in New York City in three weeks.

***

The boy has a lovely laugh; mine has been described by… Read full post »

With my life having the shape it does, I am sometimes asked for my idea of a great love poem.  I am known, despite myself, as a cynic, so there is often laughter when I present my title of choice.

Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of/… Read full post »

I make men unhappy.  I don’t mean I actively set about to make them miserable.  I mean that there is quite literally something about my presence that saddens them.  Not every man, not everywhere, and not all the time.  But many, often.  This quality is, as far as I can/… Read full post »

Below is a picture of a gentleman scholar of my acquaintance.  The picture was taken in Turku, Finland.  The charming-looking structure outside which he is sitting is a former public toilet.  Is has been converted to a pub.  It is called The Toilet.

The boy has eyes too, of course.  He is no eyeless creature.  Indeed, such eyes.  If I am a witch, or some sport of nature, he is a living anime figure.  He is like Uchiha Sasuke, the angry, powerful boy from Naruto, all black hair and large, sloe eyes.  I have/… Read full post »

Charlie Brooker, one of my favourite Guardian columnists, made the astute observation below earlier this year.  I have since returned to it in my mind any number of times, and think it stands as one of the finest assessments of the situation.  For some of us, anyway.

Mr. Brooker conclu… Read full post »

We are all, surely, used by now to the phenomenon of the electronic voice.  By this I mean the voices that greet us when we telephone . . . well, just about anywhere these days.  Perhaps not one’s parents, or one’s good friends, but one’s bank, or a department store, or… Read full post »

I am the carrier of a genetic anomaly that manifests itself in a bicoloured iris; that is, my right eye contains two colours.  It is not breathtakingly rare, but neither is it common, and I am used to people suddenly halting in the middle of conversations to comment upon the fact… Read full post »

This woman is Violet Constance Jessop.  This, I must say, is my idea of a tough broad.  And I mean that in a very, very good way.

So, what do she and the Divine Miss T. have in common?  Uh, nothin', really.  Except for this:  According to the article, Miss Jess… Read full post »

No, I didn’t actually know the righteous dood personally.  But his feast day is my birthday.  St. David is the patron saint of Wales. He founded a monastery there in the sixth century, which in Wales is apparently enough to get to you canonised. 

I do not have a… Read full post »