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accumulating flexitime
Feb. 3rd, 2005 12:46 amExhausted.
Caught train 7.10 am. Arrived back at home station at 8.40 pm. Long day.
But useful.
Did have one of those strokes of luck that you wouldn't believe if it happened in a novel. Was at Birmingham station end with about 40 minutes to go till the train was due. As one naturally does in such situations, slipped around corner to local science fiction bookshop. Arrived there just as it was closing. Made sincere plea to check a couple of authors. Owner not only let me look, but when he found out who one of those authors was (Kage Baker) and that I was reasonably knowledgeable about her work, he remembered that he had a second-hand copy of one of her out-of-print ones, In the Garden of Iden.
You can't get that one. Except, of course, that now I have. :)
On the negative side, exhausted. On the positive side, have accumulated much flexitime, which will come in useful for meeting moving company reps and getting quotes from them. Must get at least 3 quotes to get my expenses on this paid, and even then will only get paid the cheapest. Oh well, much better than nothing at all.
---
Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
-- William Butler Yeats
Caught train 7.10 am. Arrived back at home station at 8.40 pm. Long day.
But useful.
Did have one of those strokes of luck that you wouldn't believe if it happened in a novel. Was at Birmingham station end with about 40 minutes to go till the train was due. As one naturally does in such situations, slipped around corner to local science fiction bookshop. Arrived there just as it was closing. Made sincere plea to check a couple of authors. Owner not only let me look, but when he found out who one of those authors was (Kage Baker) and that I was reasonably knowledgeable about her work, he remembered that he had a second-hand copy of one of her out-of-print ones, In the Garden of Iden.
You can't get that one. Except, of course, that now I have. :)
On the negative side, exhausted. On the positive side, have accumulated much flexitime, which will come in useful for meeting moving company reps and getting quotes from them. Must get at least 3 quotes to get my expenses on this paid, and even then will only get paid the cheapest. Oh well, much better than nothing at all.
---
Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
-- William Butler Yeats
