cheek-cracking outside

Got a fun new sweatshirt today. Incidentally, is it me, or are sweatshirts just not very common in shops these days? I only wanted a plain straightforward one suitable for wearing around the flat, and it took me ages to find something that didn't have zips or hoods or weirdness all over it.

Also got dollars, Lush products, various other fun things. Aching feet, too.

The weather was wet. The weather is still wet. I am fairly sure I can hear rain and wind out there, but cannot be bothered to go over to the window and look outside. Even if it were raining out there, I am comfortably indoors, my windows are all shut, and the odds are technically against any rain coming in through the roof, given that I'm on the first floor (UK system of flooring) and there are two more floors of flats above me. (Touch wood.)

I do plan to get a copy of World of Warcraft some time; I just want to get a bit further with City of Heroes first.

Tomorrow really should involve a lot of cleaning. Let's hope I can be virtuous. Tonight is likely to involve going to bed early -- I mean, at a reasonable hour. Which for me is early.

Because there's just something about a warm bed on a night when there's wind and rain outside, and when you can sleep in the next day.

(Side note to self; remember to investigate those brushed cotton bottom sheets I remember seeing on the shelves at Muji, for later on this winter.)

---

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, and germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

-- Lear, Shakespeare

the impermanence of cleanliness

Major events today; cleaning, cleaning, more cleaning, and now I'm annoyed that I spilled some stuff on the stove top after having gotten it all lovely and clean earlier.

Other than that, lovely peaceful Sunday.

This time next week, where will I be, etc.

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Piazza Piece


—I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all,
They want the young men's whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

—I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what gray man among the vines is this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

-- John Crowe Ransom