most beautiful girl

soon to be behind a veil.
more on this girl from the remote Egyptian oasis of Siwa and her angry, then suspicious, then protective, then shy, then curious, then almost-smiling, open, then young and waving and heart-breakingly dear big sister - in the future.

wishing them happiness and luck today in their such-different lives.

Blog , v. what you do after you light Alog

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words:

1. Coffee , n. the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted , adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate , v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade , v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly , adj. impotent.

6. Negligent , adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph , v. to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle , n. olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence , n. emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash , n. a rapidly receding hairline..

11. Testicle , n. a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude , n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon , n.. a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster , n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishism's.

15. Circumvent , n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

16. Frisbeetarianism , n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

an explanation of introversion

it's not that I don't like people, but of all physical things, talking is the most uncomfortable for me. it feels to me much (and more so) as Li-Young Lee below describes:

I've been thinking about something for a long time, and I keep noticing that most human speech‹if not all human speech‹is made with the outgoing breath. This is the strange thing about presence and absence. When we breath in, our bodies are filled with nutrients and nourishment. Our blood is filled with oxygen, our skin gets flush; our bones get harder‹ they get compacted. Our muscles get toned and we feel very present when we're breathing in. The problem is, that when we're breathing in, we can't speak.

So presence and silence have something to do with each other.

The minute we start breathing out, we can talk; speech is made with the outgoing, exhaled breath. .... as we breath out, we have less and less presence.

An awkward sensitivity for a teacher, but, yup I love rainy days like this one when I don't have to come up with an anecdote or tidbit or theory or utter a damn word.

Hmm. And maybe that's why I like writing. It feels like a conversation, but not one that drains the 'oxygen of the self'.

okay. to sleep now.
will think of those Sonoma hills
and its cows

good old quiet cows.