May 30 2000
The phone rang at 10
The phone rang at 10 a.m. Robert stumbled out of bed to answer it. Some man with an annoyingly strained voice identified himself as Horgwarth Humpledinger. Robert was especially confused when Horgwarth Humpledinger didn’t want to speak with him, he wanted to speak with ME! It turned out that it was my father–what a funny man! He didn’t want Robert to recognize him because he was trying to set up a surprise for his birthday. I never would have guessed that using such an outlandishly stupid name and using such a ridiculous voice would fool anyone. But hey, let it be said in Robert’s defense that he had had a late night and answered the phone just after getting out of bed. Since Robert is reading this over my shoulder, I can’t go into details about what the surprise actually is. However, I can say that it’s going to be wonderful. I promise full coverage after the event on June 14th.
My homepage is coming along ok. I’ll probably redo the whole thing in a month *lol* I encourage you to check out what I’ve done so far and to let me know what you think. (Ignore the main links page…it’s still in r&d.)
I was surprised and delighted to discover that Kat & Laura a.k.a Elfgirl have stumbled onto my humble little blog. How much fun this is turning out to be! I learned that Kat has a Felix the Cat fixation. I wonder if she has one of those funny FTC clocks where eyes move back and forth with each tick and tock and the tail swings like a pendulum. I’ve always wanted one of those. And Laura, the lucky woman, is going on a shopping spree at the Gap. How jealous I am!
Lark, my evil twin, liked my idea of presenting a poem in my blog. Here’s a very moving selection from Walt Whitman:
Stop this day a night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun–there are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look throught the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
I used to claim I didn’t like Whitman’s writing. But that was before one of my college professors made me look at it with fresh eyes–or should I say open ears? He read Whitman’s elegy for Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed,” and made most of the students teary-eyed. It was astounding. It’s rare that a group of people get together and share poetry like that. Ever since then, I’ve had a soft spot for the great American writer.
