you care about everyone

SHIELD ( spoilers )

In other comics news, apparently now that his secret identity has been revealed, Dick Grayson is going to become a super spy. I don't even know, you guys. (I mean, if it's public now that Dick Grayson is Nightwing, isn't it SUPER OBVIOUS that Bruce Wayne is Batman? IJS)

First off, I'm so glad he's not dead. That would have been three out of four post-reboot Robins dead (I still say a big FUCK YOU, STEPH WAS ROBIN to DC, but whatever) and for real, I think Alfred might have had to beat the everliving crap out of Bruce for that, even if Dick came back fairly quickly.

Secondly, I don't have a problem with the gun, which seems to be a sticking point for a lot of people, but even though I guess it was erased by the reboot, OFFICER GRAYSON was still a thing, and Dick carried a gun then, too. (The comics did not explore this nearly as much as they should have, though. IJS) Otoh, he looks way more Jason-y there, so. I don't even know. Also, I'm not sure how having your face and name revealed will make you a good super spy. And Dick's disguises are notoriously hilariterrible. This is a dude who went undercover in the mob AS HIMSELF. So while he's probably got a ton of tradecraft in some ways, I just don't see it working out well for him. (Also, I feel like the shades of gray morality that spies live in will be tougher for him to handle, but who knows?)

Thirdly, I kind of laugh at the Winter Soldier-y-ness of it all (well, Dick and Bucky are the prototypical plucky boy hostages sidekicks, but didn't we already do that with Jason? though to be fair, I think Red Hood and Winter Soldier happened kind of simultaneously in the comics, just as both Steve and Bruce were unstuck in time at around the same time with Dick and Bucky stepping into their respective cowls [I still want that story! How do you step into your mentor's shoes when it was never ever what you wanted to be doing?]; while Jason/Bucky seems like the obvious parallel, I do love the Dick/Bucky parallels as well), but if it allows for easier MCU/DCU crossovers, I'm good with that. We already know Dick loves redheads, but I feel a rash of Natasha Loves Dick jokes breaking out already. *cough*

Mostly, though, I once again feel the need to say #DC LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES.

***

What I'm reading Wednesday:

What I've just finished

Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings, which suffered (for me) from being just about 1914 rather than the whole war. *hands* It was really long for a book that only covered one year, and it was probably a little too much about various battles etc. and not quite enough about the personalities involved, though there was some of that too.

What I'm reading now

The First World War by Hew Strachan, which is quite a bit shorter for all that it does cover the whole war, and quite a bit drier in tone. While I appreciate that the pictures are probably interesting in a hard copy, they're completely unreadable in ebook form, and the book suffers quite a lot (imo) from a sad lack of maps. I NEED MAPS, PEOPLE. If I want them of fictional places - and I do - then I want them eleventy million times MORE of real places. Otoh, I've already learned a ton of stuff I didn't know about what was happening in the Europeans' African colonies during the war. I didn't even realize there was related fighting in Africa at the time, but there was!

What I'm reading next

I dunno. Maybe I will dip back into fiction for a while. Who knows?

***

Today's poem:

the loneliness of the long-distance lover

another phone call. the distance becomes
blue smoke rising from an ashtray; static

crackling like familiar songs on vinyl; the
delicate smell of mandarins. tangible and

elusive. how inadequate hands can be –
fingers slice through air as if it were mere

gas, not a tangle of unused words. and you
hold your breath, don't ask. i hear silence

intensify, before you blurt out my name –
jack-in-a-box sick of confinement, its lid

kept shut too long. this is how you make
love to me. this is what i have learned to

mould into a dream of happiness, late at
night when sleep won't come: your lips

on mine, your palm a perfect fit for my
pale winter cheek, an answer to every

question, and no morning without the
reward of another night. i want to be a

secret whispered in your ear, the smoke
that stings your eyes, a tear on your face.

unlearn the magic, pleads reason; my
voice says nothing. my heart beats out

whatever rhythm yours dictates, tries to
x out every single thought does not bear

your name. darling, i breathe across time
zones. darling. all my words melt into one.

~Michaela A. Gabriel

***

I'm so behind on answering comments and email, but I'm working on it, I swear. It's just so busy and exhausting with my dad and the house and everything, but at least an end is in sight? I also have to write my remix. Well. First, I have to actually choose a story to remix. Sigh. And I have a few post-Cap 2 stories I want to write. But my brain, she's not so compliant. In better news, my sister texted today to let me know the inspection went well yesterday and the buyer is moving forward, so that's good news. *crosses fingers*

***

Last night, I watched this week's The Good Wife. ( spoilers )

***

Today's poem:

Grounded

Trapped on hell's runway,
every day I'm on my cell
begging for news that the wildfires
have not yet reached my house — it's weird
ghosts who take care of things for me,
its hallelujah brushfire of roses hissing
damply on the stucco ... brittle beards
of palm trees shushing overhead
like the harridan who raised me:

(the wolf in the bed;
the grandmother at the door)...

The family kitchen's an abattoir:
its scorched-earth dooryard's a wizening croft
of ash and dead hearts, planted in winter
by ill-fated crash-test true believers (paths
of chopped glass through the parsley garden) —

What would Alice do?
Which bite to take?

I am no Alice.
Like the truth, I'm not pretty;
some people say I look mean enough
to run down a squirrel
on purpose
(crushed red form; crime of no name) —

but what they don't know
is that I'm gentle as a child
and that I'd choose to use a gun
every time.

It's a whole-body thing, this embrace
of a gun: the furious aim, trigger pad
tingling — long, cold barrel
a shock on the palm; the contrary duckling
trembling in the crosshairs, naked
on the tarmac of memory...

Once, I fled eastward the length of Fire Island,
then fell to my knees beneath a star-studded cast-iron
apron of sky — seized by inspiration, crushed by vision:
Everything we do, Sylvia, feels like hell.

(But I lost my sense of terror there;
knew at once that I must run
not from but straight toward
what I most fear...)

Welcome to the forest of my head.
Is there anything more you need to know?
I invite you to follow me in.
I'll be sure to leave a shredded, flaming
paper trail everywhere I go.

~Gabrielle LeMay

***

Wow, this weekend, okay.

Friday night, I went to see CA:TWS again with L. - she enjoyed it but thought there was too much fighting. While I am of the opinion that most action movies of the past twenty years are too long and have fight scenes and chase scenes both that go on too long, I didn't really feel that at all about Cap 2. (Possibly the overwhelming amount of Bucky feels on display - both mine and Steve's - contributes to that.) I can see where I'll be FFing through on dvd, but it's nowhere near the amount of FFing I've done for CA:TFA (nearly everything between Steve's mourning scene and the plane going down) or Avengers (e.g., the whole Iron Man/Thor confrontation in the middle: bleh; I'm not here for superheroes fighting each other, unless one is mind-controlled or brainwashed or something). Because I thought the fights were really tied to characterization and also easy to follow. Also, ROBOT ARM. Ahem.

Then we went for a late dinner at a new restaurant in the neighborhood and I had BBQ brisket tacos, which were excellent, though probably a little spicier than was wise at such a late hour, given my acid reflux issues. And also some unpronounceable but lovely German (? I think?) wheat beer. (They also had a variety of IPAs but I can never remember if I like them or not; maybe next time I will get a tasting flight and find out.)

Then Saturday morning I headed out to the island for some intensive decluttering with my dad - well, after I finished emptying out the dresser in my bedroom there and packing up some kitchen items I'll be taking with me (including two vintage yellow Pyrex mixing bowls, four champagne coupes, some fancy cut-glass stemmed dessert bowls that were my grandmother's, and a set of tiny vintage cordial glasses [also my grandmother's]), my dad continued to empty out his desk while I watched a selected episodes version of s1 of AtLA on his giant TV via Amazon Prime.

In addition to a decade's worth of check registers that he shredded (page by page since he has a tiny home shredder that overheats a lot), he found the little metal box with some recipes my grandmother kept, most of them clipped out of Il Progresso and some handwritten, but all in Italian, so getting them translated should be interesting (I've been looking for that box forever, or at least since my parents moved into that house 12 years ago; I keep hoping there will be a copy of Aunt Jean's pizza dough recipe in it, since I never got that from them and I've never had anything like it anywhere else, though my dad says they had no recipe for that, it was all done by eyeball/feel).

In the midst of that, there were people who came to see the house, and the realtor (not our person, but the one for the prospective buyers) actually tried to talk up the place, which was nice to hear, because we figured that 1. the asking price was way too high, and 2. it was going to be a tough sell regardless, but even though all I had to do was open the door, I still found the experience uncomfortable.

Then my brother and his wife came over to sort through more stuff and empty out the large breakfront in the dining room - they're taking it, since my grandfather made it (as well as my dad's desk and several other pieces of furniture that we've distributed through the family - he was a cabinet maker, with a side of instrument making, so my brother also took the remaining grandpa-made mandolin as well - he already has one and a guitar my grandpa made for him hanging in his living room).

On Sunday, we were up early because my dad had to finish clearing out the desk so my b-i-l could load it into a truck and take it back to his house and then he and my nephew took the dresser from my room, so all my clothes that I haven't given to Goodwill are sitting in a giant garbage bag while I try to figure out how I'm going to get them home and where I'm going to put them when I do. (Ideally, my brother will store all this stuff for me for a while, so I can clear out some crap in my own apt. and then he can drive me into the city with it; we'll see what happens, I guess; also, I am taking the KitchenAid, which means bye-bye microwave).

Since the desk was gone, that meant the iMac had to be put on the other smaller desk in the room (not built by my grandfather), the one that my dad uses for paperwork, so the whole thing is a jumble and not really conducive to doing anything (since that desk wasn't being moved, my dad did not clean it off *facepalm*). At which point we were like, "why is he taking that? is there even room for it? Wouldn't a laptop be better, so he could take it anywhere in the house with him instead of being tied to a desk?" and he said, "Get me a laptop. Do it now." So I ordered him at 13" MacBook Air, for pickup at the Smith Haven Mall Apple store later in the afternoon, and we settled in to wait for another set of prospective buyers. Then we took a drive to pick up the laptop (with him cursing me every step for making him walk through the mall - he has mobility issues and uses a walker - but they needed to see a photo ID and his credit card, which he knew going into the transaction so...we made stops for him to rest along the way, and they had a chair for him in the store itself), and got him a lapdesk to use it with (I left him sitting in the mall while I went to B&N), and then did a small grocery shopping (necessities only) and had dinner, and then spent the rest of the evening setting up his new laptop with his passwords and bookmarks (which I saved from the iMac but chose not to import since they were full of stuff he was never going to use again). Which took a little longer than it should have because he has to get used to the touchpad and also he types with one finger.

My nephew is going to take the iMac, but we still have to get some stuff off it - my tax records, some music, nothing major (I've already zipped and sent myself all my word docs that were backed up out there).

And I also did ALL THE LAUNDRY my god so much laundry.

Luckily, the weather was beautiful through it all.

But! In the midst of all of that, my sister texted me to let me know that there was an offer on the house! For more than we hoped to get (though not as much as it was listed for, because that was a fool's dream.) And they want to close by May 15 if at all possible (with an extension to June 15 if necessary)! So the inspector is coming this evening, but hopefully that will be fine and we can get this show on the road!

So my dad was finally like, "Holy crap, I'm actually moving and I can't take all this stuff with me!" (He is moving into my sister's the first weekend of May regardless, as long as the installation of the stair lift thing goes well, but we thought it was going to take a lot longer to get an offer on the house.)

So a lot of things are in motion, but hopefully the end of my having to give up my weekends is near. By the end of May I should have them to myself again for a while. *crosses fingers* And then I have to start clearing my own space out.

After all that, I missed posting a poem yesterday, which made me sad, but there just wasn't time and it wouldn't have been easy to do via my iPad (I was barely online at all the whole weekend except for checking email on my phone).

So here's a poem for today:

So You Would Listen to Me
by Laura Riesco

So you would listen to me
I tangled your silence

My words became
shrill with the wind

The starry shadows
of all my poems
plunged in your eyes

So you would listen to me
God put you in the night

The whole world put
solitude in our steps

So you would listen to me
I diverted your path

How many nights spent
I gave you in a minute

You were to blame
for the tremor of my hands

You were to blame
and now you listened to me

Illuminated knives
crossed my breasts

I dug from the cavity
the reason of my dreams

So you would listen to me
I tangled your silence

I was falling in parts
and in parts in silence
I was leaving the soul to you.

***

Asking Too Much

I want you to tell me about every person you've ever been in love with.
Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you.
Tell me about a day in your life you wouldn't think you'd live through.
Tell me what the word home means to you
And tell me in a way that I'll know your mother's name just by the way you describe your bedroom when you were 8.
See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms?
Or would you leave your snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would, would you notice how the tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
Do you sleep beside them when they're sad, even if that makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name.
And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother's joy when she spoke it for the very first time.
I want you to tell me all the ways you've been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you've been cruel.
Tell me- knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant, where smoke stacks were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, "Poison! Poison! Poison!" really loud or would you whisper, "That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy?"
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don't believe in miracles, tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god, or if you believe in many gods. Or better yet, what gods believe in you.
And for all the times you've knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you've asked come true?
And if they didn't did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you're feeling good.
I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day you're feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.
If you ever reach enlightenment, would you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key and I'm not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence.
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do, I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar.
See I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving.
And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes through other people's wounds.
And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted you could pop – but you never would because you'd never want it to stop.
If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it, if its fall to the ground didn't make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn't exist or would you just bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
And lastly, let me ask you this: if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn't talk, do you think that eventually we'd kiss?
No way. That's askin' too much – after all, this is only our first date.

~Andrea Gibson

~*~

today's poem:

Myth

I was asleep while you were dying.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow
I make between my slumber and my waking,

the Erebus I keep you in, still trying
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow,
but in dreams you live. So I try taking

you back into morning. Sleep-heavy, turning,
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
Again and again, this constant forsaking.

*

Again and again, this constant forsaking:
my eyes open, I find you do not follow.
You back into morning, sleep-heavy, turning.

But in dreams you live. So I try taking,
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow.
The Erebus I keep you in—still, trying—

I make between my slumber and my waking.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow.
I was asleep while you were dying.

~Natasha Trethewey

***

Elementary
( spoilers for this week & last week )

***

So my Christmas gift from my dad this year was some financial help with my credit card debt and I'm happy to say that I was able to pay the bulk of it off yesterday, to my great relief. I will not be letting it get so out of control again, and hopefully now I can start actually saving some money again instead of always being on the edge of being broke.

***