The top...or the bottom?

A random list of what I've discovered in my online dating adventures...dedicated to my friends who may be considering it, or have had to listen to me rant.

 Encouragement, warning, or simply amusement -- take your pick.

http://open.salon.com/blog/nocheapshots/2012/07/05/ten_things_ive_learned_from_online_dating

What went wrong in Philadelphia?

Why didn't the Archdiocese of Philadelphia follow the rules?

http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/679536_Column--In-wake-of-conviction--what-s-next-.html

Climate change -- it's like this

It was very warm last night -- not quite hot enough to turn on the air conditioner, but warm enough to turn restlessly in bed for a half an hour or so before sleep finally arrived.

I'd been asleep for around four hours when the sound of  thunder woke me up.

Wind tossed the trees, their tops moving back and forth in the gusts that shook branches and sent them racing across the lawn.

But it was lightning, cloud-to-ground, that got my attention.

Every ten seconds or so, it would light up my backyard like a pagan god messing around with a giant flash.

First I could see the arc across the sky miles away.

Then it grew closer.  The light on my porch went on for a second -- then the nightlight in the next room went dark, and I realized that we had lost power.

The lightning and thunder wasn't unusual -- but the intensity of the storm was something I hadn't seen for a few years, since a tremendous straight-line wind brought trees down all over Glenmoore.

Candidly, it was terrifying.

Alone in the house, I cowered in bed, pondering what could happen if a lightning strike brought down a tree or set the deck on fire.

But not as terrifying, I imagine, as watching your house in Colorado Springs go up in flames, or rowing down your underwater street in Florida.

Weather records are being broken all over the place --  and in a Congress which embraces denial like a sleazy mistress, the EPA has become the enemy.

I'm shocked by the depth of our ability to ignore what is in front of our nose -- or to use it for political gain.

Let's face it, environmental stewardship is not a sexy campaign issue -- except to its enemies.

The northeast has been relatively lucky thus far --but it's anybodies' guess whether our good fortune can hold out...

In the meantime, a lot of us got a taste of what could happen here once Mother Nature turns up the heat a little bit.  And I'm guessing that unless we were stormchasers, not many of us enjoyed it.

Welcome to the present.

Crazy (in love)

Can you be sane in all other aspects of your life  -- and crazy in love?

http://open.salon.com/blog/nocheapshots/2012/06/25/guys_romance_and_the_sanity_defense

Hunger

It is an equivocal gift you give me

The generosity of a stranger

Forgetting was most convenient.

Awaking though not for the coward

Flooded I am

with the taste of days 

gone in which I was 

a part of 

world larger than this quiet byway.

Foot struck tile

Arms out

Whirling down the nave

Recollecting too

Counterpoint in 17th-century time

In the library near Julliard

A girl not yet a woman

Dreams she sees

Nijinsky dance

Diaghilev live

In the stacks in Lincoln Center

She lifts her head for a moment

Hears the music, the dance

L'apres-midi 

it is...then.

What is to come

for the woman who does not dance

or raise her voice in sweet polyphonic madrigals?

Methinks she can still hear.

Fear

Writhing
Gravity pins me here
The stuff of nightmare
Yet I do not wake
Each window glued shut
Was ever open?
Enemies collaborators
Collaborators opponents
It used to be that moments of relief
Allowed gaze elsewhere
Distracted
Peace enough to
sleep
To walk
To smile
Now turmoil
Fare
Unfair
Yet mine 

Katie in the 'hood....

My review of this quirky, interesting, very Philadelphia book by local writer Katie Haegele on her family, her 'hood, and her passion for...yard sales!

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20120610_Rummaging_through_life_with_Katie_Haegele_rsquo_s__White_Elephants_.html