Posts by Jonah

I feel like I should be keeping up with the World Cup, I suppose since I was in Europe for the last two, when that’s all anyone can talk about. But I just can’t seem to bring myself to care. I usually can’t stand watching soccer (though the end of the women’s championship in 1999 was fantastic), but I could at least keep up with the stats. But no… I can’t seem to bring myself to care enough to check the scores. Even though USA supposedly has the best team ever. I feel bad for not caring. But it is just sports. There are far more interesting things.

Like politics! The campaign is as interesting as ever. I still can’t believe I’ve got such a fantastically interesting job. I love this stuff.

Let’s see… other things have been going on. I still haven’t mustered enough energy to write about our journey north and perhaps never will.

Our shower tile has been replaced. That was quite an adventure. For a couple of weeks, were showering with a hole in the wall knocked out by a tile guy (I don’t know what to call tile guys… they’re not plumbers or carpenters or wallpaperers or whatever… they’re guys who put up tile). Berck finally bought a shower curtain and tacked it to the opposite wall so keep the water from showering down on our downstairs neighbor Ginny. The next day another tile guy called and said he would replace the tile. Of course, that meant that we couldn’t take a shower all week. Berck got pretty tired of washing his hair in the sink. But now the bath is all stylish large tile. It’s the nicest part of our apartment.

My mom and dad are arriving tomorrow night, and bringing the red Miata’s hardtop! We’re going to be pretty busy while they’re here, I imagine, so probably no more posts for a while.

It’s Friday night, and pizza’s ready, so I will end here.

The mallards in the Bremers’ chicken coop have brought forth mallardettes. They’re awfully cute. The mama has gone from being a mild-mannered mallard to hissing at any chickens that come near her, even chasing the rooster off.

Poetry, by the way, should be heard, not read.

Forgetfulness
by Billy Collins (fast becoming, possibly, my favorite poet)

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

And we just now had this conversation, too.