~ Monday, September 12, 2005 ~

Screaming Beacons

I didn't know about the beacons. Everyone who's been living here must have seen them every year since 2002, but I only discovered them tonight, as I walked westward on my way home. It was around 11:30 pm and I saw a searchlight to the west, a bit fuzzy and indistinct, but streaming straight upward. I had my guesses, but a quick call to Rob confirmed my suspicions: it's a 9/11 memorial, two search lights (though they looked like one from my angle) shining up from where the twin towers stood. There was a guy sitting on his front steps and gazing out at them contemplatively while he smoked a cigarette, and I found the mood was contagious. I kept walking north and west toward the beacons, right past my apartment and on toward 5th ave, and then 4th, drifting around in search of a point where I could gaze at them without the intrusive halogen streetlamps dimming their announcement. I wanted to see them pop out against the night sky, searing blue-white against clouded velvet, but there were too many visual distractions between us for them to hit me at full strength. I was sure they'd be extinguished at midnight, and was at least hoping to see them as they winked out (and, if I was quick enough, to catch the ripple of darkness that would ascend from the horizon up to the stars as they did) but midnight came and passed, and then it was 12:03, and then 12:05 and they were still shouting upward, and no sign of needing to pause for breath. I turned around and walked back home, glancing at them occasionally over my shoulder. They were following me, just as the moon follows nighttime travellers. I can see them out my window as I type this, and I like to imagine them as candles, keeping watch over the city until dawn in solemn vigil.

~ prattled by Miriam at 12:36 a.m. [+] ~ 4 comment

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Unstopping the Press

Dear Carrie~, Beard Mutterer, and Anyone Else who Thought I was Going Back to Plan my Own Wedding,

Look, I know I'm not exactly the sort of blogger who runs to post every time her hair grows another inch, but give me a *little* credit here: just because I'm not posting doesn't mean I'm running off and eloping behind your backs. Honestly, you really think I'd let something like my own engagement go by without, at the very least, a post announcing my change of status? You know me better than that. An event that significant, and you know I'd be teasing out every detail and over-describing every plot point ("and then he began to roll up his trouser leg in preparation for kneeling down, although I didn't realize what was happening at the time, because I was busy admiring the trouser fabric, which was a lightweight chocolate-colored wool--an interesting choice for summertime, I remember thinking--and a bit wrinkled, but what do you expect from someone who's been on horseback all day?"), all to craft an overly lengthy play-by-play account, complete with too much background, too little action, excessive punctuation, and a whole mess of punchlines that don't punch. Now, do you see a long play-by-play account of the circumstances under which I was the happy recipient of a marriage proposal? I didn't think so. You may now safely conclude that I am not planning to be married in the immediate future.

In other news, I went to see a movie last night, I'm working part-time in a dance shoe store, and my hair has grown another inch.

Love,
Miriam

P.S. If I *were* engaged, and I wanted to keep it a secret, a. I probably wouldn't mention it on my blog, and b. I probably wouldn't tell you about it, even if you asked, because then it wouldn't be a secret anymore, would it?

~ prattled by Miriam at 12:49 a.m. [+] ~ 2 comment

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The gleeful sensation of anticipation

Not to be all vomitously Pollyannaish at you, but I'm very happy right now. I just came out of the first meeting of a class on the history of human rights, which looks awesome (I'm especially looking forward to the part where we talk about the cultural relativists v. the universalists, as that's my current pet topic) with a professor in the political science dept. who is tiny like an owl and has a gravelly voice and presides over her class with all the authority of Queen Elizabeth I. Even her name is excellent: her first name is the name of a stone but it also implies absolute insistance, and her last name is sort of like the word polit. It fits her perfectly. And on Tuesday I had two classes, one on British Moral Philosophy taught by a well-preserved relic who, at the beginning of class, gave (gave!) us all a copy of Leviathan with an introduction he wrote, which he warned us is all wrong, but (he explained) he didn't discover how wrong he was until after he was almost finished writing it, and by that time it would be a shame to waste all that work...but it just goes to show, he added, that it's possible to argue for a wrong position and still do it convincingly. He won my instant admiration. Oh yeah, and the other class I had on Tuesday is on the history of science from a sociological perspective, and the professor didn't impress me so much, but I can complain about him later. And the thing that excites me most of all is that I am going to begin very soon to tutor a student who is 7 years old and is behind in his reading skills (i.e. he's currently able to read books with one word per page, and this is an effort) and it'll be my job to excite him about reading. I seriously can't wait. I want to bring him Dr. Seuss, and maybe Go Dog Go, and some of the other books I remember loving when I was first learning to read. Soon I shall go and procure for myself a library card from the vast NY Public Library, whose main branch is like 7 blocks north of CUNY's graduate campus (leaping distance) to explore their children's section. And now I am going to a meet-your-colleagues party for the other students in the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies program, and then tonight there's a swing dance. Oh! And I'm coming back to California for a quick weekend visit and some wedding planning on September 9th, and then coming back again for another (unrelated) wedding a month later. I get to see my California family!!

I shall have to work very hard to not burst.

~ prattled by Miriam at 5:39 p.m. [+] ~ 4 comment

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