Back in the swing of things, thank God. My friend, J gets back from Amsterdam tomorrow, I�m excited, I�ve missed him this last week. I�m drinking so much water today, I�ve had to pee every half-hour. I guess that�s good, though, flush the system.

We have a security guard here at work this week because of all the drama last week. He�s gotta be in his fifties, easily. Swaggers, doesn�t walk. Slurs, doesn�t speak. Yeah, I feel safe. Oh well, what are you gonna do, this is life. I actually don�t feel threatened anymore, dysfunctional domestic drama usually dissipates after a few days, in my experience. So on to better things.

I love San Diego in December. It�s in the 70�s, temperature-wise. October and November were bone-chilly cold, but right around now, to spite the rest of the country, it gets warm again. Take that, Rest of the Country. HA! It really is beautiful here today, though. I�m in such a good mood, breathing deeply, taking it all in. It reminds me of my favorite poem to recite, one by Emerson, called �The Rhodora, on being asked Whence is the Flower.� It describes a flower, the rhodora, which is a flower that grows in the middle of swamps, and before it blooms, it�s gray, with hairy-like things covering it. But as it opens, it reveals a vibrant violet color, its petals.

The poem isn�t about beauty on the inside, that classical crap we all tell each other. It�s about beauty, period. About appreciating things for WHAT they are, and not complicating things by wondering WHY they are. It�s about being in the right place at the right time, to notice and acknowledge something that nature has created. I have every word committed to memory, and love to recite it to myself using different inflections. Call it a hobby. But anyway, since that is my thought for the day, here it is, �The Rhodora, on being asked Whence is the Flower�, by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods.

Spreading it�s leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

made the black water with their beauty gay.

Here might the red bird come, his plumes to cool,

and court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! If the sages ask the why, this charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, Dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

Why thou wert there, O rival of the Rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew.

But in my simple ignorance suppose, the self-same Power that brought me there, brought you.

-Barbarella

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